St Bartholomew's Class Blog

It’s been a busy week in P2/3!

We took part in lots of fun activities during numeracy time to help us with subtraction. The squares groups used the counting bears to help them with their subtraction sums and the circles group used cubes to help them with their subtraction sums using larger amounts.

Later in the week we also had some subtraction stations set up with different interactive games to challenge our subtraction skills further.

On Monday 11^th of November we started off our week learning about the importance of Remembrance day and we showed our respect for all those who have died by taking part in a 2 minute silence in class.

During our emotion works lessons we have been learning about the emotion ‘angry’. This week we explored some regulation strategies that people can use when they are feeling angry. We enjoyed using the fidget toy, drawing a picture of something that makes us happy and writing some positive affirmations. We are confident that we can use some of these strategies when we are feeling angry.

Towards the end of the week we enjoyed catching up with our buddies and visiting the library for some new accelerated reader books as lots of us had a new ZPD level and we were able to choose books at a new level. We love spending time with our buddies and reading with them each week.

Lastly on Friday afternoon we were delighted to perform our class assembly for our parents and carers who were able to come along to watch. We have been learning lots about helping our environment and local community and we were able to share lots of facts and information reading our lines loudly and clearly for everyone to hear. The audience loved our 2 songs about how we can help to save the planet and we hope everyone will try their best to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Another busy week in P4.
We have been spending time reading a fabulous book by Philip Pullman called The Firework Maker’s Daughter and we have been exploring the theme of emotions.
We worked as a team to explore this.

As the Mini Vinnies, we meet regularly and talk about what we can see around us in our community and the wider world. We pray for guidance and act so that we can help others. This week, we spoke at the whole school assembly to inform others about the work of Aid to the Church in Need. Next Wednesday, we are having Red Wednesday, where we will all wear something red and highlight the work of ACN. We will also have a cake sale to raise money for ACN.

At the learning zone outrode our class, we were exploring some of the areas ….. we made a moving truck and some of us were very busy in the tinkering zone where we were working out how a laptop is constructed as we deconstructed it. This is so interesting.
Thank you to everyone who helped with the food bank collection, primary 4 had a lot of food to send off to Miss Duffy and Miss Allington, who’s children will deliver the food. 

Another fab achievement for this girl at her Irish dancing .

As part of our topic on France we have been learning about famous French landmarks. We worked together using the iPads to do some research on the Eiffel Tower and managed to find out lots of fun and interesting facts.

We used this information to create our own fabulous fact files on the Eiffel Tower.

We were lucky enough to have our sports leaders back in today, helping us to develop our Zone ball skills. We focused on teamwork today, making sure that everyone was involved and had a role to play. 15 members of our class will be selected to take part in a friendly competition at St. Ambrose High School next Friday. This will be an excellent opportunity to showcase all the skills we have learned over the past 3 weeks.

We had a great start to our week with these two superstars bringing in their trophies to show us! What an achievement!

These children from P6 came down to read us their Hallowe’en poems. We were thrilled because we have been writing Hallowe’en poems too! We also loved their lamps.

These P5 children also came down to read us their spooky poems! What a clever bunch !
At the end of the week, we had also completed our Hallowe’en Fear poems and we thought they were brilliant. We went to all of the classes in the school to read them our poems. It was a great experience and everyone was very welcoming to us.
Everyone had a great Hallowe’en week!

On Friday, we were commissioned as Mini Vinnies at All Saints Day mass with Father O’Kane. It was a very special day for us. We will have our first Mini Vinnies meeting on Monday and discuss what our first project will be.
Look out for more news and updates next week.

We have enjoyed starting off our new term learning some new concepts in numeracy. The circles group revised 2 digit chimney sums and the squares group used some numicon to help them when learning this new concept.

In P.E we have began learning the sport of Netball. We started off learning some fun drills using the 3 different passes of chest, bounce and shoulder pass in our small groups. We practiced using the bounce and chest pass in short passes to our partners and tried using the shoulder pass as a long pass to our partner when they are further away from us.

Later in the week the circles group began exploring 2 digit addition with carrying. We enjoyed using the cars to drive up our ‘1’ into the tens column.

We helped raise money for our school funds by bringing in £1 and we loved getting to wear our own clothes and have some spooky/crazy hair for the day.

As part of our new topic we have been learning about the 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle ♻️) we joined P1/2 to do some litter picking around our yard. We know how important it is to keep our environment clean and tidy and we spoke about the different recycling bins we can use to help with this too.

Later in the week we then reused some old cardboard to create some beautiful cardboard jewellery. We picked some shapes and designs we would like for our cardboard necklaces and we are looking forward to making some more jewellery pieces next week.

Lastly we have been enjoying using our rosary beads in school to pray a decade of the rosary this month 🙏🏼. We have now made our own rosary beads so to bring home so that we can pray a decade of the rosary at home too 🙏🏼📿

Over the last 2 weeks we have been exploring features of poetry writing. We innovated in order to create our own poems titled ‘The Cat’, using figurative language to make our poems interesting and exciting.

We also made some art work and redrafted our poems to create a fabulous wall display outside our classroom to showcase our learning.

Finally, well done to all of the children who decorated their paper plate with a Halloween theme for our homework. Your designs were spooktacular!

Everyone was delighted to be starting off the new term by learning a new skill – badminton! Over the next few weeks we will be learning new skills and developing stamina through lots of PE activities.

Today, we all helped raise money for school funds by paying £1 for a non uniform day and all came to school with Crazy Spooky hair….our teacher didn’t recognise some of us!

At art this week, we learned how to use marbling inks to make patterned paper. We used this to make a moon backdrop for our silhouette bats. Very spooky!

Our open area is beginning to look a lot like Hallowe’en.

Our class had a lovely time on our spiritual retreat yesterday. We spent the day in St. Bartholomew’s Church hall with Stephanie and Barbara, the organisers, who had lots of lovely activities planned for us. We had a chance to visit the church, do some arts and crafts, learn new songs and take part in some peaceful meditation. It was a lovely relaxing day and we can’t wait for our next retreat day in January!

We were also lucky enough to have some of the Sports Leaders from St. Ambrose take our class for a zone ball session this afternoon. This will help to prepare us for our bench ball competition coming up later this term. We had great fun and learned some new skills.

We cannot believe it is the last day of term! What a fabulous first term we have all had.
Everyone in our class has achieved so much in such a short space of time. We have had fabulous learning experiences and have worked so hard and played so hard too!

Here are a few moments from this week….

We completed our astronauts and put them up outside our class in our learning and playing zone. We also put some of them in the main foyer display area. We think they are out of this world.
Everyone enjoyed looking back on their learning this week. Our Learning Journey jotters were updated and we added some new entries for September. It was amazing to see how far we have come.
Birthday celebrations this week !
After exploring the earth, sun and moon, we made a model to show how the earth spins and how the moon travels around the earth.
We finished off our clay owls this afternoon. They were colourful and bright.
Primary 4 enjoyed listening to this girl telling us all about her holiday on a cruise ship.
In play area, at the Tinkering Table, this team deconstructed a laptop to see what was inside! It was fascinating to see the tiny components that work together.
So you can see what wonderful opportunities we have in P4! After the break, we will be looking forward to more learning adventures in our brilliant class!
Enjoy the break everyone.