Primary 4 have been impressing their teachers again with lots of great effort and work on Teams this week! Well done everyone.

In Numeracy we have been learning the 7 times table and stretching our brain with different number challenges. We have also enjoyed active learning tasks around right angle turns. Some children sent us video clips of them following instructions to make different quarter turns to the right. Very impressive!

In Literacy we have learned to spell the names of different European countries and have placed them on the map. In writing we pretended we were owners of a 5 star hotel and created persuasive posters for Ed Sheeran to come and stay! We enjoyed reading the first chapter of JK Rowling’s new book, ‘The Ickabog’, and developed our skills in making notes and organising information under different headings.

We had lots of fun on Thursday when we went on a ‘virtual’ class trip to Edinburgh Zoo! All of our activities were based around buying entry tickets, visiting Penguin Rock, researching different zoo animals and creating animal masks to wear. We even visited the online shop and chose a ‘zoovenir’  to buy.

Here are some reflections from our P4 children:

“The tricky part was the right angles and the easy part was reading ‘The Ickabog’.”

“I enjoyed learning about all the animals of Edinburgh Zoo because all the activities were fun.”

“I enjoyed learning the 7 times table because I didn’t know it but now I do.”

“My favourite thing was learning about the European countries – now I know how to spell their names, where they are on the map and what their capitals are.”

“My learning in Numeracy this week can help me work out my change when I go to the shops for juice and sweets.”

“I enjoyed reading the first chapter of ‘The Ickabog’.”

“I really enjoyed researching koalas as they are my favourite animal.”

“I enjoyed the Health and Wellbeing PE challenge because I love gymnastics.”

Primary 4 have had another fun-filled week with lots of activities to keep them busy at home. In Literacy we revised homophones, especially ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’. We also enjoyed some performance poetry by Michael Rosen. This one was called ‘Chocolate Cake’. Yum! He brought the poem to life by using onomatopoeia, so we learned a little about this too.

In Numeracy we revised fractions and applied our knowledge of division to find fractions of money. We also had fun creating our own Tangrams online!

Some children got creative with their food this week and made pieces of art with their meals or snacks! Others followed drawing tutorials online and improved their skills.

On Sunday it will be the Feast of Pentecost so we have discussed how the Disciples might have felt when the Holy Spirit came down upon them like tongues of fire. Some of our P4 children would have been celebrating their First Holy Communion this weekend and are feeling sad that they cannot.  We look forward to the time when we can all celebrate with them.

Primary 4 have reflected on their learning this week. Here is what they had to say.

“The food creation was my favourite. I made a banana car and it was funny.”

“I liked the maths because you can use fractions for slicing a piece of cake or pizza.”

“I enjoyed the onomatopoeia song!”

“I like performance poetry because I found it really fun!”

“Fractions are useful in everyday life, for example when telling the time.”

“This week I had fun making the sunburst painting and I put it on my window so now my room is colourful.”

“I like watching Newsround.”

“I enjoyed fractions. It was hard to start with but I got the hang of it in the end.”

Yes, we have been revising alliteration this week in Primary 4! We have also learned about the Scottish man who is famous for inventing the TV, John Logie Baird.  Our spelling sound this week was ‘tch’ and we took part in some fun activities including making  a pairs game with our words. Tuesday was National Limerick Day so we had lots of fun creating our own limericks. Some of us found this hard but we had a growth mindset and persevered!

In Maths we have learned about volume and capacity and also worked on repeated addition for multiplication sums. Our STEM activities this week included drawing a 3D alphabet and creating bird feeders. It’s been a busy week and lots of fun. Here’s what some of our brilliant P4 children had to say:

“I found the capacity experiment was fun and easy to do.”

“I enjoyed learning about John Logie Baird because I found it interesting.”

“I enjoyed filling the basin with water and guessing how many litres it would take.”

“I can help my mum cook by telling her about the litres and millilitres.”

“I liked making the bird feeder this week. I learned that birds like to eat apples, cherries, grapes, sunflower seeds and nuts.”

“I have enjoyed art and history this week.”

“This week I learned how to write a limerick. It was really fun and and I enjoyed finding rhymes and counting the syllables.”

“I can use volume and measuring at the shops because I can tell how much milk or water there is in a container.”

“I enjoyed art because I like drawing pictures for my comic strip.”

This week in Primary 4 all the children have been working very hard as usual. Their digital technology skills are improving everyday and they are sharing their brilliant work with their teachers through Teams.

We have enjoyed active spelling activities and P.E. challenges, as well as practising subtraction strategies and learning more about weight in Maths. Our Famous Scot this week was Charles Rennie Mackintosh and some children enjoyed drawing their own ‘Mackintosh Rose’.  Every week children in Primary 4 are improving their writing skills through ‘Weekend News’ and story writing tasks. Well done boys and girls! We have finished our week by praying a Hail Mary as today is the 1st of May (the month of Mary).

Here are some Friday Reflections from our P4 pupils:

“I enjoyed learning about art because I can get better at drawing and making posters.”

“I learned new number talk strategies and how to write in paragraphs.”

“I enjoyed learning about plurals because it’s really fun.”

“This week I got more confident with subtraction strategies. I think the formal strategy works best for me.”

“I can use what I learned about weight when i’m baking.”

“The Maths quizzes were really fun.”

“I found the subtraction sums hard to start then it was easy.”

“I have been enjoying Health and Wellbeing because it’s really fun.”

“I enjoyed mindfulness because it’s relaxing and it makes me calm.”

This week in Primary 4 we have been busy as usual.

In topic we have learned a little bit about deforestation, for example every minute in the forest trees the same size as twenty football pitches are cut down.

In P.E. we have been playing Continuous Dodgeball.  We need to be quick and alert.

We have been challenging ourselves in times tables this week. We have a sticker chart in our classrooms to show what tables everyone knows well.

We have also been learning about adverbs. An adverb is an adjective to describe a verb.

We used adjectives and adverbs to describe a rainforest setting in our writing.

We have been working with our learning partners to help each other learn. We will have a new partner each week to help us talk about our learning and share ideas. From now on we will do TOP TEN every morning [ten maths sums]. We will work with our learning partners for this to share strategies.

We have started a new topic in Maths and that is measurement. We will do length for now but we will do different types of things like weight and distance.

In Literacy, we have been writing an adventure story called ‘Tom Trueheart and the Land of Dark Stories’. We have tried our best to describe the settings and characters using adjectives and adverbs, and to write in paragraphs. We will create front and back covers for our stories next week.

On Thursday we went swimming for our swimming assessments. If we get a letter in the next week or so, that means we are being offered free swimming lessons.

We have also been lucky enough to learn about Ramadan from some children in our class who are celebrating this Muslim festival. We now know that during Ramadan, Muslims pray more, give to the poor and fast. Adults fast everyday between dawn and dusk!

Written by Matthew and Zofia (P4a)

We have had another busy week in P4a.

In Topic and Literacy, we wrote about Famous Scots who inspire us.

Michael – Andy Murray inspires me because he is a very good tennis player and when I grow up I want to be the same.

Kaylan – John Logie Baird inspires me because when I grow up I want to be an inventor too.

Lara – Saint Margaret inspires me because she helped the poor and when I grow up I want to help others by being a teacher.

Leon – Andy Murray inspires me because when I grow up I want to help children play tennis too.

We have started making giant posters about all the ‘Famous Scots’ we have learned about the past few weeks, bringing together our skills in ICT, reading, writing and research.

In Numeracy we have changed our focus to ‘Time’. We learned about using a calendar and we made our own, adding some important events such as class birthdays and the February Break! We played games with the clocks too, recapping o’clock and half past times.

On Tuesday, Archbishop Leo Cushley came to visit our school. His Grace came to our classroom and we sang him some songs about the 12 Disciples. We also prayed together for all the people who help us in Primary 4, especially as we prepare for the Sacrament of First Holy Communion.

Finally, in Music we played ball games, sung songs and learned about the rhythm names: ta and te-te.

Have a lovely weekend!

Primary 4 have had a busy week!

In Writing we had to describe a picture. The picture was a setting for a story. We had to include adjectives, nouns and adverbs. Next week we will begin to write character descriptions.

On Tuesday we walked to Broxburn Academy for the Benchball Festival. We were sorted into teams and we played some rounds of Benchball against other schools. We really enjoyed this even though we had to use mats instead of benches!

In Numeracy we have been learning about Money. We can convert pence into pounds and pounds into pence. We can also add sums of money together to make totals. Some children brought in different currencies for us to look at. Cole brought coins from the Czech Republic, Michael showed us some euros, Adam brought in Algerian money and Kyle introduced us to the Indian rupee.

In Health and Wellbeing we have begun to learn about the importance of keeping ourselves clean and healthy. Miss Doolan brought in two pieces of bread for us to use in an experiment. We all touched one piece without washing our hands, and Cole touched another piece AFTER washing his hands. We put the bread in separate bags, labelled them and hung them up in our classroom. Our aim is to see which piece gets more mouldy in the next week or two.

Primary 4 have been learning about the very famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns. We now know lots of facts about him!

Milo – Robert Burns is sometimes called ‘Rabbie’.

Erin – He is a famous poet and songwriter who lived in the 1700s.

Tatenda – He started writing poems when he was younger to impress the ladies.

Finlay A. – He lived in a cottage in Alloway.

Alex – Robert Burns grew up on a farm. His Dad died when he was 25 so Rabbie had to take over the farm with his brother.

Ellie – Robert Burns died when he was only 37 years old.

On Robert Burns Day we celebrated in class by tasting some Scottish foods and celebrating our Scottish culture.

Neve, Neve, Fallon and Carson entertained us with some Highland Dancing. Finlay F. treated us to ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and both he and Connor played ‘Scotland the Brave’. Matthew read one of Burns’ famous poems called ‘Address to the Haggis’.

We got to taste haggis, shortbread, oatcakes and Irn-Bru. Yum! We took a vote to see which was the most popular of the foods. Irn-Bru had the most votes, while haggis had the least number of votes because it was ‘too spicy’!