primary 3

In Primary 3 this week we have been exploring the school. We went on an exploratory walk around the building to find out exactly what the school has in place to help those with additional needs. Plenty of things were found, such as buttons to open the doors, the lowered window at the office and even some Portuguese in P7! Mrs Wotherspoon was kind enough to come and answer questions about what the school does to help people and hopefully it gave the pupils a good insight into how to think about and practise inclusion in the real world.

We have been very musical this week as well, working hard to try and learn our songs for the nativity as well as fine tuning our rendition of ‘Wee Annie Had a Yo-yo’. The pupils have been in fine voice and they are singing better and more confidently with every practice.

In maths we have continued to focus on money and have been working on making change from different amounts. We have also continued to develop multiplication skills and are going to be moving on to division.

We had a visit on Tuesday from some of the environmental team from West Lothian Council. They taught us a lot about the importance of recycling, what we can and can’t recycle and which bin to put things in.

Indoor PE:

Miss Smith Thursday

Mr Woodward Wednesday

Outdoor PE:

Miss Smith Tuesday

Mr Woodward Thursday

Thanks for your continuing support,

Miss Smith and Mr Woodward

Primary 3

Following on from the quitting of our brown pencils last week, there have been further cases of items quitting the class. On Tuesday all the chairs in Primary 3 decided they had had enough and quit, parking themselves in the back of the classroom and taping themselves off until they received a full apology from the pupils. The writing of the apologies went well, although some pupils had to verbally apologise to get their chairs back, but in the end all chairs were returned safely, hoping that they won’t be taking for granted again.

We have been continuing with our book for this term, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark and we had a great discussion about fears, what kinds of things frighten us, what kinds of things used to frighten us and how we can maybe overcome our fears. Needless to say there are lots of brave P3s who don’t mind sharing their fears and are brave enough to overcome them!

In topic we have been learning to write our name in Braille. We learned about the life of Louis Braille and why and how he came up with Braille and the pupils got a chance to create their names in Braille using lentils and plenty of glue, they are looking fantastic!

Reminders:

Poppies and Children in Need bands are on sale now, poppies are a donation of minimum 50p, Children in Need bands are between £1 and £1.50. There will also be a dress down day on Friday 15^th November for 50p which will go towards Children in Need.

Indoor PE:

Miss Smith Thursday

Mr Woodward Wednesday

Outdoor PE:

Miss Smith Tuesday

Mr Woodward Thursday

Thanks for your continuing support,

Miss Smith and Mr Woodward

Primary 3

There was a shocking incident at the beginning of the week when Miss Smith’s hairdryer refused to work for her. She had to write a letter to persuade it to work again. Then all of Mr Woodward’s brown colouring pencils up and left the pencil tray. They were not happy at being underused and so have quit until further notice. The pupils wrote letters to try and coax them back but so far only a small few have returned. Primary 3 have been working hard on their persuasive writing so hopefully with enough persuasion the rest of the brown pencils will be convinced to return soon. There have been continuing reports of various items quitting on the children e.g. scarves.

We have begun our book study for this term which is ‘The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark’. So far we have looked at what makes an effective front cover and what are the vital elements of a front cover. We got some fantastic imaginings of what the front cover might look like before the big reveal of the actual front cover of the story.

Continuing on in our Inclusion topic we had a very practical session all about the five senses. In our listening circle activity we have some pupils who hear like bats, some fantastic listeners! They also had a go at trying to read Braille which was very tricky and there were some very creative translations. They were very brave in jumping in nose first into our smelling challenge, not holding back at all. While there were some nice smells, like mint and lavender, vinegar proved to be the worst smelling offender. Although there were a couple of pupils who decided the vinegar smelled like feet!

In line with our inclusion topic we were wondering if there are any of you that are involved in local charities that would like to come in and teach us about their charities and what kinds of things they do? Or if there is any more information that could be passed on to us about local charities and who to contact/ any leaflets/ etc that would be greatly appreciated! If so please get in touch with the office and they can pass info on to us.

Reminders:

Miss Smith Mr Woodward

Indoor PE Thursday Indoor PE Wednesday

Outdoor PE Tuesday Outdoor PE Thursday

Homework due 11^th November for both

Thanks,

Miss Smith and Mr Woodward

Primary 3

Welcome back to everyone in Primary 3 after a well-deserved week off. The pupils have come back with a lot of enthusiasm and they have certainly hit the ground running. With Summer Winter having gone home now, we had a little more of our weather topic to finish off, involving some water balloons and a kettle. We looked at how and why water changes from one state to another and there were some great answers and speculation as to what we were going to use the kettle for, rest assured no balloons were put in the kettle to ‘see what would happen’!

We made a start to our new topic for this term which will be focussed on Inclusion, what it means, how we can include people in school and how the community helps those that need it; beginning with a particular focus on the 5 senses. We have already had some good discussions about what inclusion might mean and some very inquisitive questions that we will hopefully find the answers to over the course of the term.

We have also started our new maths topic which will be money and the pupils were excited to work with the coins to help them solve problems. They were slightly less excited when they found out it wasn’t real money.

Reminders:

Indoor PE Kit – Wednesday (Mr Woodward)

Thursday (Miss Smith)

Outdoor PE Kit – Tuesday (Miss Smith)

Thursday (Mr Woodward)

The next round of homework will be given out on Monday.

Thanks for your continued support,

Miss Smith and Mr Woodward

Primary 3 11.10.19

It was so lovely seeing the parents and carers of Primary 3 over the last two nights at Parents’ night. It was great to be able to show the progress the children have made already in this short space of time, and to have time to chat with you all.

We can’t believe it is the end of the first term already. We have completed so many challenges, experiments and pieces of work relating to our Weather topic and it is now time for us to say goodbye to SummerWinter. We had a lovely party and celebration for all of our hard work and it was well deserved! We will be sad to see her go.

This week, we completed our learning about cloud types. Ask us about some of the types of clouds we know about.

We have been learning the language of persuasion and have written our first piece of persuasive writing in the form of a letter. This will be our Writing focus until Christmas.

We are looking forward to starting a new topic, looking at our community and how there are groups and places to help people who are in need of help.

We Will continue talking about how we feel using our Blob Tree and will be creating our very own ‘Blob’ to position and demonstrate this.

Two of our pupils are leaving this week and going to a new school. We will miss you both and wish you all the best in your new adventures. Don’t forget us!

Please accept our apologies for homework due date being in the holidays. This was an oversight on my part. It is fine to hand it in the first day back from holidays.

Homework will then resume as usual the following week.

We hope you all enjoy a restful and well earned break.

Happy holidays, looking forward to seeing you all when we return on Tuesday 22nd October.

Thank you again for all of your support,

Miss Smith and Mr Woodward.

Primary 3

It has been a short week but we have been doing a lot in Primary 3. Summer Winter has come back from her long weekend and has done a good job of hanging around (literally). P3 have been teaching her all about rainbows and how they are made and we have been using lots of items to make our own rainbows indoors, the classrooms were so colourful! We have been writing and filming our very own weather reports as well and we can tell we have some budding weather presenters in our midst.

Pupils put on their navy hats in maths as we learned co-ordinates using Battleships. There was a cross-class competition before the pupils did their own and Miss Smith’s class were the clear winners. There was lots of competition going on and lots of enthusiasm and this challenge has also formed part of the next fortnight’s homework.

Reminders:

Homework due 30^th September

PE Kit:

Indoor: Wednesday (Mr Woodward)/ Thursday (Miss Smith)

Outdoor: Tuesday (Miss Smith)/ Thursday (Mr Woodward)

Please ensure that spelling and reading are being practised every night.

Can we also remind pupils to make sure names are going on school clothes as we are beginning to find items of clothing being left behind and they are not being claimed.

Thanks for your support,

Miss Smith and Mr Woodward

Primary 3

Just a formal welcome back after our first full week in Primary 3, it has been such a busy week. We have been working hard completing our Class Charters and the pupils have had some really good discussions about class rules and why we prioritised different things. We have also been doing a lot of work on our achievements and celebrating our achievements which will go towards creating our frieze for the small hall, we have a talented bunch! We have had Meet the Teacher and it was lovely to see so many people there. Thank you for handing back our achievements sheets and class charter forms so quickly, can those who are still to hand theirs back please hand them in at your earliest convenience?

Please continue to check homework diaries and the blog for updates.

Reminders:

Indoor PE – Wednesdays(Mr Woodward)/ Thursday (Miss Smith)

Outdoor PE – Tuesdays (Miss Smith)/ Thursdays (Mr Woodward)

Homework Folders – Mondays

Please ensure your child brings their homework folders and reading books every day,

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Smith and Mr Woodward

Primary 3 28.4.19

Welcome back everyone! We hope you all had a relaxing Easter break!

This week we have started our new topic which we have decided to call ‘Ocean Commotion’. The children have been impressing us so far with some of their knowledge, but we still have so much more we are eager to learn. The children have suggested lines of enquiry for this topic and have outlined activities they wish to do as well, so the topic is truly made from their ideas and questions.

To kick start the topic, we have learned about a turtle called ‘Peanut’, and how his life was changed because of ocean pollution and the carelessness of humans. He has grown up in captivity, therefore we have been finding out more about his natural habitat and who he would have shared the sea with. So far, we have learned of the zones of the sea and the creatures we could find within. We will be creating a vision of this in our classrooms in a display which we are very excited about!

This week is also Lowport. It is Miss Smith’s first time going too and so we are all very excited! We have put together a little talent show by the pupils for our disco night too which we are looking forward to. We are a very talented lot!

Please remember, if you have not already ordered a packed lunch for Thursday and need one, to hand in the yellow form or speak to someone in the office. Also, if the EE2 information form has not been completed and returned, could this be done at your earliest convenience? In addition to this, medication should be handed into the office prior to the trip.

We will take lots of photos to share our experience with you when we return.

Homework will commence as normal this week.

Miss Smith, Mrs Smith and Ms Matheson.

Primary 3 2.4.19

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all parents for your support this term. You have gone above and beyond in making our big homework castles, sourcing sticks for bows and arrows and coming along to watch and enjoy our assembly and banquet. Also coming in to see the children with their amazing strategies in our Number Talks lessons. The children have thoroughly enjoyed this term and it was lovely to see so many of you come to allow us to display our learning to a captive audience.

We wish you a fantastic Easter break when the time comes – very well earned for the children too.

Next term will see the pupils choice of learning turned into a topic for them, so watch this space. The ideas are pointing in a very specific direction of oceans, sea creatures, plastics, the future and extinction.

We will leave you with some pictures from this term. Happy Easter when the time comes.

Primary 3 8.3.19

Thank you to everyone who brought in their favourite book today for World Book Day.

We loved seeing all of the different books and in Primary 3, we had recipe books, fact books, story books, picture books, pocket books and poem books! It was so interesting hearing about why these were your favourite, and we enjoyed learning from the Primary 5s what theirs were too.

We began having a look at our class Parent Assembly on knights and castles today and we are beginning to hand out parts. We will have these out by Monday next week. Please keep an eye out for these and help your child to learn their words. We are very excited to share with you what we have been learning. The date for your diaries is Friday the 29th March. Letters about this will follow.

Next week primary 6 are hosting a bake sale to raise money for Comic Relief. This will happen on Thursday 14th. Also, on Friday the 15th, it will be a dress down day, with the theme “Crazy Hair/ Crazy Dress” and they ask a donation of 50p is brought in on this day. We have a number of other things happening in school for this as well and P6 have been working hard to make it an enjoyable day for all whilst raising money for this great cause.

Please could P3 ask for children to bring in a stick from home next week. This will be used for us to make a bow and arrow set and complete some science investigations with them. Any stick from outside will do, as long as it is strong.

Letters will be handed out soon for our up coming trip as well, so please keep an eye out for these in bags. We are heading to Edinburgh Castle on the 20th of March as a nice finish to our castles topic.

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Smith, Mrs Smith and Ms Matheson

Primary 3 25.1.19

This week we have learned about how to look after ourselves and stay clean and healthy. We did a glitter experiment whereby we put it on our hands and watched as it spread to everything we touched. (We also, at this point, had a brief discussion about the importance of using biodegradable glitter and what this word meant!) We discussed how this happens with germs every day and we can’t see them. This led to a discussion about foods and things we put near our mouths using our hands and we were all able to see why it is so important to wash our hands properly before we eat.

We will continue by looking at clean and dirty water, as well as healthy eating over the next few weeks.

The children did very well with their Burns poems, and although not everyone was confident in reciting theirs in front of the class in P3S, they all managed to it off by heart. Most even brought theirs to life with expression and gestures. Well done to Lauren, Ben, Alfie and Holly who went through to the class vote.

We enjoyed hearing all of the poetry in our whole school Burns celebration on Friday morning. What a talented lot of children we have! We look forward to sharing our recital talents and singing in front of the senior citizens at our Burns afternoon on Monday.

This week we will be creating life size knights with their protective armour and weapons and writing about how it would have felt to be a knight.

Reminders:

Please remember appropriate kit on PE days
We have had a lot of children losing or damaging the new books. Primary 3 have had the most letters sent out for replacements in the whole school. Please encourage your child to look after the books and bring them every day to school ready to practise their reading.
Please label all clothing coming into school, including PE kits.

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Smith, Mrs Smith and Ms Matheson

Primary 3 21.12.18

We just want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support in this year so far and to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes.

It was so lovely to see so many people at our Christmas gift giving in Primary 3 and the children were so excited to share them with you. They have worked very very hard in the run up to yesterday, getting them redrafted and illustrated in time. We all enjoyed the process of being mini authors and illustrators and it was great to have such a captive audience to share them with, so thank you again. IT certainly kept them busy right up until today!

We have church today to end a busy term, thank you for your donations. I am sure they will be greatly appreciated.

Primary 5 were fantastic teachers this week when they took us outside for outdoor PE. They taught us their own playground games and we thought they were excellent!

Last but not least, thank you to the children for all of your hard work this term. We look forward to seeing you all again in January. Have a fabulous Christmas and holiday.

Miss Smith, Mrs Smith and Ms Matheson

Primary 3 2.11.18

Primary three heard our nativity songs for the first time this week. The words are linked below and the music is here too. Please feel free to practise these in your spare time.

Behind the Stable Door

Bustling About

Dozy Donkey

Wake Up!

Grumpy Camels

Gifts of Love

Get Up!

We will also be handing out words for our Bonnie Wee Jeannie McColl song for St Andrews Day. This must be learned for homework over the next couple of weeks.

Primary 3 were introduced to the senses this week. We investigated things we liked to smell, touch, taste, see and hear. Next week we will focus on the sense of sight. We learned a little about the work of Louis Braille in creating the braille alphabet. We will explore this further next week.

We created some fantastic Firework Safety posters in writing this week so please ask us all about the safety rules. We now know what to do on bonfire night with sparklers, fireworks and bonfires.

Please if anyone has lost cardigans or jumpers in the past term, ask to see the pile in Miss Smith’s room. None of them have names, however they must belong to somebody. They will go up to lost property at the end of the week if they are not claimed.

Reminders:

Please bring a water bottle to school filled with water each day.

Please put names on every piece of clothing coming into school for easy identification.

Please bring PE kit on allocated day:

P3S – Tuesday and Thursday

P3MS – Monday and Wednesday

Homework

Learn Bonnie Wee Jeannie McColl

Reading books – see diaries

Spelling – Look, cover, write and check words along the line and write one sentence for one of your words. (This will increase to 3 sentences after Christmas.)

Maths: Learn 2 x table, forwards and backwards.

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Smith, Mrs Smith and Ms Matheson

Primary 3 28.9.18

We were so disappointed this week that we did not get to go to our Multisports Festival due to the weather not being on our side. We have a feeling Summer Winter did not want to be left alone whilst we were away and so made sure it rained hard all day! Hopefully this will be rescheduled for later in the term. Thank you so much for everyone coming to school prepared though!

We have been busy practising our songs and words for our school Harvest assembly. We wrote acrostic poems to share our knowledge about Harvest, some of which you can see in the writing corridor.

Primary 3B (Miss Smith’s class) have been chosen to take part in Futsal every Tuesday for the next 8 weeks and then Primary 3A (Mrs Smith/ Ms Matheson’s class) will take part in this next term. We are very excited about this and looking forward to it. Nothing has changed, PE kit on the same days for 3B – Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The Parent’s night appointment books are now open and slowly filling, so be sure to book an appointment to come in for a chat. We are looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Thank you for your support,

Miss Smith, Mrs Smith and Ms Matheson

Primary 3 20.11.17

We have certainly been hustling and bustling with our nativity practice lately! Costumes have been fitted, lines being learned, dances being choreographed and positions being given and we can’t wait to show you what we have been working on! Thank you for going over children’s lines, the effort is really paying off.

Our Inclusion topic is well under way and we have been learning about the provisions in place to ensure people who have difficulties are included and provided for in and around our school and local area. We were interested to learn that some people’s difficulties cannot be seen, and rather, it is harder for them because of this.

St Andrew’s Day is not far away either and we have a new and interesting Scots song to learn. Here are the words, can you understand the story? Children have all been given a copy to learn over the next two weeks.

We look forward to seeing many of you at our Look, Write, Count event on Wednesday 22nd November from 6.30. Here, you will receive a wonderful free story bag with games and two picture books included, and have the opportunity to play some of the games with your child and perhaps hear a story!

Homework:

Nativity words and songs

St Andrew’s Day song

Reading

Maths

Spelling

Book Day on Wednesday 29th November. Start planning fancy dress where children dress up as their favourite book character.

Primary 3 24.10.17

Hello all!

We hope you had a lovely half term break and feel fully rested for the busy term ahead! We have started the week as we mean to go on with our phonic focus and our common words selection. You will notice that the children will have slightly more words to learn using make and break strategies or look, say, cover, write and check. We have also included four common words to practice each week in whichever way you choose. This can be done verbally, in the car, in the supermarket or it can be done using colour on scrap paper in rainbow writing, or opposite handed. The more repetition the children experience the more they will remember when they write in class.

Reading will also be set individually, this will either be stuck in the front of the diary or in the relevant week indicating which pages or chapters to focus on.

PE remains the same with P3S on a Tuesday and Thursday and P3A on a Tuesday and Wednesday.

Our Halloween Disco will be taking place this Thursday at 5pm and the children are already excited about dressing up for this.

We will also be busy planning and rehearsing our P2/3 Nativity and more details of this will follow, don’t want to mention ‘Xmas’ just yet!!!!

It was lovely to see those of you that could attend parent’s evening before half term and as always, our door is open if you have any queries or concerns.

Have a great week!

Mrs Smith, Miss Smith and Miss Brown

Primary 3 3.10.17

Today all of our hard work from the past few weeks was demonstrated in our Harvest assembly. Lots of adults who watched us commented on how great our singing was, as well as our acting and art work. The children did very well learning their lines and a big thank you to our farmers for remembering their farming clothes.

We have created posters in challenge groups explaining the reason we have seasons. We used pictures, diagrams and words to describe the Earth’s tilt and the way the Earth tilts away and towards the Sun.

We had a Futsall taster session today, for PE. We enjoyed showing our abilities, and a few of the activities really challenged our skills, especially ball control! We look forward to our session next week.

Reminders:

Remember after school club forms should be completed and returned to the office before the October break.

Parents night appointments are being made.

Children should have their names on all items of clothing.

Homework due Friday:

Spelling as normal

Reading as per sheet in homework diary

Maths – Be the teacher sheet, teaching adding and subtracting 9 and 11

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Smith and Mrs Smith

Primary 3 Wk beginning 4th September

We are now into the full swing of Primary three and just yesterday we received a mysterious letter from Mrs Thunder wanting Primary Three’s help to learn more about the weather. This is great news as we have been discussing what we already know and what we would like to learn about our topic. We are going to practice our best handwriting and sentences when we write our own letters in response.

Homework

Weekly spelling

This week has also seen the start of homework. In their homework jotters, children have stuck in a small word list focusing on one sound a week. With this list, children should use a line per word to write each word as many times along the line as they can fit in, using the Look, Cover, Write, Check format.

A common words sheet has also been stuck in and although this does not need written evidence, it would be good if you could practice these with your child whenever you have time.

Handwriting

A handwriting sheet has been stuck in the front of jotters for children to practice at home. It would be good for the children to familiarise themselves with the correct letter formation.

Maths

We have been learning strategies for our Maths to make us more confident and speedier in our calculations. We recognised that it is much easier to add to a ‘friendly number’ (one with a 0 at the end) and because of this, we can shuffle numbers in our addition sums to make a ten first, then add the rest on.

Reading

We also have started reading. Please practice the pages given, stuck in the front of the homework diaries, out loud, checking for understanding and recognition of punctuation whilst we read.

With homework, we have set the days for handing out on a Monday, and return day a Friday as we would prefer to leave your weekends free. We welcome your comments on this. Perhaps some people prefer a weekend to be able to spend time doing it?

It was lovely to meet so many of you at meet the teacher. Thank you for coming to say hello.

Thank you for your continued support,

From ‘the Smiths’.

Primary 3 30.5.17

Primary 3 are going to be creating their very own dream play park out of junk! The children will work in small groups and use their prior knowledge and imagination to construct a park and the play equipment. The children will have to design their parks on paper, identifying what equipment they want to have and what materials they will require to complete the challenge. They will then work together to create their park and finally present their model to the class. We are looking forward to what master pieces are going to be constructed over the next couple of days!

If you have any recycling/junk at home, please send it in with your child. Thank you!

We are coming to the end of our division topic and the children have worked really well. We will still encourage the children to practise their times tables at home because they have been so helpful in allowing us to solve division questions and problems.

In Health we have been doing quite a bit of work on Road Safety. The children were able to discuss and clearly state the Green Cross Code and this week we will be discussing the importance of being SEEN while walking on footpaths and crossing the roads.

P.E will continue to be the same days until the end of term:

P3R- Monday and Tuesday

P3S- Tuesday and Wednesday

Homework: Spelling/ Reading/ Maths

Thanks,

Miss Rafferty and Mrs Smith

Primary 3 24.4.17

Primary 3 have an exciting week ahead. A number of our boys and girls are off to Lowport on Thursday until Friday. They will be doing lots of different outdoor activities and visiting some interesting places in Linlithgow. Children going to Lowport need to remember a packed lunch and a snack. Up to the minute news and pictures will appear on the BLOG.

The boys and girls staying at school will be continuing work on our topic- Outstanding Outdoors. They are going to be identifying and drawing plants and animals found in the garden, planting seeds in our big planters outside our classroom windows, going on a bug hunt and performing at our very own mini talent show!

In maths this term, we are focusing on division. The children will be using their knowledge of times tables and fractions to help them solve division questions and problem solving.

Our reading this term is Guided Reading, which the children are very familiar with. Reading homework will be done on a Tuesday and Thursday.

Spelling and Maths homework will be sent home today. Could it be handed back in for Thursday as it is a short week with children going to Lowport.

P3R P.E – Outdoor Tuesday, Indoor Monday

P3S P.E- Outdoor Tuesday, Indoor Wednesday

Newsletter will be coming out shortly outlining the plans for our final term.

Miss Rafferty and Mrs Smith