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.

To find out what the Parent Council discussed at their last meeting,  have a look under the Parent Council tab.

Our exciting upcoming event (links are to different formats with the same info):

Holy Family Christmas Coffee Morning 2022

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Please let us know if you can come along using the form below.

https://forms.office.com/r/UuLzgJpnBQ

Prayer Breakfast 2022

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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Online safety is a huge issue and the NSPCC has lots of really useful, practical advice about how to keep your children safe online. This link explains how to set parental controls on various devices you have at home.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/parental-controls/

Primary 7b have been working very hard during the month of October!

In literacy we have been using our spelling strategies and active spelling activities to help us practise our spelling words each week. We have been learning more about areas of grammar and how to improve our persuasive writing skills too.

Linking to our class topic of Sectarianism and Discrimination we have been reading the novel ‘Divided City’ and working together with Primary 7a to complete a variety of workshops and tasks, deepening our understanding of these themes. This term we will begin a mini topic of Scottish Democracy which the children are very much looking forward to.

In maths, we have been consolidating our knowledge of place value through lots of active maths and games. The children have loved being able to get practical with tools in maths and this really seems to help them progress further too. We have also been learning about the properties of 2D and 3D shape with Mrs Gilfedder on Thursdays. We are now moving onto multiplication and every child has been encouraged to practise their times tables as often as they can to help them achieve success.

We have been exploring a topic of healthy eating within health and well-being too. The pupils have loved researching important foods, vitamins and minerals our bodies need to function and have used a variety of materials, including painting watercolour fruits, to create a display wall which looks beautiful.

In PE, we have had some visits from Cardinal Newman High School and their young leaders who have been teaching both Primary 7 classes lots of skills. These sessions will continue in November as well.

In RE, we have been learning about Saint Bernadette and the mysteries of the Holy Rosary throughout October. Today we also had our First Friday Mass during the week of the Holy Souls and All Saints Day.

Overall, the children of Primary 7b have been working very hard to improve their skills in all areas, I am very proud of them. We have had lots of fun too so please make sure to check out the school’s twitter page to keep up to date with pictures of their learning experiences.

Primary 5 have been working extremely hard learning and successfully applying their reading strategies as well as practising their verbal reading skills. Primary 5 completed their novel, ‘Kaspar Prince of Cats’ by Michael Morpugo. We have now moved onto their new novels, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’. Primary 5 have also been learning and successfully applying their spelling strategies.

In Maths, we have been working very hard learning our addition strategies. We have now moved onto subtraction and will be exploring the linkage between addition and subtraction. We have also been learning a ‘times table of the week’ in conjunction with our number strategies.

During topic time, Primary 5 have been exploring the solar system and have investigated impact craters, constellations and Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. We will explore the solar system further in November.

In PE, we have been playing netball. We have learned the different passes, how to shoot and the different positions.

We have been learning about the life of Jesus during RE recently. In particular, we have looked at Jesus the Healer and Jesus the Teacher.

Primary 5 have been successful learners and Miss Gallagher is very proud.

Please look to our school’s Twitter page to see the great learning.

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.