Primary 3 January Update

It was so lovely to see the children again after the Christmas Holidays! They were excited to share all of the stories of their time spent at home with family and friends.

In  Literacy this term, we are continuing to develop our reading skills, remembering to change the tone of our voices so that we keep the listener interested.  We have been learning to stop at full stops in our reading and read smoothly, trying to sound out unfamiliar words using our spelling skills such as :

• look for a phoneme
• syllabification (break word into parts eg, win/dow)
• blending the letter sounds together

In listening, we are focussing on turn taking in conversations as we sometimes get very excited to share our news and answers that we end up speaking over one another.

In writing, we continue to focus on using our Core Targets which is helping our writing make sense and be neatly presented. We are very proud of the progress we are making and can’t wait to show our hard work on Parent’s Night!

Well, November proved to be an amazingly busy month full of exciting learning experiences as well as lots of fun events including Guy Fawkes Night and St Andrew’s Day!

We have had the pleasure of having a student teacher, Miss Mooney with us this month and she has enjoyed herself so much that she will be returning in March for 5 weeks. Thank you for all of your hard work in class and we look forward to welcoming you back in the new year.

We have spent most of the month rehearsing for our upcoming Nativity play which will take place next week, 4th, 5th and 6th of December.  The children are singing beautifully and have learned all of the words to their songs and hymns and we look forward to seeing you all there next week!

In literacy, we are continuing with our reading, making sure that we use good expression  and fluency. We are learning to break down words that are unfamiliar or difficult using our knowledge of phonemes and sounds taught. I would be grateful if you could try and practise their sounds an reading with them.

We have covered some new concepts  in maths including addition of TU using the mental maths strategies learned in Number Talks.  We practised adding the tens together first then adding the units together and finally adding both answers together. I will post examples of this on next week’s homework for you to try with your child.  In the meantime, could I please ask that you begin introducing telling the time to your child in preparation for learning this key life skill.  We will start this next term but it can be very tricky for some children and will require additional support from home in order that they learn to confidently tell the time.

We spent lots of time combining our learning about the Holy Souls in Heaven with our celebration of Poppy Day in early November.   Many of our families lost loved ones in the many wars and troubles fought and we remembered their sacrifice by having a day of fundraising which helps support people in need following their sacrifice for peace. Thank you to everyone who sent in their money on this day, your donation was very gratefully received especially at this time of the year when families are busy preparing for Christmas.

We have another busy and hard-working month where we learned lots of new concepts, celebrated our successes and hosted a very successful and well attended Meet the Teacher event.

For any parent who was unable to attend, here are a few of the issues discussed:

• Homework – whilst this remains optional, I strongly advised parents to complete the tasks set and in particular, listen to their child reading their book each night as this will help ensure that their child can become a more successful learner.
• Attendance – this is an area of priority for the council and school and as such, we ask parents to ensure that their child attends school each day unless extremely unwell.  Letters of concern will be sent out when attendance falls below expected levels. Remember that your child will miss crucial learning and may not cover aspects of learning taught and there may be insuffucient time to go over these at a later date.
• Communication – please keep the school updated on any changes or difficulties at home including bereavement, separation, change of living situation so that we can best support your child in school and offer extra attention in these situations.
• Positive Mindset  – please speak about school positively to your child in order that they make the most of their school experience and if there are any issues that you want to discuss, then please email me at nlcookh@northlan.org.uk or telephone the school to make an appointment.

Literacy

We are continuing to focus on personal recount in storywriting where have expllored the importance of covering lour core targets of using full stops, writing neatly on the line, using finger spaces and starting sentences with capital letters.  You can focus on these in the homework tasks set too which will support the work being done in class.

In reading, we are trying to read smoothly and with expression.  There is a marked improvement in the reading capabilities of children who have practised at home as they have increased confidence in reading at their level.

Numeracy

We have covered mental maths strategies and place value in September and have moved on to Handling Data.  You will see that the homework tasks set, give your child the opportunity to practise the skills of collecting, presenting and interpreting data.  We have covered Pictograms, Tally Marks and Bar Graphs and Charts.

Continue to practise skills such as counting on and back, saying the months of the year in order and reciting how many days are in each month rhyme.

(Thirty days has September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31 except February alone, which has 28 days clear and 29 in each Leap Year)

Welcome to our 1st learning update of this academic year.  We have already been very busy learning new routines and settling into our new environment .  Your children have now moved up on to the 1st floor of our building so we have been working on ascending and descending the stairs safely and the children have been encouraged to walk in single file and hold on to the handrail for safety, they are already  showing how well they can listen and follow instructions so it’s a great start!

We have spent time getting to know one another and their new teacher and it has been lovely to see them interacting well and growing old friendships whilst getting busy making new friends too.

We have focussed on revising skills and knowledge taught last year in maths and literacy  whilst remaining focussed on the importance of keeping their emotional and physical well-being at the forefront of all that they do.

Our homework programme begins this week and this will be posted online each Monday for completion by the Friday of each week. There will be a mix on online and written tasks as well as daily reading which I would strongly encourage you all to complete each week with your child.  There is so much to learn and it is essential that we all work together to make sure that your child develops all the skills they need and gains all the knowledge they need to become successful learners and confident individuals.

I look forward to welcoming parents to our upcoming Meet the Teacher event where we will be able to look at the structure of the coming year and  outline expectations and aims for the coming year.

If you have any questions throughout the year then please contact me via email at:

cookh@northlan.gov.uk

What a busy and active month we have had here in P6/5!  Despite having had 3 short weeks this month, we have packed lots of learning into this beautiful month of May.

We celebrated the King’s Coronation by exploring the countries that make up the Commonwealth. We wrote a recount of the story of King Charles III’s Coronation and completed the work by creating a collage of King Charles III’s profile using the colours of the flag of Great Britain.

We dedicated the month of May to Our Lady by saying the Rosary each week in school.  We learned how important the Rosary is in our faith and how devotion to Our Lady is a central part of our faith. Some of the girls in class led the prayers during lunchtime and encouraged some of the younger children to participate too.  One of our classmates brought beautiful flowers in to decorate our May Altar which was a beautiful gift for Our Lady.

We were very lucky to have a block of 4 lessons with the Scottish Rugby Union who sent a coach to teach us how to play rugby.  We learned how to throw a rugby ball by spinning it to our team mates and also learned how to score a try. Grant left us treats and a quiz to complete now that the  block is over.  Leaflets will be given out to the classes that were involved in the rugby sessions encouraging us to try a few rugby sessions with our local teams.

We are almost at the end of our block of swimming and dry sports at the Sir Matt Busby Centre which has been incredible fun. Most of the class are now able to swim due to the expertise of the swimming instructors and we will be able to go swimming safely during the holidays.

Most of the class have prepared so well for our upcoming show, We have learned lines, practised our songs and attended after school sessions in preparation for our production of Peter Pan.  We are so excited to show it to our family and friends next week in St Gerard’s Primary School.

Following on from a very  busy end of Term in March where we were so proud to see so many children in our class and school audition for our HFactor Talent Show, we have worked very hard over the past 2 weeks especially in Literacy and Numeracy.

Our 1st focus in Numeracy has been on Symmetry and Pattern, where we worked on identifying and drawing shapes and pictures with more than 1 line of symmetry.  Some of our patterns were very complicated and we discovered that it is very hard to write letters in a symmetrical pattern! Some of us liked to use a mirror but most of us preferred to use our ruler as  central marker to check symmetry.

We then moved on to Time which most of us initially found challenging but with lots of work and attention, we can confidently calculate durations, tell time using minutes past/to and convert time into am/pm.  As a way to extend our learning, we had lots of opportunities to work in our problem solving groups working through a variety of scenarios from using timetables, calendars and problem solving situations.

We were given lots of direction in ways in which our NLC Virtual School can support all aspects of our learning and we have been asked to try a range of these games and activities over this term.  We need our Glow email and password to access the tab on the Launch Pad.

In Literacy we are all working on books by the same author, David Donohue.  We are really enjoying them and look forward to practising to read with greater fluency and expression so that the stories come alive when we are reading them.

We have now completed our work as author’s and our books will be ready for display by the end of next week. Keep an eye out for the photos on Twitter.  We will take them home at the end of the term.

Our swimming block is going very well and we are enjoying the walk to and from the Sir Matt Busby each Tuesday.  More of us are learning to be confident in the water each week and hopefully we can all swim by the end of the block in June, ready to swim during the holidays.

It was lovely to catch up with parents before the holidays and look forward to seeing the remaining parents next week so that we can discuss your child’s progress and share their learning in their jotters.

As always, I am available via email or telephone should you have any queries throughout the term and I look forward to seeing you at upcoming events such as 1st Friday Mass Coffee Morning and Sports Day.

Primary 6/5 February Learning Update

We began the month celebrating Global Play Day where we got the opportunity to play with our friends and use our imaginations.  Technology was a real favourite in our class and some children recreated some of the Wonder of the World which we have been studying as part of our IDL topic.

Literacy

We are continuing to read our class novels and at the end of the month, will have an opportunity to watch The Borrowers together to see how the author’s ideas come to life on the screen.

In reading, we have focussed our attention on awareness of engaging our audience when reading aloud.  We have spent time reading to our peers and commenting ion one another’s expression and fluency so that we can continue to improve this key skill.

We have now completed our own imaginative fairy tales which we were able to read to our P2 friends on World Book Day.  Our completed books will be available to be read by our parents when they visit on Science Day on the 14th Marc h.

Maths

Throughout February, our main maths focus, in addition to our regular Number Talks and Mental Maths, has been learning all about Fractions, Decimals and Percentages.  We learned about the range of real life situations where these skills are important and most of us can now confidently calculate the discount on a price in the shops!

We continue to be reminded the importance of learning all of our tables to 12 which we have needed to be able to simplify fractions to make them smaller and more manageable.  We have been given our assessment marks as a percentage which I’m sure your child will have shared with you.

P.E.

We will continue to focus on badminton as the focus of our P.E. slots and have been improving our skills of serving and returning.  I’m sure all of the children will want to practise this skill when the warmer comes and they are able to play outdoors more regularly.

We have also been trying to improve our fitness levels as we have found out that we are unable to bend, stretch and run quickly in badminton if we are not very active out of school. Being active helps our overall health and and is especially good for our mental well-being.

HWB

We also took time to celebrate Children’s Mental Health Week in the middle of the month with  a range of activities focussing on the importance of relaxing, dancing and talking to others about how we are feeling.  We had a timetable of fun workshops that we participated in and enjoyed a lot.

Music

We took time to rehearse our amazing musical performance to thank Mrs Celino during her time with us in Holy Family. We sang very well and make great use of props and musical instruments and even managed to persuade Father Brown to join us.  Check out Twitter for the first half of our performance.

** REMINDER TO PARENTS**

Could you please take time to remind children about the importance of being kind online particularly when messaging on Social Media sites and What’s App and that any information that they take home should only concern themselves and not that of others.

It was lovely to see all of our friends back in class after the Christmas holidays.  We took time to share our favourite memories with one another during talking and listening time.  There were so many stories and traditions shared during this time and it was very interesting to find out about the ways in which different nationalities and cultures spend the holiday season.

Our focus for Literacy this term will be to concentrate on writing neatly, using correct punctuation and grammar and remembering to check over all that we write so that we can correct our own mistakes more often.  Our taught writing focus is imaginative writing and we are currently writing our own fairytale to read to the children in P2.  I will post the photos on Twitter when we visit them.

We are working hard on our Novel Studies and are being encouraged to look up the meaning of unfamiliar words when we see them and not just read on past them.  This helps build our spoken and written vocabulary and improves the quality of our language work.  Please continue to get your child to read some of their book aloud to someone at home using good expression and clear voice.

In Numeracy, we began the term focussing on fractions and finding a fraction of an amount.  We are gaining confidence in this concept and are beginning to make a link between a fraction and decimals, especially tenths and hundredths.  Please continue to encourage your child to learn their tables 2-12 as this greatly helps their confidence in number and speeds up their computation.

We will begin a unit on Time towards the middle of February so it is important that your child is confident in the basics of time which has been taught in P3, 4 and 5.  If they have understanding of concepts previously taught then it is much easier to advance their knowledge and understanding of more difficult aspects of time such as adding/subtracting time and duration.

We are almost finished our topic on the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World which the children chose as their IDL subject.  They children took notes and created a factfile on each wonder and have used their ICT skills of word processing to complete an information leaflet.  We used our design skills to create a 3D pyramid and will be set a homework task of recycling household waste to recreate one of the Wonders of the Ancient World next week.

Our next topic will be the Celts and the Picts which we are all looking forward to learning about.

Our RME topics this month have included listening to the Liturgy that was read at Mass each week and exploring the idea of witness in the Old Testament. Our P6 children are all participating in the Pope Francis Faith Award which helps all of our young people to look at the skills and qualities that they have which can be used to help others.  They are also learning about the importance of taking an active part in looking after the health of our planet through the Laudato Si project.

We began the month of November  remembering the lives of the Holy Saints as well as praying for the repose of our departed family and friends.  The children completed and returned the November Lists which meant that we as a school community could remember our dearly departed together.

We completed our novel study books at the end of the month, The Queen’s nose and Dragonfire and we all agreed were terrific stories.  We will send home a copy of our Book Reviews so that everyone can read a little about why we enjoyed our books so much.

We again have focussed on improving our handwriting and presentation and are pleased with the results.   We feel very proud of our efforts and now take great pride in the work we produce. We have revised nouns, verbs and adjectives so feel free to test us at home!

As part of World Book Day, we had the opportunity to choose a book from our library to take home and enjoy and throughout the day we participated in lots of fun activities such as paired reading with P2 and making dens in class with our friends.  The teacher posted the photos on Twitter.

IDL

Our topic this month has been Scottish Inventors which was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the ingenuity of our Scottish ancestors and appreciate the impact their inventions have had on our modern day lives.

As one of our homework tasks, we were asked to either create a new invention or make a replica of an invention that we admired.  The pupils who completed this, demonstrated their creations to P5 and took time to explain the purpose of their work.  It was very enjoyable and P5 enjoyed all of the presentations.

Please remember to follow us on Twitter and take a look at what we have been getting up to in and out of class throughout the coming month.
Here are a few of our highlights this month.

October saw our class cover many new topics in maths, literacy, health and well-being, social studies and RME.

In maths, we completed estimating and rounding and attained good marks in our final assessment!  We moved onto negative numbers which was fun, most of us are very confident in using the number line past  0 and we are able to speak confidently about the real life situations which require us to know and understand negative numbers.  We are now moving into looking at 2D and 3D shape with Miss Hamill and in particular, we will look at the properties of a range of shapes.

In literacy, we have continued to use the novel studies The Queen’s Nose and Dragonfire to reinforce our comprehension skills as well as those of skimming and scanning and exploring the writer’s style. We have been reminded to always check our spelling and to make sure we use a dictionary to check if we are unsure how to spell a word.  Our handwriting has shown lots of improvement and we are very proud that our hard work is paying off!

Our new topic is the Human Body and we have learned lots already including the fact that many parts of our bodies are the exact measurement if other parts.  Ask us to tell you all about it. We have been learning about the Senses and all of the amazing things our bodies can do.

We began the month of October with the celebration of 1st Friday Mass where our class led the congregation with prayers and hymns.  It was a beautiful service and we hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did.  We got to meet family and friends in the school hall afterwards for tea and biscuits which was lovely.

We have moved on to the study of Judaism as part of our commitment to learning about other world religions as it is important that we understand the many ways in which people worship God and learn tolerance of the faith and beliefs of others.

*It was so good to see all parents at our recent Parent’s Evening, the first in-person meetings since October 2019 and hope that everyone got to ask any questions regarding your child’s time in class.  Please remember that I am available via email or at the gate at 3pm most days should you require any help.

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