The caterpillars have been busy and they are now cosy in their cocoons. There are three hanging from the roof of the container and two lying at the bottom. In a few weeks, we will have beautiful butterflies.
Category Archives: Classes
Coastal Classrooms 4 ~ Sea Birds
This session saw us walking all the way from school to East Beach. We risk assessed the journey, thinking about the two main roads we had to cross.
On arriving at the old wooden bridge, we met James and Ruaraidh who took us to the beach beside the River Lossie.
We spoke about what makes a bird a bird and what some birds do in winter. We learnt that some birds migrate because our winter is too cold for them and they often fly long distances facing many threats on the way.
We played the Migration game where a large group of house martins and sand martins had to avoid threats such as pollution, hunters, stormy weather and habitat destruction.
We then worked with our leaders to learn about different birds and how their heads, bodies, wings and legs are similar and different. We made a crazy bird together, thinking about the type of features it would have.
After that we used binoculars to observe the birds beside the river. We saw bird tracks, discovering that birds have four toes. They have three at the front and one at the back. Some tracks showed us that a herring gull had walked over to an orange golf ball and then walked away when it found out that it wasn’t food!
Look what we spotted – a beautiful heron. It stayed in the river for the whole time we were there and waded in the water. We spotted it leaning forward and spearing a fish with its long straight beak! On the way back, we saw another heron at the mouth of the river!
Conservation Posters
- Following our third Coastal Classrooms session at Covesea Beach, we designed posters. We were trying to persuade people to think about beach conservation.
- First of all we thought of alliterative titles such as :
Save our Seas! Support Sea Life! Save the Seashore!
Save our Sands !
Clean the Coast ! Clean our Coastline!
- We then had to think of ways that people could help to protect our environment and the creatures living there.
- Planners were completed and a sketch was added
- We drew beach scenes and painted them.
- Next we had to design bright and bold lettering which we added to our paintings
We hope we have persuaded you to look after the beautiful beaches in Lossiemouth!
Symmetrical butterflies
Term 4 Eco Machines
We have started the term and begun learning about decimals in Numeracy. So far we have completed addition and subtraction an are currently doing multiplication.
In Literacy, we are doing narrative writing. first we have looked at writing a simple plot. From that we have developed our writing to plan and write the setting to a story and currently we are learning how to create a character focusing on our planning.
Our theme this term is Eco Machines which covers a lot of areas concentrating on the environment. We have started the theme by looking at fossil fuels and then seeing what environmentally friendly way we can get our energy from. This involves looking at wind, water and the sun.
Term 3 Space
This term for our theme, we have been learning about Space, which included finding out about the planets. We have made poems to remind us of the order they appear in space. For a craft activity we made spaceships out of plastic lids(from Costa) and then hung them in a diorama painted to look like space. We wrote letters to Costa to thank them for the plastic lids.
In Maths we worked on Time, including calendars and timetables. We carried out group activities where we timed ourselves doing the different tasks, working in seconds. We also covered angles and compass direction and carried out activities outside using compasses to make routes which included angles.
Fruity Kebabs
P3A Class Newsletter ~ Term 4, 2016
Hythehill Primary School
Primary 3A Term 4 Newsletter
WEB www.hythehill.moray.sch.uk
INFORMATION LINE:- 0870 054 9999. PIN ~ 031270 (Calls to this number will be charged at 2p per minute service charge plus your call provider’s access charge)
This term our context for learning is Coastal Classrooms and Forces & Energy with most curricular areas being taught through these. We are still exploring rights for children as part of our work on becoming a Rights Respecting School.
Literacy: We will focus on developing:
- Good listening and talking skills – trying not to interrupt when others are speaking, turn taking , questioning and speaking clearly.
- Reading comprehension – being able to ask and answer questions related to the text and clarify the meanings of words.
- Prediction and analysing texts – being able to give an opinion on what is going to happen next; distinguishing between fact and opinion
- Grammar – continuing to work on punctuating sentences; nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives. We will also learn about apostrophes, contractions and prepositions.
- Spelling – we will continue with Jolly Spelling with one new spelling pattern being introduced each week. Homework is sent home each week and the spelling words will be practised in class as Active Spelling before being tested each Friday. We will continue the Look, Cover, Write and Check method.
- Handwriting – we will continue learning how to join pairs of letters. Correct formation will be insisted upon to ensure our writing is neat and can be read easily.
- Writing – this continues to be linked to our theme. We will continue to develop independence through use of story planners and our “Have a Go” books for words we need in our writing.
Numeracy and Maths: This term we will focus on:
- Recognition of, writing and ordering numbers to 1000 and beyond – ensuring children understand the value of each numeral; adding and subtracting tens and units; adding and subtracting hundreds, tens and units; times tables (2x 4x 5x 10x 3x) using arrays as a starting point and linking division and multiplication facts; recap rounding numbers to the nearest ten
- Mental maths strategies – continuing to increase our mental agility by adding and subtracting using quick recall of our number bonds, spotting and continuing number patterns, number before, after and between, number families
- Fractions – halves, quarters and tenths – placing numbers on a number line, recognising fractions
- Time- recap on ¼ past and ¼ to using analogue and digital clocks, minutes past and to.
- Length ; recap on working with metre sticks, measuring tapes and rulers – metres and centimetres
- Shape – recap on 3D shapes, introduce calculating area
- Capacity – working with litres and half litres, introduce ml
- Weight- comparing items and measuring with kg, ½ kg and g
- Chance
Health & Wellbeing
- Developing our understanding of what our “rights” are and how these can be protected for everyone. .
- Continuing to develop collaborative skills through group and paired challenges, using circle time to share our ideas and feelings.
- GIRFEC – discussing what being safe and healthy means, who helps us and how we can help ourselves. This will include work on assessing risk. Health week (6-10June)
- PE – early golf skills and athletics. Preparing for Sports Day. 15 minutes Daily Dash every day.
- Risk assessing – our trips to the beach for theme related outdoor learning and our Heritage Walk around Lossiemouth.
Other class information
- PE is on a Wednesday – kit must be worn. Please do not wear tights or ties on PE day. Please ensure earrings are covered using tape or removed and left at home.
- Coastal Classrooms – Thurs afternoons from 12.30 – 3pm ( Apr 21, 28; May 5, 12, 26; June 2)
- Heritage walk around Lossiemouth – June 10 from 9-12.30
- Reading days have changed – please see reading record for a note of these. Books should be brought every day please.
- Homework is given out every Monday and should be returned each Friday. Please remember to sign your child’s homework.
Whole school information
- The school office is open 8.30am – 3.30pm
- Please inform us in advance if your child will be absent because of an appointment.
- Please put your child’s name on all of their school clothing
- In Service Days – no school for children on 19 and 20 May
Should you wish to contact us, please arrange an appointment through Mrs Russell. Thank you,
Mrs Summers and Mrs Gray (Class Teachers)
Caterpillars arrive in P1
Primary 1A have had a delivery of 5 caterpillars. The children were very excited and very interested in the tiny caterpillars. We looked at them on the IWB, using the visualiser, and saw them as huge caterpillars! We talked about lifecycles and what the life cycle of a butterfly would be. We then watched The Very Hungry Caterpillar on a DVD. We can’t wait to see what they are like on Monday.
Outdoor Maths ~ March and April 2016
We spoke about what an array was and how these help us to learn our multiplication tables. Before we made arrays with our partners in the classroom we went outside to spot arrays around the playground. We worked in twos and threes to spot arrays and when we spotted one we chalked a capital A and then chalked a star shape. There were so many to find. Have a look at the ones we spotted. We even carried this on at home.
We also discovered that if we turn our array round the other way that we can learn and practise extra multiplication facts.
eg : 2×4 turned round gives us 4×2