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

🔢 Maths

This week we became Angle Detectives! As trainee detectives, the children completed three case files, each exploring angles in a different way. They investigated angles hidden within letters, linked angles to their knowledge of compass points, and identified angles on a clock face. The class showed excellent reasoning skills and attention to detail while solving their cases.

We also continued developing our mental maths skills through our One Minute Whizzers and introduced a new Speedy Multiplication booklet. The children timed themselves completing times tables questions, aiming to improve both their accuracy and speed, and showing great determination to beat their previous scores.

We also created place value monsters, using different digits to build and represent numbers, helping us to continue strengthening our understanding of place value and how the position of a digit changes its value.

✏️ Literacy & Spelling

Our spelling sound this week was ‘ze’.

We began a new focus on punctuation, reading The Full Stop That Got Away. This helped us think carefully about the importance of full stops and capital letters in making our writing clear and meaningful. The children then wrote imaginative pieces exploring what would happen if all the full stops disappeared, leading to some wonderfully creative ideas.

As part of our IDL learning, we enjoyed a fun pancake-themed afternoon. The children absolutely loved the imaginative role play, wearing chef hats and aprons as they created their own recipes. They worked collaboratively to design, discuss, and write clear instructional recipes, developing important writing, sequencing, and organisational skills.

We also read a story about a pancake thief who stole Mrs Teale’s pancakes. The children created detailed Wanted posters and designed digital images of the thief using Paint software. It was fantastic to see their creativity and engagement throughout the afternoon.

💻 ICT

This week we began learning to code using Code.org. The children worked through a series of modules, starting with an Angry Birds coding challenge.

Through this, they developed skills in:

• Sequencing instructions

• Logical thinking

• Problem-solving

• Debugging (finding and correcting mistakes)

• Perseverance when tasks became more challenging

They showed great resilience and focus as they worked through each stage.

🏊 Wider Learning

Swimming started this week, and the children were very excited about their journey to the pool. They also enjoyed visiting Sandwick Library, showing responsibility and maturity while out in the community.

🌍 Topic – Vikings

We concluded our Vikings topic this week. The children learned about Viking gods and created their own imaginative Viking god characters. We also explored Viking settlement maps, helping us understand where Vikings travelled and lived.

It has been wonderful to see the creativity and depth of understanding the class has developed throughout this topic.

🧘 PE – Teacher Led

In PE this week, we played games such as Traffic Lights, Corners, and Islands. These activities developed listening skills, quick reactions, spatial awareness, cooperation, and teamwork, all while keeping the children active and engaged.

🎨 Play Provision – Pancake Day Focus

Our play provision this week centred around Pancake Day. The children explored:

• A pancake role-play station with flour, fake eggs, measuring spoons, scales, aprons, and chef hats

• A pancake shape station, adding shapes they have been learning about as creative “toppings”

• A rice weighing challenge, comparing and measuring weights using scales

These activities supported learning in measurement, shape recognition, comparison, collaboration, communication, and imaginative play, while reinforcing literacy and maths skills in a hands-on way.

🌟 Primary 3 Week 6

🔢 Maths

In maths this week, we have been developing our mental maths strategies, continuing our work on adding in tens and then applying that knowledge to help us add 9 and 11 efficiently. The children worked hard to explain how they could adjust numbers using what they already knew about place value and number patterns.

We also revisited place value, consolidating our understanding in a fun and engaging way through a lively game of Place Value Bingo, which proved to be a big hit with the class!

Throughout our play we used Mrs Teale’s valentines petals to explore measurement in a fun and hands-on way, setting ourselves challenges like how many petals long the room is, a metre stick, or even a person — all discovered naturally through our play.

✏️ Writing & Health and Wellbeing

This week, we took a short break from our usual writing focus and centred our learning around the theme of love and kindness. The children wrote thoughtful pieces about:

• Things they love about themselves

• Things they appreciate about their classmates

This led to meaningful discussions about what it feels like to be kind, to say positive things about others, and also how important it is to receive kindness and value ourselves.

The children created a beautiful piece of artwork to take home, celebrating positivity and self-worth. We also read Love Monster, which linked beautifully with our discussions, and designed colourful Love Monster posters to brighten our classroom door.

🌍 Topic – Vikings

We continued and completed our Vikings topic this week. The children finished writing their Viking sagas and completed their accompanying Viking artwork.

As part of our final topic assessment, we also learned how to write our Viking names in runes, bringing together creativity and historical learning in a fun and memorable way.

💻 ICT

In ICT, we continued developing our mouse control skills and worked on Story Blast, a comprehension platform where the children practised word sorting and sentence building. This supported both reading and grammar skills in an interactive way.

🎨 Play Projects

Our play project theme this week was Under the Sea, and the classroom was filled with creativity. The children designed and built impressive underwater settings, created fact files, and even incorporated imaginative ideas such as underwater vehicles and structures. It was fantastic to see such creativity and teamwork on display.

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

✏️ Literacy & Writing

Our spelling sound this week was ‘dge’.

Our literacy learning was inspired by another Julia Donaldson story, The Snail and the Whale. We continued developing our use of adjectives and adverbs, while also introducing similes and encouraging the children to use their senses to add detail to their writing.

The children wrote a beautiful sensory description of the sea, using sight, sound, smell, and movement to bring their writing to life. They also created rainbow simile poems, which were imaginative and expressive. We loved them so much we got them up on our WOW wall.

🔢 Maths

In maths, we worked on adding 1, 10, and 100 to numbers, building confidence with place value. We continued our work on number bonds to 100 and practised quick recall through our One Minute Whizzers, helping to improve mental maths speed and accuracy.

We also explored right angles, using a right-angle fish to find and identify right angles around the classroom and school environment.

📖 Comprehension

Due to its success previously, we revisited I’ll Read to You, You Read to Me. Working in pairs, the children took turns reading parts of the script aloud to each other before answering questions, building fluency, confidence, and comprehension skills.

💻 ICT

This week we continued developing our typing skills and completed a Sumdog assessment, allowing the children to demonstrate their maths knowledge using digital tools.

🌍 Topic – Vikings

As part of our Vikings topic, the children followed a drawing tutorial to create a Viking, which will form part of a final piece of work when we create our own Viking sagas.

We were very lucky to welcome a visit from Dougie and Neil Grant, who shared his knowledge of sagas and explained how he creates them for Up Helly Aa. This visit gave the children lots of inspiration and ideas for creating their own sagas, which we will be working on next week to accompany our Viking artwork.

🧘 PE – Teacher Led

In PE, the children took part in a session using Lummi sticks, learning about rhythm and beat through movement. The session encouraged coordination, timing, and teamwork in a fun and energetic way.

🎨 Play

This week we have enjoyed the knitting needles and wool, learning to knit and be creative with the wool in other ways. We also had the dinosaurs back out with the sand as they are a big favourite. Other play opportunities that arose this week came when some of the children wanted to create catapults and targets which was great fun with lots of measuring, distance and meta skills(adapting, collaboration and communication) coming into play.

🌟 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:

• “5 to 9, we climb the vine” 🐒

• “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:

• Building Viking galleys using a range of materials

• Creating snap card games featuring Viking facts

• 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.

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

✏️ Literacy & Writing

Our spelling sound this week was ‘ie’. We found lots of creative ways to practise our sound and spot it in books and in other places around the school.

Our writing was inspired by another Julia Donaldson story, The Smartest Giant in Town. The children explored the text in lots of creative and thoughtful ways.

They wrote thank-you letters from the animals to the Giant, showing empathy and understanding of how the Giant had helped each character. We also created detailed character descriptions of the Giant and designed animal profile cards for the animals in the story.

To support our writing, we took part in a fun giant drawing and painting activity, working together to create life-sized giants. This helped us develop our use of adjectives and adverbs and supported our collaboration, communication, and creativity (Meta Skills), which we then used to improve our descriptive writing.

We also continued to encourage a love of reading through our QR code reading wall, which links to a range of books, as well as our book review and recommendation area, where children can share and recommend texts to others. Our weekly Flashlight Friday continues to be a favourite, giving children time to enjoy reading for pleasure and talk about books they love.

🔢 Maths

In maths, the children worked on shape with Mrs Smith, exploring and identifying different shapes and their properties. We also continued our work on compass points, linking direction and movement, and spent time exploring number sequencing and patterns, looking for rules and explaining how sequences change.

💻 ICT

During ICT this week, the children focused on developing their mouse control skills. They also completed a Story Blast comprehension activity, which was very popular and helped build reading comprehension in a fun and engaging way.

🌍 Topic – Vikings

We continued our Vikings mini-topic, focusing on Viking life and homes. The children explored what everyday life may have been like for Viking families and how their homes were designed and used.

As part of our topic learning, we took part in a draw-along activity to create Viking longships, and the children have begun painting them. We’re looking forward to finishing these next week, in time to explore Viking longships in more detail and learn all about how they were used by the Vikings for travel, trade, and raids.

🧘 PE – Teacher Led

In PE, we warmed up by recapping compass points through movement, helping to reinforce our learning in an active way. We then took part in a yoga session inspired by The Smartest Giant in Town, using movement and balance to represent different characters and moments from the story. The children showed excellent focus, control, and creativity throughout the session.

🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 3 (Weeks 1 & 2)

We’ve had a slightly unusual start to Term 3 with three snow days in Week 1, meaning we were only in school for two days that week. Despite this, the children settled back into school routines brilliantly and packed lots of learning into the time we had together. Here’s a look at what we’ve been working on across Weeks 1 and 2.

✏️ Literacy & Writing

This term, our new writing focus is Julia Donaldson texts, with a different book inspiring our learning each week.

In Week 1, we focused on Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book. The children enjoyed watching a special video created by Mrs Teale for Shetland Arts during the Covid period, which brought the story to life and sparked lots of discussion about books, storytelling, and imagination.

In Week 2, our focus text was Room on the Broom. The children:

• Took part in hot-seating, questioning one of the animals from the broom

• Wrote from the animal’s perspective

• Invented and illustrated a new passenger for the broom

• Practised sequencing the story, developing important organisational skills

We ended the week with an exciting literacy activity — creating exploding potions in mini cauldrons, linking perfectly to the magical theme of the story!

Across both weeks, we also:

• Continued learning about prefixes and suffixes

• Practised independent reading and comprehension tasks

• Learned our spelling focus, the ‘ore’ sound

🔢 Maths

In maths, we revisited and developed our understanding of comparing two-digit numbers, using:

• Greater than (>)

• Less than (<)

• Equal to (=)

The children worked hard to explain their thinking and justify their answers. This learning will continue to be reinforced through games, particularly during our ICT sessions.

💻 ICT

We introduced a new ICT slot on Thursdays, which will be used across the curriculum. During these sessions, we will:

• Develop typing skills

• Improve mouse control

• Use ICT to support maths games and literacy activities

We have also been learning about QR codes and how they can be used to access information quickly and safely. As part of this, we introduced a new classroom reading wall display, featuring weekly QR codes that link directly to books and reading material. This has been a brilliant way to encourage independent reading and build confidence in navigating digital texts.

Alongside this, we launched our new book review and recommendation area. The children have been sharing their thoughts about books they’ve read and recommending them to others, helping to develop important evaluation, communication, and recommendation skills — and inspiring each other to try new texts.

💖 Health & Wellbeing

In Health and Wellbeing, we read The Magical Yet, exploring goal setting, perseverance, and the importance of believing in ourselves. The children created thoughtful goal-setting artwork, thinking about things they would like to work towards in 2026.

We also read The Sour Grape, which led to some lovely discussions about being “grapeful”. The children reflected on the people, experiences, and things they feel grapeful for, sharing positive thoughts and showing great kindness towards one another.

🌍 Topic – Vikings

We kicked off our exciting new topic on the Vikings by:

• Exploring who the Vikings were

• Locating Viking lands on a map

• Beginning a timeline to understand when the Vikings lived

To help bring our learning to life, the children also worked together to create a Viking longship (galley) and Viking figures for our classroom wall display. These have really helped us visualise Viking life and have brightened up our learning space.

🧭 Cross-Curricular Learning

We also explored compass points using a fun Harry Potter theme, helping the children practise direction skills in an engaging way that linked nicely with literacy and topic learning. We also enjoyed a fun class teacher PE session playing compass games to consolidate our learning.

Despite the snowy start to the term, it’s been a fantastic first two weeks, full of creativity, discussion, and enthusiasm. We’re really looking forward to what the rest of Term 3 brings!

🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 2, Week Five

✏️ Literacy & Writing

This week our Explorer took us all the way to India! Inside the Explorer’s Bag we discovered a bundle of bright, colourful feathers, which inspired some fantastic creative writing.

The children wrote their own fantasy stories about what the magical feathers could transform them into or what special powers they might give them. The imagination, vocabulary, and storytelling were brilliant!

We also wrote exciting stories about being a spy in India, creating missions, disguises, and top-secret adventures.

In literacy, we also:

• Learned the “ear” sound in spelling

• Continued developing our independent reading time and comprehension tasks

🔢 Maths

In maths, we continued our work on addition using the chunking method, becoming more confident at breaking numbers into useful parts.

We also practised our times tables with Mrs Rose, building speed and accuracy.

To revisit data handling, we explored graphing again — this time using Mrs Teale’s sweets to create our own graphs completely from scratch! The children sorted, counted, presented, and interpreted their data with great enthusiasm.

🌍 Topic – Forces & Energy

Our big question this week was:

“Why do magnets sometimes pull and sometimes push apart?”

We- discussed magnets and how they are used in everyday life and we  carried out hands-on investigations to explore:

• How magnets attract

• How they repel

• Which materials magnets work through

• How the poles of magnets affect whether they pull together or push apart

The children loved experimenting, testing predictions, and exploring “what happens if…?” with a wide range of magnet challenges.

💖 Health & Wellbeing

This week we learned about UNCRC Article 31 – the right to rest and play.
We explored what rest and play look like in our own lives, why they are important, and how they help us stay healthy and happy.

As part of this focus, we enjoyed a calming Cosmic Kids yoga session – Betsy Banana, helping us practise mindfulness, movement, and relaxation.

🏃‍♂️ PE – Teacher-Led

In PE we began with some body drumming before moving on to use our pool noodles to drum and rock out!!

We finished with a range of parachute games, practising teamwork, timing, and communication — and having lots of fun along the way!

🎄 Other News

• The Gingerbread Men made another visit to our classroom! They decorated our door and left some fun treats for us to enjoy.

• We are continuing to practise very hard for the Christmas play, learning lines, songs, and moves.

• We also started making some Christmas crafts, which will be appearing around the classroom very soon!

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🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 2, Week Four

✏️ Literacy & Writing

Our spelling focus this week has been the ‘are’ sound, and the children have been working hard to spot and use this pattern in their reading and writing.

Our Explorer’s Magic Bag delivered a magnifying glass and a letter from Brazil, which led to some fantastic writing. The children created their own detective stories, using the magnifying glass as a key clue in their mystery. We also wrote an informative fact file all about magnifying glasses — what they are, how they work, and why they are useful.

In word work, we revisited prefixes and played Real or Imposter, a fun word-building game that helped us explore which prefix combinations create real words and which do not.

🔢 Maths

In maths, we learned how to use the chunking method for addition, building on our knowledge of number bonds (friends to 10) to help us break numbers apart efficiently.

Our Speedy Skills focus this week has been times tables, and the children have been practising quick recall through games and challenges.

We continued exploring symmetry, looking at symmetrical patterns in the world around us and creating beautiful symmetrical butterfly images.

💖 Health & Wellbeing

This week’s UNCRC focus was Article 29 – the aims of education. We read A Superpower Like Mine and discussed how everyone has their own superpowers, skills, and talents. The children reflected on what makes them unique and set personal goals for something they want to grow or improve.

🌍 Topic – Forces & Energy

Our big question this week was: “What happens when forces are equal and unequal?”
We read The Great Paper Caper and explored the forces involved in flying paper planes. The children investigated how pushes, pulls, lift, and air resistance impact speed, distance, and motion.

🎉 Other News

On Friday, the whole school enjoyed Big Play — an afternoon of open classrooms where everyone was free to explore, play, and spend time together. It was a fantastic opportunity to help build a strong sense of community, with children of all ages sharing spaces, activities, and plenty of fun. We also had a visit from Winnies mum and her new puppy. We all loved getting cuddles and watching him play.

🌟 Primary 3/4 Weekly Round-Up – Term 2, Week Three

✏️ Literacy & Writing

Our spelling focus this week has been silent ‘h’, and the children have been working hard to spot this pattern in their reading and spelling activities.

In our Explorer’s Bag, we discovered some mystery keys left by the Magical Explorer, who also told us he had been travelling through China! This inspired lots of fantastic writing — the children wrote imaginative stories about unlocking a mysterious door, described a disgusting sandwich the Explorer found in his backpack, and created their own acrostic poems. They even created their own mysterious doors out of Lego, junk and blocks.

We also learned about prefixes, creating bright and creative prefix flowers to show how adding prefixes changes word meanings. This week also saw the introduction of our new independent reading time and task, giving the children space to enjoy reading and reflect on what they’ve read.

🔢 Maths

In maths, we worked on counting in tens, hundreds, and thousands, and continued exploring symmetry — this time using LEGO to build symmetrical designs and patterns. The children showed great focus and teamwork while creating their builds.

💖 Health & Wellbeing

Our Health and Wellbeing focus this week was Article 12 of the UNCRC – the right to have a voice. We read The Day the Crayons Quit and discussed why it’s important for everyone to have a voice in our class, school, and community. The children shared thoughtful ideas about how we can listen to others and make sure every voice is heard.

🌍 Topic – Forces & Energy

Our big question this week was “How do different surfaces affect how things move?
We read Mr Grumpy’s Motor Car friction and how friction affects movement on different surfaces. The children took part in a hands-on investigation using ramps and toy cars, experimenting to see what makes things move faster or slower and how motion changes depending on the forces applied.

🧘 PE – Teacher-Led

This week’s PE session was calm and creative — a yoga session based on the book Dear Zoo. The children used movement and balance to represent different animals, showing great focus, imagination, and coordination. We did have to finish with some parachute fun too!