Literacy

Writing – At the beginning of Term 2, we used our knowledge of writing narrative instructions to create practical instructions for building bird feeders and a bug hotel. For the remainder of the term we have been developing our use of descriptive language and using literacy techniques such as similes, metaphors and alliteration. We have been describing story settings and created maps of our own magical worlds. Next term we will focus on character description and plot.

Spelling – We have continued to follow the Wraparound Spelling progression, using prefixes and suffixes to grow our vocabulary. We have introduced new grammar concepts with a view to developing a deeper understanding of different parts of speech.

Reading Comprehension Skills – Throughout Term 2 we have been developing our inferencing and questioning skills. These reading strategies have been taught through a series of small group comprehension sessions, animations and whole class novels.

Mathematics and Numeracy

During Term 2 we have covered the properties of special triangles, the properties of circles, fractions, decimals and percentages, using mental and written methods. We will continue to work on fractions and percentages next term, as well as strategies for the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division). Topical maths will focus on time and money.

Health & Wellbeing

We continue to encourage discussion and exploration of our mental and social health via The Zones of Regulation. We had a visit from PC Millican to reinforce the importance of internet safety. P7 have demonstrated a keen awareness of how they can protect themselves and their personal information online. We continue to promote kind and respectful use of social media and messaging facilities.

During Term 2 in PE, we have been developing our tennis skills, including, racquet control, forehand and backhand ground strokes, forehand and backhand volley and service. We have been learning how to direct the ball and pass to a partner with control.

Outdoor Learning

This term we have engaged with a project to build a bug hotel on the grounds of the school. We have planned, risk assessed and pitched our idea to Mrs Thorley. We drew scale models and created 3D models to showcase our designs. Next term we are hopeful that we can complete the build, encourage more wildlife into the grounds and provide practical learning experiences for other classes.

IDL

Our IDL context this term has been Christmas Around the World. We have researched how Christmas is celebrated in Germany, Japan and Poland and created leaflets and posters to share our learning. Our IDL context next term is Scotland.

Expressive Arts

This term we have been learning ukulele with Mrs Gillies, who also accompanied us on piano to record our Christmas Carols. The recording can be found on the link that is sent to parents. We have been exploring use of different materials such as junk, paints, pencils, crayon and pens to create a range of seasonal artwork. We have engaged in Christmas craft activities and enjoyed the opportunity to make the school look more festive with our decorations.

We have had a very busy term in Primary 5!

We have been focussing on describing settings for stories in our writing sessions. Lots of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs have been used. We even managed to squeeze some super similes into our work too.

Short and long vowel sounds have given us thousands of words to spell, practise, stretch and grow this term. We are becoming experts in our Wraparound spelling lessons.

Inference has been the focus of our whole class reading lessons.  We are improving our skills in using clues from texts to answer questions.  We are even managing to add sentences into our writing that need the reader to infer.

In maths we continued with some shape work learning about 2D shapes and their properties.  In numeracy we have recently been learning about place value, reading and writing large numbers and rounding.  One Christmas tree that was made during morning activities cost £1,247,585!

The I.D.L topic of Christmas around the world has allowed us to understand some similarities and differences between Christmas traditions in Scotland and other countries.

We created some echo art during art lessons.  We also collected leaves and sticks and brought them indoors to create pieces of art. They were amazing!

We have been really enjoying doing jigsaws during morning activities and FUN31.  We emailed Mrs Thorley and asked if we could get some Roald Dahl jigsaws……..and she said yes!  They arrived very quickly and we’re making our way through them.

In term 3 we will be focussing on writing character descriptions as beginnings for stories. We will continue to revise our long vowel sounds and move on to other common sounds. In reading we will continue to use our inference skills and also move on to summarising. In numeracy we will focus on mental and written methods for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Our I.D.L. theme in January will be Scotland.