August

In Primary 3 we have enjoyed getting to know our new classmates and have discussed what makes a good friend. We took time to discuss the school values and what Respect, Achievement and Inclusion will look like in our class and school community. We created a class charter and discussed what makes a good friend. We chose our class novel for Term 1, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown and then had so much fun exploring the adventures of Stanley. We worked on our writing by describing each other and the author describes Flat Stanley, trying to use similes in our writing. We measured each other on a height chart and compared our own height to Flat Stanley. Two of pupils were the exact same height as Stanley! We had fun predicting the length of an object in cm and measuring accurately with a ruler. It was a busy month.

September

We have been busy learning about magnets. In an experiment, we used our predicting skills to assess which objects were magnetic or not.  We explored magnets in engineering and we became engineers ourselves, imagining, planning, creating, designing and improving a magnet game to play with our classmates. Paul, the engineer, came into our class to show us how Numeracy is important in his job and we explored engineering tools and instruments. We planned and created kites that we flew outside and discussed how we could improve them to make them fly better. In Numeracy, we developed strategies and skills to add and subtract multiples of ten in calculation using concrete materials and using our mental maths skills.

October

Before the October break, we discussed how to what we would like to have as our topic for Term 2, the children had some great suggestions. We decided to do two; a mini topic on apples and a larger one on endangered animals. We used Science, Cooking and Art to explore apples. We explored what it is to conduct a Fair Test and be Scientists. We sampled many different apples and explored the similarities and differences using a Venn diagram. It was an exciting month. We were all excited about Sharing our Learning with our parents and the Halloween disco! We began to investigate Endangered Animals and the global issue surrounding this topic linking our topic to the life on land Global Goal.We explored different formats of factual reporting. We watched documentaries on endangered animals and took notes before compiling a report. We explored alternative reporting methods such as using posters and power point.

November

We were working on developing strategies to support our learning of Multiplication and Division facts for the 2, 5 and 10 table. We were using concrete materials to create Arrays and Groups, and number lines for repeated subtraction and addition. We discussed where we could use multiplication and division in real life. We welcomed a visitor into our class every Wednesday, Mrs Wyper from the Professional Learning Academy. Mrs Wyper introduced the class to SHORS, which is group of strategies that can help us with our reading comprehension throughout the curriculum. In PE, after working on our ball skills in rugby last term, this term we started to develop our gymnastic skills and linking rolling, balancing and jumping into a sequence. It was fun trying to model each other’s moves and challenging ourselves to make sequences that are more complicated for our peers.

December

Wow, it has been a quick first half of the year. Our topic was coming to close and the children each chose how they would like to report on our final animal using all the skills they had learned this term. Afterward, each pupil made a book from all their reports and artwork to share with each other, Mr Bleakley and their parents. Our HWB focus for this term has been responsible and the children developed an understanding of how to be responsible around medicines in the home. The class created a Christmas present survey for the school and compiled a bar chart to present their information. Also,  P3 have been exploring angles and directional language. Pupils worked in groups to create a trail and then a map for other groups to follow. The class continued to develop their writing skills by creating a character for a winter story using adjectives for looks and personality.

January

Coming back for the new term the class took a mini topic about our town to coincide with the celebration of Burns life at the end of the month. We had great fun exploring unfamiliar Scots words in the Broons and Oor Wullie then predicting what the words meant. We used an online scots dictionary to find the meaning and compare our findings. Through the Oor Wullie books we began to explore speech bubbles and create our own comic strip of Oor Wullie. We enjoyed applying our food preparation skills to make Shortbread from a recipe from Maw Broons cookbook. The children discussed their town, Irvine and compared Irvine of the past to Irvine of the present using spot the difference photos. We used Irvine as the focal point of our Acrostic poetry and began to explore rhyming poetry. They loved the pictures of the Auld Bridge. We decided to create our own interpretation of the Irvine photos. By exploring perspective in landscapes, we produced our own art using pastels. We applied our skills that we developed for researching and reporting endangered animals to create a fact file of Robert Burns and explore the significance of this famous Scot.