Half way through p5 already! It has been a very, very quick term. There just do not seem to be enough hours in the day to squeeze everything in, but we’ve tried!
I have really enjoyed this term with the children, their attitude to learning has been very positive and they are enjoying (mostly) pushing and challenging themselves across the curriculum. Their behaviour in the classroom is excellent and they are eager and ready to learn every day.
Literacy
In Literacy this term we have continued using the Big Cats reading resource (Non-Fiction) in weekly sessions in conjunction with Non-Chronological Report texts, Science, RE and digital texts. This has allowed us to develop our literal comprehension skills, summarising skills, context clues and identifying information skills which are transferable across the curriculum. After completing our PIRA assessments, it was clear to see that the children have picked up summarising and literal and evaluative questions well but that more work is needed on inferential questions and prediction skills. We will take this on as a focus in term 3.
Our Writing Genre this term was Non-Chronological Report (NCR) writing. We explored a range of NCR texts (Pie Corbett, imaginative, wildlife and Saints) and from this developed a series of our own imaginative based reports around Unicorns, dragons, Scottish wildlife and new planets. All of these should be available for you to see on Seesaw, including your child’s assessment piece and feedback sheet. It has been an engaging genre and the children did very well on understanding the features but they must now continue to work on writing extended pieces; longer paragraphs and editing their work. As we move into Term 3 we will move onto Imaginative Writing (Character & Setting) and it is here that we will see how well the children cope with up levelling their writing to a second level standard. We will also be starting our fiction novel study and this will help our writing and our inferential skills.
We have been continuing with our spelling patterns, grammar and handwriting each week and this will continue in term 3. The children are still eager to keep our Friday spelling competition going, so we will continue to use the spelling circle game every Friday to try and encourage the children to learn the new spellings. However, please be assured that the children know this is just for fun.
Numeracy and Maths
In Numeracy this term we have focused on the four processes: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division. The children also completed our Measure and Area outcomes on a Wednesday with Mrs McLaughlin, while she was with us.
Although we covered addition and subtraction in term 1, we have been incorporating this into our warm ups and mental math, to keep honing the skill of exchanging and bridging for the children. This has really helped them in particular for multiplication and working with larger amount. All of our maths concepts are embedded through the use of Concrete resources, Pictorial methods (Including Digital) and exposure to a range of strategies to allow increased depth to their understanding. All pupils have enjoyed success in Using think boards to show a range of strategies. We continue to use Bar Models, Number Lines, Partitioning, Grid Multiplication, Division Algorithm and application of Times Tables.
The children worked so hard to learn how to multiply two and three digits by one or two digits. It is so important that they keep practising those times tables at home, and in school, every week because when it comes to multiplication, division and fractions, it makes all the difference to their confidence with these topics. Our work around division started off well using the concrete materials but when we moved to pictorial and abstract, (formal written sums) it was clear to see some gaps in the children’s understanding so we went back a few steps to really reinforce that link between multiplication and division. I plan to continue with division for the first two weeks back in January.
Term 3 will then see us apply our Number and four processes work to Fractions, Decimals, Percentages, Time and Money.
RE & Health and Well-being consisted of lessons on Remembrance and Lives of Saints. I think you will agree that the children led a beautiful Remembrance Service. They are becoming so confident in their roles as leaders. Within Jigsaw the pupil’s completed lessons on Celebrating Differences which focused on Anti Bullying, Culture, Online safety and Children’s Rights and responsibilities. This allowed us to continue our Class Charter with the theme of “We control our Rights.” The children also did a fantastic job practising and singing at Nazareth House. The residents were delighted with them.
Our IDL topic this term is Scottish Wildlife. This has allowed a lot of research and discussion to take place and a lot of collaborative group work. The pupils enjoyed exploring and discussing energy, food chains, extinction and biodiversity. We have covered a lot of work on animals. I can imagine the groans of despair when you read about the diorama homework BUT they are fantastic and the children have got so much out of sharing them with their classmates and everyone else in the school. So, thank you for all of your help with them. They truly are great.
We still have a little bit to cover on plants and trees and so this topic will continue for the first week or two of January, after which we will start our History Topic – The Romans. Mr Gallagher and I plan on inviting you all in to see our display of knowledge on The Romans at the end of term 3. I will send this date to you when we have it.
P5 have continued their John Muir Committee work and enjoyed planting trees in our school grounds to help preserve and improve it. We are focussed on creating a Wild life area for bees in our school and are learning about what they need and how we can share this information with the school. We will be presenting our work at a whole school assembly in February.
As always, thank you for your continued support this term and for your engagement with your children’s work on Seesaw.
Have a lovely Christmas,
LeeAnn Wilson
