Welcome to our September update which has seen us very busy indeed!

Literacy

We have begun to read our new exciting novels The Queen’s Nose and Dragonfire. Both are very topical given that we celebrated the life of Queen Elizabeth II as well and looked at the connection she had with Edinburgh where Dragonfire is set.  In reading aloud, we have been focussing on reading clearly and with expression in order that we can entertain our reader.  If possible,  encourage your child to read some of their novel aloud to someone at home in order to boost their confidence when asked to read to others in their group or class!

We continue to work on revising all spelling strategies taught in order to read and spell both common and unfamiliar words.  We have again revised diacritical marking and have attached a short clip which will help parents what this means and how we do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y1-QFjT5yc

Numeracy

We have completed our work for now on Place Value to 10,000 and I would encourage all pupils to continue to spend some of their time completing the Sumdog challenges which will reinforce what has been taught in class.  We will return to this topic throughout the year to ensure sound knowledge and understanding this important aspect of number.

We have also completed our block on Estimation and Rounding and can successfully round numbers to 10. 100 and 1,000 to routinely estimate the answer to a problem.

RME

As October is the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary, we will say these prayers together for peace in our very turbulent world and would encourage our families to join their prayers to ours by saying some or all of the Rosary together with everyone at home.

Science

We have been exploring our amazing bodies and began by looking at the Leonardo da Vinci painting of the Vitruvian Man where the dimensions on many aspects of our bodies are linked to other parts.  One of the most fascinating facts was that our foot is the same length as the distance between our wrist and inner elbow, try it out at home!

We are now exploring our 5 senses and have some brilliant experiments planned.

HWB

This month’s focus has been on being kind and focussing on what makes a good friend.  We were helped greatly by the parents and families that came to our Meet the Teacher afternoon and assisted us in creating an Autumn themed Friendship Tree.  Pictures to follow.

P2/3 March Learning Update

As we prepared to get ready for our Easter break after a very hard working term it was lovely to take time to reflect on all of the learning experiences that have taken place in P2/3 over the month of March.

We have worked hard to ensure that we are developing the whole child by broadening our children’s experiences within and outwith our school.  We have worked together with children at all stages through our Eco activities, taking part in our whole school Lenten Fundraisers as well as showing love for our community by litter picking in out local area.

Here are some photos of some of the fun learning times we have had in March and look forward to having lots more learning and fun in the remaining months to come.

We began the month by participating in World Book Day!  We had great fun coming to school dressed as our favourite characters, we read and heard lots of stories throughout the day and finished it all off with a fantastic picnic in the hall.

During Science Week we had the most amazing time exploring the world around us!  We undertook an experiment over time where we were tasked to chose and plant vegetables and flowers and record the growing process over 2 weeks.  We were allowed to take them home at Easter and we have been encouraged to send pictures of our plants via Twitter.  We also explored rainbows by growing them in 2 different ways.  We loved watching our paper rainbow grow but our favourite was making a Skittles rainbow as the teacher gave us the extra Skittles to eat as a treat!

As part of our commitment to looking after the health of our planet and wildlife, we were asked to take part in a big community litter pick.  We collected the equipment to do this safely then worked in teams to tidy up our environment.  We concentrated on the football pitches and park across from our school as it was covered in harmful litter.  They looked so much better when we had finished!

Some of our friends in P3 have been preparing to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation on April the 26th in Holy Family Church.  As part of our preparations, we took part in a teacher-led Reconciliation Retreat in the hall at Holy Family Church Hall where we focussed on what this special sacrament means to us.  We listened to the story of Zacchaeus and acted it out together with costumes which brought the story to life for us.  Please keep us in your prayers.

And finally, we said a very tearful farewell to our visiting student teacher, Mr McCrae!  We had so much fun getting to know him during his time in our class and look forward to him coming to visit us soon.   We wish him all the very best in his future studies.

Once again, it has been a very busy month with lots of opportunities to learn along the way!  We have been joined again each Tuesday and Wednesday morning by our S6 volunteer Lucy, the children have loved seeing her again and working with her.  We are also being joined for the rest of the month of March by Mr McCrae who is our student teacher who has enjoyed meeting all the children over the past 4 Thursdays.  We know he will enjoy his time in P2/3!

We have taken lots of interest in the world around us and began the month learning all about the Winter Olympic Games.  We found out where Beijing was in relation to where we are in Mossend  by looking at a map of the world.  We also talked about all of the places that we have visited on holiday and learned about North, South, East and West.

Each group focussed on a different sport, looked at any equipment the sport used, designed a new outfit and even explored each sport through drama!

ICT

We are still working on learning our username and password for our Sumdog accounts and logging on independently so that we can make full use of all of the fun learning activities available.  We should continue to practise this at home so that we can log on quickly and can spend more time learning new skills.

February also saw us focus on Internet safety.  We took the opportunity to discuss ways that we can keep ourselves safe when working or playing games online.  We produced posters highlighting advice such as not sharing our personal details, not meeting anyone that you talk to and making sure that your mum or dad know who you are talking to online.

RME

Some of our Primary 3 children are preparing to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation on April the 26th.  We are completing our Workbook in class and doing the follow up tasks at home with our parents.  Please keep our children in your prayers during this time.

LITERACY

In reading, we have been focussing on fluency and expression which is helping us to make sure that when reading, our audience can understand the meaning of the story.  We have been making good use of our increasing knowledge and understanding of phonemes to help us de-code tricky or unfamiliar words.  We are reinforcing this knowledge through our daily writing tasks and homework tasks.

As always, we are still focussing on our handwriting and taking our time to make sure that our letters are formed properly as this improves the presentation of our tasks.

We have also begun to make better use of our spelling wordbank and common word wall to make sure that we are continuing to improve the our general spelling.

NUMERACY

In Number Talks we have been looking a partitioning numbers by learning all about hundreds, tens and units.  We have been using HTU boards, cubes and concrete number material to work out our answers.

This month we began work on fractions.  We have looked at halves and quarters and are moving on to working out fractions of an amount.  It would be helpful if this could be continued at home using buttons, pennies or beads.  You could use questions such as, “Can you count our 6 buttons and split them into 2 equal groups/can you find half of 6? Can you count out 8 pennies and put them into 4 equal groups/can you find quarter of 8?”

CELEBRATIONS

We had great fun celebrating Pancake Tuesday yesterday and we made our own batter, poured it into the frying pans and tossed our own pancakes!  We chose our toppings and enjoyed eating what we had prepared.

We have waited patiently for World Book Day! There are many fun and educational activities planned for that day and we are all looking forward to dressing up.  Photographs will be posted onto Twitter.

Welcome to our P2/3 November learning update.

As always, we have been busy learning new concepts in numeracy and literacy and have been busy focussing on COP 26, Book Week Scotland and Anti-Bullying Week.

We researched the issues being discussed during COP 26 and watched Newsround each day to explore the important issues in a way that we could understand.  We created posters during writing time trying to encourage others to take care of our planet.

We were very lucky to each be given a special bag with books  and games to celebrate Book Week Scotland.  We had a very special visit from the children from Primary 6 who came to help us read and play the games in the bag, we loved our visit, thank you Primary 6!

In literacy we have been focussing on improving out writing through our core writing targets.  These include using the correct pencil grip, using capital letters, full stops and question marks.  We have been self assessing our own work so that we can learn from our mistakes and improve our writing.

In maths, we took advantage of learning all about money to tie in with Money Week.  We looked at what we can do with money, what coins and notes we use in the United Kingdom and we spent lots of time making amounts using different coins.  We found working out change from 10p, 20p and 50p quite challenging and we have been asked to try and play at shops at home to help us learn more about money.

One of the main  highlights this month has been that many of us have learned how to tie our shoelaces!  The teacher gave us lacing cards and taught us 2 different ways that we could learn this important skill.

We can’t wait for all of the fun that December brings and are practising for our eagerly anticipated Nativity Play, Wriggly Nativity.  Stay tuned for the very special showing!

This has been a very busy time in Primary 3 as we began the new term after a long break from school.  The children have been working hard to learn the new one way system and also learning to keep themselves and others safe by washing and sanitising their hands.

Our priorities have been Literacy, Numeracy and Heath and Well-Being with the children revising aspects of all areas in class and for homework.

We have been spending lots of time outdoors doing our Daily Mile and participating in outdoor games.  We are still operating our indoor and outdoor bubble system to keep your children as safe as we can.

In literacy. we have been revising all of the phonemes taught to date as well as focussing on proper letter formation.  You can really help by encouraging your child to write letters the correct way when completing homework tasks.

In maths, we have been counting on and counting backwards as well as learning our days and months.  The children know songs that they can share with you and you can help them learn them well by asking each day what the day, date is and asking questions such as, “What day will it be tomorrow, what day was it yesterday.

Could I please ask you to try and listen to your child read each night, check to see if they can read/write their common words and play counting games with them.