Within Literacy, Fantastic Foxes have just finished reading Dinosaur Trouble by Dick King-Smith which we really enjoyed and wrote up book reviews about what we enjoyed about the book. We have now started our new book Why the Whales Came by Michael Morpurgo and have started looking at prior knowledge and making predictions about the book so far. Marvellous Matilda’s have been coming to an end with A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll and have enjoyed this book learning about the different themes coming through the book and looking at each reading strategy throughout the weeks. We have also produced great writing this month, one in particular, writing to persuade to vote for their Circular Economy group within their topic work. Great persuasive language was used and they shared their reasons why you should vote for their group over others within the class which they all really enjoyed.

Numeracy

In Numeracy, we have been working on Division, Measurement, Properties of 2D and 3D shapes and now moving onto our new topic of Money. The children have been continuing to work on their mental agility and have been competing in a range of mental maths games within our maths lessons, as well as using our new mental maths strategy board cards to create questions with a partner and answer the questions using a range of strategies to help solve each question. We have enjoyed learning about measure, length, mass, and calculating the area and perimeter.

Religious Education

This month our class focus has been based on Lent and looking at ways that we can get closer to God, through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. As well as attending Mass within the parish each Monday and Wednesday at 8:30am throughout the period of Lent.

Other Curricular Areas

Primary 6 have came to an end with our Circular Economy topic, which we all enjoyed being able to work in small groups with having specific job roles and creating and designing a product/service that fits into the circular economy business plan model. We have now moved onto another topic based on Crime Scene Investigation, which we have been enjoying the STEM based activities and discussions throughout each lesson.

Within Physical Education, we have moved onto our new topic of Badminton, learning racket skills, accuracy and aim, footwork, serve, rally and attack, as well as defending techniques. We have been enjoying these lessons and being able to get back outdoors after our time indoors with our last topic of Gymnastics, which was also a success.

STEM Club

Huge Congratulations to all children that participated in the Microbit Club. The children really enjoyed these sessions and engaged really well within each session. The children are now looking to get other teachers involved in Microbit and to introduce these throughout our STEM lessons within the class to allow the pupils that engaged within the after school club to help teach through pupil-led learning and to share our knowledge and understanding about coding.

Just a reminder for homework which will be handed out weekly on a Monday and should be brought back in on a Friday. Our PE days are both Wednesday and Thursday afternoons and children should come to school in full uniform and get changed for PE.

Thank you and have a great month of February everyone!

Mr Rice and Primary 6

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Primary 7/6 February Update

March 6, 2024 Miss Gallagher Leave a comment

Can we please ensure homework is getting completed each week and pupils have brought in their reading novels with them each day to help them with their read to write tasks. Homework is uploaded each week, both on the website as well as our Primary 7/6 Teams Page. Any issues gaining access to the homework, please do let me know 🙂

Numeracy:

In numeracy, we explored all things time, looking both into converting 12 and 24 hour time as well other practical aspects such as looking at timetables, which will serve Primary 7 well as they enter secondary school. Primary 7/6 also worked on their division skills and looked at different strategies to solve division problems such as the written method, proportional reasoning and the grid method. The pupils have became more confident with their division skills and can see the relationship this operation has with multiplication.

Literacy:

Primary 7 completed their block of reading Dividing City where they explored themes of friendship and sectarianism. This booked tied in well with their partnership work with Mossend Primary School and the charity Nil by Mouth where the pupils got the opportunity to participate in workshops exploring these themes. They will now be moving onto their new novel, Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider: Stormbreaker. Similarly Primary 6 have completed their block of reading The Borrowers where they have further developed their reading comprehension strategies. They will now be moving onto The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf where they will explore themes of friendship and adventure.

Primary 7/6 are focusing on discursive essays this term. In February, the pupils produced an excellent discursive essay linking in with their sectarianism work where we had three star writers! Following this essay, the pupils were given the opportunity to select their own topic idea. This was a great opportunity for the pupils to take more ownership over their work and produced a range of interesting and topical discursive essays. Examples of these essays were the purpose of VAR in professional football matches, the opportunities and consequences of children using technology and the possibility of alien life form.

IDL:

We have completed our Circular Economy Challenge topic where the pupils collaboratively worked in groups to generate a sustainable business idea. The groups brain stormed ideas, conducted market research and created sales pitches. One group, Refillable Ink, was shortlisted to compete against a group from Primary 6 to go through to the Dragon’s Den style showcase in March. Our group, Refillable Ink were lucky enough to have been selected to go through to represent our school this month.

RE:

In religious education, we explored prayer & decision making where we analysed prayers and their meanings behind these. The pupils also reflected on times of prayer such as when seeking God’s advice or guidance.

Other Curricular Area:

Congratulations to the netball team from Primary 7 and 6 who competed at North Lanarkshire’s Active School’s Netball Tournament last month. The team performed extremely well together! Well done team!

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March 5, 2024 Ms Preston Leave a comment

Primary 5 February Update

Primary 5 have had another busy month in class with lots of fun learning activities. As a nice treat for all their hard work in class they celebrated Pancake Day and Valentine’s Day with a pancake and hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. Below describes just some of the learning they have experience over the last month.

Maths and Numeracy

The children have been continuing to work on their mental agility and have been putting this to practise by competing in a variety of mental maths games. They really enjoy this, and it encourages them to quickly apply many of the strategies that they have been learning through Number Talks. They have also been learning how to measure, length, mass and capacity and are able to calculate perimeter and area. They measured the length of the corridor and various items within school. Having explored weights of varying grams and kilograms, they could combine a variety of sizes to make various amounts. They are learning to convert between various units of measurement. In addition to measurement, with Miss Cairney the children have been learning to gather and analyse data. They put their skills to use by surveying every class in the school in order to gather information to use in their Enterprise initiative.

Literacy

The Blue Group have now finished reading The Worst Witch and have used a variety of reading strategies to help them understand the story. They are looking forward to starting a new novel ‘The Queen’s Nose.’ Please provide time for children to read this aloud at home as this will help with their fluency. It is also a great idea to have the children summarise verbally (in their own words) what they have read as this helps to clarify their understanding.

The children in the Red Group are reading The Demon Headmaster and most are reading fluently and with expression. They are developing their comprehension skills and demonstrating this in their writing. You can help them with this by asking them to make sure they answer in full sentences when discussing their homework.

The Yellow Group are making good progress and are enjoying the range of novels that they are reading.

Children have produced some excellent writing this month, they have been exploring the genres of Instructions and Persuasive. They have utilised the knowledge and skills gained by completing a series of science experiments such as The Gummy Bear Experiment, the Lava Lamp and the Walking Water Experiment. They have explored the genre features specific to each and they’re able to write instructions that would help others to carry out these experiments. The children also wrote persuasive letters to Mrs Harley and our local supermarkets looking for their support for our upcoming Enterprise project. Needless to say, the persuasive language used was enough to convince our target audience to comply with our requests and Morrisons kindly donated a supply of diluting juice.

Religious Education

This month our class focus has been on Lent and reminding ourselves of ways that we can get closer to God through, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Many of the children have attended mass during Lent. The children have also been learning about Blessed Mother Theresa and her work with the poor and dying. They have also begun to learn the Stations of the Cross and the responses to this.

OTHER CURRICULAR AREAS

Enterprise – our topic has been learning about our skills and qualities and considering what we would like to do as we grow up. We had a workshop delivered by Social Schools Enterprise that encouraged us to think about the ways that we can use our knowledge, skills and experience to make a difference in our world. We learned all about ‘social’ enterprise and giving back to our community. As a class we considered many enterprising projects that we could deliver to raise money for our chosen charity, and we look forward to managing and implementing our business idea after Easter.

Science/STEM – the children all expressed that they were looking forward to doing lots of science and STEM this term so we have been completing a variety of experiments which the children have been enjoying. They have been exploring Osmosis, Capillary Action and Density and are now learning about Newtons Laws of Motion. We look forward to sharing some of this learning when you visit during Science Week.

PE/HWB – We have now concluded our hockey sessions in PE and I was extremely impressed with the skills and progress made by many of the children. They were able to demonstrate safe use of the equipment, can hold the hockey stick correctly and can pass and stop the ball accurately. We have now moved on to Gymnastics and the children are learning how to move, balance and perform a variety of shapes safely on various apparatus. In HWB we continue to talk about Respect for ourselves and others and how we should consider or words and actions and the impact they can have. We will continue to explore this as we look at Emotions and behaviours, triggers, and responses.