Literacy

In term 3, we finished reading The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf and we really enjoyed it. We completed book reviews to share our opinions on the story and rate the book overall. We started our non-fiction text, Natural Disasters: Quakes, Floods and Other Disasters. We took on the role of news reporters and created our own news broadcasts. We learned all about how natural disasters occur and improved our labelling skills by drawing and labelling diagrams. We also considered the advantages and disadvantages of living in countries where natural disasters typically happen.

In writing, we focused on procedural, explanation and persuasive writing. Our chairs went on strike, and we had to write a persuasive letter to them to convince them to come back! We created instructions for our favourite game, as well as on how to treat a snakebite! Before the holiday, we wrote some Easter rhyming couplets where we focused on uplevelling our writing by including imagery. We learned all about personification, onomatopoeia, metaphors, alliteration and similes which allows us to make our writing more interesting!

We celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite book characters. We worked hard as a class to create our own story which we shared with the rest of the school at our assembly. We designed book covers which we were able to take home and we completed an ‘I open a book…’ activity which we really enjoyed.

This term our class novel is Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun and we have really enjoyed making predictions so far and creating visualisers of the main characters to help us create a mental image of them. We will be looking at some different types of poetry too. Our focus in writing is discursive and response this term and we have already produced two fantastic pieces of writing that Miss McKinstry was very impressed with!

‘I am looking forward to starting our new text Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun in term 4.’ – Jacob

‘I liked creating our news reports because they were really fun to do.’ -Haylie

‘I like doing silly spelling because it’s really fun and it was something new to do.’ – Teejay

‘I enjoyed the day the chairs quit because it was nice thinking about different reasons for the chairs to come and it was quite comfortable working on the floor!’ – Lewis

‘I really enjoyed World Book Day because we got to dress up as our favourite book characters.’ – Arfa

Numeracy

In term 3, we covered fractions, decimals and percentages, time, money, BIDMAS, expressions and equations, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction word problems.

We used our Plickr cards to consolidate our knowledge of the information we learned. We played lots of mental maths games which allowed us to develop our mental maths, for example around the world, stand up sit down and hit the button.

We are looking forward to doing more outdoor learning in maths this term as we explore measurement, 3D and 2D shape and data analysis. We will be consolidating our knowledge of the four operations, fractions, decimals and percentages, time, money and ratio this term too so we are going to be super busy!

‘I liked learning about fractions, decimals and percentages. I liked it when we made our own pancakes after creating our own perfect pancakes sheet with different toppings.’ – Harrison H

‘I liked making the watermelon fractions posters after we cut up a watermelon and made different fractions with it.’ – Cairo

‘We learned about the link between time, distance and speed. We measured the distance around the gym hall, then we used the stopwatch feature on the iPads to time our friends running around the hall. We then used the formula for speed to work out what speed each person was running at!’ – Ethan

‘We learned about digital money. We labelled a debit card and discussed the features. We learned about the advantages and disadvantages of using digital money and how bank cards work in the real world.’ – Ariana

‘I liked learning about BIDMAS because I now know the correct order to complete sums that have brackets or indices in them.’ – Leland

Health and Wellbeing

In Health and Wellbeing this term, we were learning about being active, responsible and respectful. We focused on working as part of a team and how to be respectful when working with others. We also learned about how to be safe on the internet and around drugs and alcohol.

We looked at the relationship between food, exercise and energy. We looked at the traffic light system on food labels and learned how to make healthy food choices. We considered different activities that require low-energy levels vs high-energy levels.

We worked in teams to create board games, developing good communication, turn-taking and teamwork skills. We also learned about compromising during our lessons. We learned about discrimination and the impact of this on people.

We had a visit from a police officer who was talking to us about how to stay safe on the internet. We learned all about online safety and responsibility last term and we now know how to behave online.

Our Primary 6’s had a workshop all about positive mental health. We discussed different types of emotions and what we can do to help ourselves in stressful or anxious situations.

We had lots of fun at our Spring Fun Day organised by the P6/7’s. We enjoyed lots of different activities that kept us fit and active, as well as some activities which allowed us to relax and enjoy some mindful time.

This term, we are learning about the importance of being included. We will be learning more about the important relationships in our life and the importance of eating together. We will also be considering our transition to high school.

PE 

We learned how to play badminton. We played relay games and learned to balance and strike the shuttlecock using a racket.  We loved badminton! We are looking forward to taking part in Athletics.  

I liked when the police officer came into our class. I learned about being safe online and that you should never add someone online you don’t know in real life.’ – Ellie-Mae

‘I learned how dangerous drugs and alcohol can be when they are not used responsibly, and I learned how to keep myself safe.’ – Harrison F

Topic

In term 3, we learned about Scottish Artists in January. We learned about some Scottish painters and musicians. We carried out our own research on Scottish artists and then created a fact-file on Lewis Capaldi. We created our own Highland Coo art, inspired by Steven Brown’s famous work.

We also started our New York, New York topic this term where we compared New York to Glasgow. We carried out extensive research on a social or cultural issue in New York and Glasgow and compared them. We created a Google Slides with our information which we then presented to the class as a solo talk. We demonstrated fantastic listening skills and support to our peers and showed confidence and great communication skills when presenting – Miss McKinstry was so proud of our hard work and words of encouragement towards each other! We worked in groups to create amazing structures of the New York skyline from tinfoil. We had to overcome design challenges and work hard in our groups to brainstorm ideas. We created half and half artwork of the New York and Glasgow skylines. We used photographs from the internet as inspiration and then drew and painted our own art. We also developed our line and sketching skills through Empire State Building artwork. We explored maps and developed our knowledge of the eight compass points through quickfire search games. We welcomed our families along to our open session where we completed a STEM challenge to create the Empire State Building with dry spaghetti and different types of sweets. We developed resilience through this as there were many challenges to overcome!

This term we are learning all about Climate Change and we are so excited to start the topic and learn what we can do to help protect our environment.

‘I enjoyed comparing New York to Glasgow to see the differences and similarities. I wasn’t too surprised that New York is a lot more modern than Scotland because the USA is a newer country. I enjoyed doing my solo talk too because it was fun creating my own Google Slides and finding out interesting facts about New York and Scotland.’ – Kaiyah

‘I am looking forward to learning about Climate Change because I want to know how I can help protect animals and the environment from the effects of climate change. I think I’ll be able to spread more awareness if I have more knowledge.’ – Oly

Expressive Arts

Our fantastic class assembly took place in term 3. We worked extremely hard to rehearse our drama, music, and dance skills. We put so much effort into our assembly and we were very proud to show off our knowledge and the skills we learned through our Titanic topic.

We created beautiful pomegranate art inspired by our reading book The Boy at the Back of the Class. We explored different materials to add colour to our pomegranate art for example oil pastels, paint, and colour pencils.

This term, we are learning about African dance and music culture, inspired by our class novel. We will be learning about key features in African music and dance, how African dance and music are celebrated and comparing them with traditional Scottish dance and music.

‘I liked doing the Scotland and New York landscape art because it was really relaxing and it was based on our topic.’ – Sophie D

‘I liked doing our pomegranate art because it was inspired by our reading book. I decided to use pencils because I thought my work would be neater with pencils than paint.’ – Elijah

French 

We learned how to count to 100 in French. We counted in tens and we made spiral snakes to help us learn the French vocabulary e.g. trente, cinquante etc.  We learned how to ask what is the weather like; 

Quel temp fait-il?  

We learned how to answer with different types of weather, here is the link to our favourite French weather song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co6vfUxeRLg 

Lastly, we learned the names of family members in French. 

Science 

In science we learned about electricity. We created static electricity by rubbing a balloon against our jumpers or hair and it stuck to the wall.  We built simple circuits using batteries, wires, lightbulbs and buzzers and then used our knowledge to create electrical games.