Author: Mr Turner

P.E

Our week began with some Scottish dancing in P.E. We were learning the ‘Gay Gordons’. The children picked this dance up pretty quickly. They all worked  collaboratively in their pairs and showed each other respect. It certainly got us moving, especially when we added the music.

Anton: “I enjoyed dancing with a partner”.

Anna: “Learning the dance was a fun challenge”.

Maths and Numeracy

In numeracy we were continuing with the addition of whole 3-digit numbers without carrying. Next week we will start to look at carrying numbers over using the column number strategy.

In maths we continued to use our time story book to challenge our learning. The focus this week was the time in 24hr. The children worked really hard during this session. I am sure our class could be heard cheering each time we got a right answer!

Kiera “It was very hard but we all worked together to find the correct time”.

Health and Wellbeing

This weeks focus within our celebrating difference topic was around bullying. The children were asked what they would/should do if they were to witness any signs of bullying. They were also asked to discuss the difference between bullying and falling out with a friend. As this sometimes is something that gets misunderstood. We spoke about how as a school we should always use kind words and respect one another.

Science

In science this week, P3/4 and P4 got together to learn all about viruses and how they can be spread. The children watched part of ‘operation ouch’ to gain a deeper understanding of how viruses spread and how we can avoid this happening. After, Mrs Morrison and I demonstrated what happens when we all sneeze using a balloon, some flour and a very sharp pencil. This was a really fun experiment. Lets just say my carpet wasn’t blue for long!!

Kara: “I loved it when the balloon was popped and the flour went everywhere”.

Literacy

The children learned about similes this week, they really enjoyed coming up with their own and sharing these with the class. The class will be set the challenge to begin to use these in their creative writing.

For writing this week we worked on the final part of our series of lessons. We used our work from last week to help us create our first drafts of our fantastic Viking stories. The class were able to look back at their characters that they had created and the settings that they had described to help them hook their audience. Before the lesson had ended pupils shared some of their stories and peer assessed others work.

Sophie “I really enjoyed this task, it was fun and interesting”.

Emily “I learned about similes this week, I was able to include them in my writing”.

P3/4 have worked really hard again this week! Well done everyone!

P.E

Our week started with gymnastics. This week we continued exploring the sequence of movement using our bodies and working as part of a team. In their groups they were asked to compose a routine that would include skills such as; rolls, jumps and balances while travelling around their area. They were all fantastic!

Literacy

P3/4 started creating a plan this week to help them with their creative writing. First the children focused on their main character (Vikings), there were some great imaginative ideas here. We also used our laptops to research clothing, weapons and hair styles. The children had to first draw the character after this they then began to describe the character in more detail.

Next we explored the type of setting the characters were going to be going ‘a viking’. We looked at images of some Viking villages, stormy seas and longboats to help us to develop some great adjectives for our story when we come to write it.

Health and Wellbeing

This week the children were learning about family conflict as part of our celebrating difference focus in Deans at the moment. The children discussed issues that may cause conflict, and were suggesting ways in which this could be resolved. We referred to the ‘solve it together’ technique. We also made the word family with our bodies, each small group were given a letter to shape and form this. Some great examples of our collaborative learning below.

Maths

In numeracy this week the children were learning about rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100. We used our big numbers square rug to help us understand the rule of rounding to the nearest 10 and 100. Ask them about it, I’m sure they would love to tell you it.

In maths we continued learning to tell the time. Some of the children were even telling the time in five minute increments. All the children were working super hard. I can see that they are using their home learning time to practice this.

Creative Arts

This week the children were shown a clip from the Disney classic Bambi. We listened to and watched the scene of the  April Showers. While watching we were discussing how the music reflects what is happening in this part of the film.

After this the children were then asked to listen to Vivaldi-Storm and imagine what story this piece of music is telling. I loved that P3/4 could describe which emotions could be linked to both of these pieces.

Health and Wellbeing

There is currently a whole school focus, this is celebrating difference. This week primary 3/4 we exploring similarities and differences within our own families and families all over the world. We used our JIGSAW resources to help us discuss what constitutes as family in modern day society. We all got to share things about all our wonderful families and compare what might be similar or different with each other. The children then drew a family portrait, and inside the frames they wrote down the words that best reflects their family and how much they mean to them. Difference is something to celebrate and as a class we showed a great deal of respect towards each of our differences and similarities. Well done everyone!

It has been a busy week. Deans Primary celebrated its 50th birthday this week!

Our class was asked to focus on the 1980s for this weeks celebrations. The children really enjoyed taking a step back in time to explore this wonderful decade.

The children were paired up and given one year each to research online. The children were then able to design a poster showcasing all the different events from that particular year. We joined all of the posters together to create a timeline of the 80s.

In maths we explored counting time in years. We used terms such as, decade and century to calculate years of the past, future and present on an empty number line.

We also had a visit from fireman Steel just in time for bonfire night. He gave us some great tips on how to be safe during this particular event. The children also got to try on his hat and jacket.

Then of course we had Deans birthday celebrations. P3/4 were amazing hosts to all the wonderful guest we had visiting our classroom. We hope you all enjoyed our 80s themed activities. After the celebrations we all got to go to the ice cream van and pick a well earned treat.

Thank you to all of the parents and visitors that came along to celebrate with us during this wonderful occasion.

Primary 3/4 have had a busy week this week!

This week in maths we were exploring the value of single digits within whole numbers up to 10,000. This allowed us to order sequences of numbers from largest to smallest and smallest to largest.

For our topic we used Google maps to explore the area we live in to gain an understanding of the term settlements. We followed on from this by exploring the whole of Scotland using an Atlas and identifying the major cities of our beautiful country.

In our writing, we explored our 5 senses to help us write a spooky poem. We used a lot of fantastic wow words to describe what we could smell, see, taste, touch and hear.

Our Primary 4’s had a fantastic morning out of School on Thursday for a local handball event at Craigswood sports centre. They were all fantastic and showed great sportsmanship. They done Deans proud.

To finish off the afternoon P3/4 visited our local Morrisons to learn more about our wider community. We enjoyed our tour of the store and learned a lot about the inner workings of our local supermarket.