We are hoping to arrange a Community Litter pick for the morning of Friday 3rd April as part of our work towards our next Green Flag Award. Primary 4 will be involved in this and perhaps some other classes too. We need to get an idea of numbers who can come along to help out on the day and we would like to invite any parents (not limited to the P4 parents) who could spare some time that morning to join us. All equipment will be supplied by Glasgow City Council and  we would only be litter picking in the streets of Pollokshields.

If you think you could give up an hour or so that day,  please contact the school office and let them know you are coming by the end of next week.  Thanks.

Miss Brooks and the Eco Committee of St. Albert’s Primary

A lucky ten children from P4 had their names picked out of the hat to go on a trip with Ben the Storyteller and Ms Newall, to Galgael.  This is a remarkable place where people from all walks of life come together to work with wood.  The creations we saw were amazing.  The children’s favourites were a model boat (see the pictures) that is just like the boats that Scottish people used to travel around the country in hundreds of years ago, and a stunning eagle created by Galgael’s founder.  They got to hammer rivets into wood to create part of their own boat, which the staff gave us to bring back to school!  We were shown around to see the various machines they work with.  Perhaps the most special part was that each child was given a beautiful, unique handmade wooden box to take away.  Ben had the idea that we can use them as story boxes.

We also had fun singing silly songs on the walk to the subway and riding the train over to Ibrox.  It was a brilliant afternoon – thank you Galgael and Ben for organising.

Check out some of our photos of the day.

The model boat.  A bigger version was sailed from Scotland to Ireland.  Alan told us incredible stories of his adventures with the crew fighting against the currents to safely navigate a loch in Ireland.

The part of a boat we got to take away.

Ava’s design for a new sail for the boat.

We had a blast playing some tunes on the piano, bongos and guitar.

The children hammering in the rivets.

Yousaf the rock star!

Alan putting up the sail on the boat.

Yousaf’s design for the sail.

Singer/songwriter Malaika – star of the future?!

Hello world,

Sorry we’ve not posted in a wee while. We’ve had a great month in P4.  Every Wednesday we’ve had amazing lessons with Ben the Storyteller. Ben’s been telling us traditional tales from Scotland and exploring stories and characters linked to the River Clyde.  Using clay we  created our own mythical Scottish creatures.  Through drama we have  recreated scenes from the Highland Clearances and then explored  life on the shipyards of Glasgow.  In the coming weeks we’re excited to write our own stories.  Here are some photos of our freeze frames in drama:

In maths we’ve been working really hard to learn multiplication and division.  We are all getting very confident at multiplying by 10 and 100, and we’re nearly as good at dividing by 10 and 100.   Ms Newall has challenged us to know all our times tables before Easter, and for every times table we can recite we are earning dojo points for our hard work! This week we made the most of the good weather by doing our maths outside.  We had to work out how many children we’d need in each group if we made 6 equal groups (30 divided by 6), and what happens if you take a line of 5 children and make it 6 times bigger (magically your whole class is lined  up!)

In literacy we’ve been celebrating the Glasgow Film festival by working on our film literacy.  Last week we explored some ‘before watching strategies’ for the short film ‘Mouse for Sale’.  We asked questions about the film and made predictions about what the film could be about, using our prior knowledge.  We then wrote settings descriptions from a scene in the film.  This week we have learned more about ‘during watching’ strategies. We focused on exploring the characters in the film.  We made a list of things we could describe about a character: looks, personality, interests, actions, wants, thoughts, feelings, skills.  Then we worked with a partner to describe each of these for some of the characters in the film.  Here’s an example:

As a final challenge we tried to come up with similes to describe the characters:

“The mouses’s ears are as large as an elephant’s ears”. Ibrahim Akram

“The boy’s hat is as black as a bat” Adam

”The mouse’s nose is like Pinochio’s nose.” Haiqa

”The boys are as unkind as harsh lightning.” “The boy’s hair is as dark as a gray day.” Iqra

”The mouse is as cute as a kitten.” Laiba

“The mouse is like a blue feather”.  Dirko.

”The mouse’s ears are like an elf.” Rahib

“The mouse is as blue as the sky” Yousaf

”The mouse’s ears are as big as an elephant’s ears” Fatima Javed and John.

”The mouse’s fur is as blue as the ocean.  He is as fat as a blueberry.” Inaaya

“His eyebrows are as yellow as a banana.” Mohamed

“The boy’s personality is as dark as black.” Ava

Hi folks,

Primary four need to learn their times tables.  If they practise for five minutes every day, they’ll know them in no time.  It makes learning to do multiplication and division calculations so much easier.  So, to help you learn these at home, here are two websites you can play on to practise:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

https://www.timestables.co.uk

We look forward to hearing your progress!

Ms Newall & Miss Brooks

Check out P4 loving our Determined to Dance class!

Today in maths we used buttons to model multiplication and division.  Each group had buttons and had to see how many equal groups the buttons could be divided into.  We then recorded the multiplication and division number facts we had discovered.

For example, we discovered that 24 buttons could be divided into 8  groups of 3, or 3 groups of 8, 6 groups of 4, or 4 groups of 6, 12 groups of 2 or 2 groups o 12, and 24 groups of 1 or 1 group of 24.

We then explored the four multiplication and division facts for each times table calculation.  For example: with the numbers 5, 7 and 35, we have the facts:

7 x 5 = 35

5 x 7 = 35

35 ÷ 7 = 5

35 ÷ 5 = 7

Below you can see the children working in groups to work out the different multiplication and division facts.

Working out how many groups of 4.

   6 x 4 = 24 or 24 ÷ 6 = 4

  24 ÷ 3 = 8 or 3 x 8 = 24

Primary Four have been given a purple jotter to use for a homework research project for this term. The project is on the subject of Scotland, Glasgow and the Clyde which they are also learning about at school. The children can choose aspects that interest them most about this topic and can add pieces of writing, printed pictures, drawings, diagrams, songs, poems, anything they like.

They may wish to explore tourist attractions in Glasgow or the history of shipbuilding on the Clyde or Scottish Folklore, traditional songs, maps, Scottish Art, Scottish castles, battles, industries or a mix of subjects in this area. They could make a contents page at the start of their jotter to show different chapters and cover or decorate the front and back of the jotter.

The best 3 projects will win a prize at the end of term.

Hello world,

Primary four have had a happy and productive start to the new year.  We have begun our new IDL topic for the term all about the land of Scotland.  So far the children have enjoyed learning about some of Scotland’s mythical creatures, including Redcaps, Kelpies and Nessie.  We have also used google maps to locate important landmarks in Scotland and plot them on a map.  We are looking forward to learning more about how the land of our local area is used, plotting routes on a map, comparing urban and rural environments, and other learning that we’ll update you on later in the term.

In literacy the children have continued our work on reading King Kafu and the Moon, and Afraid of Water.  We can see fantastic progress in the children’s ability to summarise, answer inferring questions, and to answer questions in full sentences.

In maths we are continuing to revise our mental maths strategies daily and using number talks to explore different ways to tackle mental maths problems.  This term we are focusing on multiplication and division in numeracy, so you can help at home by practising times tables daily.

Possibly the most fun part of this week was the start of our new block of dancing in P.E.  Determined to Dance will be teaching Primary four every Wednesday for the coming weeks.  The children loved using their bodies to create the shapes of things we find in Scotland – from lochs to mountains to Highland cows and bridges!

The children are working hard to rehearse for their class assembly, which will be held on Thursday 31st January.  We look forward to seeing as many family and friends as possible.

Last week in Primary Four, we had a lot of fun learning about the mummification process.  We started off by having a go at wrapping up some classmates in ‘bandages’ (toilet paper) to make them into mummies.  The children cooperated very well to wrap their friends up, but by far the most successful teamwork was by Dirko, Yousaf and Subhan.  Dirko and Yousaf worked carefully together to  perfectly banage up Subhan from head to toe, as you can see!

In drama the children acted out some scenes to show some of what they had learned about Acient Egypt so far.  Below you can see they recreated a pyramid scene, with the mummies and treasure found in the tomb.  Some children made themselves into the River Nile, and others stood together to make a pyramid.

In numeracy we have been working on using number facts we already know to work out new facts.  For example, we worked out that if we know 5 + 3 = 8, then 15 + 3 = 18, 25 + 3 = 28, and so on.  Or if 5 + 3 = 8, then 50 + 30 = 80, and 500 + 300 = 800, and so on.   This week we will be learning about adding two-digit numbers using partitioning, and adding three digit numbers to one-digit numbers using number lines.

Homework Week Beginning 19^th November.

Below is this week’s homework.  All worksheets will be sent home in bags.   Homework should be handed in on Friday 23^rd November.  Remember P.E. on Wednesday.  Children should come to school in uniform with P.E. kit in their bags.

Literacy:

Reading: complete the reading comprehension sheet.

Handwriting: You have been sent home this week’s letter formation sheets to practise.  This week it’s the letters i and j.  Try to make sure that you are using the correct formation of all your letters every time you are writing.

Spelling: practise these spelling words using the ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write’ method.  So, look at the word, say the word, cover it up and write it, trying to spell correctly.  Make a word-search using your words.

birds

complete

knew

since

piece

told

usually

didn’t

friends

easy

heard

Numeracy

Complete the numeracy worksheet adding two-digit numbers.

IDL

Complete the Pharaoh School homework sheet, designing a school and uniform for Pharoahs.