🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 3, Week Four

Literacy

This week we rounded off our Julia Donaldson focus by writing a letter to Julia Donaldson. In our letters, we shared how much we have enjoyed her books, talked about our favourite stories and characters, and even asked her some thoughtful questions. It was lovely to see the children reflect on their learning and express their ideas in a meaningful way.

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 Maths

In maths this week, we revisited column addition and subtraction, building confidence in setting out our work clearly and accurately.

We also created our own Top Trumps cards based on the mix-up animals we designed previously. The children thought carefully about giving fair and reasonable ratings  combining creativity with numeracy skills.

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 Topic – People Who Help Us

This week we finished our learning about medical emergency services and medicine safety. The children developed a better understanding of how medicines should be used safely and who helps us when we are unwell.

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Class Novel

We finished our class novel, The Wild Robot, and enjoyed watching the movie as an end-of-term treat.

To add to the excitement, we took part in an Easter egg hunt around the school and grounds, collecting treats to enjoy while watching the film.

We continued the theme of robots into this week’s play projects and the children created some brilliant models, pictures, drawings and digital  creations.

We also took a class vote for next terms class novel – The Explorer by Katherine Rundell won!

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Wider Life of the School

We ended the term with Big Play, where the children had the opportunity to play across all classrooms with the whole school. It was wonderful to see them interacting with different age groups, building friendships, and showing great behaviour as role models.

They also enjoyed a visit from the P5,6,7 class who were sharing their knowledge their topic with the class including interactive and games and fun.

🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 3, Week Eleven

✏️ Literacy & Writing

Our spelling sound this week was ‘ie’.

Our writing focus was inspired by Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson. The children took part in a fun animal mix-up art activity, where they created their own imaginary animals using parts from different creatures — from giraffe heads to mermaid tails!

They then wrote a detailed fact file about their new animal, including where it lives, what it looks like, what it eats, and whether it has any special powers. It was fantastic to see their creativity and descriptive writing skills develop.

We also explored opinion and reasoning in writing. The children were asked: “Would you rather be your animal or Mrs Teale’s animal?” They had to clearly state their opinion and give reasons to support their answer, developing their ability to justify their thinking.

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🔢 Maths

In maths this week, we focused on consolidating our learning. We:

• Continued practising times tables

• Completed some assessments

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🎭 Assembly Preparation

We performed our Maths Spectacular Assembly today and it all went amazingly well! The children showed fantastic confidence and teamwork, and we are incredibly proud of them.

Throughout the week, we focused on developing key performance skills, including:

• Bringing the performance to life through expression and confidence

• Using props effectively

• Understanding how music enhances performance

• Learning about stage positioning and each person’s role

It was wonderful to see all of their hard work come together. A video link will be sent out so you can enjoy the performance too!

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🏊 Wider Learning

We enjoyed another swimming session this week, with just one week left to go. The children continue to show great enthusiasm and confidence in the water.

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🌍 Topic – People Who Help Us

This week we had several exciting visitors linked to our topic.

We learned about germs and hygiene with a visit from Environmental Health. The children used special Glow Bug handwashing kits to see which areas they had missed when washing their hands, helping them understand the importance of effective handwashing.

We also welcomed paramedics, who spoke about their role and what their job involves. The children asked thoughtful and interesting questions, showing great engagement with the topic.

Our class roadmap display is now up on the wall, showcasing the different emergency services and the important roles they play in helping others.

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🧪 STEM Learning

As part of St Patrick’s Day, we took part in a STEM challenge based on the story How to Catch a Leprechaun.

Working in small groups, the children designed and built their own leprechaun traps, developing skills in:

• Problem-solving

• Teamwork and communication

• Measuring and building

• Creative thinking

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🎨 Play Projects

Our play project this week, led by Miss Farmer, was based on the rainforest, linking to our Monkey Puzzle learning.

The children showed fantastic creativity, building:

• Rainforest homes and habitats

• Digital creations and presentations

• Large construction models

One particularly impressive creation was a forest scene complete with a flowing waterfall. It was wonderful to see the children working collaboratively, using imagination, and applying their learning through play.

🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 3, Week Ten

✏️ Literacy & Writing

Our spelling sound this week was ‘ai’. Our writing was inspired by The Scarecrow’s Wedding by Julia Donaldson. We zoomed in on the crows in the story, imagining what they might have been up to and using adjectives, adverbs, and punctuation to make our writing more descriptive.

We also looked at a non-fiction fact file about scarecrows, learning about the difference between fiction and non-fiction texts.

On Friday we used Play-Doh to explore sentence structure and punctuation in a hands-on way. The children created punctuation marks and used them to build sentences while listening to a short story about a Viking who liked icing, which made the activity both creative and memorable.

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🔢 Maths

In maths we continued developing our understanding of the jump strategy, this time applying it to subtraction. The children practised moving along number lines and explaining their thinking as they solved problems.

We also continued exploring ordinal numbers and introduced fractions, using Play-Doh to model and divide shapes into equal parts. This practical approach helped the children visualise halves and quarters more clearly.

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🌍 Topic – People Who Help Us

Our topic work continued this week with a focus on emergency services. The children learned about how to make a 999 call and took part in role play activities where they practised being both the caller and the call handler. This helped them understand what information is important in an emergency situation.

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🎭 Assembly Preparation

We are nearly ready for our Maths Spectacular Assembly next week. This week we finished creating our props, tried on costumes, and continued rehearsing our lines and drama scenes. The children are working very hard and are excited to perform.

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🐉 Wider Learning

On Friday we had a special visit from the SMUHA Vikings, who were in great voice and brought lots of energy and excitement to the morning. In the afternoon we held our own galley burning ceremony, linking to the local traditions.

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🎨 Play Provision

This week’s play included;

• Large construction play using giant Lego blocks

• Viking-themed play with the galley returning to the classroom

• Creative craft activities where the children made kindness cards and Mother’s Day cards to share with others and take home

These activities encouraged creativity, collaboration, and kindness.

🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 3, Week Nine

✏️ Literacy & Spelling

This week in spelling we focused on the suffix “able.” We continued building our understanding of prefixes and suffixes and how they can change both the structure of a word and its meaning. The children have really enjoyed exploring new vocabulary and thinking carefully about how words are formed.

Our new traffic light spelling system has also been introduced. This allows children to identify words they feel confident with, words they are still practising, and words they want to research further. It has been fantastic to see the children taking ownership of their learning by investigating unfamiliar words and expanding their vocabulary.

In writing, our work was inspired by The Highway Rat by Julia Donaldson. The children wrote news reports about the capture of the Highway Rat, creating exciting alliterative headlines to hook the reader.

We also completed a joint ICT and writing activity, where the children worked in pairs to design comic strips retelling the story in sequence. This task helped develop their understanding of narrative structure while building digital creativity and teamwork skills.

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🔢 Maths

In maths this week we continued developing our understanding of the jump strategy for addition, helping the children strengthen their confidence when solving addition problems using number lines and mental strategies.

We also consolidated our understanding of odd and even numbers, as well as greater than and less than, reinforcing number sense and comparison skills.

This week we also explored ordinal numbers. To help make this concept practical and engaging, the children held races using wind-up toys, observing which toy came first, second, third, and so on. This helped them understand that ordinal numbers describe position in a sequence rather than quantity.

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💻 ICT

We continued developing our ICT skills this week. As part of our writing work, the children created comic strips on the computer retelling The Highway Rat.

We also used Story Blast to work on comprehension activities such as word sorting and sentence building, helping to strengthen reading and grammar skills.

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🌍 Topic – People Who Help Us

This week we began our new topic: People Who Help Us, focusing particularly on emergency services.

The class worked together to create a large roadmap display for our classroom wall. Each child created:

• A building where a helper might work (for example, a police station, fire station or hospital)

• A picture of the person who works there

• A short explanation describing what they do and how they help others

We will continue adding to this roadmap over the coming weeks as we learn more about different roles in our community.

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🎭 Assembly Preparation

We are continuing to work hard preparing for our upcoming Maths Spectacular Assembly. Scripts have now gone home so the children can practise their lines, and we have begun creating some fantastic props for the performance.

So far the class has created:

• Number cards

• Angle cards

• A large opening display sign

The children also have some exciting ideas for a large prop, which we hope to begin creating next week.

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🐶 Visitors and Wider Learning

On Friday we had a visit from Dogs Against Drugs, where the children learned about the important work these dogs do and how they help support communities. It was a very interesting session and the children asked some excellent questions.

Our Primary 4 pupils also took part in a STEM activity day, where they explored coding and robotics. They worked with small programmable robots, learning how to code them to move and complete tasks while thinking about accuracy, measurement, and problem-solving.

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🎨 Play Provision

This week’s play provision included Barbies, dolls and doll’s houses, which were voted for by the class. The children engaged in imaginative role play, storytelling and collaborative play.

There has also been a big interest in jigsaws and board games, with children working together to solve puzzles and play cooperatively, developing patience, teamwork and problem-solving skills.

Alongside this, we continued exploring construction activities and times tables challenges, allowing the children to practise both creativity and numeracy skills during play.