November has been a very busy time for us in Primary 2. We have been learning lots and having so much fun.

Within Literacy, we have continued to work on new sounds and common words using a variety of tasks. We enjoy listening to stories which contain words with our phoneme, then trying to work out which words contain the sound. We also love using our magnetic boards and building our own words. Mrs Simpson tells us that we are super spellers!

In Writing, we are learning to be very independent. We plan our own stories (making sure they contain the important parts like who, what, where, when and why). We then try to use our ideas, plus the common words we have learned, to help us build our stories. Here are some of our Star Writers in November. Mrs Simpson is so proud of them all!

In Maths we have all been working together on Measure. We enjoyed learning about length and had great fun comparing the lengths of different flowers then putting them into the correct order from shortest to longest. Our Cubes group have worked so well on numbers to 20 and have revised addition to 10. The Counters group have been busy working on numbers to 100. Our next job is to start adding to 20. We are very excited!

This is a very special month when we remember all the people who have died. It is called the Month of the Holy Souls. In class we have been learning the ‘Eternal Rest’ prayer and saying it for all our loved ones. We have been praying that they are with God in heaven. On Remembrance Day we also paid tribute to the brave men and women who lost their lives during war. We made amazing pictures of poppy fields to mark the day. Mrs Simpson said we are little artists!

We have also started working on our school Nativity show alongside p1 and p3. We have learned our lines very well and we are amazing at singing our Nativity songs. We have been practising in the hall almost every day. We must remember to keep practising at home too, and hand in our outfits if we haven’t already done so.

This month we celebrated Bonfire Night. We learned how to keep safe when using fireworks. We also went on a bonfire word hunt in the classroom. Our favourite part of the day was making Rocket Fruit Kebabs. They were healthy and delicious.

This month we also celebrated Book Week Scotland. During the week, we had fantastic helpers from p7 come and read some stories with us. We also all received a special gift; a bag full of exciting books to read at home. We are so lucky!

On the last day of November we learned all about St. Andrew. We made stained glass window pictures in class. Later in the day we had a Scottish celebration with shortbread, Singing Kettle and stories about the Loch Ness Monster. We wore tartan too. We all looked so fancy!

We are looking forward to the fun month ahead in Primary 2. Don’t forget to check Twitter to keep up with what’s happening in our class.

The boys and girls in Primary 1 have been very busy learners in the month of November. Here are some of our highlights.

In Literacy we have been learning more alphabet sounds and we now know an amazing 15 sounds! We are using our magnetic boards and letters to help us to build our words. Using the 5 finger approach, we say/make/break/read and write our words. Here we are being independent learnings during our literacy tasks.

Primary 1 children love to read! We were really excited to bring back our classroom library and have had so much fun exploring the different genres and authors. Some of our children have learned to read independently and can blend the sounds to read words. What successful learners! We are using our stepping stones to help us to look at the first letter in a word and other special tricks to make reading easier.

For Book Week Scotland our buddies came to read to us. We really enjoyed listening to different stories and having fun with our friends from upstairs.

In Primary 1 we can now read, write and count the numbers to 10. We have been learning lots of new strategies during our numeracy time that help us to add our numbers and we love to use all of our concrete materials to help us with this. Adding is so much fun! We like to play number games and beat the teacher. We have been learning more about shapes and measuring too.

We love music and dancing in Primary 1. Our friend from Primary 7 came to play his instrument and we had a concert. We were so delighted to learn more about the accordion and listen to the wonderful music. Thank you!

On Remembrance Day we took part in lots of activities that helped us to learn more about Poppy Scotland. We made poppy crafts and prayed for the people that fought in war. We also prayed for the holy souls and our loved ones who are no longer with us.

We know how to be safe in Primary 1. We learned all about firework and bonfire safety when it was Guy Fawkes. We learned the story of Guy Fawkes and created our own firework pictures.

Here we are celebrating the feast of St Andrew. We wore tartan and Scottish clothing to school. We learned all about our Patron Saint and had lots of fun eating shortbread and dancing to ceilidh music.

As it is now Winter we have been investigating the changes that happen to our environment during this season. We went on a Winter walk with our friends and spotted lots of signs of Winter.

We have been working really hard to prepare for our Nativity show ‘Wriggly Nativity’ with our friends in Primary 2 and 3. Primary 1 have all been given a role to play and we are really looking forward to our show being posted on the Holy Family Youtube channel. Our singing and dancing is amazing!

December is going to be a very exciting month for us and we can’t wait for all of the festivities. Look out for our photographs on Twitter!

Primary 5/6 have had another successful month during November.

We have been working extremely hard in maths developing our multiplication and division skills. We have been learning new strategies and problem-solving skills to solve our  sums. Through our consistent hard work during maths, we are now recognising the correlation between multiplication and division which aids our understanding of these numeracy topics even deeper, and as such, strengthens our skills.

We do a range of active maths exercises to supplement our learning such as Daily 10, multiplication and division bingo, Number Talks, and some others.

 

We have been showing great progress in literacy. We have been reading our literacy novels, ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. We have been applying our reading strategies throughout our novels, enabling us to gain a greater understanding of the texts. We have also been practising our oral skills by reading to our groups, in pairs, or to our self. We have also been enjoying watching chunks of both movie adaptions once we successfully complete our tasks.

Furthermore, we are enjoying learning our new spelling words each week. We work hard at learning our new phoneme of the week, spelling rule or common words.

 

We have been successful learners during our topic time. This month we explored interesting facts about capital cities. We played a Kahoot quiz during ICT time to assess our knowledge and later in the week, had another quiz where we had to press the buzzer to answer the capital city question. We then moved onto investigating foods from around the world and enjoyed tasting French cuisine by munching on crepes, macaroons, and croissants, whilst making our own menus.

 

We have been confident individuals during PE. We have been practising our striking and fielding skills on a Wednesday when we play Handball.

 

We have also been responsible citizens by making Christmas crafts to sell to the school on Wednesday, December 1^st to raise money for Mary’s Meals.

 

 

We are so sorry you haven’t had an update from P4 for a while now. The good thing in, there’s lots of news to share with you!

We started the year harvesting fruit and vegetables from the school grounds. The children absolutely loved this experience and trying all the different flavours; some of them for the very first time!

In RE, we learned about how Liturgical Colours are different depending on the time of year in the Christian calendar. We worked in groups to create decoupage vestments to be displayed.

 

In PE, we have been working on our ball skills. We’ve used footballs for passing, dribbling and shooting using our feet; basketballs for passing, dribbling and shooting using our hands; and tennis balls for bouncing and returning shots.

We have been studying The Victorians and learning all about Queen Victoria’s reign. What do you think of our Victorian portraits?

As an extra project, the pupils in P4 are helping Mrs Cooney sort the library. They have had some great ideas about how to improve the area and have been a great help gathering and sorting some of the books.

During Maths Week Scotland, we looked at 2D shape and tiling. Look at all these happy faces doing active maths:

(some of their ideas for the library)

 

HHelping to sort the library and also using it to do some independent reading.

During October, P4 learned about the Mysteries of the Rosary. Here is some super artwork showing the Joyful Mysteries:

 

Some of our FANTASTIC readers from the past few weeks:

 

As part of our Eco work on Climate Change, we took part in a live lesson involving schools from all over North Lanarkshire. We watched and responded to presentations by NL Youth Climate Ambassadors about Travel and one from Stuart Naismith from Gartcosh PS all about renewable energy.

Look out for a letter from your child very soon!

 

Of course, there was also Hallowe’en! Everyone came in dressed up in weird and wonderful outfits! Even Mrs Cooney was dressed as Cinderella – but after making messy donut-and-pretzel spiders, she felt a lot more like Cinders BEFORE she had met her Fairy Godmother!

We bowled a pumpkin at some toilet rolls and we did a spooky parade. I will also send everyone their very own Hallowe’en portrait – check your emails, P4!

 

It won’t be long before I’m updating you all about the Christmas activities we’ll be getting up to!

Here is the link to tonight’s Parent Council Meeting….

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85098589089?pwd=bG9xZkU4Nm9mNW90TDBVSGo2RXFtdz09

 

Meeting ID: 850 9858 9089
Passcode: 6U7CER

This will take place at 6.30 pm. Please help support your child’s school by joining.

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.