🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 3, Week Four
✏️ Literacy & Writing
Our spelling sound this week was ‘tch’. Alongside this, we also explored when to use ‘tch’ and when to use ‘ch’, thinking carefully about short and long vowel sounds. The children became very confident with this and even spotted it independently in words such as witch when reading The Baddies.
Our literacy focus this week was another Julia Donaldson story, The Baddies. We had some excellent discussions about what makes a character good or bad, looking closely at characters’ actions and choices. The children then created character profiles for the witch, the ghost, and the troll, using mind maps to plan and organise their ideas before writing.
For comprehension, we tried a brand-new approach called I’ll Read to You, You Read to Me. Working in pairs, the children took turns reading parts of the script aloud before answering questions together. This supported fluency, confidence, and collaboration, and was really well received by the class.
🔢 Maths
In maths, our focus this week was rounding to the nearest 10 , 100 and 1000. We began with clear teaching input, giving the children time to practise and explain their thinking.
To help remember the rules for rounding, we learned a rounding rhyme with actions:
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“5 to 9, we climb the vine” 🐒
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“0 to 4, we slide to the floor”
These actions really helped the children remember when to round numbers up or down. We also continued our regular mental maths practice on Friday, helping to build speed and confidence.
💻 ICT
During ICT, the children worked on developing their mouse control skills, using a Dragon drop (drag-and-drop) website to practise accuracy and control. We also used ICT time to consolidate our rounding work through interactive games, reinforcing our maths learning in a fun and engaging way.
🌍 Topic – Vikings
Our Vikings learning continued this week with a focus on longships. Building on the drawings we started last week, the children learned about what longships were used for and began labelling the different parts. This helped them understand why longships were so important to Viking life, travel, and exploration.
On Monday, the class took part in a new play project supported by Miss Farmer our play support worker. As part of this project, the children generated their own ideas linked to our Vikings topic, including:
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Building Viking galleys using a range of materials
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Creating snap card games featuring Viking facts
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Designing and performing Viking puppet shows
The children showed fantastic creativity, teamwork, and independence. They also began learning how to assess their work against skills, discussing which skills they were using and how well they felt they had demonstrated them.
🎭 Assembly
This week we attended a whole-school assembly led by Primary 5/6/7, where the class listened respectfully and represented Primary 3/4 brilliantly as part of our school community. The assembly was fantastic – well done to P5/6/7 and Mrs Adamson.
🧘 PE – Teacher Led
This week’s PE session took place in the classroom, where we enjoyed a calming Cosmic Kids Yoga session. The children showed excellent focus, balance, and control, and enjoyed the opportunity to relax and move mindfully together.
🎨 Play & Wider Learning
Our play provision continued to be very busy and creative. Alongside our Viking-themed resources, the children explored woodworking with hammers and nails, built structures using a range of materials, and created Viking ruin-style stones. These were turned into messages, with children writing and sharing rune-inspired messages with one another, linking play, writing, and topic learning beautifully.
Primary 4 also got a chance to head into Lerwick to see the Up Helly As parade on Tuesday and attend an informative session at the Shetland Museum on Vikings, they were then able to share all their new knowledge with the class in our topic session.
