Literacy 

This term we have been studying the genre of suspense.  We have been writing our own suspense stories based on Pie Corbett’s Zelda’s Claw and the Rain cat, thinking about all the key features involved in a successful suspense story. We have been using the Talk for Writing method to help us learn these texts, innovate on them, and then write independently.  To complement our writing, we have been reading the novel  Varjak Paw by S.F Said.  This has helped the children to draw comparisons between their own writing and the writing of accomplished authors. 

We are continuing to use The WrapAround Spelling scheme to look at spelling patterns and words in more depth and the strategies we can use to help us spell words accurately. 

Numeracy 

This term we have been looking at place value of numbers up to 100,000.  We have used various activities to explore number working particularly on representing whole numbers using numerals, words and number lines as well as partitioning whole numbers into hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, thousands, hundreds, tens and ones.  

We have spent a lot of time linking play with our numeracy which has engaged the children in fantastic number conversations where they have successfully managed to link previous learning to new material. 

Health and Well-being 

Primary 6 have had weekly basketball lessons with Miss Masson and have also been practising their teamwork and communication skills in PE with Mrs Malcolm.  

We use our Zones of Regulation every day in class for check in to help us recognise, understand, and talk about our emotions. 

Topic – the Dandelion Festival and ‘How was it made?’ 

Primary 6 learned all about how barley is grown and harvested and what barley can be used for.  We then shared this learning at our school’s Dandelion Festival assembly in September. 

We have worked collaboratively to research the planets in our Solar System and talked about what makes the Earth different and similar to the other planets in the solar system.  We plan to continue this project into the new term by creating and designing our own ‘Mars rover’. 

 Independent Learning through Play 

The P6 children have done lots of fantastic learning through play, developing a range of skills like teamwork, communication, and problem solving, as well as advancing their learning in other areas.  For example: 

• Using lego to build vehicles with trailers thinking about equal and unequal weight distributions and how this could affect a vehicle. 
•  Watercolour paints to help us explore the planets in our solar system.  
• The Kapla blocks and monopoly have been very popular this term and have allowed the children to develop their teamwork skills to work on big projects as well as literacy and numeracy skills to discuss and explain what they are doing.