Literacy – Page 3 – East Calder Primary School Blog

P3/2 Literacy Bump It Up Wall

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.

are going to start using the PM approach to support us in Writing, however, we have started to think about how we can improve and “bump up” our writing using our “Literacy Bump It Up Wall.” Miss Marra showed a picture on the smart board and we had to write sentences about what we could see. It was a very exciting picture, and Mrs Robertson came to our class too. We had to write independently so Miss Marra and Mrs Robertson could see what we can write by ourselves. We spent two writing sessions working on the same piece, and we tried our very best, using a Growth Mind Set.

Miss Marra photocopied three random pieces of writing and we used a massive magnifying glass to look for what we liked about each piece of writing. We looked at our Learning Intention and Success Criteria and spoke about what we think we did well. We also identified next steps in our learning so we know how we can improve our writing. Miss Marra and Mrs Robertson are going to display this on our Bump It Up Wall in class.

We are so excited to be the first class in the school to do this.

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.

P3 Literacy & Numeracy

We listened to a story and thought of all the positional language we heard. We then worked with a partner to write down all the words we could think of. We watched a short video and discussed where items were in a house using the vocabulary we had learned.

We started learning about writing a description. To do this we read a passage and had to find all the nouns in it. We learned that a noun is a naming word for a people, place or thing. Later in the week we then used the same passage and highlighted all the adjectives. We though of other describing words that could be used.

We have been using concrete materials to help us with our Numeracy. We have lots of different tools in our class to support our learning. We use them to help us solve calculations. This week we were given the problem 24 + 12 and worked with a partner to solve it. We then had to keep adding 12. Some of us saw a pattern to the numbers and managed to work the problem to over 100. They then shared their strategy with the rest of the class.

We are constantly discussing our work with other people but sometimes we need to remember our listening skills. This week we worked in small groups to discuss our emotions. We had to remember to take turns, look at the person who was talking and listen to all their words.

Literacy and Numeracy in P3/2

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.

In Reading Comprehension, we are focusing on prediction this term. We learned that “prediction” means having a good guess about what we think will happen next in a text. Texts come in a variety of different forms and we used an exciting picture from a web site called “Once Upon a Picture.” Miss Marra asked us “what do we notice and what do we wonder?” We shared our ideas and used clues to predict what we think would happen next. One of our favourite parts of this task was working in “random partners.” We have been using our randomiser wheel or our magic box to choose a name at random. This is how we find out who we are going to be working with and it means we can work with different people each time.

We made some great predictions and shared our ideas confidently with the class. We worked well as part of a team which is one of the skills we identified when we co-created or Success Criteria. Miss Marra was impressed by how well we worked together on this task.

In Numeracy, we have started to explore addition strategies this week. We are learning to use the CPA Approach – concrete, pictorial and abstract. We started by adding Mathematical vocabulary to our Maths and Numeracy Learning Wall that we can use to help us when we learn addition. We came up with plus, add and addition and we are going to keep adding more. We also added vocabulary to support us with the other three operations (subtraction, multiplication and division.) We will re-visit this vocabulary and add more as part of our learning process.

We worked in random partners today and use our Numeracy Tools to show a calculation that was written on the board. We shared the strategy we used to calculate the answer and how we used the Tools to support our learning. We were provided with a challenge once we solved the first problem. We loved sharing our strategies with the class. In this photo below, Caelin and Olivia worked very well as part of a team to add 22 + 9. They could confidently explain how they solved the calculation.

One of our amazing learners was challenged even further in his group and was introduced to column addition. This is very early in primary 3; however, he was provided with the opportunity to learn this strategy and he then used his learning to teach others in his group. This learner was very proud to share his learning and support his peers.

P3 Week 2

This we we were learning about nouns and adjectives. We worked together to come up with adjectives for the noun ‘apple’. Then we split into random partnerships and worked together to find adjectives for the nouns ‘car & dog’. We thought about our senses to help us come up with words. What did a car look like, sound like, smell like and if we were to touch it, what would it feel like?

We were learning to order number to 100. We were given a card with a number on it and had to get ourselves in the correct order. Then we had to make our number using tools in the classroom. We came up with lots of different ways. Some of us laid counters out in twos and explained our strategy to everyone else. Belle had the number 18 so had two lines of 9. Brodie had 15 so had 2 lines of 7 plus a single counter. Next everybody in the class tried this strategy.

First Week in Primary 3/2

Article 28: We have the right to learn.

This week we have been getting to know each other and we have done so well settling into our new routines. We have had opportunities to explore our new toys, talk about our likes and dislikes and we created our Class Charter to help us follow our three School Rules, Ready, Respect and Safe. We will share a photo of our Charter when our display is completed along with the rules that we created together.

We have investigated Literacy and Numeracy Tools that we are going to use to support our learning.

In Literacy, we practised reading and writing Fry’s words and used different strategies. We read words on Fry’s word cards and used our knowledge of spelling rules and sounds to help us. We then wrote the words on the table with a white board pen. This was very exciting! We love using our tables as big white boards.

We also made Fry’s words and other words of our choice using magnetic letters and letter cubes. This learner was very proud that she remembered to spell “cheese” using the “ch and ee sounds.”

We also played a “Pop Corn Fry’s Words” game. This group are showing great teamwork and one learner identified this as an important skill we need to use when we play this game to help us be successful.

These learners challenged themselves when playing this word game. “We made up a game where we had to try and find cards that we can match to each other, like goat and cheese or hand and bag. It was fun!”

We enjoyed exploring the Numeracy Tools we have in our classroom. This amazing learner made a robot using the Numicon. She used addition strategies and could identify that she had made 28. This was her strategy:

“I started with 10, and then I added 6+6 which made 22. Then I added the two’s which made 28.”

The learner was then challenged to make a new robot using eights. She used six groups of 8 and shared that she “started on 8 and then kept adding 8 so I was counting on. I kept adding 8 until I counted them all and I realised I had 48.”

We investigated the Dienes materials and we started to recognise that they represent numbers. Some of us were counting in tens using the “tens rods” and some people made models and could talk about the numbers they used.

We explored the geo boards and used our curiosity to investigate different ways we can use this tool to support our learning. This learner was making patterns and numbers on her board.

Another learner also recognised that some “shapes were starting to come together” on her board. She could talk about how we could use the geo boards to help us learn more about shapes and identified that she has made circles, squares and triangles.

We enjoyed building and creating models with the tools to investigate and explore how we can use them. This learner built a tower and explained that this tool can be used to count, add and subtract. He also estimated that he had made the number 100 here because he had so many.

We explored the reckenrecks and knew that each reckenreck has 20 beads. This learner used eight reckenrecks and explained that she made 140. Her strategy was counting in 20’s. She was very focused when counting which is a very important skill.

We can’t wait to share more of our learning. What a brilliant first week!

P3B Dictionary Skills

The Lions and Giraffes Reading groups were learning to use a dictionary as a tool to support their learning. We started by finding out the meaning of some words in their Reading books; however, we then asked Miss Marra to give us different words to find. It was like a game, using the letters in the words to find them in the dictionary. We learned that the word “definition” is the meaning of words. We enjoyed finding out the definition to some words we already know, and we learned some new words too.

Miss Marra was impressed with the teamwork that was going on, as we all helped each other and we were very focused on our learning.

A special well done to Aria who was very eager to help others find the words once you felt confident. This was lovely to see, Aria. Well done!

Bump it up Wall in P3B!

In P3B, we are very excited to announce that we are going to be the first class in East Calder to create a “bump it up wall” in Literacy. Our Literacy Learning Wall has been up in our classroom all year, and we recently realised we haven’t been using it nearly as much as our Numeracy Learning Wall.

We made a few changes to make our Literacy Wall more engaging and to make more use of it in different ways. Mrs Robertson then came to our class to talk to us about Bump it up Walls and we were excited to make a start this term. This week, we came in one day to find all the photos and everything on our Literacy Learning Wall was on a table.

Miss Marra explained that some of it had fallen off and she took everything else off because there was one problem: it wasn’t child-initiated enough. There are some changes that we would like to keep; however, we are now being provided with the opportunity to use our pupil voice and share our own ideas. We created a class mind map to record our thoughts and ideas about our “Bump it up Wall.” Here are a few examples:

“We could add magic e words to our wall and we could write them on the white board part of it.” Hannah

“We could put up examples of our writing and more photos.” Sophie B

“I would like some black and white for the colours on our wall.” Finlay

“I still want to keep the folder with photos of our learning because it looked good on our wall.” Peter

“Can we put up word that we use to help us learn like we do in Numeracy?” Lucas

“I would like still like to keep our question cards for the wall.” Emmi

“I would like dark green paper for our wall.” Anav

This term, we are learning to write a narrative text in Writing and we wrote our first piece this week. We wrote our story together as a class and we shared our ideas for each part of the text. This was our first step to creating our “Bump it up Wall.” Miss Marra then copied six examples of our writing in A3 and we peer-assessed them in small groups. We made sure to link our feedback to the Success Criteria and we had the opportunity to share with the class.

We are still at the beginning stages of creating our “Literacy Bump it up Wall” and we are still learning more about this. We can’t wait to share more with you very soon. Watch this space!

Article 12: We have the right to be heard.

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.

A Very Busy Start to the Term in P3B

Welcome back everyone! We have had a very busy few weeks in P3B. We have been working hard to create posters about the “Zones of Regulation.” Each class has a chart and we use our names to show how we are feeling by placing our names in either the green, red, blue or yellow zones. This is a great way for us to talk about our feelings and we shared strategies that can help us regulate our emotions. We were so excited to visit P1 and P2/1 this week to share our learning with the younger children.

We had some great ideas, using our own experiences to help us. Many of us suggested strategies such as telling our trusted adult, taking deep breaths, taking five minutes to have some quiet time, brain breaks, write a note in our Worry Box, go to the Safe Space. The children were confident individuals as they spoke clearly and were eager to show the younger children the pictures on their posters. Well done everyone! Thank you so much to Mrs Murdoch, Ms Rutherford and the children in Primary 2/1 and Primary 1 for allowing us to come to your class.

This term, we are learning to summarise texts in Reading Comprehension and we are learning to write a Narrative text in Writing. We decided to link these two areas by summarising an example of well-known narrative texts. We had a choice between “Hansel and Gretel,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” Rapunzel” and ” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” We worked in random partners to read the text and write a short summary. We also had to write words down about who, what, why, where and when? This encouraged us to think about the Orientation section of a Narrative text.

In Maths, we have continued to consolidate our learning about Compass Directions. We practised all the directions we learned last term and worked in random partners to use compass directions on a map. One of our favourite days was when we took our learning outside. We try to take part in outdoor learning at least once a week if possible. Everyone was excited to practise compass directions in the playground and we used great vocabulary to demonstrate our learning.

Thank you to this amazing learner for volunteering to be our “human compass.” You did a great job following the directions you were given and you helped remind everyone about North West, South West, North East and South East.

We then played a game called “Captain’s Coming” where we had to listen to the instructions and use our learning about Compas s Directions to help us. As you can see, we all really enjoyed our learning and we had a discussion to remind us the purpose of playing this game. Some of the children said it was helpful to have objects or areas as reference points in the playground to help them remember the directions.

Article 28: We have the right to learn.

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.

Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others.

Article 12: We have the right to be heard.

Happy Red Nose Day! P2/1 had a great time dressing in red for Comic Relief today.

This week we have been learning to use tally marks to record information. We found out about our favourite animals and favourite toys. P2 have been dividing by 2 and P1 have been learning to ‘share equally’.

We read our reading books to our reading buddies in the library and P2 learned five new Word Boost words from The Tobermory Cat by Debi Gliori.

Literacy in P3B

We have been taking part in stations this week to help us read and write “ou” words. We enjoyed our learning activities and could talk about how they help us to remember how to read and write our words.

We used play dough to make our words.

We completed a word search to help us read our words. We enjoyed trying to find our words, especially the ones that were hidden very well. Miss Marra gave us some extra words to challenge us too!

We also looked for our words in books. We then wrote the words we found using a strategy of our choice. Some of us chose to write our words on our Literacy Learning Wall.

Some of also practised writing our words in hieroglyphics to challenge ourselves further. We enjoyed linking our learning in Literacy with our Ancient Egyptian Topic.

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.