Mr Williamson – Carmondean Primary School Blog

P3 03.06.21

Hello everyone,

What a busy week we have had in P3!

First of all, we just want to say a massive well done to all of the children for their efforts during this afternoon’s sports day which was led by our wonderful Mrs Ferguson and her team. The children (and teachers) had a great time. There were lots of different stations that the children participated in with other people in their house. It was a great afternoon and the sun was shining. There are pictures and videos on Seesaw for you to see. I will add more either later on this evening or at some point tomorrow.

We have been learning all about how to tell the time on an analogue clock this week in Maths. The children are becoming very familiar with o’clock, quarter past, half past and quarter to.

In Writing we wrote a recount of some of our favourite memories. We know that when we are writing a recount, we need to use the past tense.

Our moon topic is underway, and the children made some animations to show the phases of the moon. We will share these on Seesaw once they are finished.

Reminders-

-Homework is due in tomorrow (04.06.21) please can all reading books be returned

PE days are unchanged

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mr Williamson and Miss Donaldson.

P3 update 28.05.21

Hello everyone,

This week in P3 we have been busy finishing off our ‘In the Garden’ topic. We carefully planned and then created our own garden models using materials that we could find in the classroom. We have been very impressed with the creativity of the children. Our plants in the greenhouse are continuing to grow and we are looking after them by giving them water and care daily. Now that the weather is getting warmer, we are hoping to see our sunflowers bloom by the end of term!

In Numeracy this week, we have been rounding up our knowledge of word problems. In Maths we have been looking at measuring the length of different objects.

Our new writing genre is recount, so on Tuesday, the children looked at the new targets for this genre and identified these on some example pieces of writing.

We have lots to look forward to in P3 with the talent show and sports day coming up.

Reminders-

PE days are Tuesday (with class teachers) and Thursday (with Mrs Ferguson)

Sports day for the P3 bubble will be on Thursday 3rd June. Can we ask that children come into school wearing house colours on that day. Some children were worried that they did not have clothes in their colours so if this is the case, just come to school wearing PE kit as normal.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend and that the weather stays warm! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch via the office.

Mr Williamson and Miss Donaldson.

P3 update 14.05.21

Hello everyone,

This week in primary 3 we have been busy learning all about pollination. The children made some brilliant animations to demonstrate this process. On Friday, we continued to plant seeds both for the greenhouse and in the nursery garden. See seesaw for some pictures and everyone’s animations.

In maths this week, we had a look at chance and uncertainty. We spoke about the words that we can use to make predictions about whether something will be certain or uncertain. We used coins and dice to help demonstrate this. In numeracy, we have been looking at word problems, applying our strategies that we have been learning all year.

In writing, we wrote an explanation for how bees pollinate. We have been really impressed with the quality of writing produced. We have been continuing to look at the features of non-fiction texts.

Reminders:

PE days are Tuesday and Thursday.

Homework is due this Friday 21.05.21.

Next Monday is a holiday.

As always, any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch via the school office.

Mr Williamson and Miss Donaldson.

P3 update 07.05.21

Hello everyone,

What a busy few weeks we have been having across Primary 3!

Our garden topic is well and truly underway. We now have a garden centre in the classroom (look out for some pictures.) The children have been learning about what living things (plants and babies) need to grow. They have each planted their own seeds (one in a bag on the window and one which will be kept in out new greenhouse.) Both classes will be taking responsibility for caring for their plants and looking after the greenhouse and garden area.

In Maths, we have been continuing to look at measure. This week we were looking at mass and using scales to weigh different objects. We made estimates for how many grams or kilograms each object would weigh before placing them on the scales to find out the exact measurement. In Numeracy, we have been revising our vertical multiplication strategy. We are continuing to look at this next week.

In Reading, we have been looking at features of non-fiction texts. This week, the children answered some questions made up from others in the class about their reading books.

This week, we have been looking at the features of a church for RME. The children were tasked to create their own church, making sure to include some of the features that we learned about. We will send some pictures of the churches when the children are finished creating them.

Reminders-

Homework will be sent out again on Monday 10th May 2021. Please can we remind everyone to return all reading books, if they have not already done so, by Monday.
PE is continuing to run on a Tuesday and Wednesday

We hope you all have a lovely weekend,

As always, please to not hesitate to get in touch with us via the school office if you have any questions,

Mr Williamson and Miss Donaldson.

Primary 3 update 23.04.21

Hi everyone,

What a lovely first week back we have been having since returning from the Easter break. It has been so nice to welcome the children back into class, with the sun shining almost every day this week!

In Numeracy this week, we have been revising our vertical strategies for addition and subtraction. In Maths, we have started our measurement unit, starting with volume. We know that volume is the amount of liquid. We learned that capacity is the space left over in the container. We know that we measure volume in millilitres and litres and that there are 1000 millilitres in 1 litre. We used some jugs and different sized containers to measure some water in litres and millilitres. Well done everyone.

In reading this week, we have learned about the features of a non-fiction text, focusing more on the contents and index pages and learning about what these are used for. We did some work on connectives and then we made some predictions about what might happen in our new reading books which we will be giving out for the children to take home on Monday.

In Writing this week, we began to look at our new genre which is explanation. We looked at some examples of explanation writing and then used our new targets to mark on what was good and what needed improvement.

Our new topic is all about the garden. We started this week by having a look at what plants need to grow and sorted some things into what they do need and what they do not need. We have also been busy creating our own flowers for our new garden centre which is going to replace the aquarium in the classroom. Look out for some pictures when it is ready!

Some reminders-

Homework will be given out on Monday and will go live on Seesaw after school.

PE days are still a Tuesday (Class teachers) and Thursday (Mrs Ferguson)

We hope you all have a lovely weekend in the sunshine and as always, any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch with us via the school office.

Mr Williamson and Miss Donaldson.

Primary 3 update 01.04.21

Hello everyone,

We really can’t believe that we have reached the end of term three already! What a term we have had. Being back in the classroom for the last two months has been wonderful, and we have been enjoying our oceans topic lots.

This week, we have been finishing off our topic. We have created super acrostic poems about pollution. We finished off our leaflets about our sea creature. We have been very impressed with how dedicated and interested the children have been during this topic.

We have been continuing our report writing this week, and we are very impressed with how much progress everyone is making here.

In Numeracy, we have been using our vertical subtraction strategy to answer some questions.

We had an Easter themed orienteering lesson in PE on Tuesday which was enjoyed by everyone in P3.

Today we have been having some fun and playing some jokes on each other for April Fools day. Someone in the class managed to convince me that there was a mouse in the corner…

As I am writing this, I am reflecting back on what superstars all of the children have been over the course of what proved to be quite a challenging but extremely rewarding term. It has been brilliant to have everyone back in the classroom and everyone learning together again. This term has shown just how resilient all of the children are and as class teachers, we could not be more proud. We hope you all have a wonderful, restful holiday. Take care, and we will see you all in two weeks, when we return on Monday 19th April 2021.

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith.

Primary 3 update 26.03.21

We have had yet another fun filled week in P3!

In topic, we have been learning all about the dangers of pollution and discussing some ways to help prevent this. We finished off our animations (check Seesaw for these!) We created persuasive posters to help send the message that pollution needs to stop. We have also been listening to a poem all about a girl named Scout who seeks to make a change. The children have been busy creating illustrations for this poem, acting out some scenes and recording their voices to create our own version of the story.

In Numeracy this week, we have been learning all about vertical subtraction and we have been really impressed with how well the children are picking up this strategy! We have spoken about the fact that when we take away, the largest number needs to be on top, and we sometimes need to borrow from the number next door.

We have been loving our orienteering in PE and this will continue until the holidays.

PE days are still Tuesday and Thursday.

There will be no homework next week as it is the last week of term.

We are really looking forward to next week. We will be finishing off our oceans topic and we have lots of fun activities planned for this.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith.

P3 update 19.03.21

Hello everyone! What another fantastic week we have been having in Primary 3.

In Numeracy, we have been learning all about vertical addition. The children are really progressing well with this, and we had a discussion about how now that they know this strategy, they can use it to add any amounts of numbers together. We even looked at adding two millions numbers together! In our Maths this week, we were learning about how to calculate change and using our repeated addition strategy to help us work out some problems.

Our reading has been looking at non-fiction texts and we have been very impressed with the reciprocal reading strategies that the children have been using, and very independently now as well!

In writing, we wrote an information report all about electricity, how to keep safe when using it, and what the different symbols mean. Everyone has been trying so hard to meet the targets.

In Topic, we have been looking at pollution in the ocean, the dangers of it and we came up with some ideas for how we can make a difference, so that the poor ocean animals do not get harmed. We have started our animation project about this. Look out for these being shared on Seesaw in the coming weeks!

The classes were very interested in the Science that we did this morning, looking at conductors and insulators. We experimented with different items to identify whether they allowed for the flow of electricity, or whether they blocked the flow.

Please view Seesaw for some pictures of the super hero day, as well as videos of the science project.

PE days- these are now Wednesday and Thursday. The change to Wednesday is due to timetable shifts.

Have a lovely, well deserved weekend. (Lets hope the sun shines for us all!)

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith.

Primary 3 Update 12.03.21

Hello everyone!

We have had another brilliant week of learning in Primary 3.

In Topic, we have been using ICT to create posters about the sea creatures we have been researching. They are really informative. We have also been learning about ocean pollution which can be really dangerous for animals in the ocean. We thought about some of the things we can do to prevent this from happening including recycling where possible and picking up rubbish from the ground at the beach.

In numeracy, we have been continuing to work on our vertical multiplication strategy. The children are very confident with this strategy now. In Maths, we have been looking at creating amounts of money and adding two amounts together to make a total cost. We had a very good discussion about why money is so important in daily life.

We have been working hard on our report writing this week, and we wrote some good reports about our sea creatures. We included information about where they live, what they eat and what they look like.

Both classes have really been enjoying our orienteering in PE, both with Mrs Ferguson and the class teachers. We are developing our map reading skills very well and can locate different cards around the school playground. It has been nice to get the whole playground to ourselves!

Some reminders-

PE days are Tuesday and Thursday.

Comic Relief day is on Friday 19th March. Children have been invited to come into school dressed as super heroes for this day. Red noses are still on sale via the school office.

Have a very restful and lovely weekend.

Miss Smith and Mr Williamson.

Primary 3 Update 05.03.2021

Hello everyone,

We have had another fantastic week in Primary 3. Miss Smith and I can’t quite believe we are in March already!

This week we have been researching and learning all about some creatures that live in the ocean. We worked in groups to research the creatures and found out where in the ocean they live, what they like to eat and what they look like and found some other interesting facts. We then started creating leaflets where we plan to include all of this new information. See attached some pictures of our new class aquarium… Don’t you think it looks awesome? The children absolutely love the shark! Also, we have some new members of our class… Sea Monkeys! We are very excited to see how they will grow and live over the next three weeks.

Reading has very much focused on the reciprocal reading strategies. We looked at how to take notes for each of the strategies and summarised an information text about polar bears. Did you know that polar bear cubs leave their mothers at just two years old?

We have started our new genre of Writing. This is report writing and we are now familiar with our new targets. Over the next few weeks we will be writing reports about a range of different things.

In Numeracy, we have been continuing with our vertical multiplication. We are so impressed with the resilience that everyone is showing as this can be quite a tricky strategy to learn. In Maths, we have started looking at money. We know what most of the coins and notes are, and have started to add some together to make different amounts.

A very successful learning week indeed.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith

Primary 3 Update 26.02.21

Hello everyone!

What a brilliant first week back in the classroom we have been having in P3!

Our oceans Topic is well under way. We began by looking at the Global Goals and linking some of them to the ocean. We made our own symbols for each of these. We then looked at the layers of the ocean and discovered some very interesting sea creatures the deeper we delved down. We are all very excited to be learning about this and what was our pyramid will soon be turning into a class aquarium. Look out for some pictures over the coming weeks!

In Maths, we have been revising our 3D shapes and created posters to show what we know. We then made our very own 3D shapes, focusing on faces, edges and vertices. Check Seesaw for a look at some of the creations.

In Reading, we have been looking at our reading strategies and learned all about the ‘Think Aloud’ strategy. The children we very good at writing down all of their thoughts on a poem about a giant lasagne!

Things to note-

PE days are Tuesday and Thursday. Can we remind everyone that on these days, children are to come to school wearing their PE kit (with school jumper on)
Red Nose Day 2021- if you wish to purchase a red nose, the office are accepting payment through parent pay. Unfortunately we are not accepting cash at this time. There is (or will be) a letter going home to explain Red Nose Day. The noses are £1.50.
Homework- this will now be on Seesaw from Monday. We will be sending home a grid with all tasks on Monday as well, and you can choose whether to complete on Seesaw or write in the homework jotter. They will go live from 3pm on Monday. We will also be sending home new reading books next week too. Can we just ask for the return of any previous reading books sent home if you forgot to hand these back before Christmas.

We have been so impressed and proud by how mature all of the children have settled back into class. It is lovely to be back together again in the same environment. Well done to everyone for your hard work this week. The standard of work that has been produced has been incredible. Have a wonderful and restful weekend.

As always, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions.

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith.

P3 Update 18.12.20

Hello everyone, we hope this post sees you well.

What a spectacular week we have had in P3. We have been getting into the Christmas spirit with lots of Christmassy activities including a Reindeer comprehension, mystery maths to reveal a Christmas picture and creating a Christmas present from the net of a cube! We also watched the ‘Covid Christmas’ Nativity (which is available on the school blog) and we were so impressed with all of the hard work that everyone has put into it! Well done Carmondean!

On top of all of that, we managed to find some time to watch a virtual pantomime ‘Robin Hood and his Socially Distanced Men’, it was a very fun afternoon! We then played some party games. We have attached some pictures from the week’s festivities.

This will be our final blog post until after the holidays. We would like to take this opportunity to thank every child in our classes for working so hard and showing so much resilience in these very different, recent times. The children just amaze us everyday and we are extremely proud of everything they have achieved since coming back to school in August. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all families for your continued support, too.

And, finally a massive thank you to everyone for their lovely gifts and cards. They are hugely appreciated. We hope you all have a wonderful, safe and relaxing Christmas break, and we shall see you all again in 2021!

Take care, everyone,

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith

Primary 3 Update 11.12.20

Hello everyone,

We hope this post sees you all well. This week in P3, we have been finishing our Egyptian topic. We looked at the Scarab Beetle and discovered why the Ancient Egyptians believed these were important symbols during this time. We created our own design of a Scarab Beetle, looking at the different designs and symmetrical patterns that were often found on these symbols. The children made their own boxes to store their Beetles in. They look very impressive!

We have both been so proud about how engaged and committed the children have been throughout our Egyptian topic and we are sure that our learning will stay in everyone’s memories for a very long time. Even though we are sad to be finishing such an exciting topic, we have an equally exciting new topic starting after Christmas. We can’t wait to get started!

In Maths this week, we have been learning about 3D shapes. The children impressed us with their knowledge of many 3D shapes, including a hexagonal prism! We will be continuing this next week. In Numeracy we have been continuing to learn more about division. This week we introduced remainders to the children and attached are some pictures of some children using counters and cubes to help them group amounts into equal groups to make it easier to find out how many were left over.

Our persuasive writing continues to amaze us and this week we wrote to the Elves to persuade them that we have been good this year! We reckon the Elves will be very impressed with the children’s’ writing. Well done everyone!

Reminders-

PE days are Tuesday and Thursday
Homework is due in this coming Friday (18.12.20) *please can you also make sure that your child’s reading book is returned on this date too*
There will be a Christmas dress down day on Friday where the children have been invited to come into school wearing a Christmas jumper or party clothes. We look forward to seeing all of the different designs!
Term finishes for the Christmas break on 18.12.20

Enjoy the weekend and take care. If you have any questions, as always, please get in touch via the school office.

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith

Primary 3 Update 04.12.20

Hello everyone, we cannot believe that is another week of P3 finished!

We have been busy this week learning all about the Egyptian gods, their roles and what the special symbols meant. We created our own gods. The children were very creative. We had a god of birds, one to protect pyramids and even a god for unicorns!

In Writing this week, we wrote to the weather station to persuade them for snow on Christmas day. We think they have given the snow to us far too early!!!

Our Nativity practise is well under-way and the children have been very good at learning lines and contributing to our class section for our recorded Nativity story to be released very soon.

We have been continuing to learn new strategies for division in Numeracy and this week we started to look at the short division method (written strategy). Well done everyone!

A few reminders:

PE days are now a Tuesday and Thursday
We are now actively using Seesaw as a means to add homework tasks. As from Monday, there will be tasks on Seesaw for homework to submit.

If you have any questions, as always, please get in touch.

Have a lovely weekend, and enjoy the snow!

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith

Primary 3 Update

Hello everyone, we hope this post sees you well.

We have had yet another exciting and busy week in P3!

Our Egyptian topic continues to amaze us. This week we have been learning all about the process of mummification. We selected pictures and put them into the correct order. We then had a look at some canopic jars (these were to store some of the organs from the body). Each jar was different and held a different body part. We learned about the heads of 4 canopic jars (different gods) and matched these to the correct body part. Finally, we learned more about what preservation means and started an experiment to see the mummification/ preservation process of an apple! We put half an apple into a salt and baking soda solution, and the other half into a water solution to see if there will be any difference to the way it is persevered. We are very excited to see what the results of this will be in a few weeks time.

Attached is a picture of our finished masks that we made with Miss Donaldson in Art. Don’t they look brilliant?!

In Writing this week, we have been continuing to work on our persuasive techniques and we created a poster to persuade people how important it is to follow the Covid rules. We were very impressed with the standard of work produced! Well done, P3!

In Reading, we have been learning about the role of the summariser, and finding some words that help to identify the main idea of a text.

In Numeracy, we have been learning some new strategies to help us with division. We learned about sharing and repeated addition on a number line. We are continuing to learn more strategies over the next few weeks.

Some reminders and things to note down-

PE will now be on a Tuesday and Thursday. Mr Williamson and Miss Smith will teach this on a Tuesday and Mrs Ferguson will teach on a Thursday.
Homework is due in this Friday (04.12.20)
Your child will be sent home with their login details for Seesaw this week and we would really appreciate it if you could practise logging onto this with them. Just scan the QR code in and that should take you to your child’s class page. We have been practising this in class so the children should know how to do this. Once logged on there will be a short activity for the children to complete and then submit to their teacher. We are going to be using Seesaw more often as a means of communication. If you have any questions regarding this, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

As always, thank you for the continued support. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if need be.

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith.

Primary 3 13.11.20

What a fun-filled week Primary 3 have had.

In topic this week, we learned all about the inside of a pyramid and the children drew their own cross section to show how their own pyramids would look inside. We have also been learning about the Ancient Egyptian letter and number system, hieroglyphics. The children created their own name cartouche using clay by using a key to work out what their names would be written as in Hieroglyphics. This morning, we looked at the number system and attempted to convert some numbers. It was very interesting! We have also learned about the importance of the Rosetta Stone. We hope that the lessons planned for next week will be just as exciting!

In Art this week the children have been finishing their papier Mache for their Egyptian masks. We can not wait to see these when they are completed!

We have been focusing on questioning in reading and trying to come up with some questions of our own that make us think about the answer a little bit more.

We are continuing to develop our persuasive writing skills and this week we wrote to the Pharaoh to ask him to allow everyone to read and write. This is because in Ancient Egypt times only around 10% of the population could read and write and we learned that ladies and girls were not allowed to learn how to read and write.

In ICT today, we learned how to use Glow to send an email. The children all successfully managed to send an email to their teachers and some managed to email each other. Well done!

We were also super impressed at all of the colourful outfits today for Children in Need, well done everyone!

Have a lovely weekend everyone, and take care.

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith.

Primary 3

Hello everyone.

What a brilliant time we had in Primary 3 last week. Our Egyptian topic is progressing well and this week we began by learning about the importance of the River Nile. We created our own miniature River Nile and flooded it to see whether any grass will grow along its banks. We also learned about the process of making paper from papyrus. We had a go at creating our own paper. See pictures at the bottom of this post. The children then wrote some Egyptian symbols on their paper. It was a fascinating week!

During writing this week, our chairs went on strike! They sent us a letter explaining why they were fed up. We were tasked with writing a persuasive letter to the chairs to ask them if they could come back. All of the chairs agreed that the children had tried very hard during this writing and they came back to our tables just in time for lunch! (We don’t think we will have any people swinging on their chairs from now on!)

In art, the children have continued to work had on their Egyptian mask designs, we can not wait to see the finished products!

A few reminders for your diaries (the children will also have these written in their own diaries too.)-

It is Children in Need day this coming Friday and children have been invited to dress down for this
As of the week beginning 30th November, our PE days will be on a Tuesday and Thursday. The Tuesday slot will be with the class teacher and the Thursday slot will be with our PE specialist, Mrs. Ferguson

Some children form Primary 3a forgot to hand their homework folders in on Friday. This will mean that, due to the current quarantine measures, Mr Williamson will not be able to look at the homework until the next homework due date which will be Friday 20th November. Can we also remind everyone that old reading books need to be handed back into school with the homework.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch and as always thank you for your continued support.

Mr Williamson and Miss Smith