P3a are full of achievements this December and January.

In Music, we have completed a listening unit with Mrs Carey. We have listened to the story of Peter and the Wolf and identified which instruments represent each of the animals. This has taught us about lots of instruments in the orchestra and the musical families they are in. Sam was very excited to hear the violin’s important role – we have all heard how good he is at the violin already, so maybe one day it will be him playing the part of Peter in the orchestra.

In French, we have had fun using our excellent knowledge of numbers to 30 to ask each other how old we are. Marcus liked playing the game where we each took a random number, we chatted to each other in French and then our partner had to confirm in English how old we were supposed to be!

In ICT, we have been accessing and using information from electronic sources, like Glow. Our knowledge of software is getting wider and wider and we can even log on to our Glow accounts to open documents and click on links to get to other web pages. Rio enjoyed clicking through to some numeracy games. Not only that, every person in the class has replied to messages on a discussion list – it is so exciting when you see your message on the screen! Ella showed her personality by including a humorous response.

Our piece de resistance was our fantastic assembly in January!!!!! We had been learning in school about Scots, one of the three languages we speak in Scotland. We learnt a Scots poem – Foo Robin got his rid breest. We sang the funny song, Three Craws. Callum enjoyed depicting a crow because of his love of animals and interest in birds in particular.

We also retold the story of the wedding of Robin and Wren. Before our performance we rehearsed, knowing how important it was for us to speak clearly, loudly, slowly and enthusiastically to make sure that our audience could hear us. All those who were lucky enough to come to watch us will agree how confident and successful we were – and we had so much fun too! Logan A particularly enjoyed acting, his dramatic Pussy Baudrons entertained us all.

In addition to all of our Scots’ learning of other people’s work, we have been creating our own Scots’ poems! We discovered what makes a limerick, “It must have five lines,” says Sophie. “Lines 1,2 and 5 rhyme” Josh tells us. “And lines 3 and 4 need to rhyme with each other!” Musa won’t let us forget! Everyone then had a go at writing their own limerick, with some Scots words. Yousef enjoyed sharing his with Mrs Brown and making the class laugh – because, as Lucy will remind you, limericks are nonsense and should entertain their audience!

We have started learning about different Scottish inventors and the wonderful things they have done to make our lives better. To help us identify some inventors by name, and recognise what their individual discoveries were, we played a matching game. Amelia found it funny that the inventor of the telephone was called Alexander Graham BELL! We look forward to finding out more about Scottish inventions and discoveries.

Out of school, our achievements are wonderful again!!!

ACTIVE = Josh has achieved his 60 minute goal, Sam and Erion have been working hard in swimming, Armeen has moved on to a new wall in climbing, Amna is getting better at her different types of kicks and Ruaridh has been winning medals at football.

ACHIEVING = Anshi passed her singing exam with distinction! Amelia has won the Drama Award of 2017 at Razzamatazz! Nimra is so proud that she has managed to reach halfway through her fourth Siphara in Arabic class and Ella has read three Marge in Charge books, reading paperbacks in bed independently after reading with her mum and dad. Breac has improved his writing and drawings, Logan L, Millie and Ruadhan are getting better at the guitar and Callum and Heather are improving at the piano.

HEALTHY = Eleena visited Glencoe, Rio has been working very hard at scoring goals in football and Marcus made the most of the weather by building a snowman!

INCLUDED = Heather has been winning badges at Brownies and Amelia has just joined.

RESPONSIBLE =Ailey, Lucy, Fatima and Daniel have been helping lots at home.

NURTURING = Emma has been helping her wee brother.

Literacy and Numeracy

Our learning in these areas will draw upon the contexts listed above but will differ according to the needs of each class / group. Your support with consolidation of core learning through homework activities will be very beneficial to our children.

Article 13

You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing unless it breaks the rights of others.

November and December have been full of Nativity!! Primary Three have been absolutely amazing superstars. We were responsible for the main parts in all the scenes of the lower school Nativity performance of “It’s Chr-i-i-i-stmas!” (the Christmas Chart Show). The P2s and P1s were magnificent, but we stole the show!! They respected our fabulous performances and our singing and dancing. It was a lot of hard work, but it was great fun!

Watch this space, because the performing isn’t over yet for P3a – it’s our assembly in January!!!!!

Going back to this month, we have been listening to and speaking a lot of French as we count down the days to Christmas on our French advent calendars. It is improving our counting, our vocabulary and our listening “en francais”.

In ICT, we have been developing our computer programming skills by dragging instructions for the characters in Disney’s “Hour of Code”.

In Music, Mrs Carey is teaching us to identify the new rhythm “tiri-tiri” – it is like two te-tes stuck together! We have also been using our hand staves to show where musical notes are.

Out of school, our achievements are amazing!!! We found it so very hard to just choose five for the tree – listen to how good the ones are that we didn’t even choose … ACTIVE = Sam has been winning in basketball by shooting lots of baskets, Amna has achieved her green Taekwando tag, Erion has got much better at swimming, Heather got in to the next level at swimming, Ella is getting better and better at horse riding, Rio has scored loads of goals at football, ACHIEVING = Eleena is excellent at the piano and has learnt new guitar chords, Ruadhan has learned a new song on his guitar, Breac has improved his writing and drawings, HEALTHY = Nimra has been looking after her mum, INCLUDED = Fatima has been doing a lot with her family and being responsible, RESPONSIBLE = Musa has been helping lay the table at home, Ailey and Lucy made their Brownie promise and are now proper Brownies, Daniel and Sophie help to clean out their hamsters’ cage, NURTURING = Josh saved a wild seal, Logan L has been helping with his puppy and Millie has been consoling her lonely guinea pig.

Literacy and Numeracy

Our learning in these areas will draw upon the contexts listed above but will differ according to the needs of each class / group. Your support with consolidation of core learning through homework activities will be very beneficial to our children.

Article 13

You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing unless it breaks the rights of others.

We have been so very busy as usual! We have been making sentences in French. In ICT, we have made fun cartoon stories on the computer and drawn our own cartoons too! In Music, Mrs Carey is teaching us to identify the new rhythm “ta-a” and we have learnt about a rest. We can also sing and show the hand sign for the new note “la”.

In Science we have really loved the fascinating experiments about the human body and have even taken out organs and then fitted them back in – to plastic models of human torsos!!

We finished creating our own spectacular landscapes in Art and had an excellent visit to Giffnock Library’s Heritage Centre where we investigated old maps and photographs of the farmyards of Giffnock’s past!

Out of school, our achievements have been piling up! Josh had an incredible adventure in the holidays – he saved a seal pup! It was stuck on land and he managed to direct it back to the sea. Eleena has been practising the piano and can do 100 press ups without stopping! Callum has learnt a song on the piano and Logan L can play the drums to a beat. Sam can go down steps on his bike, Emma can ride on the road with her mum and Musa has learnt how to take his bicycle safely across the road.

Amna has achieved a green tag at Taekwando. Ruadhan, Heather, Ailey, Emma, Rhys, Yousef, Ruaridh, Marcus, Daniel and Sam have passed new levels at swimming! Millie has now started at Razmataz and Emma is practising for a gymnastics competition. Lucy, Ella, Amelia and Ailey have started a new riding club. Sophie has been active and can do a front flip on the trampoline.

Literacy and Numeracy

Our learning in these areas will draw upon the contexts listed above but will differ according to the needs of each class / group. Your support with consolidation of core learning through homework activities will be very beneficial to our children.

Article 13

You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing unless it breaks the rights of others.

In this first term in Primary 3a we have started learning about a selection of incredibly interesting things.

We started the year by creating our Class Charter, identifying the world’s continents and displaying the UN Articles on them.

We have been doing a lot of talking and listening, with every child presenting an argument as to why they could be chosen as a class representative for a range of positions. Although only one person was voted in to each position, everyone gave their all and impressed their classmates with their public speaking skills and confidence.

We have taken this focus on oral presentation even further along with writing. Using the Anthony Browne book, Voices in the Park, as a stimulus, we have explored character and looked at the four voices in the book in great detail. We then “hot seated”, where each child had to answer questions from the rest of the class as one of the characters in the book – wearing the appropriate headwear to aid in characterisation!!

We are also looking at the landscape of our local area, how the land is used at the moment and how it used to be used. We have thought about how our climate affects the types of buildings we have. We have been looking at maps in books and online, examining the land and its uses, and have even started to create our own landscapes in Art.

We are looking forward to going to visit Giffnock Library’s Heritage Centre to see their maps and photos of the farmyards of Giffnock’s past!

To continue the farming theme, we are looking at the journey of food from plant to plate. We are looking at which foods can be grown in Scotland and how our climate influences this. In Term Three will even be growing our own potatoes, with the Grow Your Own Potatoes project.

We are also thinking about how food keeps us healthy, which fits perfectly with our science topic of the human body – we have really enjoyed exploring all the inner workings of our bodies! We are describing the function and position of major organs and taking part in a number of experiments to discover more about how our bodies work.

We are lucky to have visits from the Music Specialist, Mrs Carey, who is teaching us to identify the rhythms “ta” and “tete” and to show the hand signs for the notes “so” and “me”.

Literacy and Numeracy

Our learning in these areas will draw upon the contexts listed above but will differ according to the needs of each class / group. Your support with consolidation of core learning through homework activities will be very beneficial to our children.

Article 13

You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing unless it breaks the rights of others.

January was a month of celebrations in Primary 2a. We celebrated Chinese New Year, this year it is the year of the Rooster. We learned about how New Year is celebrated in China and discovered more about some of the traditions. We created our own lanterns, they were red because it is seen to be a lucky colour.
We also celebrated Burns Day by reading some of his work and for lunch some of us tried haggis, neeps and tatties. We were inspired by Rabbie and wrote our own poems, which we shared with each other and gave feedback.
We have been using the laptops to find information using the internet in the class. We worked in small groups, took turns and in one session found out lots more about giant pandas. In Science, we have been exploring and investigating forces.

In Science, we have been exploring the properties of materials and where they come from. We have been learning about man-made and natural materials, we found examples of each around the school and in the playground.
We have been very artistic this month. We have had the opportunity to explore and choose from a range of media to create more rainforest art. The rainbow macaws that we made were very bright and look fantastic on our display. We had the opportunity to take part in a draw-a-long with the illustrator of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam, Steven Lenton.
Last week we had a visit from a police officer who was teaching us more about road safety. We learned about pedestrian crossings and to always STOP, LOOK and LISTEN when crossing the road. We are lucky to have lollipop people to help us cross the road on the way home from school.
This month many of our achievements outside school have been about caring for others, being responsible and making others happy. We have been brave by trying new things and some of us have ever been overcoming a fear. Well done Primary 2a!

Primary 2a September blog

We have been learning lots about the rainforest and many animals that live there. We know that there are four layers in the rainforest, the forest floor, the understory, the canopy and the emergent layer. We have been comparing the differences between each of the layers. The rainforest is very wet and warm and we have learning how that affects the animals that live there.

This week we have loved learning about the poison dart frog. The poison dart frog is very brightly coloured as a warning to other animals that it is poisonous. The poison is so strong that it could kill 10 adults. It is very tiny and lives on the forest floor and in the trees.

Our art has been based on rainforest animals. We made and painted amazing toucans, we collaged blue morpho butterflies and poison dart frogs. We worked well together to make our own rainforest for the class.

After celebrating Roald Dahl’s birthday we have been reading the Twits. We are really enjoying it so far and can’t wait to find out what happens.

Last week we took part in the Giffnock Parent Council ‘Run the length of Scotland’ event. We each ran a mile, had fun and were proud of our achievement.

We have been awesome achievers this month in and out of school. Some of us have received medals for swimming, started new clubs, been helping out at home and learning to ride a bike.

Well done Primary 2a 🙂

We were very proud of ourselves when we learned our lines and songs for our assembly and sang ‘Turn the tap’ and ‘Rice Song.’ We wore colourful t-shirts the same colour as the Ghana flag.
In our assembly we told the story of Anita who lives in Ghana and she had to walk miles to collect water. Water Aid came to her village and built a well and she can now go to school.
As part of Farm to Fork, we made bread. We put the ingredients into the bread machine. It was delicious with jam or butter.
We also had our Garden Party with the Nursery but we will tell you about that next time!

Article 31: You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sport, music and drama.

March has been another very busy month in Primary 1. We have been thinking a lot about our rights and needs and we created a class charter. However we have been learning that there are children in the world whose rights are not being met. We have taken part in lots of activities this month to help raises awareness and money for others.
For Fairtrade Fortnight we brought in packaging and took part in the Big Breakfast. We had fairtrade pancakes, fairtrade banana smoothie and orange juice. We also ran a mile for Sports Relief. It was ‘exhausting, tiring and lots of fun.’
As part of ‘Water Week’ we had a visitor from Water Aid who told us about building wells in other countries. Also this week we visited Eastwood Park to see the signs of Spring. Rio spotted a bird’s nest and we counted, daffodils, crocuses and also spotted some birds.

February has been such a fun filled busy month! We completed our Birdwatch in the playground and the surround area. Some of the birds we saw were crows, pigeons, blackbirds and a robin. We have really enjoyed learning lots more about the birds that we can spot in our own gardens. In February it was also Chinese New Year. To celebrate the year of the monkey we learned the story about all of the animals in the race, we made masks, watched a traditional dragon dance and even had a Chinese feast. Our favourite things to eat were noodles with soya sauce and the prawn crackers. We also celebrated Shrove Tuesday by eating some pancakes in class with a choice of toppings. We found out more about how other countries celebrate Shrove Tuesday such as Mardi Gras.