Constructively French

17/01/2016 Mr Kearton Leave a comment

Bonne année!

Primary three welcome a new arrival to class this term…Camembert is helping us to learn about his come country, by showing us some of the language and ways of life in France. This week, he shared his album de photo, featuring his favourite places and people.

It’s a big change for Camembear, and so P3 decided to recreate a little bit of Paris to help him feel at home.

On Friday, afternoon we got into our teams to recreate la Tour Eifel in our own classroom.

Formidable, P3, très bon!

Snow plans

Gallery 16/12/2015 Mr Kearton Leave a comment

On a few occasions this term P3 have stopped to think about what we need to make things work.

You may remember our world toilet day video, which led to an interesting discussion about how water gets into the taps, and why it is easier to make mobile phones work than toilets (except in Aberlour!).

This week, we thought about what is needed to make Santa work, and then turned our creativity to designing a new sleigh. I think Santa would be very pleased to use any of these designs next week!

Mind up!

Image 11/12/2015 Mr Kearton Leave a comment

Primary three have been learning about their brains this term.

Although school is all about harnessing and building our natural talents, we don’t often stop to think about what it means to think, or how to do this better.

We started off by exploring a real brain (at least, Mr K said it was real, but the children soon rumbled that his brain was a cauliflower!).

We moved on to learning about three crucial parts of the brain. Here the children explain what they are, and what they do…

The Amygdala

The Prefrontal Cortex

The Hippocampus

We have started deliberately tuning into our own mental state, through mindful awareness, to help us control it. This has helped us to focus on individual senses. This week, we thought about listening mindfully.

Next term, we will continue our work on using our senses mindfully and will start to apply this awareness to our learning in school more generally.

Christmas Fayre – 2

10/12/2015 Mr Kearton Leave a comment

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to visit the P3 stall on Saturday. Our stallholder looks justly proud!

Thanks to your generosity, we raised over £50 for school funds.

Christmas Fayre

03/12/2015 Mr Kearton Leave a comment

It has been a busy week in Primary Three. Nativity practice and Christmas crafts have taken a lot of energy and time, and we can’t wait to show mums & dads what we have been making, at Saturday’s Christmas Fayre!

We took a moment during the week to think about St Andrew, and watched this short clip. This led to the interesting of question of why the year is called “2015”, when we know from our dinosaurs topic that the earth is a lot older…

Next week, we have our last swimming lesson of the term, and continue with afternoon nativity rehearsals.

Dry dens

23/11/2015 Mr Kearton Leave a comment

Primary three put their heads together after assembly today to think about the highlights of this short week. We felt that our outdoor learning was the single most memorable activity; this is what the children had to say….

On Wednesday, Primary three and Primary two went to the woods – Connor.

We were going to build some dens – Hannah.

Our dens was under an old fallen tree – Charlie.

We found sticks in the woods – Elizabeth.

We patched up some old, not-waterproof dens, using sticks and leaves – Dylan.

We made a big den and used moss to keep it waterproof. My dad said we should call ourselves TeamStick! – Kirsty.

We picked up moss and put them in our den to make a comfy floor – Owen.

We worked as a team to pull out some sticks that were stuck in the grass – Maddison.

Back in the classroom, P3 brainstormed ideas for an acrostic poem on “The Woods,” and created this masterpiece in no time at all!

Remembrance Day

13/11/2015 Mr Kearton Leave a comment

One of our quiet times this week came on Remembrance Day.

P3 tried to get a feel for the enormous numbers of people killed or injured in World War I and learned about how the ‘Great War’ was even more terrible than earlier wars.

Later in the week we made poppies and talked about how they are a symbol for remembering people affected in all wars since.

Out and about

Audio 07/11/2015 Mr Kearton 1 Comment

The sun was far away when we went down to the Spey this week – many thanks for helping the children get properly organised with boots and waterproofs!

In our first session out, we focused on our senses – hearing, sight and sound.

With a partner, the children found ‘quiet spots’ to help tune into the area.

Working together, we looked closely at shades of colour, finding and matching samples from the leaves and trees that we will use back in class.

And lastly, we created our own bird calls with a partner to see if they helped us find each other in the fog! We transformed Spey Park from a quiet place into a rainforest of sounds – as you can hear in this clip…

Wellies and warm socks next week again, please, for a visit around the Lynn Falls.

Primary 3's journey