Author: wlemma.hillan@glow

This week in Primary 4 we have been finishing off our reading books ready for starting fresh ones in the new session. We have had some good discussion around these and Mrs Hillan is seeing a big difference in many of us with our confidence in reading aloud and our use of expression.

We have also completed a spelling baseline of the spelling words/patterns that we have been focusing on this term. This gives Mrs Hillan a good idea of how well we have been practising these words and our next steps in spelling.

In writing we got to create our own narrative stories based on characters that we had created a couple of weeks ago. We had to ensure that we used correct punctuation, paragraphs, and exciting words, as well as including a complication and resolution in our stories.

In Numeracy we have done some work on Division. This topic links in nicely with our previous topic of multiplication. This is something that will be continuing in our new session as we move on to Primary 5.

In our topic this week we have created some Egyptian jewellery:

Summer – I thought it was very interesting to make something out of pasta and paper plates

Shay – I liked it because it reminded me of Gucci.

Maisy – It was fun and a little bit sticky!

Alyssa – I thought it was fun and I just loved to see how people made pieces that were totally different from each other.

Derry – It was fun!

Ryley – It was really messy!

Olivia – It was fun and exciting to make these and all of the designs were so different.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!!

Primary 4 have had another week of working hard and learning new things.

In Numeracy we have completed our Multiplication topic. We were all given a post topic assessment to do, where we were encouraged to try our best and use all the new knowledge we have gained. We will now use these skills to look at Division.

In Writing this week we worked together as a class, looking at all the necessary points that need to be included in a Narrative piece. We looked at our comments from last week so that we all knew where would could improve this week. We wrote our piece together and used our topic as our stimulus. We wrote about a person travelling to Ancient Egypt and mentioned some of the things they may have experienced such as the changing seasons, meeting the Pharaoh, taking on a job as a farmer and trading for goods. As a class we picked names for our characters, decided what the complication was going to be and agreed on a resolution. Here are some of our finished stories. We are very proud of this piece!

In Reading we have discussed the importance of answering fully when it comes to comprehension tasks. When we have been reading aloud, we have had a focus on using expression and being aware of things such as exclamation marks, question marks and italics, and how we should read when they are present.

In Art this week we finished off our scarab beetles and made some wings for them. We also got an opportunity to do some free drawing.

In topic this week we learned all about the mummification process. Here are our thoughts on this:

Sophie C – It was weird but interesting to learn about.

Summer – It was interesting to learn about how mummification works.

Kayleigh – I found it gross when I heard that they mashed the brains up and took them out with a hook.

Derry – It was disgusting when we heard that when a person is dead that they can still do the toilet and it would like down the board they were on!

Erin R – It was interesting that they had to use salt, I didn’t know it helped to soak up water.

Chloe – When the body is wrapped up the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines are put in jars.

Hadiyaah – It was disgusting but interesting to hear why they would mummify people.

Olivia – It was very interesting as I thought they just out the wrapping out but they take out most of the organs first and mash up the brain.

Have a lovely weekend!

This week in Primary 4 we have been working hard as usual. We have moved onto a different genre for Writing, one which we are already familiar with – Narrative. This is where we can use our imaginations more and create our own stories. We started off by discussing the layout of this type of text – we need to include who, when and where when we first start. Then we need to include a complication in our story (something that goes wrong), and we finish it with a resolution – how the problem is solved and the outcome of this. We are needing to ensure that we remember the basics – reading over our work to check that it makes sense and that we have included correct punctuation as well as used paragraphs and a variety of sentence starters and connectives. We will give this more focus next week. Some of our pieces are below for you to read:

In Reading this week we have become illustrators and created a new front cover for our group novels. We have also been looking at making predictions again, and this time we used Mr Bean to help with this. Mrs Hillan paused at a variety of points during the programme and we recorded/ verbally gave our predictions. It was interesting to see if our predictions would be right or not. Here are our thoughts:

Gracie – It was fun but tricky and you might have got it wrong, but that’s alright.

Shay – It was hard at the start but it started to get easier.

Rihanna – It was fun when we got to see if our answer was right or not.

Ciaran – It was really fun hearing other people’s answers on what they thought.

Maisy – It was funny and some of the guesses were true and some were wrong but that was okay.

Stevi – It was fun to watch it and make your prediction.

Roman – It was fun but it was a bit hard, but we all had a laugh.

Olivia – It was funny and it was also fun to hear other people’s answers, some of which were funny!

Derry – The first video was funny and quite easy, but the second got a bit harder to guess.

In Numeracy we are coming to the end of our multiplication topic and we are about to do our assessment again. It would be good if all pupils could practise their tables this week ready for the assessment next week.

We are very lucky in Primary 4 and are getting some Art lessons with Mr Bennett over the next few weeks. The pupils shared what they did and their thoughts:

Summer – One of the tasks was to take little pieces of blu tak and stick them onto the table to make them next to each other.

Chloe – It was hard, when we stuck the blu tak down it started to look like a beetle.

Sophie C – When you put the blu tak down we got a picture of a beetle and a plain piece of paper and we had to mark out the parts of the beetle to then draw it and shade it in at the end.

Ariah – For me it was fun and a bit tricky as you had to measure and mark.

Alyssa – It was very fun and the lesson was relaxing.

Emily – It was very fun and everybody’s picture turned out very good. You could creative when colouring in.

We look forward to more learning next week!

This week we made predictions about what we thought would happen next in the story of The Witches. Here are some of our great ideas:

Lewis – I think that the boy’s gran is going to put him in the knitting and put him down to the witch’s balcony.

Summer – I think that the Grand High Witch will go to her room and not see the boy/mouse and he will grab a bottle of the mouse maker, take it back and they will creep into the kitchen and put it in the witches’ food, but the Grand High Witch won’t eat it.

Shay – I think that Grandma will lower the mouse down to the balcony and he will grab the Mouse Maker, but the Grand High Witch will see him and try to grab the knitting as he goes back up!

Gracie – I think Grandma is going to go to the Grand High Witch’s room and get the bottle and give it to the Grand High Witch as a drink, she will drink it and turn into a mouse.

Sophie C – I think the boy is going to go into the sock and be lowered down to the balcony and steal all of the Delayed Action Mouse Makers and bring them up to Grandma’s room!

Welcome to this week’s learning in Primary 4.

In Writing we have written our final piece for our genre of Explanation Report Writing. This week was our assessment week where Mrs Hillan will look at our writing and see if we have met all the success criteria needed and see where we would need to go next with it. This week we wrote about the role of a Firefighter. We started off with a discussion around this, then completed our pieces.

In Numeracy we have continued working on our tables. This week we have begun a focus on multiplying a two digit number by a single digit. This is our thoughts so far:

Emily – I thought it was going to be hard but once Mrs Hillan explained how to do it, it was quite easy!

Summer – At first some of us thought it was quite tricky but when we started doing it, it was a bit easier.

Chloe – It was kind of hard and easy at the same time. Some people learned new things.

Shay – I thought it was a bit scary coming to the front of the class to do a sum, but once I saw other people doing it, it seemed fun to do!

Ciaran – I thought it was going to just using one table but it wasn’t.

Lewis – I thought it was going to be hard but when I saw other people doing it, it was easier.

Erin R – It is interesting to find out how other people’s minds work!

Olivia – It was easy but at the beginning I was thinking “How am I supposed to do this?”.

Derry – It’s kind of like other chimney sums only this time using multiplying.

Sophie G – It looked hard at the beginning but when you got to see other people doing it, it became easier.

In Spelling this week we have created a word search using our words as well as testing our partners on the words for the week.

In Reading we have used our prediction skills. We were asked to predict what we think might happen next in the story of The Witches. Here are some of our predictions:

Chloe – I think the boy will talk to his Grandma and she will try and help them.

Sophie C – I think Bruno and the boy are going to go up to the boy’s Grandma but she won’t know who it is.

Summer – I think they are going to the boy’s Grandma’s. At first she’ll be scared and then she will try and help them. They will hear one of the boy’s mice talk.

Lewis – I think the boy and Bruno will go to the boy’s Grandma and she will put them in a cage and keep them.

Erin R – My prediction is when they try to go up the stairs the manager is going to catch them.

Emily – The boy’s Grandma will take care of them until they change back.

Caelan – I think the little boy and Bruno will go to Grandma and then steal all the Action Mouse Makers and smash them.

Sophie G – I think that the boy and Bruno will go to the boy’s Grandma and then she will go to Bruno’s mum and explain.

Alyssa – I think the boy and Bruno will go to Grandma, who will then explain to Bruno’s mum and dad and the manager.

Ryley – The boy and Bruno will go to Gran and she will be scared but then she will try to find a cure.

Gracie – I think the boy is going to explain to Grandma and she is going to go and sneak and grab the bottles and throw them off the balcony.

Rihanna – I think the boy and Bruno will go to Grandma, she will be confused but then she will help them.

In our topic this week we have been working on our note-taking skills. We watched a video about the daily lives of Egyptians and noted down any key facts or pieces of information we particularly liked. We are going to use this information to complete our next writing piece.

This week we have continued our personal class talks where we have been sharing information on a topic of our choice. Mrs Hillan and our peers have been assessing us on our skills in doing this. Mrs Hillan and Mrs Wood have been so impressed by the quality of the talks given as well as how brave everyone has been in standing up in front of the class.

Next week we have a Monday holiday, but we will be ready to learn again on Tuesday!

This week has been a short week for us all, but we have still been busy.

We were very lucky as the West Lothian Museum people gave us an online lesson on the Egyptians. The lady showed us artefacts and told us lots of interesting facts about them and the Egyptians. Here are some of the facts we liked best:

Emily – Scarabs were in the bandages with people when they were mummified.

Roman – They used Canopic Jars to store their hearts in.

Maison – Egyptians used to wear straw sandals.

Gracie – They wore masks when they died because they needed to know who they were to be brought back to life.

Lacey – They wear jewellery so that nothing bad happened.

Shay – They had little blue statues called Shabtis

Summer – Egyptians slept without a pillow, they used a neck rest instead.

Derry – They thought cats protected them.

We created a new explanation text on the role of a nurse. This gave some super discussion again and some of us even learned something new. We have included some of our pieces below:

We are still working hard on our times tables, with this week having a focus on all of our tables. Here are some of our thoughts:

Holly – I have learned the 9x table.

Ciaran – I have learned most of the tables. They are getting easier!

Rihanna – I think the times tables are getting easier the more I practise them.

Hadiyaah – I feel that times tables are tricky but once you start learning them slowly, they get easier.

Erin R – I think that once we move onto Division it will be really easy as we already know our tables.

Emily – I feel like multiplication is a bit harder than division.

Thank you for reading about our week!

This week we have been busy once again!

In Numeracy we have continued working on our tables, with a focus on the 4x and 9x table. We looked at these in our Number talks before then working on these individually.

In Writing this week we started our new genre of Explanation Report Writing. We discussed how this sort of text had to be written in the present tense and also how this was not a text where we mention I or We or talk about our feelings. We worked together on our piece, creating a text about how bees make honey. This created some super discussion between us all. Read some of our pieces below:

In Reading we have continued to use our summarising skills. We have summarised our own group texts as well as another chapter of our novel. We need to ensure that we remember our punctuation as we write. Some of our pieces are below:

In our topic this week we have been looking at the different types of jobs the Egyptians may have done. We are going to use this further next week. We also created some line drawings of the Pharaoh – we had to ensure to include detail and take our time. Here are some of our drawings:

We will have a shorter week next week, but we will still have lots to do!

We have had a busy first week back in Primary 4 and everyone has been working really hard.

In Literacy we have been looking at the skill of summarising. Mrs Hillan read a chapter of the class novel and we summarised what we had heard. We are now starting to get the hang of picking out the key points from what we have heard or read. Here are some of our summaries:

In Numeracy we have continued with multiplication. We have been looking at the 8x table or the 5 and 3x tables. We also enjoyed playing a times table challenge where two of us were asked a question to see who could answer first! We definitely need to keep practising these at home.

In our topic this week, we have finally been able to get back on track with our Egyptians topic! We created a timeline of events from Ancient Egyptian times:

We also looked at information about the River Nile and picked out the key facts which told us why it was so important to the Egyptians. We recorded this on a mind map:

We look forward to more learning next week!!

We have enjoyed another week of learning in Primary 4 this week as we lead up to the Easter holidays.

In Numeracy, we have continued working on our times tables and have assessed our knowledge and understanding at present to see what we need to work on. We have been able to see that we definitely all need to be practising at home.

In Reading we have continued our new class novel of Roald Dahl’s “The Witches”. This has brought about some good discussion so far and we look forward to doing some predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising around this. Here are some of our thoughts and things we have learned about so far from the story:

“Witches hate children!” – Erin R

“Witches look like normal ladies and that’s how they catch children.” – Ciaran

“Witches can smell kids” – Rihanna

“Witches have no toes” – Daniel

“I feel like it’s a nice novel, but a little scary” – Alyssa

“They wear gloves to not show their claws and they wear wigs because they are bald!” – Summer

“Witches make children vanish.” – Olivia

“The scent of children is stronger to a witch if they have just had a bath.” – Sophie G

“Children smell disgusting to witches” – Chloe

For our Writing this week we chose to either write a letter to the Easter Bunny or a chocolate company telling them about a new design for an Easter egg. We discussed the layout of a letter beforehand and we told Mrs Hillan what we needed to include. Here are some of our letters:

We hope everyone has a good Easter and stays safe!