All posts by Mrs Speirs

Primary 6 Update

Welcome, Primary 6 have had a very busy few months since returning back to school in August. We would like to share what we have been doing with you all. 

Maths – We started off with revision, after the year we have all had we needed to remember the foundations of maths. So far we have covered place value, addition, subtraction, fractions decimals and percentages (which will be getting covered again in term 2). Number Talks have really helped our mental agility and helped with our number bonds and doubles for our sums. We are now looking at multiplication and division before moving on to co-ordinates and symmetry. We had lots of fun for Halloween making 3D pumpkins and Halloween sum pictures. Mrs Speirs has planned lots of fun Christmas maths actives for us so we are really excited about this.  

Literacy- We started off this term by all reading the same novel called Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. This is called a model text so Mrs Speirs could demonstrate all the reading strategies to us and help us understand the novel/ author better. We really enjoyed this novel as we got to find out about the different countries and the history of Kensuke. There was lots of cliff hangers that kept us wanting to read more. After the October holidays we have been put into groups. The Yellow group is reading Dark Isle by DA Nelson and the red group is reading Saving Finnegan by Sally Grindley. This time we have the novels home with us to read which is helping our fluency and expression. We all still love story writing and so far we have enjoyed recount, persuasive, imaginative and now instructional. We are learning to add in more details to our story and new interesting vocabulary to make sure the reader stays engaged in our stories.   

RE – We started off by looking into the Feast of the Assumption which we celebrated back in August. We have created a wonderful RE wall and Alter in our classroom. We have been exploring the Bible in more detail and looking into Jesus first miracle. We explored the importance of Mary as a mother figure and the impact she had on Jesus. We compared Mary as the mother of Jesus and the qualities and skills she had as a mother comparing her to our own mother. We have been lucky enough to take part in our class First Friday Mass. We all loved being back in chapel to celebrate as a class and the Holy Family parishioners. The month of October being the Holy Rosary, the children have learned to pray the Rosary and have visited Holy Family Church to pray in the garden. We have been learning about All Saints Day and creating our own November List for our class. 

Topic/ Science – Our topic this term has been Oceans and Continents which has also been incorporated with climate change and COP26. We have been learning how many there are, the names of countries that are in each continent, the climate, economy, tourist attractions and culture. We have been taking a closer look at how we can help look after these continents and Oceans and how we can cut back on pollution. Having COP26 take place in Glasgow has made us very aware of the problems we face in this world and how change needs to happen and how we can make this change happen. We have been very active in this and even managed to make our own Rain Gauge. We were very shocked at how much rain we collected in such a short space of time.   

Expressive Arts – We love Art in this class and we really enjoy experimenting with different materials to create different pieces of Art. We have been learning about Vincent Van Gogh and his love for oil pastels and water colours. We even managed to recreate his famous water colour painting called Sunflowers. We enjoy mixing the paint with the water and creating different colours. We created lots of topic art included pollution posters. We also created Halloween bats and Autumn wreaths and we even collected our own leaves from the park. We have beautiful firework chalk drawings this week and we all cannot wait until we can start with our Christmas activities. 

Emotion Works/ Heath and Welbeing – We have been working hard on dealing with our emotions and talking about how we feel. There has been so much happen to us all over the past year we feel it’s better to talk and draw about how we are feeling. We have been trying out meditation in class, we found this hard to begin with as staying still and switching off was hard but now finding this a lot easier and receiving the benefits from this. We have been acting out different emotions our bodies go through and are aware that a lot can happen to us in Primary 6.  God’s loving plan will start on the 8th November for the Primary 6. 

We are all becoming Responsible Citizens, Successful Learner, Effective Contributors and Confident Individuals in Primary 6. We cannot wait to show you what else we have planned for the rest of the term and for term 2. We have really enjoyed being back at school now as things slowly start to get back to some sort of normal. Thank you for reading what we have been up to,

 From Primary 6 and Mrs Speirs 

Primary 6 Reflective Friday

Well here we are again, what a busy month we have had in Primary 6. We have been so busy with our Christmas party, Christmas Jumper Day and watching our Pantomime. We are all really looking forward to Santa coming but first we would like to share what we have been up to in class with Miss Verrecchia

This month our story  writing has been Christmas themed . We have really enjoyed the story starters Miss Verrecchia has been given us. ‘A Special Snowman’ was a story about a griping tale of a snowman that came to life on Christmas Eve.

This maths we have been working on division and we have been learning how to do division mentally. This month we have also been focusing on data handling. We know what a bar graph and a pie chart are. We have been working very hard on these topics this month.

December is the feast of the Immaculate Conception which we enjoyed learning about. We  also reminded ourselves of the importance of advent. We made our own advent wreath and learned about the significance of each candle.

Active schools have been coming with in on Tuesdays. Firstly we tried orienteering and also athletics. It has been really good fun having someone new take us and we have really enjoyed learning new skills (Map reading and more team work).

In our topic (China) we have been learning about lots of things. We now have a deeper understanding of Christmas in China and got to learn more about the Giant Panda and Mount Everest. We have also been learning about the history of China and how that has shaped the country today. We really enjoyed trying to write in Chinese, we even learned how to write Merry Christmas .

In P6 we have been doing lots of fun art, recently since its Christmas  we created a Grinch art with oil pastels.  We created a Christmas tree picture which is displayed in out hall .

Primary 6 and Miss Verrecchia  would like to wish everyone a very happy and healthy Christmas.

Primary 6 Reflective Friday – October 2020

Welcome to our Reflective Friday post for the month of October. We seem to have lost our post, so here we are again.  We have been learning lots and having a great time in the lead up to our Halloween celebrations.

Literacy

We have been looking at the area of persuasive writing with a focus of completing an essay on” Should we have school uniforms”. We looked at the importance of persuasive language and making sure we get our point of view over to the reader. We have continued our ongoing work on accurate spelling, grammar and presentation as well as working hard to improve our reading fluency. Our class novel The Tribe is now finished, we have loved this novel and we didn’t want it to end. Due to this we have all been given our reading groups. the three groups are now reading; The Hundred Mile An Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong, Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo, and The Eleventh Orphan by Joan Lingard. We are all excited to be in our reading groups again and to get started these novels.

Numeracy

We have been reinforcing our understanding of place value and using this effectively in our estimation and rounding work. We worked hard with our Addition and Subtraction sums and are currently working on Multiplications. Every Wednesday we have a break and work on Data Handling which is a lot more hands on but are really enjoying this. Drawing the graphs with a ruler was challenging to begin with but getting there now.   In our ICT time we have also worked with Sumdog to increase our mental agility and enable us to explain our thinking in number talks.

ICT

In ICT we are learning how to join a teams meeting on Microsoft teams. This is really useful in case we need to self isolate but also it is a skill we will need in the world of work. We are making sure that everyone can send emails properly and Miss Verrecchia is setting our homework on the school website under the P6 class tab. That is where you will find your work if you are isolating too.

RE

In RE we have been learning about St Mungo and discovering many interesting facts. October was also the month of Our Lady and we remembered her when we prayed the Rosary.

IDL

Our topic is Scottish Inventors and we have enjoyed learning about Alexander Fleming and  Alexander Graham Bell etc. We have now decided that we have come to an end with this topic and voted for our new mini topic that will take us up to Christmas. We took a vote in class and decided our new mini topic would be “China”. We are so excited to find out about the culture, language, food, traditions, and other interesting facts.

HWB

We have been enjoying outdoor PE  with a focus on Badminton and moving on to Ball skills . This has involved a lot of hand and eye coordination and focus, which can be challenging at times. We are still exploring the emotion works wheel and talking about friendships and our own personal qualities. We looked at food labels and the effects healthy and unhealthy food has on our bodies. At the end of November we will be looking at Gods Loving Plan and working our way through the P6 programme.

We have really enjoyed October in class and hoping that we continue to grow, develop, continue to learn and stay safe during these hard times. November has so much going on like Poppy Day, Book Day, DYWF and many more. Hope you enjoyed reading about our wonderful adventures of Primary 6.

Primary 6 Reflective Friday

Welcome to Primary 6 and our first Reflective Friday post. We are all excited and happy to be back at school even thou it is different to what we remember. Since we have come back we had to learn about our new rules and routines, it was hard trying to remember our one way systems, our Zones and bubbles but after a few days we got there. First Friday Mass has been different for us as we are unable to go, however due to technology we have been lucky to watch it live in our classroom which makes us still feel included.

We have been talking about our emotions and feels a lot since we have come back to school and emotion works have helped us understand these emotions. During class we have been working on our class novel The Queens Nose which we all enjoyed. Our new novel is called Tribe by Catherine MacPhail which we started this week in class. We are already gripped by the new novel and enjoying the main themes it already covers. In Maths we have already covered Place Value, Rounding and estimating and currently on Addition/ Subtraction. Our mental agility is improving everyday as we work through our Number Talks. Our new Topic is Scottish Inventors and Inventions which we are really enjoying, especially how Scotland has helped create and shape the world we living today and how the inventions was created so long ago but we still use them today. We did have suggestions about creating our own from new games, flying boards to even finding a vaccine for Covid- 19. Primary 6 also started Science last week which takes a deeper look into our Solar System, which have been researching facts and information about each planet including our own planet Earth. We have still managed to do Art in class and looking at various artists including Vincent Van Gogh. We are looking at how he used his emotions through colours to create his paintings, which even inspired us to use happy colours to create our own replica painting of Sunflowers.

Primary 6 still all had the chance to write application forms for Vice captains for each house, everyone took part in this and a few where selected by Mrs Willison. On Thursday the 10th Sep P4-7 got a chance to watch our campaign videos and vote for their vice-captain.

After the September weekend we have a lot more planned with ICT, PE, Spanish and Heath and Wellbeing. Miss Verrecchia is going to try and included as much as possible in our timetable to make sure we are slowly getting back to the new normal. We are all still excited for this year and to make Primary 6 the best year yet.

Thank you from all of Primary 6.

Primary 3/4 January Reflection

Primary 3/4 returned to the school after the Christmas holidays very excited to start their new topic Antarctica. At the start some of the children got confused with the North and South Pole including Penguins and Polar Bears, but we got there in the end.

During maths Primary 3/4 remembered a lot about 2D and 3D shapes. We are still working on Money and playing with fake money and shops have really helped reinforce the importance and value of money.

All the children enjoyed listening to the story of ‘The Epiphany’ and discussed this special feast day of The Three Kings bearing gifts. The Primary 3/4 have started work on their booklets and preparation for Fist Holy Communion and Reconciliation. The children are very excited to be making these sacraments.

In science we have been working with Mrs Le Blond on global warming. This has been very exciting as we carried out an experiment looking at ice melting and the raise in water. We only have one plant and we really need to start looking after it.

February will start with our first Friday mass which we have been working really hard on.

Merry Christmas from Primary 3/4

Wow what another quick month this has been. We have all been very busy and hope you all enjoyed the Nativity. Primary 3/4 have had so much fun over December, we have been learning all about Advent and getting ready for our Christmas party.

Primary 3/4 and Miss Verrecchia are looking forward to 2020. We would like to wish everyone a very Happy and Holy Christmas and New Year.

Primary 3/4 October Reflection

Wow what a busy October we have had in Primary 3/4. In maths we have continued to work on subtraction and working on a variety of different tasks to help us. We are also looking at multiplication with Miss McCluskey. We are already really good with our 2, 5 and 10 times table.

In literacy we have been busy doing lots of reading. We loved our visit to our local library. We have been working hard on story writing from reports, recount, and even Halloween acrostic poems.

Within PE we are still working with Greig in musical theatre, for Halloween he taught us a scary dance. We have been given the wonderful opportunity to work with Hazel, who is not just a GB champion but she’s a World champion for Taekwondo. She has been showing us moves and helping us learn all about it. We are loving learning from an expert.

This month we have loved going out on our Autum walks, making Autum Wreaths with the leaves we had collected. We have also been busy craving our own pumpkins.  With the other pumpkins we decided to make pumpkin soup. The Halloween disco was so much fun, we got to dance and play games.

We now can’t wait till Christmas but for now we must work on our Nativity, and all the other exciting things that Miss Verrecchia has planned.

P3/4 Reflection

In Primary 3/4 we have been very busy this September. We have been learning lots and been having lots of fun.

In maths we have been learning lots more about addition and now subtraction. Active maths has helped with the sums we find a little bit more difficult.

We all have successfully completed our first report writing piece. It was very ingesting to learn about report writing. We have all created our own report on Mummification, which we hope you will enjoy reading during parents night.

In PE we are coming to the end of Gymnastics, however we are loving musical theatre with Greig. We are in the middle of a dance routine to the Lion King which looks amazing already.

We have now started Roots of Empathy in our class. During this we have a real baby come to visit us with Mrs Le Blond, we get to learn so much from the baby.

October will be another very busy month for us all and Miss Verrecchia has a lot planned with Halloween art etc.

Thank you  for reading.

From Primary 3/4

Primary 3/4

We have all settled into Primary 3/4 really well and are now getting used to our new routines.

We are all very excited about our new topic this term, The Ancient Egyptians. Already we have been researching the pyramids and even built our own 3D pyramid. We loved recreating and designing our own death masks which are displayed on our topic wall.

In literacy we have been revising our phonemes and common words. The reading tent and blow up doughnut has been so much fun, it helps us with our reading.

In maths we have been working hard on revision with place value and addition. The line up game is really helping reinforce this, plus we get to win prizes.

We are all working really hard and excited for what this year is going to bring as Miss Verrecchia has a lot of things planned for us all.

Reflective Friday Primary 3

This month has been very busy for Primary 3.

We really enjoyed Global Play Day and had a great time using our imagination and sharing with our peers.

This month we have said goodbye to Mrs Gardener but we have welcomed Miss Shreenan into our class. Miss Shreenan will be in our class for 6 weeks and we are really enjoying our lessons so far with her.

This month we have been introduced to Developing The Young Workforce programme, where we had to discuss the definition of Aspiration and share our aspiration. We really enjoyed writing about what we would like to be when we grow up.

In numeracy we have been learning more about multiplications and data handling.

In writing we have been working a lot on Acrostic Poems and now working on report writing.

In ICT we can now send, receive and reply back to emails. We have successfully signed into glow and can assess our emails. Next months we are looking at sending attachments and even creating power points.

In our topic Minibeasts, we have been learning more about life cycles and their habitats.

In This Is Our Faith we are preparing for our First Friday mass. This will be our first school mass with the new priest Father Brown, we are excited that our class will be the first to celebrate with Farther Brown.

This month we were learning about Chinese New Year , which is the year of the Pig. We did a lot of research on the history of Chinese New Year and took part in a lot of Art.

We are looking forward to this month a head as it will be another busy month for Primary 3, we have Fair-trade fortnight, World Book Day, Lent and Science week, just to name a few.