It was lovely to welcome the children back after the Christmas break and to hear all their excited tales. They wasted no time in getting settled back to school and class routines and getting busy with their learning. There have been many opportunities throughout the month in which they have demonstrated that they are successful learners.

Literacy 

All groups have developed their fluency and comprehension skills by engaging with their texts each week. They have read a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts but the main focus over the last few weeks has been on non-fiction. They have been learning to use the Contents page, Index and Glossary to help them find information. This will help them to be effective contributors as they will  be able to apply this knowledge as to our new IDL topic of the Romans. Please continue to support children with their spelling and phonics and reading at home as this really does help to support what the children are doing in class.

Numeracy and Maths 

The children have spent the last few weeks working on multiplication, they have used a variety of concrete and pictorial materials to help explore and develop an understanding of this topic. They have been learning the 2, 5, and 10 X Tables and been learning about multiplication as arrays, repeated addition and groupings. We are now moving on to division where the children will develop further their understanding of sharing, equal groupings, repeated subtraction and  the inverse relationship with multiplication. Children can use many household or everyday items to help with this concept, eg sharing pasta shapes into equal groups, sharing sweets among 2 or 3 people and there are many games on Topmarks and Sumdog that children can play to help them in this area.

RE 

This month and next has had a focus on the teachings of Jesus. They are learning about forgiveness and many are preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The children have been listening to bible stories about Jesus’ time on earth, how we are made in God’s image and the meaning and lessons we can take from the parables. I appreciate your support in returning Confession workbooks completed on time.

Other Curricular Areas

ICT – children are working on creating a Powerpoint which they will present to the class. They are also learning about coding and very much enjoyed this.

IDL – SCOTLAND – the children showed that they can be confident individuals when they learned and sang a song from the Disney Movie Brave called ‘Touch The Sky’ at our Burns Day Assembly – they did a fantastic job learning all the words and actions in such a short space of time. They tasted some traditional Scottish food such as haggis, neeps and tatties, shortbread and Tunnocks tea cakes, they even had a wee taste of Irn Bru (sugar free) a variety from every food group. They are at the beginning of our topic on Romans and have already learned how Rome was founded and some of the countries that the Romans conquered.

PE – our focus has been on gymnastics and the children can name and demonstrate a variety of shapes such as pike, arch, straddle and dish. They can travel safely, balancing and moving in a variety of shapes and speeds.

 BIRDWATCH – Primary 3 were also effective contributors by completing the birdwatch survey to record the variety of different birds in our local community. They spotted Crows, Magpies, Blackbirds, Seagulls, Wood Pigeons and some Robins. They recorded this information using tally marks and will learn how to interpret and display this data in Maths.

*Reminders*

Homework out on a Monday to be returned completed and signed on a Thursday.

PE Days are Monday and Wednesday.

Well, what a busy month we have had in Primary 3. We have had lots of fun learning experiences throughout the month of November.

Literacy

We have been working through our spelling programme and learning new phonemes and common words each week. We are building our vocabulary and have been learning about using adjectives to improve our writing. We are enjoying our reading tasks each week and are good at recognising our common words and phonemes in the books we are reading.

We used the Monster Mallows that we made at Halloween as a stimulus for writing Instructions and then applied this later in the month when we made Snowman biscuits. We are getting good at writing instructions. We have also explored narrative and recount and have written about Sneezy the Snowman and created our very own funny Elf stories. Going forward we are going to try and work on our presentation. We are continuing to focus on letter and number formation and using a ruler to underline our work and making sure our letters are not floating on the line.

We are still working on our listening and talking skills and are trying to listen carefully to instructions to help improve our learning. We are trying not to interrupt and to listen carefully when someone else is speaking. We know this is respectful and that everyone in our class has a voice.

Maths and Numeracy

Over the last month we have spent a great deal of time working on strategies to help us with addition and subtraction, we have been using concrete materials such as ten frames, one hundred squares, cubes, and number lines to help us add and subtract in tens and hundreds. The children have applied their prior understanding of place value to help with this. They are now going to be focussing on multiplication and division and again will explore a range of concrete, pictorial and abstract resources to help them develop a greater understanding in this area.

RE

The children have been praying for all their loved ones during the month of November and remembering the angels and holy souls. The have been learning about the Nativity in preparation for their performance of Wriggly Nativity. They worked hard to learn all their songs and sang beautifully during the performance. The children are now learning about Advent.

Social Studies/Art&Design/Other Areas

The children have finished their topic on Space, completed by a trip to Motherwell Heritage Centre where the children took part in a Rocket Workshop. This was an enjoyable and educational visit for the children, and they all participated fully in the engaging activities provided. They also showcased their learning as were able to respond to the questions asked throughout the day. The workshop co-ordinator remarked that it was lovely to have such enthusiastic and confident individuals participating in the workshop. Please log on to our class Team on Glow to see pictures of the day.

In addition to this we have spent time making crafts for the Christmas Coffee morning and creating a variety of Christmas themed artwork. The children are exploring line, shape, colour and using a variety of different media to create different effects. We hope that you have enjoyed looking at their work.

PE – we have been learning dances for our Christmas Party. The children have enjoyed this and are almost prepared to demonstrate these at their Christmas party on 20^th December.

**Finally, Primary 3 have achieved their target and earned four hundred Dojo points. They have chosen to have a class pyjama and pizza party. Children may come to school in pyjamas or comfortable clothing on this day and bring in a pillow. They will have pizza, ice cream and a Christmas movie to reward their effort this Term. This will take place on Friday 16^th December 2022.

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and please check Twitter and our class Team over the next week or so for class and picture updates.

Primary 3 have had a very busy few months since returning to school so we would like to share some of this learning with you.

In Numeracy and Maths the children have been learning numbers up to 1000 and they know how to estimate and round numbers to the nearest tens and hundreds. They have used concrete materials to explore Place Value and are currently learning a variety of strategies to help with addition. They use Number Talks most days and have been counting on from the highest number, using number lines, 100 squares and making friendly numbers to help with addition. They are learning to explain how they got the answer and this is really helping with their understanding. This will also help as they continue to develop skills in subtraction, multiplication and division.  The children are demonstrating that they are confident individuals as they eagerly share their responses, solutions and justifications.

In Literacy the children continue to work hard on their Spelling, Reading, Writing, Listening and Talking.  The children are working through the Active Literacy Spelling programme and are learning new phonemes and common words each week. They love to look for these sounds and words in their surroundings and get very excited when they spot them. Please encourage them to do this in their home and local environment also. The children are reading a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts each week and are developing their accuracy and fluency. They made their own Alien Masks after reading ‘Aliens Love Underpants’. They have loved listening to stories, sharing stories with each other and choosing books from our class library. Please continue to encourage children to read for pleasure as much as possible as this helps in all areas of Literacy.

I have been impressed with the quality of the stories that the children have written so far. They have recently written some spooky Halloween Stories, which saw them creating their own characters and settings, using some excellent adjectives to add to their story.

With October, being the month of the Holy Rosary the children have been learning how to pray the Rosary and have been learning all about our parish of Holy Family. We have been learning our Mass Responses and hymns to sing at mass. We have been learning all about Creation and Laudato Si. The boys and girls know that they have a responsibility to protect and care for the amazing world that God created for us.

Our IDL topic has been Space and the children have developed a range of skills across many areas of the curriculum, they learned about Neil Armstrong and completed line drawings of astronauts. They used their knowledge of 2D and 3D shape to create rockets and during Maths week, the children collected a series of materials from our local environment and put these together to create rockets in the yard. They have listened to lots of fun stories about Space and even listened to a story told by an astronaut from the International Space Station. They have learned the order of the planets from the Sun and have learned a mnemonic to help them remember. Ask them to tell you? They love to get it right. As we come to the end of this topic they are making a Diorama of our Solar System. I think you will be impressed.

Without doubt the highlight of the month for the children was the Halloween Party. The children were so excited and loved to dress up, play games, dance and have fun with their friends and teachers. It was so good to be able to celebrate this together in the hall.

As you can see, the children have had lots of fun learning activities and experienced many successes as learners over the last few months. Thank you for your continued support. Please see Twitter for any class pictures or updates throughout the month.

Well…where to begin with all the learning and fun that the children have experienced over the last month.

Prior to updating I asked the boys and girls “so what have we been doing/learning this month” they couldn’t wait to tell me and share their achievements.

Lauren – we have been learning about time.

Amber – we have been going to Mass more and saying lots of Hail Mary’s.

Laraib – we have been learning about Venn Diagrams and Carroll Diagrams.

Ava – I have really enjoyed the PE this month and making my First Holy Communion.

Dzeisonas – I just always love Maths.

Caobhin – I have really liked doing Athletics in PE.

Lacey – I loved saying the Rosary, learning all about Mary in the Month of May and making my First Holy Communion.

Connie – I have learned lots about time and Data Handling.

Holly, Grace, Olivia and Emily – We loved reading Horrid Henry

Maths and Numeracy

The children have worked extremely hard this month and have demonstrated their developing knowledge and understanding in the four operations and fractions by applying this to other areas in Maths such as Time, Data Handling and Angles. They all very enjoyed the active aspects of these areas and surveyed everyone in the school to gather data on favourite foods, colours and animals. I have also been very impressed with how quickly the children are picking up angles and compass points and they were able to identify a variety of right angles in our classroom and can give directions using North, South, East West, clockwise, anti – clockwise. Ask them to tell you their little rhyme for remembering the order of the Compass Points. Going forward we will be working on Symmetry and consolidating our number knowledge before the end of term.

Literacy

The Green Group are continuing to use the six main reading strategies of prior knowledge, metalinguistics, visualisation, inference, main ideas and summarising to help them gain a deeper understanding of what they are reading. They have been reading The Best Dog in the World and are enjoying learning all about the relationship between Denzil and Elliot. The children were given a home reading record and I have asked them to ensure they are choosing a book to read at home and to record it in their diary.

The Red Group have enjoyed reading all about the antics of Horrid Henry. They have been reading in groups, in partners and individually and are learning to read for longer periods. They have looked at some comprehension strategies such as visualisation, metalinguistic and main ideas to help them gain a fuller understanding of what they are reading. They have demonstrated this in their written work and we are going to try to read another Horrid Henry book before summer.

The Children have been exploring their senses when writing poetry this month. They have discussed the use of their senses to help them when writing.

Religious Education

Throughout the month of May the children have participated in class and whole school decades of the Rosary in devotion to Our Lady. They have been to Mass and have been learning some beautiful hymns including Bring Flowers of the Rarest. The boys and girls in Primary 4 celebrated the Sacrament of the Eucharist on the 14^th May and did themselves proud with their full participation in the mass responses and hymns. Their hard work and preparation was clear to see and we are very proud of them. As a class we celebrated

OTHER CURRICULAR AREAS

We have been busy over the last few weeks, participating in Health Week and in PE we have been developing our skills in Athletics, running, sprinting, jumping and throwing and we can’t wait to showcase our skills at Sports Day.

Our class Enterprise topic that the children decided; was that, they wanted to raise money to help the people of Ukraine affected by War. We watched news coverage and discussed the cause of and impact of the conflict in Ukraine. The children have written prayers for peace and used oil pastels to create a piece of artwork that shows the sunflower and the thistle combining the two national symbols.

We collaborated with Primary 2/3 and decided we would plant sunflower seeds to sell; the proceeds will be donated to a charity dedicated to helping support the affected Ukrainian families. The children designed persuasive posters and advertising posters to promote this throughout the school.  So far they have raised a fantastic amount, keep your eyes on Twitter for the final amount raised.

Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at Sea Animals and exploring the habitats in the World’s Oceans.

Welcome back everyone and I hope you all had a happy and restful holiday break.

Maths and Numeracy

During the month of March pupils have been learning all about Fractions. They have worked hard throughout the month and can name the numerator and denominator, can name equivalent fractions and calculate the fraction of quantity. The children participated in lots of practical activities to deepen their understanding in this area. They are then going to take this knowledge forward and apply it to Telling the Time. As always, mental maths skills are a focus throughout the year and we encourage children to access Sumdog as often as possible and continue to practise the 2,3,4,5 and 10 Times Tables.

Literacy

The Green Group have been developing their comprehension skills using the story of The Twelfth Floor Kids. Children have been applying the six main reading strategies of prior knowledge, metalinguistics, visualisation, inference, main ideas and summarising. Going forward children will continue to apply these skills to help make sense of increasingly complex themes and narratives. It is important that children spend time not only reading the texts but exploring and discussing the language and tools used by the author to enhance the reading experience.

The Red Group are making good progress and are enjoying the range of novels that they are reading. In Term 3, we are going to look at longer novels and continue to work on answering in more detail and full sentences.

Children have been working on the genre of explanation writing this month; they have been learning about extreme weather forces and have been researching and reading about a variety of extreme weather forces. Children were able to demonstrate their learning in this area by completing an independent piece of writing about a topic of their choice. Children have also prepared a presentation to deliver to the rest of the class with a focus on timing, presentation, volume, eye contact and information. We have really enjoyed listening to these.

Religious Education

The children who are making the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Communion attended and participated in a retreat in the Church Hall. This was a very special and reflective time for the children to come together to appreciate and consider the importance and relevance of this Sacrament in their lives. We have also been spending time with Mrs Celino and Mrs Le Blond during Lent learning all about the Stations of the Cross.

OTHER CURRICULAR AREAS

We have come to the end of our topic on Natural Disasters and the children have very much impressed me with their enthusiasm and ability to retain so much of the information that we have gathered.

During Science Week, we completed a number of fun experiments using a variety of materials and substances.

On World Book Day we dressed up as our favourite characters and had a wonderful ‘Booknic’ in the hall where we shared our favourite stories and books.

We sadly said goodbye to Miss Bradley who has been working with us over the last month. Miss Bradley was a great help to us and she helped us make healthy fruit smoothies, taught us all about inference and even taught us some sign language. We will miss her very much and wish her well with the rest of her studies.

Going forward we look forward to celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Tuesday 26^th April and the Sacrament of Communion on the 14^th May. We are also looking forward to deciding on our topic focus for the final Term, which will involve lots of fun, and Outdoor Learning.

It was lovely to get the chance to speak with you all on Parents Evening and I want to thank you once again for your continued support. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you need to discuss anything.

Continue reading Primary 3/4 November Update →

The children in Primary 3/4 have had a very busy few months since returning to school so we would like to share some of their learning with you. 

In Maths the children have been learning a variety of approaches and strategies to aid them in their learning. In Number Talks they are developing secure mental strategies that they can draw upon when faced with any calculation. Through this the children demonstrate that they are confident individuals as they eagerly share their responses, solutions and justifications. The children know how to estimate and round numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds and thousands. They have used concrete materials to explore Place Value and this has really helped with Addition so far and will help as they continue to develop skills in subtraction, multiplication and division. 

In Literacy the children continue to work hard on their Spelling, Reading and Writing.  The Green Group have been learning all about phoneme families and are learning to use spelling strategies such as ‘word within a word’, ‘compound words’ and ‘syllabification’. Ask them to demonstrate how these help them work out tricky or new words.

The Red Group are working through the Active Literacy programme and are learning new phonemes and common words each. The children love to look for these sounds and words in their surroundings and get very excited when they spot them.

In addition to their various Home Reading Books, the boys and girls have been reading ‘Poppet’, a story about a baby African Elephant who becomes friends with a little mouse. The children have used this to develop their comprehension skills and are working hard to produce answers in full sentences.

In Health and Wellbeing the children have been learning about staying safe and healthy. They take every opportunity to get outdoors for PE and have been effective contributors to our school community by participating in Beat the Street. Friday afternoons are spent with their friends in Primary 2/3 at Hope Street Park as a fun way to end their hardworking week.

With October being the month of the Holy Rosary the children have learned how to pray the Rosary and have visited Holy Family Church every Tuesday with primary 2/3 to pray in the gardens. This has been a really lovely experience for us all and it is wonderful to see the children enjoying being in the Church again. Please try and provide this opportunity for children by attending Sunday Mass, especially if the children are making their sacraments this year.

The boys and girls also participated in their Class STEM challenge ‘Spaghetti Towers’ where they used Spaghetti and Marshmallows to design and build a freestanding tower. They loved this and look forward to doing more challenges throughout the year.

Our IDL topic has been the Vikings and the children have developed a range of skills across many areas of the curriculum, they made 3D Longships and explored symmetry when designing their own Viking shields. They also used the knowledge that they have gained to create posters giving others information all about the Vikings, their lifestyles and their beliefs.

The children have recently began to learn all about Climate Change and what is happening during COP26. They have been learning about what Pope Francis said in Laudato Si and are eager to demonstrate that they are responsible citizens by contributing individually, as a class, and as part of the whole school to help tackle the impact of Climate Change on their World.

As you can see the children have experienced many successes as learners over the last few months so what better way to celebrate this than a fun filled Halloween Party which they are so excited about.

Welcome to Primary 2/3’s final reflective Friday post for 2020.

Well done to all the boys and girls in Primary 2/3 on a successful Term 1 back at school.

The children have had a very different December than usual but as always have risen to the challenges admirably.

The children have managed to achieve excellent progress in Literacy and Numeracy and their ICT skills are developing very well. Today they managed to write and type their very own Elf Riddles inspired by the characters from our novel, The Christmassaurus. This week also saw the end of our Primary 2/3 games which the children have been competing in over the last few weeks. Teams Mario and Yoshi worked together to acquire points for their team. The children enjoyed this very much and learned lots of skills including how to be a supportive and encouraging team member. In the end there was only 1 point in it which saw both teams being awarded a Gold Certificate and medal.

The children have been learning about Advent and preparing for the birth of Jesus, we have been thinking of others and trying to be kind. The children have also demonstrated their artistic and creative talents with all their Christmas arts and crafts.

This month we wish to share our best wishes and love to you all over the holidays, thanking you once again for all your support this term. May you all have a safe, happy and healthy break. I look forward to all the exciting learning opportunities that await us in January.

Merry Christmas from Mrs Preston and Primary 2/3.