P3F Blog 2013/2014 – Lochardil Primary School

Just a reminder that tomorrow is Future Heroes Day. Come dressed up as what you want to be when you’re older and make a donation to the Guide Dog Society.

We look forward to seeing your outfits . . . 

Unfortunately, due to heavy rain over night we have had to cancel Sports Day today.

We have rescheduled for Monday 16th June 2014. Due to work scheduled to begin on our pitch next week, our Sports Day will take place on the grassed area between Morven Road and Dornie Place (behind our school field).

We thank the local residents for agreeing the use of this space to support a vital opportunity for our children.

This term, we have been reading ‘James and the Giant Peach’ written by Roald Dahl. We have been using this story to discuss different feelings and frendships. As a class, we have discussed ways to help others if they feel unhappy or worried and shared some of our best moments that made us feel special.

So far, we have written some character descriptions of the wicked aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker, and we plan to illustrate our descriptions in the style of Quentin Blake (the illustrator for James and the Giant Peach!)

This story has also sparked a big discussion about food!

Where does our food come from?

What food is healthy?

What makes some food unhealthy?

How much fruit and vegetables should we be eating?

We have been invited by Tesco Ness-side to take part in a “Food to Fork Trail” on Tuesday 10th June. We are very excited about this and we hope it can help us find answers to some of our questions!

Photos of all our fantastic work to follow!

This term, we will be looking at the film Mary Poppins as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations. The film was released in 1964 the same year our school was opened!

We will be looking at votes for women, financial education along with songs and a host of artwork.

P3Fs enjoyed a really productive afternoon in the sun, trying to re-create the pictures that the character, Bert, made in the Mary Poppins film.

We used chalk and displayed these pictures in a row. After the perimeter of the playground was covered, we followed the rhyme – “think, wink, blink twice, closed our eyes” and jumped into our pictures!

We learnt how to make spring pictures. We used straws to blow paint to make branches for our trees. Then we scrunched up colourful pieces of paper for flowers or leaves. – Lucy W and Sadie

We have been learning to do the four times table in our maths. – Joshua

We have been learning how to measure things. We have been using measuring sticks, scales, balances and rulers. – Lilly V

We have been learning about Urquhart Castle. We went on a school trip to Urquhart Castle and learnt a lot about it – Drew

We have been learning about castles and different types of castles. – Lily. F

We have been learning about centimetres, kilograms and litres. We have been measuring the length, the weight and the volume of different objects. – Marc

On the weekdays, we have been doing our class talks. Everybody talked about different things, nobody talked about the same thing. They were fantastic! – Zoe

We were writing fairy tales. We were reading them to the P1s. We learnt about settings, heroes, endings, contents, solving problems, villains and blurbs. – Grace

We have been learning about people in the castle. We learnt about what kind of jobs people had who lived in a castle. – Finlay

We made castle pictures using smudge pencils. We used paper and rulers to make them look real. – Eve

We made a story map about the Little Red Hen. We also made actions to help us to remember the story of the Little Red Hen. It helped us to write a story of our own. – Abigail

We made a family crest. We designed tartan. They are on our wall now. – Calum. M

We made superheros and fish in our groups. We had different coloured bands (red, green, blue and yellow). We had to have someone from each colour in our group. We worked on the project together. We had to take turns and we had to listen to other people ideas. – Isabelle

Today P1C, P1M and P3FS spent the day at Urquhart Castle – learning about weapons and armour that the knights used to use, visiting the castle ruins and searching for our friend Nessie. We even fed Nessie some of her favourite shortbread, but she must have been too shy today.

We’d like to thank Di and her team at Urquhart Castle for assisting us with our trip. We’d also like to thank all of our helpers who volunteered. The weather was gorgeous. The weather dance Mr Cook did this morning definitely paid off . . .

Mr.Cook, Mrs McArthur and Miss Shimmield

Today, we went to visit P1M and P1C to share our fairy tales. We each read our own fairy tale that we had written to a P1 partner. We have put a lot of effort into our stories (several hardworking writing sessions!) so we were excited to read them to the younger pupils. We think they enjoyed them! Some of P1M read their stories to P3FS. It was a lovely afternoon. We hope to take our stories home soon so that we can share them with our families also.

We also listened to some more class talks today from Grace, Olivia and Fraser. They each did their talk on something different about castles. They brought in photos and pictures to show us. Including some interesting facts that even Miss Shimmield hadn’t heard of before!

We look forward to sharing more class talks tomorrow!

The Nursery – P3 Nativity, ‘Hew Ewe!’, can now be viewed by clicking the links below. A letter came home with Nursery – P3 children today, informing them of the password for the video. If you would like to view the video, and do not have the password, please contact jcook133@highlandschools.org.uk.

Due to copyright law, unfortunately we will not be able to produce copies of this in DVD format.

Hey Ewe Morning Production – CLICK HERE

Hey Ewe Afternoon Production – CLICK HERE

In the afternoon, P3FS visited P1C to start building our castle.

We were fantastic builders today and we worked well as a team. We worked together in small groups on different tasks. Some of us made grass and windows whilst another group started to try put the boxes together. Joining the boxes together was the tricky part! We used photos and drawings of Urquhart Castle to give us a rough idea of how we wanted the castle to look.

There were also some very helpful pupils in P1C and P3FS today! It was lovely to see pupils cutting sellotape for others, helping others by holding boxes, sharing scissors and doing lots of other kind things to help.

We think Nessie looks right at home behind our Urquhart Castle! What do you think?

Thank you to all the parents and pupils who brought in cardboard for our castle!

As part of our topic we have been learning about different types of castles. We found out that Urquhart Castle is a Stone Keep castle. As part of P1C’s topic, they’re learning about Loch Ness. They kindly asked if P3FS would help them build their castle. Of course we said yes, so the construction begun this week! Before we started our building, we had to do a visit to Mr Cook’s classroom and check the measurements. We used photographs of the castle, alongside pictures of Mr Cook’s classroom to assist with our plan.

On Tuesday we started our construction, using a mixture of black and white paint with PVA glue to make the brick work of Urquhart Castle.

We’ll continue to work with P1C next Monday and Tuesday. We’ll put up more photos once it is built!

Miss Shimmield and Mrs Fraser

Happy New Year from P3FS! We all hope you had a lovely winter break.

2013 was a very exciting year for us. We moved from P2 into P3 and P3 has been very busy so far! Some of our highlights are:  learning about ocean habitats and animals, conducting water experiments, learning about helping others in our community and learning about charity projects that help people in other countries, creating and selling our class calendar for charity, organising and collecting the Blythswood Shoeboxes and taking part in an infant years nativity!

Here are our pupils for Pupil of the Month in P3 so far:

Well done! We will be finding out the Pupil of the Month for December this week…

We are also delighted to tell you that we raised £115.50 from our class calendar!

A BIG thank you to all those who bought a calendar and supported our project.We hope you enjoy them! We will be deducting our print costs and the total profit will be split equally. We will be donating to the Highland Hospice and the SSPCA!

We are looking forward to more excitement and challenge in 2014!

P3FS

What a FANTASTIC two performances of ‘Hey Ewe!’ today. Every single child from the Nursery through to Primary 3 did such a FANTASTIC job.

Everyone looked superb in their costumes. With over 200 children involved, it really was a phenomenal show.

Thank you to all of the staff and pupils who assisted with the organisation of such a massive event.

We will keep you posted as to when the video is ready.

Thank you,

Mr Cook and Miss Shimmield

– Maths – Money Maths Task (see sheet). Using change up to £1.

– Write and practise spelling words: shirt, skirt, thirst, first, third or gone, done, come, some, glove

Maths and  spelling homework are due on Thursday (5th December 2013).

Reading homework should be completed each night (Mon-Thurs) and page numbers are written in purple diary. Pupils should bring their purple diary and reading book to school every day.

We have been rounding numbers to the nearest 10 – Marc

We were learning about three different netball passes – Eve

We made tree pictures using ripped up paces of colored paper and stuck them on to tracing paper – Lucy. M

We have been learning how to write a letter – Calum. M

We have been learning about different charities in our area – Zoe

We made winter scenes using paint – Lucy. W

We made autumn scenes by ripping up tissue paper – Joshua

We painted winter trees – Ruby

We have been practising our songs for ‘Hey Ewe!‘ – Lilly. V

We have been learning how to say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’ and ‘my name is..’ in French. We have also been learning some colours and numbers in French. – Finlay

On Monday afternoon, the shoeboxes were picked up by Blythswood. We took pictures of the shoeboxes getting put into the lorry. We collected 90 shoeboxes and put them in the lorry. We helped the men put all the shoeboxes into their lorry. They will be given to children who don’t have anything at Christmas time in other countries. We feel like Santa’s elves!

Written by all the boys and girls of P3FS

Our topic this term is called ‘Helping and Giving in Our Community.’ This will involve discussing local charities and projects that help different people in our community.

P3FS are organising the Blythswood Shoebox Appeal for Lochardil Primary School. We will also be carrying out a fundraising project to raise money for a charity of our choice. The pupils will be working on their team work and decision making skills throughout this project.  We hope to learn more about the Lochardil community and communities in other countries.

Here are some of our questions:

Which countries do charities help? (Pupil)

How does the Blythswood Shoebox Appeal work and who does it help? (Pupil)

What is “water aid”? (Pupil)

Who are the people that are ‘in need’? (Teacher)

What help is there in the Lochardil community? (Teacher)

How do we make informed decisions? (Teacher)

If anyone has any ideas that would help us to learn more about our topic, then please let us know!

Last night was the Hallowe’en Disco night! Thank you to the P7s for organising the disco for us. A lot of the pupils in P3FS attended and we all had a great time! There were games in the dining hall, like guess the sweeties, lucky dip and a tattoo stall! It was exciting to see everyone’s costumes. Miss Shimmield loved being Minnie Mouse for the evening.

A selection of photos from the Hallowe’en Disco are on the school website!

– Complete maths sums in jotter (changing a horizontal sum to a double-decker sum)
– Write and practise spelling words: space, stare, throat, float or scare, share, toad, load

Maths and spelling is due on Thursday (24th October 2013).

Reading homework should be completed each night (Mon-Thurs) and page numbers are written in purple diary. Pupils should bring their purple diary and reading book to school every day.

For homework this week, the pupils are asked to create their own comic strip. The theme of the comic strip is ‘Under the Sea’  to link in with our topic and also to build on the literacy work we have been doing in class. The pupils have been asked to hand in their comic strip on Friday to share with their classmates!

There will be no written maths or spelling homework this week. However, pupils can continue to practise their times-tables at home.

There will be reading homework on Monday night only. Reading sessions will continue in school, but pupils will not be taking their reading book home Tuesday-Thursday as some pupils may be changing reading group.
Miss Shimmield

EDIT: Sorry the comic strip sheets did not go home tonight! Pupils will be given their comic strip sheet tomorrow.

The Parent Council have prepared a tea towel for Lochardil Primary School. The school opened for it’s first session in August 1964. So, after all the hard work from the children, teachers and staff at the school we are delighted to offer for sale two different Lochardil Primary School Tea Towels. One towel is for P1 – P3 and the second is for P4 – P7.

Whilst the towels will be available to buy later in the year, you can pre-order your towels now to ensure that you are able to get one (or 2 or 3!) which will make great Christmas presents.

Order forms will be available from the school from Monday 30th September.

Please follow the links to view the towels and access the order form.

Lochardil Primary P1-3
Lochardil Primary P4-7
Tea Towel Order Form

A reminder that the Macmillan Coffee Afternoon, organised by the P6/7s, is tomorrow, Friday 27th September 1.45pm – 2.45pm. There are 3 ways in which you can support the event:

1. Provide baking for the Coffee Afternoon – to be handed in Friday morning
2. Attend the Coffee Afternoon – Friday 27th September – 1.45pm – 2.45pm
3. Allow your child to purchase a cake by providing them with a donation of £1

Thank you for your support with the event!

Weekly PE slots are scheduled on Monday and Friday for P3FS.
Pupils need to bring a change of clothes (t-shirt, shorts/jogging trousers), gym shoes and suitable outdoor footwear for activities (trainers) on these days.

PE kits can be kept on the pegs and indoor shoes can be kept in trays.

Please remember to label all belongings with your child’s name and class.

Today at assembly, P3Fs were ‘swimming’ to success and showing off our super Rainbow fish that we made. We were inspired by the book The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister to create beautiful fish with shimmering scales.We spoke about how we made our fish at the Achievement Assembly.

We also wrote a prayer together (in the picture below) which Iain and Grace read at the assembly. It was a bit scary standing in front of P1-P7  but Iain and Grace spoke very clearly and everyone enjoyed it! Also, we chose a song for the school to sing. We chose ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.’

Well done P3FS!

Thank you to all the parents, carers and relatives who came to visit our classroom! We were delighted to show you all the things that we have been doing and what we have been learning. Our butterflies were shining brightly despite the horrible weather outside! For those who were’t able to make it, here is a selection of photos showing some of our fantastic work: