We had a surprise when we came back in from playtime this morning!

There were footprints and we found a fox and a hedgehog with our badger at the bottom of the tree. There was a letter too! They want us to to find a new exciting and enchanting home for them to live in.

So, we set to work using visualisation to come up with ideas of places that our woodland friends could visit.

Next we will have to think about how the characters will think and feel as they enter these new and exciting settings!

We measured the amount of force needed to move our shoes across a table. Then we compared that force with how much force would be needed to move other objects in the classroom.

We are learning how to read the scales on the forcemeter.

Primary 4  are learning to create algorithms using block coding.

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This morning we were able to share our learning with our families and it was lovely to see so many people in class. Our learning linked to our work about the life of Robert Burns and we demonstrated skills of: selecting during research, application during handwriting, listening to and following instructions to complete our craft activity successfully and finally during CSI we were justifying our choices!

Have a great weekend everyone!

We are learning about the life story of Robert Burns and how his life is celebrated at Burns’ Suppers. We have seen people wearing tartan when they celebrate and we have the opportunity to design our own tartans.

The website is interactive Weaver – House of Tartan. On the site you can choose your colours and experiment with the thread count to create a different design. If you create a tartan that you want to copy in school,then p,ease keep a note of the order of the colours and the thread counts. Have fun!

Today we used a balance to measure in Newtons , the force neede to drag a shoe across the table. We will be comparing our results next week!

We have been using empty number lines to help us think about adding and subtracting strategies.

We started our new topic about Forces, thinking about what we already know.

We explored push and pull forces by playing a game from when we were younger- “Row the Boat” and now that we are older we can identify the forces at work.

Then we let gravity do some painting and we were not very impressed with gravity’s skills- all it did was pull the paint towards the ground!!

Homework

Today the class were introduced to the homework sheet for Term 2 which is now in a homework jotter.

Apart from the grid of activities, there are activities on Sumdog and Activelearn, so that you can practise your mental .

A copy of spelling words has been put into the homework jotter too!

This term we are learning about FORCES and how they affect our lives. Here are some ideas for exploring the subject at home.

http://resources.hwb.wales.gov.uk/VTC/identify_forces/eng/Introduction/act1.swf

https://www.everyschool.co.uk/science-key-stage-2-forces.html

https://www.theschoolrun.com/what-is-a-force

Activities for at-home learning about forces:

• Investigate what objects float and sink in the kitchen sink or the bath and find out about Archimedes’ principle.
• Investigate different shapes of paper aeroplanes and which are most effective; discuss why.
• Make a mini-parachute for a teddy. What shape or size is most effective?
• Why not plan a science day out and visit the Science Museum?
• Explore gravity by dropping a selection of objects on the floor – do they always fall? Discuss why.
• Find out about Leonardo Da Vinci’s work with simple machines.

What a busy week it has been and a great start to 2019!

Here we are working in trio groups to find evidence in our shared text which describes the main characters. The text is Roald Dahl ‘s The Twits, so there are lots of cool and yucky descriptions!

We were learning the steps for The Canadian Barn Dance and the Gay Gordons.

We learnt how to use the brush to paint a watercolour wash then…….

added the trees to finish off our stained glass tree pictures.

In ICT we learnt how to insert accents to use with letters when typing French words.

Today we practised Scottish ceilidh dancing with Primary 3 and we were so good that we danced a progressive Canadian Barn Dance where you have to change partners! It was fast and great fun.

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2019!

Today we were learning about the French festival La Fête des Rois  or Epiphany which is celebrated on 6th January. Some presents are received by French children, just as Jesus received his gifts from the three kings ( wise men).  On this special day, French people eat la galette des rois.

Hidden inside the cake are two charms and whoever has a slice with a charm in it becomes king or queen for the day and wears a gold cardboard charm. It is the youngest child who hides under the table and who says the name of the person to receive each slice of galette in turn.

Here is an old artwork from 1774, showing the tradition.