January has been a very busy month in P4a!

We have started our new class novel study, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and we are really enjoying it so far. We have been using our reading strategies (such as summarising and questioning) at home to learn more about the book and share this with our group every Friday. We learned to write a newspaper article about Mr Wonka opening his factory and the first two lucky Golden Ticket finders!

In Maths, we have been learning the 7, 8 and 9 times tables and playing lots of Maths games to help us practise. The Pyramids have been learning about data handling and have been reading information from different graphs and tables. We also learned how to conduct a survey and use tally marks. The Cuboids have been learning to multiply 2 digit numbers and to work with HTU. The Spheres been learning to calculate the area of a shape by counting squares. We even did some Primary 5 work and learned to calculate perimeter and the area by multiplying the sides of a shape! We also learned to divide with remainders using bus stop calculations. We have been taking part in a Maths survey to show what we enjoy about Numeracy!

We have chosen a brand new social studies topic – Ancient Greece! We have been doing a lot of independent research and finding lots of facts! We explored Ancient Greek cities, mountains, islands and seas on a map and learned that Athens is the capital city.  We listened to the Greek Mythology story about the Trojan War and have started listening to myth about The Minotaur, we are excited to see what will happen next!

We celebrated Robert Burns day by wearing tartan and learned a little about him. We learned some ceilidh dances, our favourite was Virginia Reel. We even inspired P6a to have a dance off! Of course, we were the winners! We also celebrated Chinese New Year for a few of our classmates. We learned some facts during comprehension, created a fact file and watched some videos and learned how to draw very tricky Chinese dragon! We had lots of fun creating riddles for the class to solve! We also learned about the Civil Rights Movement and celebrated Martin Luther King Day.

We have been learning about Other World Religions. Some people in the class came dressed in clothes showing their culture/religions and some even created PowerPoint presentations for us. We learned a lot and had a lovely time. We have continued to learn some more Makaton from our class experts!

Another busy month in P4a, make sure you take a look at our photos on Twitter!

At the start of the month, we had a big focus on learning about COP 26. We watched lots of videos about climate change and we were sad and scared, so we decided to do something about it. We made posters and wrote inspirational speeches about how we can help to save the environment and shared them with Primary 3b at a special COP 26 summit! We learned about the importance of using renewable energy like solar, hydro and electric power. We are now going to put our words into actions!

We had an amazing day at the Christmas Fayre! There was a bouncy castle, silent disco and we even met Santa and his (REAL) reindeer!! It was so much fun! We made Christmas crackers and made reindeer food to sell at the fayre.

We have been loving our new topic Titanic! We learned how to sketch and how to create different effects using charcoal. We learned about how it was built and went on a virtual inside the Titanic to see what it was like, it was beautiful! We also learned all about how the Titanic sank and how many survivors there were. We learned about some of the real passengers on board and wrote some fantastic imaginative diary entries. We learned about the different types of passengers on board and made some eye-catching posters in groups for our wall display which even has a HUGE Titanic made out of cardboard.

In R.E. we have been focusing on remembrance during November. We have been learning about All Saints and All Souls Day and have been praying for people who have passed away. We celebrated mass with Canon Eddie and he was very impressed with our beautiful singing! We have also enjoyed learning all about St Andrew our patron saint and have started to learn a Scottish Dance called Virginia Reel.

October has been a very busy month in Primary 4a!

We have had a fantastic time celebrating Halloween! We visited the forest in Outdoor Learning and created a word bank of adjectives to describe the trees. We then used this to help us write a spooky Halloween story called ‘The Woods’! Our challenge was to give Miss Macdonald nightmares and we definitely succeeded! We had so much fun having our Halloween Spooktacular day! We played games in the gym hall, made “Monster Mash” pumpkins and had a Halloween party! It was so much fun! We also enjoyed learning about Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) and created some eye-catching sugar skull pictures! In French, we learned some Halloween vocabulary and had conversations about what we are afraid of.

In Maths, we have been learning our 6 and 7 times tables and are getting very confident with these. The Spheres have been learning about HTU and how to multiply tens and units. The Cuboids have been learning how to read and draw different types of charts and graphs, such as bar charts, pictograms and frequency tables. The Pyramids have been practising their times tables and have started learning to divide by two. We have also learned to find a fraction of a number!

During the month of October, we have been praying the Rosary. We have learned all about the Joyful Mysteries. We have also prayed to Mary and have talked about why she is so special.

We have started playing football in P.E. and are currently working on our passing skills. We have some talented footballers in our class who are looking forward to leading us in some drills! We have also been learning some Makaton and sign language, led by one of our pupils! We are currently practising how to sign the song ‘A Thousand Years.’

Check out Twitter to see some more photos of what we have been up to!

We have been really busy since our last blog! Here are some of the things we have been up to:

We have continued with our Olympics Team Building Challenge. We took part in boccia which is a game usually played in wheelchairs, it was very fun but quite hard at times! We also did the spider race, mini minle and high jump which was VERY fun! We also took part in a Maths, Literacy, and (VERY STRESSFUL!!!) Technology challenge. We wrote imaginative stories about a day in the Olympics and made leaflets about Paralympic sports with a partner. Team Australia were finally crowned the winners with 25 points overall! Team USA took the silver medal and Italy/France took the bronze. Well done to everyone for the amazing sportsmanship!

In Maths we learned about grid references, they were a little tricky but quite fun. The Spheres have been learning bus stop division and about HTU. The Cuboids have also been practising dividing and learning to read information from different types of graphs such as bar charts and pictograms. The Pyramids have been learning money and giving correct change. They have also been learning quarter past and quarter to times on analogue and digital clocks. We are still loving our daily mental maths games too!

In Literacy, we wrote poems about ourselves which included amazing similes and interesting vocabulary.  In grammar, we have been learning about past tense verbs and articles like a/an. In French, learned how to ask/answer questions about ourselves. For Paris Fashion Week, we made an eye catching outfit for the runway and used French adjectives to describe it including colours and shapes. We are still working hard with all our spelling rules and doing some tricky reading comprehension passages.

In R.E. we learned about St Cadoc’s Day. We held a prayer service in our class and had a class talent show! We also learned about St Vincent de Paul and his charity work. We learned a new prayer called the Act of Sorrow, we now say it at the end of the day to ask God forgive us for any sins.

We made a new set of class rules and made a class charter to display these, we chose a gaming theme and are really happy with how it looks! We also made COP26 posters to spread the message about climate change and global warming. We enjoyed using the chromebooks to help us. We have been enjoying Outdoor Learning in the forest with Miss O’Donnell, we have been finding different types of angles and looking at living and non-living things.  We have chosen a new class topic, Titanic, and are really looking forward to getting started!

Check out Twitter to see some pictures!

We have had a great start to the year and have enjoyed making new friends in our new class!

We were SO excited and proud to be the very first winners of the STAR CLASS award! We won it for lining up so nicely in the playground and for picking up litter around the school.

We enjoyed making pictures about our favourite things and our busy books.

One of the most exciting things we have been doing so far is our Olympics Team Challenge. We have chosen the countries of Australia, Italy, Jamaica, France and the USA and have been working as a team to take part in different challenges. So far we have participated in the long jump, sprints and races, shot put and discus. Team USA is currently in the lead but we have many more challenges still to complete! Lots of teams have also been awarded gold medals for showing great teamwork and sportsmanship. We also researched our countries at home and have been working together to make posters about our countries.

In maths we have been revising our times tables and playing lots of new maths games like Killer, Popcorn, HTU, BUZZ and Last One Standing. We have been revising how to solve vertical calculations and laying out our jotters.

In R.E. we learned about the Hindu festival called Rahki. We made our own Rakhi bracelets to give to our friends or family. We also celebrated the feast of the Assumption and wrote class prayers.

We have been working hard with spelling and reading and completed comprehension challenges. We also had lots of fun playing with the parachute.

We are looking forward to using the chromebooks more in the next few weeks and playing even more with our friends! 🙂

You will see some fabulous pictures of our work on Twitter!