What a funny bunch!!!
All posts by Mrs Stewart
Our week in P4.
Thank you to all the parents/carers who attended the Parent consultations this week, it was great to get a chance to speak with you about your child’s progress. Thank you for your continued support. :-))
This week, the children have finished painting their stones and they’ve had their ‘glue wash’, so they are now ready for going out into the garden.
The class have been working very hard on creating their Learning Pit for the classroom. After a class vote, they chose to have a Lego theme and they worked together to decide on the strategies and comments they could include. Please ask your child about the learning pit, as it represents the learning process very well.
On Monday, the children were treated to a Tennis session from a visiting Tennis coach, Rory. They had a great time, learning some basic skills and working in pairs to improve their technique.
As well as all of this, the children have also been working on Literacy and Numeracy!
One more week to go before the holidays, lots more work still to be done!
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Stewart. 🙂
P4 ‘rocks’!
We have been designing and painting the rocks that Ms Macrae gave us. Each child has to decorate their stone in any way they choose and then they will all be used to decorate the front garden. We enjoyed looking at examples of painted stones on the internet, using them to give us ideas about how we could paint our own. We still have to add a top coat of glue/varnish so that the paint doesn’t wash off in the rain!
Our topic this term is Science, we are learning about Water and Electricity – although not at the same time!!!
We asked Mrs Stewart what water was made of and so now we know that the chemical formula of water is, H2O. The H stands for Hydrogen and the O means Oxygen. (We found that out by looking at something called the Periodic Table, which has lots of information on it about all the elements that have been discovered. Elements are the things that everything in the world is made from. Wow, there are lots!) Every molecule (wee bit) of water is made up of 2 Hydrogens and 1 Oxygen. We even learned about the structural formula of water and have drawn it in our IDL jotters:
There are 3 states of matter – Solid, Liquid and Gas. When water is Solid, it’s known as ice and when it’s a gas, it’s known as Steam or Water Vapour. The Melting Point of Water is 0 degrees Centigrade and the Boiling Point is 100 degrees Centigrade.
We can’t wait to discover and learn more next week, especially as it’s British Science Week!
Have a great weekend!
P4 and Mrs Stewart. 🙂
Brilliant Burns!
On Wednesday 8th March, Leona McCormack, Lewis Dickie, Logan Cargill and Marcus Ennis represented Murrayfield P.S. at the annual WL Burns’ Federation competition, held in St Kentigern’s Academy. Leona and Lewis competed in the P4/5 Poetry section, Logan and Marcus in the P6/7 Poetry section. As in previous years, the standard of entrants were incredibly high, as children from all over West Lothian participated in the event.
Leona had the nerve-wracking job of being the very first person to recite their poem, however, she performed ‘Red Red Rose’ confidently and with a smile on her face! Lewis had the audience scratching, with his rendition of ‘Tae a Louse’ – another fine performance!
The boys had to wait until all the younger children had performed before they could take their turn. Both Marcus and Logan had learned an extract from ‘Tam O’ Shanter’, not an easy poem to learn! They were word perfect and could be heard clearly at the back of the hall.
Our young people were a credit to themselves, their family and the school. They received a well-deserved certificate from the Burns’ Club and a book token from the school, in acknowledgement of their hard work and participation.
Well done to you all – you should be very proud of yourselves! 🙂
Murrayfield’s Musical talent!
Lenny, Summer, Aimee and Laura , as members of the West Lothian Schools Junior String Orchestra (Bathgate), recently performed at one of the annual Spring Concert Series events. This was a fantastic evening’s entertainment, provided by the young musicians from various groups and bands from WL schools.
The Junior Strings Orchestra played a variety of different pieces, including folk tunes, classical pieces from Mozart and Beethoven and the theme music from Game of Thrones.
Our four violinists enjoy playing as part of the orchestra but this takes practice and commitment, as well as attending orchestra rehearsals every Friday afternoon. They receive violin instruction at school from Miss Luke, who also supported them at the concert, in her role as one of the orchestral staff members.
This talented quartet received Head teacher awards for being Effective Contributors and Confident Individuals, demonstrated during their performance at the concert.
On Friday, Wiktoria joined Lenny, Summer, Aimee and Laura to perform at our assembly. This gave everyone an opportunity to hear the progress they have made this year.
Congratulations to you all!
P4’s Amazing Week!
Kenzie B – To help us learn about Similes and metaphors, we have been singing a Youtube song that we found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoSBVNUO2LU
Lennon – This week we have been learning to skateboard, with instructors who came into the school.
Jack C – We used the Jack in the Box game, from Education City, to help us practice counting back in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 10s.
Erica – We shared our descriptions of the ‘cabin in the woods’ that we had for Big Talk homework.
Alfie – Mrs Cordner, who sponsors a guide dog puppy, gave us the letter she recieved about how Fifi is doing and a lovely picture of her.
Sasha – In P.E., we worked with partners to practice our chest passes.
Murron – In the Circles, with Mrs Stewart, she dropped some cubes into a tub and we had to count how many she put in. Mrs Stewart took some out and we had to guess how many were left.
Cara – When we were working in our Numeracy groups, one of the stations was a subtraction game that Mrs Stewart made for us. The Triangles had to subtract 2-digit numbers to 50 correctly, to be able to move around the board. If we didn’t, we had to go back to the place before.
Kenzie M – In our writing, we had to think of how to describe the old house, using exciting words.
Lauren – In Education City, the Squares were playing the ‘Jack in the Box’ game which let us practice counting back in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 10s, from 100.
Alex – On Thursday, the Circles played the Cow Countdown game on Education City. We had to find the missing number in a backwards number sequence.
Derek – Yesterday, we went down to the school library to choose a book for reading in class.We had to make sure that it was at a suitable reading level for us, not too easy but a little bit challenging. It also had to be a book that would interest us and we would like to read.
Jamie – During Science, we were sharing what we knew about water and also what we wanted to learn.
Jack P – The Squares played a subtraction game to 100, with a partner, which meant that we had to subtract 2 -digit numbers mentally to be able to move around the game board.
Ava – On Tuesday, because it was Pancake Day, we had to read a piece of text all about Pancake Day,and answer comprehension questions about it.
Ryan Scott – When we were learning to use the skateboards, we had to go down the ramp, standing or sitting. Even though I fell, I tried again.
Lewis – In maths, we were learning about Carroll and Venn diagrams. These are ways of showing information.
Ryan Stewart – The Stars have been learning about words with ‘ng’ endings and we all did very well in our spelling test today!
Kyle – This week the Suns have been learning about words with ‘le’ endings. If the words have a short vowel sound, there has to be two consonants before the ‘le’.
Scott – This week, we were given our own Education City username and password. We have one copy in the classroom and one at the front of our homework jotters, so that we can log in at home.
Teresa – The Circles were imagining that there were 20 cubes in the tub, Mrs Stewart took some out and we had to work out how many should be left.
Makayla – The Blue group has been reading ‘The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’. We have been reading aloud to improve our reading skills and answering questions about what we have read.
What a week!
Have a lovely weekend! 🙂
Hard-working busy bees in P4!
We have been focussing on counting backwards this week because as need to be able to do this for subtraction. Teresa
We have been learning to describe a character. This will help us to write imaginative stories. Lewis
We have been learning about similes as they will help us write more interesting stories. Similes use ‘as’ and ‘like’. Murron
We also had a look at metaphors which also help us make our writing interesting. Lennon
We watched a funny video about Metaphor Man and Simile girl, which helped us to learn the difference between them. Derek
Our mindfulness colouring this week focussed on kind messages that we passed on to someone, to make their day. Erica
The Planets were learning to add –ed and –ing endings onto words this week. Leighla
The Stars were practising –ff endings this week. Ryan Stewart
This week, the Moons were completing a crossword that contained all their spelling words. Jack P
This week, the Suns were practising words with double letters, then adding –le to the end. Murron
We used the ‘rain letters’ game on the laptop to practice our spelling words. Scott
We played skip-counting dominoes to help us become more confident when we are counting. Ava
We continued to work on our conjunctions, using them to make longer sentences. We used words like – since, while, but, and, so, because, etc. Lauren
We have been working on addition with/without regrouping, using 2,3-digit numbers. Cara
We have been learning how to do chest passes in benchball this week. Kenzie M
We also practised ‘passing and moving’ in benchball. Derek
We were also ‘pivoting’ during benchball. Lauren
We will continue our imaginative story development next week, by looking at Settings.
Please encourage your child to practice counting backwards from any given number (eg. Can you count backwards from 91, until I tell you to stop?) and also to work on ‘number before’ a given number (eg. what’s the number that comes before before 70?), as this will benefit their understanding of Subtraction processes. Mrs Stewart
Have a lovely weekend! 🙂
Busy week for P4!
Here are just some of the things we have been doing in class:
We have designed and created our own Viking shields – Kenzie M
This week, we were learning how to Streetdance. Sam came to teach us and it was fun – Lauren
We were given our homework challenge this week – to make a model of a Viking longship – Jack C
In P.E., we are learning to do gymnastics, with Mrs Waugh. We have been learning how to do a ‘broken candlestick’! – Cara
We have been learning how to write our own Scottish poem about a friend – Sasha
We were working on rhyming words to help with our poetry – Lewis
In maths, we learned how to do 2-digit sums, mentally – Lewis
We painted a Viking longship and we all thought it was fun – Derek
Using a smartboard game, we figured out how much change we would get from 50p, if we were buying a toy – Erica
This week, we have been using a mental strategy to add on 9, 19, 29, etc and 11, 21, 31, etc – Teresa
We had to problem solve in maths, as we had to choose three of our items that would cost 80p, in total – Sasha
Please remember to return museum trip forms and money as soon as possible, thanks.
Only 1 week left of our Viking Homework Challenge!!!
Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Stewart and P4. 🙂
This week in P4!
We are so excited, because we are planning our educational trip to the National Museum, Scotland, as part of our Vikings topic. We will have the opportunity to investigate a handling box, visit the Vikings gallery and also to take part in a Vikings workshop. The trip is planned for Wednesday 8th February and the cost will be £10 per child. Mrs Stewart will send all relevant paperwork home next week, so could you please look out for it coming home?
This week, we have been learning about where the Vikings came from, where they raided and where they settled. We plotted all the information onto a map, including their trade routes. We used a key to make the map easier to read.
As you know, this week’s writing focussed on writing a formal letter. We had to remember that we should also include the recipient’s (person we were writing to) address, as well as a polite closing farewell (Yours sincerely). This week’s writing session was more challenging because Mrs Stewart wanted us to remember how to set it out properly by ourselves, so didn’t give us a completed example on the smartboard, to copy from. This is to encourage us to use our knowledge and challenge ourselves, which helps us ‘grow’ our brains! We did have our success criteria, which helped us remember what we needed to include.
Our class maths for this block will focus on money, which ties in really well with the addition and subtraction we are working on in Numeracy. This week, we investigated the new £1 that will be issued shortly and discovered that we will have to spend or exchange our old £1 coins before October!
In Numeracy, we learned how to set out our written sums properly, as it’s an important skill that we will need as we continue through education and into work. We also used Numicon shapes, empty number lines and other concrete materials and aids to help mentally calculate 2/3-digit addition problems that Mrs Stewart gave us. Our challenge was to work out problems that involved regrouping.
We have had the opportunity to discuss healthy eating choices this week and Mrs Stewart has been delighted with the positive attitude that our class has had to choosing our snacks and drinks. Nearly everyone in class is bringing in water to drink in class, some even have fruit in it to give it a little more flavour – fantastic! There have been lots of bags and tubs of fruit and vegetables at snack time and everyone is enjoying eating them – well, apart from one day when Lewis had strawberries that were a little bit sour! 😮
Next Tuesday, we have the opportunity to take part in a ‘street dance’ session, which should be fun! Tiring, but fun!
Have a lovely weekend! 🙂
It’s that time of year again when the children have the opportunity to enter the Burns’ Federation Poetry competition. On Monday, the children will have an opportunity to put their names forward for this and will be given a selection of Burns’ poems home with them. They can choose one to learn and there will be class and stage heats after the February break where they can perform their poem of choice, and our final competition representatives will be chosen. Any child who doesn’t wish to be considered for the competition, will be given a class Scottish poem home to learn instead. What a great opportunity to learn about our Scots language!
Mrs Stewart 🙂
Happy New Year, from P4!
Happy New Year!
We have gone straight back into hard work after the holidays.
This week we have been researching climate zones of the world. In pairs, we were given a country to research, using books and laptops. To create our climate fact file, we had to find the answers to questions about the average annual rainfall and temperature of the country, as well as about the wildlife, vegetation and homes. We also had to find out exactly where our country was in the world and identify it on a large map – we found this very challenging! Phew – so much work in such a short time!
We also created our own ‘resolution’ (target) for the remainder of the session – ‘I would like to get better at…’ and will look at them again at the end of the year to see if we have managed to achieve them.
We were very excited to find out that our new topic will be ‘The Vikings’ and have already shared what we think we know about them and what we would like to learn about them. Because it is important that we are part of the planning process, Mrs Stewart will use our ideas to create our learning plan for the topic.
We will be continuing to work hard on developing our skills and knowledge of addition and subtraction, using the strategies that we have already been learning and sharing with each other.
Can’t wait to share our learning with you all!
Have a lovely weekend! 🙂
