Hello everyone and welcome to our Primary 4a blog for March!

Literacy

As a whole class, we have just finished ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. We are currently up to chapter 22! This novel was used to base many of our writing lessons, as well as our reading lessons. Pupils have learnt new reading strategies such as summarising and paraphrasing. This has helped pupils to pick out the main points of a text.

We are also continuously developing our sentence structure and learning how to use openers, connectives and punctuation effectively.

Pupils are progressing well through Nelson Spelling Book 4 and are learning new rules weekly.

Numeracy and Mathematics

Pupils have been refreshing their memory on time. Specifically, digital time and writing time in words. This has been challenging as it has been a long time since pupils last done time. Nevertheless, this refresher has been very beneficial.

Pupils’ maths starters have still been in French this month, utilising ‘Content and Language Integrated Learning’ (CLIL) to gain knowledge of another language. I have noticed pupils seem more confident with their French numbers and multiplication tables. Plus, pupils have enjoyed learning new French terminology more and more.

IDL topic

We have just finished our IDL topic ‘Life Beyond Land’. Our big questions were: ‘Where does weather come from?’; ‘How does pollution impact the water?’; and ‘How do different animals survive under water?’.

Pupils exhibited their learning to the pupils of 4b and shared all of their knowledge relating to these 3 bigquestions. Many pupils particularly enjoyed the pH experiments and the different layers of the ocean.

RE

Pupils were very prepared for making their sacrament of reconciliation on Monday 13th March. They have also learnt about Lent and will continue to learn about the Easter story in the coming week.

Thank you for taking the time to read our March b  log! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our learning and we can’t wait to share more with you next month.

Hello everyone and welcome to our Primary 4a blog for February!

Literacy

As a whole class, we are working through ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. We are currently up to chapter 22! We have been using this novel to base many of our writing lessons, as well as our reading lessons. Pupils have been learning new reading strategies such as forming different types of questions like literal questions and inferential questions.

We are also continuously developing our sentence structure and learning how to use openers, connectives and punctuation effectively.

Pupils are progressing well in spelling and are learning new rules weekly. They have completed the first unit of the Nelson Spelling Book 4.

Numeracy and Mathematics

Pupils have been covering different topics in their maths groups. We have been refreshing our memory on bus-stop calculations and multiplication tables to ensure that those skills are consistently revised. Place value was also studied to solidify pupils understanding of hundreds, tens and units. Function machines were looked at as well which tackles algebraic equations.

Pupils’ maths starters have still been in French this month, utilising ‘Content and Language Integrated Learning’ (CLIL) to gain knowledge of another language. I have noticed pupils seem more confident with their French numbers and multiplication tables. Plus, pupils have enjoyed learning new French terminology more and more.

IDL topic

Our IDL topic ‘Life Beyond Land’ has been going very well. So far, we have looked at ‘Where does weather come from?’ and ‘How does pollution impact the water?’. Pupils recently completed a science experiment involving finding the pH of different types of water and comparing the pH paper next to the guide. This has formed a good basis for looking at how the ocean has been impacted by pollution in a process called ‘Ocean Acidification’. Pupils have really enjoyed looking at this process and this will lead nicely on to our final question: ‘How do different animals survive under water?’.

RE

Pupils have started getting ready for their sacraments of reconciliation. We have had many full practices and they feel very prepared for making their sacrament on Monday 13th March.

Thank you for taking the time to read our February Blog! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our learning and we can’t wait to share more with you next month.

Hello everyone and welcome to our third Primary 4a blog! January was extremely busy and exciting month for pupils.

Literacy

As a whole class, we have been studying ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. We are currently up to chapter nine! We have been using this novel to base many of our writing lessons, as well as our reading lessons.

This month our writing lessons have focussed on describing settings. We have done three weeks of describing different settings and really focussing on our senses. We have described a new chocolate factory, under the sea snorkelling experience and a concert.

We are also continuously developing our sentence structure and learning how to use openers, connectives and punctuation effectively. Pupils have completed six units of our new spelling book and will continue with this book next year.

Numeracy and Mathematics

Pupils have been specifically looking at grid references in depth. Pupils learnt how to locate a position on a grid and give directions using degrees and the terms clockwise and anti-clockwise.  Pupils also completed some revision of their multiplication tables, carrying while multiplying, remainders when dividing and borrowing when dividing.

Pupils’ maths starters have been in French this month, utilising ‘Content and Language Integrated Learning’ (CLIL) to gain knowledge of another language. So far, pupils seem more confident with their French numbers and multiplication tables.

IDL topic

Our IDL topic ‘Life Beyond Land’ has been going very well. So far, we have looked at ‘Where does weather come from?’ and will soon be moving on to look at ‘How does pollution impact the water?’ and eventually ‘How do different animals survive under water?’.

RE

Pupils have started getting ready for their sacraments of reconciliation- just the very early stages though! Further discussion surrounding reconciliation and communion are too come!

Thank you for taking the time to read our January Blog! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our learning and we can’t wait to share more with you next month.

Hello everyone and welcome to our third Primary 4a blog! November and December were extremely busy months for pupils.

Literacy

This month our writing lessons have focussed on writing descriptive texts- using adjectives and similes in poems, short stories and redrafts. We will continue to up level our work by adding in more exciting vocabulary.

Pupils have also been exposed to thesauruses, and are familiar with using a dictionary to check their spelling. We are also continuously developing our sentence structure and learning how to use openers, connectives and punctuation effectively. Pupils have completed six units of our new spelling book and will continue with this book next year.

Numeracy and Mathematics

Pupils have looked at several topics in their separate groups such as: fractions; area; and symmetry. As a whole class we have studied the eight times table and data handling. Different forms of data which we have looked at are tables, tally charts, bar charts, pictograms and finally one group has began reading line graphs.

Health and Wellbeing

During PE we are looked at possessive games- specifically football a this sport seemed to interest the most pupils. As part of our football lessons, pupils who played football created their own football station where other pupils learnt skills from them. This method proved to be very successful and allowed pupils to share their skills and work collaboratively in class.

Our health and wellbeing lessons have been based around growth mindset. Pupils created raps discussing the importance of having a growth mindset. Moreover, pupils identified ways to combat a fixed mindset.

IDL topic

Our IDL topic which pupils chose to study was ‘The Vikings’. So far, we have focussed on the Viking’s Runic alphabet, Viking boats, different foods/drinks and more recently Viking celebrations.

RE

During RE we focussed on ‘Saints’ in November and ‘The Journey to Christmas’ recently. The last few weeks we focussed heavily on preparing for our Advent service! The contents of this service served as the basis for several advent discussions surrounding the different advent candles and weeks leading up to Christmas.

Outdoor Learning 

During out outdoor learning, pupils have explored the outdoors by creating Viking Boats and spelling words from natural materials. Pupils have also created tables and charts outdoors using chalk and materials found from the forest.

Thank you for taking the time to read our Nov/Dec Blog! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our learning and we can’t wait to share more with you next month.

Hello everyone and welcome to our second Primary 4a blog! October was a fantastic month for pupils.

Literacy

This month our writing lessons have focussed in on writing instructions. Pupils are mid-way through the topic and have successfully created aims for their writing, listed resources for their instructions and put steps in a logical order. We will continue to up level our work by adding in ordinal language in the coming weeks.

We are also continuously developing our sentence structure and learning how to use openers, connectives and punctuation effectively.

Pupils have come to the end of our spelling book and will move on to a new book at the start of November.

Numeracy and Mathematics

We have been doing lots of work on the seven times table which has included mental maths games, counting multiples of seven, using 100-squares, oral counting and work on the chrome books.

In October we have studied division as a whole class. Pupils have been learning how to calculate the remainder from 2-digit numbers.

Health and Wellbeing

During PE we are looking at possessive games- starting off with football. Pupils have started looking at passing and dribbling.

Our health and wellbeing lessons have been based around conversations about mental health- understanding what our mental health is and ways in which we can improve/support our mental health. Moreover, with Halloween being last week we discussed Halloween safety.

IDL topic

Our IDL topic which pupils chose to study was ‘Space’. Pupils had the opportunity to look at space in a variety of different areas such as topic, writing, science, outdoor learning and art. Our new topic- The Vikings- will start next week as pupils have given plenty of suggestions of what they would like to learn!

RE

During RE we looked at the story of creation and some of the Joyful Mysteries of Mary.

Outdoor Learning 

During out outdoor learning, pupils have explored the outdoors, created constellations using natural materials and created their spelling words using natural materials.

Thank you for taking the time to read our October Blog! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our learning and we can’t wait to share more with you next month.

Hello everyone and welcome to our first Primary 4a blog!

Pupils have settled in very well in to their new class and have already began to form new friendships with pupils who were in different classes last year.

Literacy

During our class writing lessons pupils have already done a range of different writing formats: poems; imaginative; newspaper articles;  and reflective summer writing pieces. We have been working on giving our stories more structure by planning the beginning, a middle and an end. We are also continuously developing our sentence structure and learning how to use openers, connectives and punctuation effectively. We have also done lots of comprehension work recently to work on pupils reading and analysis skills.

Numeracy and Mathematics

We have been doing lots of work on the six times table which has included a lot of mental maths games and active learning to help with our mental agility. This has included games such as ‘Popcorn’, ‘Around the World’, ‘Times Tables Tournaments’ and ‘Buzz’. We have already completed lots of revision and ‘Time’ as a whole-class topic. The pyramids will be moving on to adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with carrying and exchanging. The Spheres will are moving on to further develop their multiplication and division knowledge. The cubes will also be progressing to do more multiplication and division work.

Health and Wellbeing

Our PE lessons will be based around our two main topics: athletics and possessive games. In athletics we have focussed this week on throwing techniques and will continue working on long-distance running.

In settling pupils in to their new class, we focussed heavily on emotions and friendship- this was tied in to our school values. We also do some mindfulness activities at the beginning of the school day to reflect on how we want our day to be and what we can do to have the best day possible. Pupils will also be focussing on mental health soon.

We had our first forest visit last week where we built bridges using natural materials.

IDL topic

Our IDL topic which pupils chose to study was ‘Space’. We created a list of things we would like to learn and have enjoyed linking our topic to other curricular areas such as Expressive Arts, Social Studies, Literacy and STEM. During this topic, we will be learning about the moon, stars and planets.

Thank you for taking the time to read our September Blog! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our learning and we can’t wait to share more with you next month.

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