Today we held our whole school final of Murrayfield’s Got Talent!  

The standard of EVERY act that auditioned over the past two weeks was immense!  Here are some pics of our finalists!

A HUGE well done to each and everyone of you … and to our fantastic audience who behaved impeccably throughout.  Well done guys 🙂 🙂 🙂

Our three judges had an extremely difficult job deciding on the three acts going through to Blackburn’s Got Talent final!

Massive congratulations and all the very best of luck in the final to:

Neve and Marti (P3/2)

Lenny (P5/4)

Alyx (P7/6)

  

Here is the P3/2 newsletter 🙂

P3_2 Newsletter May 2015

Welcome to our first P3/2 blog of term 4!

In P3/2 we have had a very busy start to term 4.

We have started our new IDL topic on ‘People who help us in our local community’.  We will be linking this with our learning of the French language by making comparisons with a similar sized French town.  We will be looking at differences and similarities in culture, shops, amenities etc.  ICT will be used as a research tool for our topic.

In numeracy the children are working on a variety of different areas ranging from new addition strategy (chimney sums) to numbers to 20 and 100.  Our whole class math focus for this term is measurement.

We will be concentrating on informative/functional writing in literacy.  Keep your eyes open for an information booklet written, designed and made by the children.  Our term 4 timetable has changed so reading days are now Monday and Wednesday.  This does not affect the children’s homework.  This will continue to be handed in on Thursday.

Our expressive arts lessons will be taught by Miss Taylor.  Miss Taylor will be teaching the children music.  Art and design will be covered through our IDL topic work as the children design and create a coat of arms for Blackburn and planning a map of their ideal town.

Celebrating Success

We have had a very successful start to term 4!

Skillionaire

This week’s Skillionaire target was ‘Understanding’.  We had two very worthy winners!

Neve McMillan for showing a sound understanding of our new addition strategy and knowing and being able to articulate why it is important to add the unit column then the ten column.

Emma Brown for being able to identify a number of people within our community that help us.  Emma even shared the correct name for the pharmacist!

Well done girls!

Stars of the week

We had two this week!

Cara McLeod received her award as an ‘Effective Contributor’ for always putting in 100% in her class and home work, being kind and caring and for making our class a fun place to be with her mischievous ways and sense of humour 🙂 🙂

Anna Findlay also received her award as an ‘Effective Contributor’.  Like Cara, Anna always puts 100%  in all her class and home work, she is extremely kind and caring and she makes our class a positive, happy and friendly place to be.

Head Teacher Awards

I am exceptionally proud to let you know that we had 3 children receive a HTA this week.

Ryan Reston for increasing his ability to work independently. Keep it up Ryan! 🙂

Neve McMillan and Leona McCormack for demonstrating excellent problem solving skills.  Well done girls!

Blackburn’s Got Talent

The auditions were held this week across classes P1-3.  We had some fantastic acts perform!  All class teachers were so very proud of each and every single child that auditioned.  They demonstrated such confidence and self-assurance.  A HUGE well done to all who participated.  On Wednesday we held the P1-3 semi-final.  It was with extreme difficulty that we managed to choose our final 3 acts to go through to the whole school final being held next Friday (21st May).  I am extremely proud to say that out of the 9 finalists an impressive SIX of them are from our class!

Watching our semi-finalists!

Well done to all our finalists with special congratulations to our Anna, Nivyn, Sasha, Cara, Marti and Neve.

General Class Information

As you may be aware the interior of the whole school is currently being repainted.  Our classroom is scheduled to be painted early next week.  We are all really excited to see the finished result 🙂

Remember it is a holiday on Monday (18th).

Our whole class assembly is on Friday 29th May.  Our theme is teamwork, what makes a good team player and the importance of working as a team.  The children will also be showcasing their learning in 2014/2015.  We hope you can all make it along.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Miss Preston x

Some highlights of this week have been:

P.E.

The children have been working hard learning how to dance the Gay Gordon!  We are learning our Scottish dancing with P3A.  Everyone is really enjoying this area of P.E.!   Miss Taylor has also been teaching the children how to play bench ball.

Literacy

We had another try at writing an imaginative story using a picture as the stimulus.  This week’s picture was of a boy on a flying carpet.  Some of the stories have been very interesting!

Numeracy

On Tuesday we had a visitor from the WLC Numeracy team in to observe us during a Time lesson.  Mr Valentine was extremely impressed with the children’s time telling skills.

On Thursday we had another ‘Mild, Spicy, Hot’ challenge!  The purpose of these are to encourage the children to chose for themselves an activity that takes them out of their comfort zone and really challenge themselves.  This week’s challenge was on fractions.  Mrs Bruce was in class to observe the children during this lesson.  I was most impressed with the choices the children made.

Three of our P2 children did fantastically well.  Each getting 100% correct in the Spicy challenge!  Anton, Cara and Lauren all received a Math Award as a result of this.

Well done and keep up the great work!!

Interdisciplinary Learning:  HWB/Social Studies/Literacy

We are continuing to learn all about  castle life.  This week’s focus area was Knights.  In topic groups the children were using their team work and research skills to find out as many facts as they could about Knights.  They have been preparing a poster that they will then present to the rest of the class.

** Our P3s and P3A have an assembly on Friday 27th March on our castle topic.  We would love to see you all there to share our learning with you! **

Red Nose Day

We had lots of fun today and have hopefully raised a lot of money for this fantastic cause!  Instead of our normal problem solving activities we spent the morning designing our own Red Noses!

Successes 

Class awards

Anton, Cara and Lauren all received a Math award for their fantastic understanding of fractions during our Mild, Spicy, Hot challenge!

Star of the Week

This will be announced on Monday.  Pic will be uploaded on Monday.

Skillionaire

Khizar received an award for being able to answer questions and explain how the castle models were built.  P3A are now working on their models, we are looking forward to seeing their masterpieces! 🙂

Emma received her award for being able to make links between her knowledge of fractions and quarter past/to in time and explain this to Mr Valentine from the numeracy team.

Next week’s skill is ‘Apply‘.  Good luck to everyone!

Head Teacher Award

Kirstin received her HT award for fantastic effort in her Artistic Ace homework.  Well done Kirstin!

WHOLE CLASS GOLD STAR AWARD!!

We received our first whole class Gold Star award from Ms Macrae.  We received this for the superb writing we produced during last week’s GLOW Digital Story Writing activity.  We certainly did West Lothian proud!

We also received this award as a result of the huge effort put in for our latest homework challenge to design and make a medieval weapon!  Thank you for your continued support from home.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Miss Preston xx

 

We have had a very special week in P3/2 this week.

IDL

On Wednesday we went to Edinburgh Castle with our friends from Miss Adam’s P3 class.  The children had a fantastic time and all behaved impeccably.  I was extremely proud when a lady came up and commented on how well behaved, engaged and sweet the children were.  Well done P3/2, you are a credit to yourselves and Murrayfield PS.

Some of our favourite parts of the day were looking at all the weapons on display in the Great Hall, the Prison of War and the looking at the canons and imagining we were firing at the enemy! 🙂  I believe the children got a lot out of the trip as it let them see in a real context what we have been learning in class.

 

 

Hammocks in the Prison of War                    Being locked in a cell!                            Lauren trying out one of the beds

“Miss Preston, let us out!!!”

 

Digital Story Writing

Today we were extremely privileged to be chosen as the one and only class to represent all of West Lothian primary schools in a Digital Story Writing activity that has been running all week via GLOW.  Each day one class from a different region across Scotland has written a part of the story.  Today it was our turn to write the penultimate part.  The children came up with some fantastic ideas and myself, Ms Macrae and Mrs Bruce were blown away by the adjectives, adverbs and general vocabulary provided!!

A HUGE well done to each and everyone of the class!!

The story can be found by following this link.  We wrote chapters 18 and 19.

https://glowscotland.sharepoint.com/sites/learners/storytelling1/SitePages/Home.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0​

      

Planning our part                                                Posing after completing our part

RME

The class have been working with Ms Miller over the past few weeks on Chinese New Year.  They have created some super art work which we have on display within our class. This week the children were making ‘Hong Boa’ little red money envelopes.  Pics will be uploaded on Monday.

Art

We have been using our topics of Scotland/Burns and Castles as the basis for our art work this term.  Here are some pictures of our class – I am sure you will agree it is looking fantastic!

             

Our Castle Classroom                                                                        Some of our tartan and castles

              

                        

Reading & Grammar

We are trying out a new system for reading and grammar lessons.  We had our first ‘carousel’ of activities on Thursday and we were very lucky to have Ms Macrae pop in to see us all hard at work.  The aim of the carousel is to let the children take part in a variety of activities while learning grammar rules.  I will keep you up to date as to how this goes.

Successes

Our class won the Fair Trade contest with an amazing 121 Fair Trade wrappers/stickers collected over the two weeks.

We won lots of Fair Trade goodies 🙂

Skillionaire

Danny for remembering facts about jobs in a castle & Leona for remembering her spelling sounds and patterns.

Star of the Week

Our star of the week this week is Nivyn.  She won her award as an Effective Contributor.

I am sure you will agree that this has been an extraordinary busy and varied week!  I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and enjoys a well earned rest!

Miss Preston x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have had another jam packed week in P3/2.

PE

We had a visit from Andy for a Jammin’ Fitness session on Monday … We all had a fantastic time learning a variety of new dance routines!

                               

HWB (Interdisciplinary Learning)

Our Health and Well-being focus for this term is teamwork.   We have been developing and self-evaluating our team-work skills through a variety of activities and areas of the curriculum this week.

Castle models: In our topic groups we have been applying our knowledge of the features of a castle to design, plan and build a model castle. The results have been fantastic!

 

Problem Solving: We had a ‘problem solving carousel’ afternoon on Wednesday. Each station required us to use a different problem solving skill. As each station required a different skill it was not what the children were used to! I was extremely impressed with the honesty and true self-reflection shown by each and everyone of them. As a class we have decided that this is an area of teamwork we need to develop and we will definitely do again.

 

Busy busy bees 🙂

Numeracy

Investigating a variety of strategies for our number work is an area we are going to be focusing on. We are doing this through our mental maths and numeracy problem solving lessons.

 

We are continuing to work on Time and Fractions.  All the children are working extremely well on both these subject area.  Telling the time and fractions, particularly when you move on from fraction of a shape to fraction of a number can be exceptionally difficult concepts to grasp.

 

Literacy

As ‘imaginative writing’ is the whole-school focus for this term, in P3/2 we used a ‘Spooky Castle’ picture as a stimulus for our writing this week. This was only the second time we had used a picture as a stimulus for writing and already it is clear to see a development in the children’s imaginative writing.

Successes

Head teacher awards

I am extremely proud to say that we have 4 head teacher awards from P3/2 this week!

Zander was given his award for his fantastic effort in the Medieval weapon homework challenge!

Sasha, Cara and Anton all received their awards for their consistently high level of effort in their Reading Journal homework

Skillionaire

Cara and Anna were our class winners this week for the Skillionaire challenge of ‘Analysing’.

Well done girls!!

This week’s Skillionaire challenge is Remebering.   Good luck everyone.

Star of the Week

This week’s Star of the Week is Zander!

Zander has been working extremely hard on improving his spelling, he is showing some fantastic imaginative writing skills and handed in his amazing homework challenge weapon just ONE day after the challenge was set!

Well done Zander! Keep up the good work!

NEXT WEEK

We have an extremely busy week ahead of us next week!!

On Wednesday we have our class trip to Edinburgh Castle (apologies once again for the mix-up with the consent forms. However, it did prove to be a perfect example/lesson on the risks of making mistakes if you try to do too much and rush your work!).

On Friday we have something extremely important to do! …. WATCH THIS SPACE!!

Our class has been chosen to not only represent Murrayfield PS but the whole of West Lothian in an exciting writing activity via GLOW. Full details to follow!

We would like to wish Morgan all the very best in her new school! Good luck Morgan!

Miss Preston x

In P3/2 we have moved onto our new topic on castles.  We have been learning about the various parts of a castle and are becoming experts with the new vocabulary!  We have been having fun labeling parts using both worksheets and on the Smartboard.

   

 

Our Health and Well Being focus for this term is team work skills.  We will be working in groups for a number of activities and challenges throughout our topic.  The first group task is to design, plan and make a model of a castle using the knowledge that we are developing.  In their groups the children have began their design and have been considering what materials they will need in order to complete the task.

 

Can I please ask you to help us out with this challenge by sending in recycling materials that we could use for this challenge. Please do not send in any glass or tin cans.

In RME the children have been learning all about Chinese New Year with Miss Miller.  They have been working on some fantastic art work!

(Pics to follow)

In numeracy we have been learning how to tell the time and about fractions.  The children have all been working exceptionally well on both topics.  Looks like someone is enjoying her fraction work … Is that right Anna 🙂 🙂 …

            

Successes of the week!

We have had another super week in P3/2 with lots of individual success stories!

Our star of the week is Marti.   Marti won her award as a ‘Successful Learner‘.  Marti has been working exceptionally well at consistently using correct punctuation in her written work and put in a very high level of effort during a recent lesson on adverbs.

Well done Marti!  Keep up the good work!

Kaiden was awarded a Head Teacher Award during last week’s assembly as a ‘Confident Individual’.  We were all so very proud of the way that Kaiden overcame nerves during our recent Scottish assembly.  Even though it was obvious that Kaiden was extremely nervous he went on to give a fantastic performance in front of the whole school and the many parents, family and friends that were present.

Well done Kaiden!  This is exactly the kind of resilience and courage we would love to see in all our pupils and teachers!

Eryn and Morgan were our class Skillionaire winners for the ‘Evaluating’ challenge.  Both girls showed excellent self evaluation skills when assessing their ‘My Monster’ imaginative story.  The ability to self-evaluate is an extremely important life skill and I was very proud of the honesty that was shown by both.

Well done Eryn and Morgan!

This week’s Skillionaire challenge is ‘Applying’ knowledge and understanding.  Good luck everyone!

Well done P3/2 on a super week!

Miss Preston x

We have had a very busy and successful week in P3/2.  We have been finishing off our mini-topic in preparation for starting our new topic next week.  Our new topic is Castles.  We are working on and developing a number of areas within the core subjects this term.  Our literacy focus is imaginative writing and the children have been planning an imaginary story about ‘My Monster’!  In numeracy we have two focus areas: telling the time and fractions.  Please note that our PE days have changed to a Monday and a Wednesday.

Scottish/Burns mini-topic and assembly

The children did extremely well with this topic and enjoyed the challenge of learning through a variety of curriculum areas, including Literacy,  Numeracy, the Expressive Arts and Social Sciences.

Here are some examples of their fantastic work:

Some of the highlights of our mini-topic chosen by the children were:

• The challenge of designing and making their own bagpipes!  (I would like to offer a huge thanks to all Parents and Carers for your support with this homework task.  We were all completely blown away by the diversity and creativity of what you and the children came up with!)
• Learning words in Auld Scots.  The children all engaged in this extremely well and found some of the words very funny, for example ‘horn’ for spoon and ‘skinking’ for watery 🙂
• Learning ‘Strip the Willow’ for our assembly and as part of our PE program.

Personal and Social Development

On Thursday we made the most of the snowy weather and decided to take our learning outdoors!  The purpose of the lesson was to give the children a first hand experience of the importance of effective and appropriate behaviour when working as part of a team.  The class were split into groups and their task was to work together to build a snowman.  We have some fantastic photos which I will upload on Monday.

Success Stories

We had a number of individual success stories this week:

Star of the Week

I have introduced this to our class and will choose one child each week that shows skills, commitment and attitude over and above what is expected from them in line with the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence:  Successful Learner, Confident Individual, Responsible Citizen, Effective Contributor.

Our star of the week is Ryan.  Ryan won this award for his outstanding effort and commitment during the Scottish topic.

Ryan is a Successful Learner. 🙂

Well done Ryan!

Skillionaire

This week’s whole school target for Skillionaire was ‘Understanding’.  Our class winners were Nivyn and Emma for their excellent understanding and ability to translate a variety of words from the Auld Scots language.

Well done girls!

Next week’s target is ‘Evaluation’ … Good luck everyone! 🙂 🙂

Head Teacher Award

I am extremely proud to say that we had a number of children receive an award from Ms Macrae this week:

• Leona for super use of punctuation in her homework
• Sasha and Cara for consistently high level of effort in their homework
• Ryan for a fantastic Scottish Fact File

Well done and keep up the good work!

 

Well done P3/2, you have all worked extremely hard this week.    I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

See you on Monday.

Miss Preston x