April Blog
Hello parents and carers of P6a!
It has been wonderful to have the children back together in the classroom since mid-March. Some of them definitely gained a few inches in height during the nine weeks of remote learning…it won’t be long until Mrs. Glancey is looking up at a few of them! We have been very busy since we returned to school before the Easter break and have hit the ground running since we returned, refreshed and full of Easter eggs!
Numeracy
Before the holidays, each Maths groups completed the unit that they were focusing on, which was time for the Circles, 2D shape for the Squares and area/perimeter for the Triangles. The children completed some excellent work in each of these areas and have moved on to studying new concepts since their return from the Easter break. The Circles have been using protractors to measure and draw angles, the Squares have been converting between different units of length and the Triangles have been looking at different types of angles and how to identify them. The next topics they will be moving on to looking at will be decimals (thousandths) for the Circles, algebra for the Squares and number processes for the Triangles. Towards the end of this month, the class took part in the East Renfrewshire Sumdog competition and did a smashing job. At one point, they were not only first place within St. Cadoc’s, but the leading class within the whole authority, which was an amazing achievement!
Literacy
Having finished reading The Heartstone Odyssey, which will be mentioned in more detail later, the children are now back to reading in smaller groups each week. They have been enjoying their reading slot on Monday mornings with Mrs. Glancey and have been reading some interesting books this month. The Comets have been reading about fears and phobias, the Cores have been reading about different types of defence mechanisms and the Satellites have been reading about different breeds of sharks. In addition to our group reading, the children have been visiting the school library each Friday morning, taking some time to browse through the selection of texts, and selecting a book to check out for private reading. A big thanks to our class librarians who have ensured that this process goes smoothly! 🙂
For writing, the children have completed some excellent pieces of work in the past few weeks. One such piece was a fact file on Florence Nightingale before Easter and they wrote persuasive letters to either Aldi or Marks & Spencers on the subject of ‘#FreeCuthbert’, the legal battle concerning the famous chocolate caterpillar cakes! They looked at balancing both sides of an argument and up with some really interesting points of view!
To develop their talking and listening skills, the children participated in communication games as part of Outdoor Learning, which was very well received. We played Chinese Whispers (only managing to get one word or phrase correct out of six that we passed around the circle) and Bumpity-ump-bump-bump (a game that tested their reactions and also got a lot of laughs!) They also had to work in teams to imagine the scenario of being stranded on a desert island and had to come up with five items they would like to take, explaining their reasons in detail. Mrs. Glancey was impressed with some of their innovative suggestions!
The Heartstone Odyssey
We have now finished our novel study of The Heartstone Odyssey and the children have learned some very important lessons as a result of exploring some of the themes within the book. They have approached all discussions on tolerance and diversity with maturity and respect, sharing different points of view and discussing why it is important to embrace people of all different religions, racial backgrounds and different walks of life. The children created a Heartstone Charter, making important links to their rights, which is now displayed in the P5-7 open area, close to our scjool library. They should all be very proud of themselves for the work they put into this project. Well done, boys and girls!
RE
We have moved on to learning about Counsel, the sixth gift of the Holy Spirit that features within our Pope Francis Faith Award and focuses on knowing the difference between right and wrong. Throughout Primary 6 so far, the children have also reflected upon Knowledge, Piety, Wisdom, Fortitude and Fear of the Lord, identifying ways that they have used these gifts in scenarios at home, school or their place of worship. Recently, the children were asked to write a prayer to thank God for something beautiful they have seen and the standard across the whole class was phenomenal. Mrs. Glancey was blown away by some of the work the children completed. We have also been learning about Ramadan, an important time within Islam, and some of our girls delivered a very interesting presentation to their classmates, answering any questions very articulately. Well done, girls! 🙂
PE
In PE, we have moved our focus from basketball to tennis, practising skills like forehand, backhand, agility, balance and co-ordination.
Art
As part of Art & Design, the class designed their own pieces of art based on the works of Antoni Gaudí. The children enjoyed learning about his life and seeing some of his most famous designs. The Sagrada Familia in particular was a big hit. The children designed their own sea turtles and applied Gaudí’s mosaic pattern to emulate his work, adding colour using oil pastels. The finished articles look great!
Outdoor Learning
The class missed their Outdoor Learning sessions during remote learning, particularly our Forest Fridays! The good news is that from Friday 30th April, we will be back to visiting the forest on a fortnightly basis. This week, we will be completing some of the tasks from the Pope Francis Faith award journal, including showing respect for nature and choosing natural objects to sketch.
Topic
We have now concluded our Victorians topic and the children completed some fantastic work throughout this. This term, the children will be focusing on Rights, with the first theme being ‘The Power Of Peace’. So far, we have discussed peace symbols from around the world, as well as looking at images that highlight the idea of peace and discussing them as a class. Next, the class will learn a bit more about some influential figures around the world who campaign for peace and conduct some personal research on an individual of their choosing.
We look forward to bringing you more updates next month with what we’ve been getting up to in our final term. Thank you for your ongoing support!
Mrs. Glancey and P6a
