Welcome back everyone and I hope that you all had an enjoyable and restful period over the holidays. 
The boys and girls have settled back well and have enjoyed seeing their friends and classmates. We have shared our holiday experiences and have discussed our hopes, wishes and targets for this coming Term.
Maths and Numeracy
Since we returned to school, we have been learning all about Division of 2 and 3 digit numbers by a single digit. We have been sharing, grouping and using concrete materials to help us with this, we can see how important it is to learn our Times Tables and will keep practising them all year.
We have now moved on to Measurement and have been measuring the length of various objects in our class. We even measured our own heads, necks, wrists and ankles using measuring tapes. We can describe what we would measure in mm, cm, m and km. We are looking forward to measuring weight in g and kg and capacity in ml and l. Later this month we will be learning to use and solve problems using money so maybe we can help when out shopping or at the supermarket. Practical experiences will really help us to gain a better understanding of what we are learning in class. 
Homework for Maths as always is set via Sumdog; this corresponds and reinforces what we are learning in class so please try to spend 15 minutes each day online.
Literacy
We are busy working through our spelling programme and continue to learn new phonemes and common words each week, it is a busy programme and schedule so it is important that we make sure we are practising our words and reading our books at home each week.
The Green Group are delighted to be reading Horrid Henry and have given themselves new names to tie in with the theme, ask them about them. Their names suit their personality like ‘Perfect Peter’ and ‘Moody Margaret’. The other groups are reading small chapter books and should receive one or two books home each week, please continue to support the children by listening to them reading aloud and asking them questions about the characters, the settings and the main ideas/plot in the story. This will help the when they are using what they are reading in their writing.
Health and Wellbeing
Our focus in Health and Wellbeing is on being active and we have chosen to learn and develop our skills in football. We have named our own football teams and are competing in a class tournament. We are very competitive! We are also learning how to be good teammates and opponents, to be ambitious and try hard but also to be gracious in winning and losing.
Religious Education
Some of us have some special Sacraments that we are preparing for. Primary 3 children are beginning preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and will be bringing our special workbooks home to share our journey with you. Primary 4 children have already started their workbooks and have been learning all about being part of a community and how in making their First Holy Communion they become an important member of our Church Community with God.
OTHER CURRICULAR AREAS
We recently celebrated Burns Day by listening to some poems by our national bard Robert Burns, we wrote our own poems about love, made tartan bags and kilts and explored the Scots language. Do you know any? Ask us and see if we can translate?
Primary 3/4 have decided that this Term they would like to learn all about Natural Disasters. We have started looking at Tsunami’s and the children have used their research skills during ICT to find out some information about them. We are excited to learn about Volcanoes and Hurricanes and Earthquakes and look forward to creating some experiments and extending our knowledge on each of these.
Finally, thank you for your support in preparing the children for school each day. We look forward to a busy month of fun learning opportunities and hard work with pupils striving to become successful learners, responsible citizens, effective contributors and confident individuals.
