Primary 3 had great fun learning about food chains and how animals and plants depend on each other for food. We explored skulls, wings, claws, beaks and teeth to decide what animal/bird it might be from. All creatures are specially made to get what they need to eat.
Merry Christmas from P4!
Miss Gordon and Primary 4 want to wish all our families a very merry Christmas! Hope you all have a lovely holiday and we look forward to seeing the children back in the New Year x
Pupil Of The Day in P4
Each class selects a pupil randomly every day to be ‘pupil of the day’. The pupil of the day receives compliments all day. Primary 4 love receiving compliments and say it makes them feel happy. All children get a shot of being pupil of the day and when it is your child’s turn you will get a message on Seesaw with some of their favourite compliments from that day. Look out for a post with this attached to it!
What We’ve Been Up To In The Acorn Room…
Our morning groups have been developing their listening and talking skills. We have been learning to use our words to communicate how we are feeling and to ask for support. We have also had opportunities to play with our peers and share resources positively. We are developing our literacy and numeracy skills in a small group before applying what we have learned in our main class. Our core groups are growing in confidence and like to support one another which is so lovely to see!
Afternoon Groups
Monday Multi-Sports Group 
We have been learning about different sports including tennis, hockey, football and team games. Children are encouraged to listen carefully and follow instructions. We support children to have a growth mindset when facing a challenge and to give every activity their best try. Children also have some calm play time in the Acorn Room where they have opportunities to build their communication skills in a small group.
Tuesday PEEK Group
In this group we have been developing our art skills and outdoor learning experiences. We are lucky to welcome children and staff from Antonine Primary at this time. It has been great to build positive relationships with children and adults from another school. Children particularly enjoy outdoor cooking sessions and getting involved in some messy art! Jenifer from PEEK loves to gather the children’s views and create fabulous lessons that grab their interest!
Wednesday Football Group 
Our coach Sharon is so impressed with the progress this group are making! We are seeing some great, supportive interactions between our pupils. Chldren are developing their football knowledge and also their positive communication skills. Sharon loves to encourage the pupils to share what they have learned and support their friends.
Thursday PEEK – Playground Buddies 
With support and training from our PEEK partners, a selection of our Primary 5’s have been learning to be playground buddies. This involves the children taking on a leadership role in supporting younger pupils to play games positively. This has been a big challenge for our P5’s. They have been working hard to build their confidence and communication skills and have led some play for our Primary 4 pupils. Keep up the great work P5 Playground Buddies!
Friday PE and Sensory Play Group 
For some of our pupils, being in the gym hall in a large group can be challenging. This session gives those pupils the opportunity to participate in physical activity while in a small group; this is then followed by some lovely, calm sensory time. We hope to build the children’s confidence and provide some positive routines in the gym hall that our pupils can transfer when using the space with their main class. Our current focus is following safety rules in the gym hall and children are making steady progress.
Term 2 in Primary 2
The children in Primary 2 have all settled well into their classes and we have been working hard in all areas of the curriculum.
Health and Wellbeing:
In P.E this term we have been further developing our ball skills. We have learned different ways to throw a ball and to catch with more accuracy. We are exploring different ways to keep our body and mind healthy, celebrating our skills and achievements, and setting targets to gain new skills.
Science:
We are learning about our 5 senses and their functions in Science. We have investigated our sense of smell, sight and hearing so far. We are looking forward to continuing to explore taste and touch!
IDL/Topic:
We have explored our local environment and compared this to the past as we learn about dinosaurs and their habitats. We have been busy searching for and creating our own dinosaur fossils from salt dough. We have also learned about individual dinosaurs and their unique characteristics. We are looking forward to investigating volcanoes as the term continues.
Technologies:
We are learning to program the BeeBots to move from one place to another using directional language.
Literacy:
Our focus this term is to continue to increase our knowledge of common words, to enable the children to read more fluently.
We are learning to develop our descriptive language and are using to write about settings.
We are also learning about procedural writing and writing instructions.
Numeracy
We are continuing our work on adding and subtracting skills within numbers to 50. We are expanding our knowledge of counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100. We are investigating place value and learning to identify tens and ones. We are exploring making totals and giving change up to the value of £1.
Expressive Arts:
P2 are very lucky and have music specialists working with us on Fridays. The emphasis is on singing, concentrating on pitch and rhythm. We will also be helping as the choir in the Nativity Play. In Art our focus is creating sculptures using clay and junk. We are also learning some Scottish Country dances!
RME:
We have been learning about the Hindu celebration of Diwali. We have learned the story of Rama and Sita and about DIwali traditions. We will also be learning about Christmas traditions around the world. We will learn how Christians celebrate Christmas and about the Christmas story.
Stars of the Week:
Primary 2a’s star is Jayden
Primary 2b’s star is Rhys
Star Writer:
Primary 2a’s star writer is Laylah
Primary 2b’s star writer is Robert B
Congratulations!!
Miss Gibb, Mrs Juttla and Miss Fraser
P5’s term so far
Reading
We have continued to consolidate a range of reading strategies throughout this term including predicting, clarifying, and questioning; with the new skill of concluding being introduced in the coming weeks. Each group has made progression within their book bandings and the pupils have continued to enjoy our class novel of “The Firework Maker’s Daughter”.
Writing
This term we have completed our block of writing around setting, experiencing many successes within this genre and enjoying some opportunities for group idea generation. We have now moved onto 1st person recount and will be focussing on how to express their emotions throughout their piece.
Numeracy
In numeracy, we have consistently revisited strategies from term 1 to ensure they remain fresh in our minds. Additionally, we have explored the use of fractions in relation to both shape and quantity. Our primary numeracy focus has been on multiplication and division strategies, and improving our times table fluency.
Social Subjects
Within our Energy and Sustainability topic we have investigated our carbon footprints and how to reduce them, the sources and importance of renewable energy, line drawings and social dance. Additionally, we have been practising our conversational French skills and learning how to describe the weather.
The term so far in P4/3
Numeracy and mathematics
This term the class have been focusing on the operations multiplication and addition. They have learned how to use a wide range of strategies: Grid method, repeated addition, arrays and to complete a variety of number sentences and problem-solving questions successfully. The class are now ready to explore the other operations division and subtraction. As part of mathematics, the class have also been exploring different unit of measurements and engaged in plentiful opportunities to engage in active learning measuring different objects, e.g., using scales to measure ingredients to bake.
Literacy
This term the children have focused on the aspect of setting, exploring different exciting settings and have worked in pairs and groups to brainstorm a wide range of interesting adjectives and verbs to describe these. The class then used such language to write their own setting descriptions successfully. The class have now progressed to explore another genre of writing, recount. The class have grasped the features of recount and can identify these successfully. In addition, they have planned and wrote their own recounts. These recounts feature all elements explored as well as adjectives and verbs, demonstrating they are successfully applying previous learning.
Social Subjects and Expressive Arts
This term the class have been learning about business enterprises, specifically exploring what the different roles involved in running a successful enterprise business. The class have applied this knowledge into the running of their own business enterprise which involves observing and capturing details from oceanic life and creating patterns which will be printed on to tote bags. They have applied their numeracy knowledge of the four operations to budget and purchase resources for this. The class are now at the final stage of completing the product which will be sold at the school Christmas fair, they are very excited to adopt the various roles in the selling of the product also. As part of P.E, the class are learning different Scottish Country Dances, they have currently learned two dances and are practicing demonstrating high levels of effort to master the routines. They are excited to showcase their performance of these dances at their upcoming mini school ceilidh.
Science
This term the class have been exploring the skeleton and successfully have learned the names of ten different bones and can identify where these are on a diagram! They have also created their own mini skeletons with the correct positioning of the bones with corresponding labels. The class are now currently learning about the roles of the joints and the muscles and have begun to learn their role , function and positioning.
P1a update: Term 2
Primary 1 have been successful learners this term, showing enthusiasm in all areas of the curriculum. We have been rehearsing our Nativity and cannot wait for you all to see us perform!
Reading:
Primary 1 have demonstrated their knowledge of phonics through their recent reading tasks. Children have shown they can read words by sounding out and blending familiar sounds. They are beginning to show an understanding of a text through using picture clues and recalling main characters/event in the text.
Reading books can be accessed through ReadingPlanets.
Writing:
Children in Primary 1 are now able to write CVC words with increasing independence. They have been able to use their knowledge of sounds and apply this when writing short words. Almost all children are able to draw a picture and narrate what they have drawn.
Listening and Talking:
This term, children have been learning to retell the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. Children are able to identify the main characters in the story and retell the main events with increasing independence. Children have been developing their listening skills and are able to follow short instructions.
Numeracy:
This term, children have shown confidence when adding two amounts together. They have demonstrated an awareness of number talks and are beginning to justify their reasoning behind their answers. Children will continue to work on formation of numbers within 20. Numeracy game and activities should be accessed on Sumdog at home.
Social Studies:
We have been learning about Transport this term as part of our IDL topic. Children have been constructing cars out of recycled materials and learning about the transformation of cars through the decades. Whilst playing in the role play area, children have shown an understanding of what jobs there are in a train station.
Keep up the amazing work Primary1!
Miss Macpherson and Primary 1a.
Primary 6/5: Our term so far…
Primary 6/5 have been busy this term and we are looking forward to the festivities in December.
Literacy: This week we have been writing recounts. The pupils have enjoyed writing a recount on Jack and the Beanstalk.
Numeracy & Maths: Pupils have been learning about the four operations in class. Also, pupils have been learning about shapes and have enjoyed making 3d shapes.
HWB: Within PE, pupils have had some visitors from S6 join them in their PE gymnastics lesson. Pupils have also been completing hockey once a week. There is also a whole class focus on the health and wellbeing area of achieving.
RME:Our themes this term is Judaism and pupils have been using their research skills on iPad’s to share information about Judaism.
IDL:The class topic is travel and tourism, pupils have been developing their listening and talking skills by presenting advantages and disadvantages of different travel methods to the class. Pupils have also used their iPad’s to plan a trip to London and justify their choice of transport.
Expressive Arts: Pupils have had an outdoor learning experience that involved taking pictures of nature and completing line drawings. There has also been a focus on texture and patterns.
Science: Pupils have been learning about forces this term and have enjoyed completing many experiments in class.
Sports Opportunity – Come Along And Give It A Try!
