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.

We have been working on getting back into good routines after a long and exciting holiday. Important routines are

• Bringing our diaries to school so we can add our spelling list
• Bringing our homework jotter back when it is finished
• Remembering our reading book every day
• Remembering our P.E. kit on a Tuesday and a Friday.

In Numeracy, we have been finishing Subtraction, using different strategies. Most children like to use Chimney Sums but we will still practice other strategies like using number lines or counting on/back.

We have moved onto Multiplication. We have been using arrays to help us to visualise. We know that the 4Times Table is double the 2 Times Table and the 8 Times Table is double the 4 Times Table. Since we are good at doubles, this is handy to know. We are being very successful at Stations on a Wednesday where we go round the class doing different activities. We need to take care of our resources , like dice or counters, so that we can use them again.

Literacy

We have been working on non-fiction texts and developing our note taking skills. We all worked really hard at note taking about Neil Armstrong from a video. Everyone managed to take down some facts. We will be using our notes to build up interesting factfiles on Space for Mrs Celino to judge. There will be prizes for the 3 winners!

We were really working on Talking and Listening before Christmas with lots of activities where we followed instructions to complete artwork. This was very challenging but fun.

We continue to follow our spelling programmes, with weekly homework to support our learning in class. We do a variety of different activities such as dictation or filling out phoneme charts. Practising regularly helps us to be better spellers.

We are working on planning narrative pieces of writing. We are taking care to include good punctuation, interesting vocabulary, paragraphs and good spelling in our work.

R.E.

A majority of the children have begun their First Communion preparation. We have started early to allow for any weeks where we get side tracked by other activities. We are going to go on a retreat to Holy Family church, where we will act out the Last Supper. This will be a lovely day with lots of art and drama activities. The other children have been learning about Islam and looking at Mosques from around the world.

Topic

We are doing a science based topic this term. We started with magnets and will move on to electricity and forces. It has been fun to look at magnets and see what they can do.

P.E.

We are learning about badminton and how to make sure that we properly warm up so that we don’t do damage to our bodies.

Health and Wellbeing

We need to continue to work on friendships and how to be a good friend to others. This is ongoing in primary 4 as we are getting a bit more grown up so we will work on sorting little disagreements out on our own. We should always ask ourselves-

Do I need help from a grown up or can I sort this myself.

ICT

We have been working with Mrs Le Blond and we will soon move on to coding with a specialist.

This month we have been working very hard in all of our curricular areas!

Maths 

This month we have been working on our division skills and exploring the links division has with multiplication. All pupils are definitely improving their times table knowledge  but I would encourage pupils to  continue to be practise them at home too if possible.  Some pupils have been working with Mrs Anderson in P7a exploring negative numbers which they are excelling at so well done!

We have just moved on to our money handling topic and already the pupils are loving it! We have opened up a little pretend shop in the classroom to use during active maths which is working really well and causing lots of excitement which is lovely to see. Pupils have also started a new class economy rewards system involving earning money, paying rent for jotters, paying fines for specific things and buying rewards of their choice!  They are very excited about this and are learning some important life skills along the way!

Literacy

This month, we are continuing to practice our common spelling words and apply our spelling strategies to help us. We are exploring different areas of active literacy skills and using these to help us understand our new novel ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ on a deeper level. This month we have also been analysing the features of newspaper reports, specifically newspaper reports of World War 2 which is our  class topic  this term. Pupils will be writing their own newspaper report this week to demonstrate their new skills.

Topic

Our topic this term is World War Two, so we have been exploring lots of materials to help us further our knowledge. Pupils have enjoyed learning about the role of Scotland within the war as well as important events along the WW2 timeline. We have been creating some Blitz paintings and listening to some important radio announcements from the outbreak of WW2 too!

RE

This month we have been focusing on Jesus and the way he lived his life and the choices he made. We have reflected as a class on some of the choices we have made in our lives and the choices we make on a daily basis, thinking of ways we can improve these to live more like Jesus by striving to always make good choices.

It is nearing a very special time for Primary 7 this term as we prepare for their Confirmation in April. This week we began our Confirmation workbooks and children will be asked to complete home session 1 for next week. We have had some lovely discussions in class already about choosing a Saint’s name as part of their sacrament. As a class, we will be completing some research into different saints over the next few weeks to help them decide on their confirmation names and pupils will be encouraged to discuss and explore their decisions at home too. We are looking forward to this special time together.

PE

This month we began netball lessons during PE which all pupils thoroughly enjoy and are keen to take part in which is excellent. We recently came second place at a school tournament with our P5-7 netball team so I’m sure we will have some new additions to the team shortly!

Science

This term we continuing to promote recycling and prevent plastic pollution in line with Laudato Si. To encourage staff and pupils within the school, we are creating a mural display for our Laudato Si wall in the school hall. To create this we are using recycled plastic bottle tops!

Therefore, I would like to encourage you to try and save as many as you can at home for pupils to bring in and use for our mural display! They can be any size and colour, we appreciate all of your support. When completed, there will be pictures shared on the school Twitter account so keep your eyes peeled!

A very positive start to the year for Primary 7B! Well done everyone.

Maths

We have been working hard in numeracy this month. We completed our multiplication unit and did well in our end of unit assessment. We then moved onto division where we have investigated different strategies to solve our division problems and explored the inverse relationship between multiplication and division. It is important that pupils have a strong grasp on their times tables so the more practise at home, the better. This knowledge of the times tables will serve useful for their school journey. We have also began working on beyond number topics on a Friday morning, currently focusing on measurement.

Literacy

 We are continuing to practise applying our spelling strategies and some of us are strong at independently applying our strategies. We have been working extremely hard at being able to identify the reading comprehension strategies and applying them in our written tasks with the appropriate scaffolding. We have been working on newspaper reports in our writing lessons, linking these back to our Romans topic.

RE

We have explored Creation in RE. We initially explored the Creation story and recounted this story by creating our very own comic strips. We then moved onto exploring care for our planet, linking our discussions and activities to Laudato Si. We have created fat balls for birds and investigated animal habitats.

Topic

We have been exploring the Romans in our IDL topic. So far, we have discovered how Rome was founded, explored different societal roles within the ancient time as well as explored the design and function of the Colosseum. We are excited to start building a 3D replica of the Colosseum in our groups.

Health and Wellbeing

We have been practising our badminton skills during PE. We have been working on our serve as well as some of the main shots. In Health and Wellbeing, we explored the impact of physical activity on the human body.

Primary 1 January Update

Happy New Year from Primary 1! We have settled back into our school routine and have been thinking about our new year targets and resolutions. With our friends we are continuing to learn to co-operate with others, listen carefully and take turns,

Literacy

In Literacy we have continued to learn our alphabet sounds. We have almost learned the whole alphabet and our next step will be phoneme letter sounds (eg ng, sh, ch) to help us to read and write with even more confidence. We work so hard during our school day to learn our sounds and take part in games and daily challenges, sometimes even beat the teacher!

We are continuing to build our classroom word wall with the common words that we have learned so far in Primary 1. In class we read, write, make our words every day from magnetic letters and other materials. At home we should continue to learn our words and practise them every night.

We are learning how to write short, independent sentences. When we write independently, we are being encouraged to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. Some of our class can write a sentence and include a joining word (and, so, but). Fantastic work Primary 1!

In class we enjoy listening to and reading stories and talking about what we have read with our friends. This term our target it to ask some questions about the stories we hear and to learn more about sharing our thoughts and opinions with our classmates and teachers.

Numeracy

Primary 1 love learning about numbers, and we have been extending our number knowledge by learning all about teen numbers. We are learning how to read, write and count numbers to 20. Some of us are confident in reading number names and this is something we are continuing to work on. We are becoming very quick at reciting our number stories up to 10 and can add numbers in our heads from 0-10. This term we are going to be learning more about subtraction and will be able to subtract from 5 and then 10.

In addition to our number work we are going to be learning all about Money and this is something that we can practise at home with our families. We want to learn how to recognise coins up to 20p and be able to add small amounts of coins to buy from our class shop.

Interdisciplinary Learning

Our class learned all about Robert Burns this month. We liked hearing the funny Scots language and we thought it was very funny that Mr Creilly uses lots of these words at school! We had so much fun learning our Scottish Song ‘Oh you cannae shove your granny off the bus’ and we performed this at our Burns Assembly. The whole school performed for each other, we clapped and sang along. It was brilliant!

Our topic for this term is Under the Sea. We began our topic by talking about the things that we already know about under the sea, then we made a plan together about the things we would like to do or find out about. The children really wanted to learn about sharks. We were looking forward to showing our families our shark hats that we made this week! Over the coming weeks we are going to learn lots of interesting facts about sea creatures and life under the sea.

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.

In January we came back to school after our Winter break and we were so excited to see our friends and catch up with all our news. We have now settled back into our class routine and achieved lots this month.

Within Maths we have continued to work on number. We have learned lots of new strategies to help us add within 20 such as doubles, near doubles and friendly numbers. We really enjoyed adding 3 digits together and made Mrs Simpson very proud with our hard work. We love Number Talks in class and have enjoyed learning the hand signals we use when we discuss strategies during this part of our maths lessons. We like to try to solve problems mentally and help each other lots by discussing ways that may help others. We began completing Chilli Challenges this month and we love to solve problems and share how we got our answers. We will work on Subtraction and Measure in February.

Within Literacy we have continued to work on our weekly sounds and common words. We completed an assessment and will bring home a list of sounds/words that we should spend time working on with an adult, in order to help us to become successful learners.

In Writing we began learning about writing instructions. We thought about where we have seen instructions, and why we need them. We then made jam sandwiches and created instructions on how to make a jam sandwich.

We have been working hard on our talking and listening skills this month, and trying to remember not to interrupt when others are speaking. We have been practising how to be good listeners by working in pairs and groups to complete tasks. We have also been super listeners as we explore our very first class novel ‘The Twits’. We love this exciting story, and enjoy letting our imaginations roam as we listen.

In P.E we have been learning about Gymnastics. We have discovered lots of new body shapes and ways to move our bodies. We have enjoyed working with the mats in our gym hall and have begun to link actions and skills together in a routine.

In R.E. our new topic is New Birth. We spent time thinking about the nativity story and Mary’s hard journey to Bethlehem. We then thought about new babies and how we prepare for a new baby. We had fun playing Baby Bingo where we learned about all the things we need to look after a baby.

Our new topic is Spain. We have created a fact file about things we learned about the country and will shortly be learning about the weather, Spanish landmarks and some very famous Spanish people.

Last week we celebrated Burns Day at school. We learned so much about the Scottish poet Robert Burns and we also tasted shortbread and some yummy Irn Bru. We loved learning the song ‘Three Craws’ and had a ball performing our song in front of the rest of the school at assembly. Mrs Simpson thought we were brilliant and we earned a ‘Beat the Teacher’ point which meant we got some extra time at the park.

To celebrate Chinese New Year we read a fantastic story called ‘Dragons in the City’. We learned about all the things people do during this special time. We watched a Chinese New Year dragon parade then created our own Chinese dragons.

We can’t wait for February and all the exciting learning opportunities we will have. Please keep checking Twitter for all our class photos and updates.

See the following link for information about the Healthy Sleep Habits for Children workshop. This is a virtual workshop on the 23rd February.

Sleep workshop parents morning Feb 2023 leaflet

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.

We had a very busy month in Primary 2. We finished October by learning about Halloween. We enjoyed reading Halloween stories such as ‘Room on the Broom’ and ‘Funny Bones’. We also had Halloween purposeful play where we completed lots of spooky challenges such as building a Lego haunted house.

In Literacy, we have continued to learn new common words and sounds. We have been practising our reading and have learned how to complete lots of associated tasks. Mrs Simpson loves when we practise our reading books every night as this help us to develop our fluency and accuracy. In November we read the story ‘Sneezy the Snowman’. We wrote our own stories about Sneezy, designed some new clothes for him, then made our own Sneezy the Snowman biscuits.

In Maths, we finished working on numbers to 100 and began to focus on addition within 20. It helps us to explore new strategies using a variety of resources such as ten frames, cubes and pegs on hangers.

In R.E. we have been learning about the story of the very first Christmas. We enjoyed showing what we have learned as narrators in our infant Nativity show ‘A Wriggly Nativity’. We hope that you enjoyed our performance as much as we did. We have also learned about Advent and how special this time is. We made Advent promises and learned about the Advent wreath.

During P.E this month we have spent time learning dance with a focus on social dancing. We enjoyed learning the ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ and ‘The Hokey Cokey’ among other dances, and can’t wait to show off our new skills at our Christmas party.

This month we learned about St. Andrew, our patron saint. We made beautiful stained glass window pictures to celebrate his special day.

We loved ‘Book Week Scotland’ in Holy Family. It was fun bringing our teddies and books to school and we enjoyed the variety of activities we participated in. We particularly enjoyed visiting the library and our friends in P5/6 so they could read to us. Thank you Mrs Cook and P5/6!

In December our highlights so far have been our Christmas lunch and our trip to Motherwell Civic Centre to see Cinderella. Please see Twitter for all our photos.