Mrs Kennedy

March 13, 2020March 13, 2020

Array, Array P3A

We began a new topic in numeracy this week as we move onto multiplication. To help us to understand the concept of multiplication we created arrays so we had physical representation of what multiplication actually is. We used lots of resources to make our arrays – Numicon, stones, Lego, counters, to name a few. We also have a some tuff trays set up in the classroom to allow us to practise during our learning through play time. We revisited counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, counting both up and down. We will be practising the 3 and 4 times tables next week. If you would like to do some at home, Education City website would be good for this – www.educationcity.com

We made an array wall display, making the windows on buildings into arrays. We made sure our rows and columns were straight! They look really effective, good job everyone.

We continued with imaginative writing this week. As we enjoyed watching Mr Benn during 80s day, we wrote our own Mr Benn adventures. We chose what he would become and where he would go as he went through the fitting room door. There were lots of great ideas, he became and dog walker, a soldier, a driller on an oil rig, a scientist and a zoo keeper… to name a few! The children are really beginning to check their common words using our word wall display and the word mats they have on their tables, these have improved a lot recently which is great to see. Through imaginative writing our descriptions have become more detailed and a lot of us are using joining words to make our sentences more interesting. Some children are beginning to learn how to use speech marks too.

Our Reflective Reading task was a ‘Blankety Blank’ on a non-fiction text called ‘Wild Weather’ We read the book together and then read extracts taken from the book with words missing. We filled in the missing words and then suggested other words that would fit to help expand our vocabulary. Good collaborative work, reading aloud and discussing vocabulary really helped our learning.

In French we have been learning months of the year, we are really good at it now – ask us to see if we remember 🙂

Have a good weekend everyone. P3A and Mrs Kennedy

March 6, 2020March 6, 2020

World Book Day 2020 in P3A

There has been a lot going on in P3A this week. We had a lovely outdoor yoga session, led by some P5 children, on Wednesday. There were different yoga stations for us to try out, they involved stretches, breathing exercises, and meditation. There was also a station where we did some art work using natural objects. The P5 children were really good at helping us at each of the stations and we really enjoyed being outside.

As it was world Book day on Thursday, we have had lots of different book activities this week. For writing we wrote a book review on a book of our choice from the school library. We enjoyed being critics, giving the book a score out of 5. We then wrote a synopsis about the plot and characters and what we liked or disliked about it. We also decided if we would recommend it to others.

We did some drama in the school hall, working in groups to decide on a book to act out to the rest of the class to see if they could guess what the book was. There was lots of really good acting and we were pretty good at guessing too.

We also shared our favourite books with each other and made new designs for the front cover. These will be displayed in the school library.

Here we are in our World Book Day costumes:

We also had a visit from author Lynne Rickards on Thursday. She read us her new book Willow the Wildcat. We enjoyed the story and had lots of questions to ask about it and on what it’s like to be an author. Lynne also really enjoyed hearing about the stories we have written too.

On Friday we had a BEAR (be excited about reading) event, thank you to all the family members who came. We heard the story ‘Wanted: Ralfie Rabbit, Book Burgler.’ We then did some of the activities we do during our Reflective Reading sessions. Normally we would do one activity per lesson but today we had four activities to show examples of the different things we do when we read a book to help us improve our understanding of text. The activities we did today were:

Spot the Silly Word – read a passage taken from the book and spot the 10 ‘silly’ words that do not belong.
Jigsaw Jumble – Rearrange the parts of sentences taken from the book so that they make sense.
Textplorers – read the book and write down any nouns, adjectives and verbs that you find.
Picture It – Read the description of Ralfie Rabbit – draw a wanted poster and write a description to help the police to find Ralfie.

After our visitors left we had one last book week lesson with Mrs Fleming. She read us a book called The Disgusting Sandwich, then we made disgusting sandwiches! Yuk!

All children were given a token today to allow them to get a free book, it should be in their school bag.

Have a good weekend everyone, P3A and Mrs Kennedy

March 1, 2020

80s Mad in P3A!

A different week in P3A this week, we had a ball on 80s day! It was great fun seeing everyone dressed up. We learned about life in the 80s – the music, fashion, technology, tv shows, films, toys and cars. The children were most surprised by TVs that were box shaped and you had to change the channel by pushing buttons on the box, they were also amazed at mobile phones that were huge and had no screens – although some did say they thought their grandparent’s might still have a phone like that 😉 In groups we compared the 80s to now – some great discussion and super work on our ‘graffiti wall’ sheets.

We also played some 80s board games – Guess Who? was a big hit, we danced to 80s music and learned some new moves including the moonwalk and the actions to Agadoo! We had a snack of cheese, pineapple and picked onions on cocktail sticks – the onions didn’t go down too well but we enjoyed the cheese and pineapple.

A brought in her mum’s Brownie uniform from the 80s – a real trip down memory lane for Mrs Kennedy! The girls didn’t think it was a very good outfit as it was too thin and didn’t look very comfortable or easy to run about in – Thank you for bringing it in A.

Here are a few photo’s of us in our 80s outfits 🙂

On Wednesday we had a visit from Jess, a retired farmer who gives talks for the Royal Highland Education Trust. She told us about the dairy cows on her farm and taught us about wheat, barley and oats. She brought some samples we could look at close up and examples of what the grains are made into. She also brought a huge carrot from one of her fields and a carrot from the supermarket. We did a taste test on each and most of us preferred the taste of the large carrot. We did a little bit of data handling to display our results.

We also had a lovely bit of news from I this week, she received a Blue Peter Badge for sending in the picture of the Queensferry Crossing she made at school along with a written piece about the problems the ice had been causing recently and that engineers were working to solve the issues. They wrote back to I saying they had heard about the problems in the news. They liked her design and letter so much that they sent her a Blue Peter Badge – she can now get into lots of places free until she is 18 years old! Well done, a great achievement.

In other work we have been learning about past, present and future verbs, writing more imaginative stories and are now coming to the end of our subtraction topic in maths before moving onto multiplication.

It is book week next week and we’ll be doing lots of book themed lessons. If anyone would like to pop in to read to us at anytime please let me know – any members of the family are welcome 🙂 We’re looking forward to more dressing up and another busy week ahead 🙂

P3A and Mrs Kennedy

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020

All About Tartan in P3A

A blog about last week and this week!

We had a great start to the week last week when M’s mum came to visit us. She is a kiltmaker, she brought us an example of a kilt she would make today and explained just how she makes it. She also brought a piece of tartan material needed to make a kilt for a lady or a child – it was 5 meters long, it just fitted in the classroom – for a man’s kilt she would need a piece about 7 meters long! We helped to make pleats int he kilt folding it at just the right place so that the pattern on the tartan is correct. We also learned about the ‘Great Kilt’ which was one of the first kilts worn. It was a large piece of material wrapped around the wearer, it was made from wool and so was warm and waterproof (for a while). It also had many other uses such as carrying things in and could even be made into a shelter or tent! It was a great visit and we learned a lot – thank you very much Mrs Scholfield 🙂

Following our visit from Mrs Schofield we have been learning about the history of tartan, how it is made and have been busy designing our own. We had to be patient and take our time to be accurate in cutting strips carefully and when weaving our patterns. Lots of great designs and they are all different.

With Mrs Begarnie in Science last week, we made bridges. We had blocks and paper and we had to make it strong enough to hold some pebbles on top – as many as the bridge would take! We have been investigating materials and we were having a go at working our which materials work best for bridge building.

It has been a short but busy week this week, carrying on with our craft topic we have been using wool to make bracelets. P3 picked it up really quickly and have been teaching the younger children how to do it too.

In numeracy we are really getting good at telling the time. Digital clocks are still a little tricky for some so if you see one when you are out or have one in the house maybe you could have a little practise. We have also been learning about timetables, how to use one and why they are important. We have been thinking about our school day and what happens at certain times during the day. We made our own timetables too.

We have also been learning column subtraction with borrowing, where we have to borrow 10 from the 10s number and add it to the units to allow us to solve our sum. We will continue with this next week, using larger numbers as we become more familiar with the method. Here is a picture of how we are doing it if you want to practise at home.

Next week, on Wednesday we are looking froward to welcoming a visitor from the Royal Highland Education Trust to tell us about food and farming.

Have a good weekend, from P3A and Mrs Kennedy

February 7, 2020

P3A Love Languages…and Time

As it was Scotland Loves Languages week we have had a few language lessons. P6 Language Ambassadors came into our class on Tuesday and we played some French counting games. Mrs Gordon set a challenge for every person in the school to choose their favourite word in another language, P3A had a great variation – from Japanese to Irish! We made a poster showing us all saying our favourite words, we also wrote what language it is and the meaning of the word in English. On Friday, we had a French lesson on days of the week, we are building up our knowledge to be able to say the date in French each morning.

On Thursday we made clocks to help us as we learn to tell the time. We painted the quarters first, then added the numbers and hands, finally we wrote how many minutes past the hour each number represents. Mrs Kennedy showed us some times on a digital clock on the smartboard and we had to make the same time on our analogue clocks. These clocks have now gone home so we can practise there too.

In other maths we are continuing to subtract – multiples of 10 and near multiples of 10. Most of us have found a 100 square really helpful for this – let me know if you’d like to have one at home. When subtracting multiples of 10 we move up the 100 square counting in 10s, for near multiples ending in 9 we subtract the nearest multiple of 10 and then add 1, for near multiples ending in 1, we subtract the 10s and then another 1.

In literacy we are learning some editing skills. We ‘up-levelled’ sentences on Wednesday. We were given short sentences with no capital letters or full stops. We up-levelled them by adding correct punctuation, adjectives and joining words to make them more interesting, e.g. ‘three frogs swam in the pond’ could become ‘Three green frogs swam fast in the cool pond as it was a very hot day.’ Next week we will be correcting sentences with incorrect grammar and spelling.

We had PE outside this week, continuing with football. We did some dribbling, passing and shooting drills. It was good to be outside, there a few signs of spring beginning to emerge.

We got some great news at the beginning of the week! M won the Linlithgow Rotary Club design a poster competition. Her design has now been made into an official poster to be used around Linlithgow – keep n eye out for it! M also won a book token. Well Done!

Have a good weekend everyone, P3A and Mrs Kennedy 🙂

January 31, 2020January 31, 2020

Snow, Secret Doors and Stories in P3A

We had fun in the snow on Tuesday morning as we went out to enjoy it before it melted. It was a lovely way to start the day with some daylight and fresh air 🙂

On Tuesday we did some planning to help us to write an imaginative story. On our tree in the library corner a small door has appeared, our stories could be about anything that was behind that door. We had a story starter:

On a quiet day, you can sometimes hear them. Every now and then, there’s a tapping or a scraping or a rustling from behind the door. Occasionally, movement can be glimpsed through the dark windows. One day the door began to slowly creak open…

We listened to sound effects of the door opening and took some time to put our imagination to work and think about what might be behind it. We wrote our ideas on ‘grafitti walls’ to share them with others and to help our thoughts develop further. We then wrote notes on the beginning, middle and end of the story. We also created our own word banks of descriptive words that we might need in our stories. On Wednesday wrote stories using our notes. They are certainly imaginative and I really enjoyed reading them. We will continue to work on imaginative writing over the next couple of weeks, hopefully seeing progression as we further develop our story writing skills.

We learned more about healthy eating on Thursday, again focusing on where our food comes from. We looked at dairy farming and examined some of the products we have in our supermarkets that begin as milk from the cows in dairy farms. We also learned about how calcium is good for our teeth and bones. We had some cheese, butter and oatcakes as a snack.

It is Scotland Loves Languages week next week and we are looking forward to a visit from our P7 Language Ambassadors who will teach a French lesson and we will be learning about French culture with Mrs Kennedy.

Enjoy the weekend, P3A and Mrs Kennedy

January 24, 2020

Blurbs, Front Covers and more Time in P3A

We have been working again on telling the time this week. We were revising o’clock, half past and quarter past and started to learn how to read quarter to on an analogue clock. We played lots of games to practise, a time board game, time dominoes, time pairs, using clocks to set times and playing games on the smartboard. We now have two clocks in the classroom, a new one on our maths wall which has the times marked on it to help us, we are looking at this throughout each day to remind us where the hands are at certain times.

In numeracy, we are continuing with subtraction, most completed work on subtraction within 20 and will begin to subtract within 100 next week. Some have been subtracting within 100 and will be begin subtraction of 2-digit numbers with bridging next week.

In literacy, we have been learning about ‘blurbs’ – what they are and why they are important. We pretended to be the author of The Secret of the Kelpie and we had to write an exciting blurb to make people want to read our book. They are very good, many ended with a question that really made the reader want to find out more. We also took on the role of the illustrator and designed new front covers for the book.

In PE we were playing football again in the hall. We’re getting really good at dribbling and played some very competitive team games were we had to dribble as fast and accurately as we could.

We started our new class novel ‘Flash the Sheep Dog’ on Wednesday. The first couple of chapters are about a boy called Tom who has moved from London to a farm in the Scottish Borders. It’s a big change for him and he has a lot to learn about his new way of life. We also began to learn about farming and have been thinking about where our vegetables come from and the work done on farms to provide these for us. We also had a lesson on the importance of eating fruit and vegetables and how ‘eating a rainbow’ is really good to help us to get all the nutrients we need from the different colours.

All classes in school had a Scots Assembly today. Each class was to perform a song or poem. We sang Katie Bairdie and all our practising this week really paid off – we were word perfect, loud and clear. Great singing P3A 🙂

Have a good weekend everyone,

P3A and Mrs Kennedy

January 17, 2020January 17, 2020

Snow Animals, Time and Kelpies in P3A

P3A are very much back in the swing of things this week. In maths we have begun subtraction. At the moment we are practising our mental subtraction through number talks and working hard to become more confident with missing number sums (eg, 18 – ___ = 7 or ___ – 5 = 12) as quite a few of us were finding these tricky – we’re getting good at them now though!

In outer maths we have begun ‘time.’ We are working on telling the time using an analogue clock at the moment. Focusing on half past and quarter past. We also drew the hands on a clock face to represent these times too. We have to remember that the little hand points to the hour and the big hand points to the minutes. We will continue with this topic for the next few weeks.

All classes are changing their corridor wall displays at the moment and P3A chose ‘snow animals’ as their theme. We have been learning about how some animals have adapted to survive in very cold climates, we have been learning about snow leopard, snowshoe hare, sika deer, arctic fox, bobcat and polar bear. In groups we did some reading for information, highlighting interesting facts. We then used these notes to write a fact file. These are very informative and will be great on our display. We have been enjoying watching clips from a program on BBC iplayer called ‘Stunning Survivors: The Secret Skills of Snow Animals’ It has been very interesting and we have learned a lot about how animals survive extremely cold conditions – much better than us humans can!

We also created some artwork for the display. When we were watching Stunning Survivors we saw the Northern Lights and decided to learn more about them. We then created our own interpretations using water colour paint. We also drew line drawings of a snow animal of our choice and glued them onto our Northern Lights backgrounds. They are very effective and we worked hard to look at the animals looking at the lines, shapes and features and trying to recreate them in our drawing.

We read the book The Secret of the Kelpie by Lari Don, an adaptation of a traditional Scottish folk tale. This led us to look at traditional Scottish designs. In the Secret of the Kelpies there are some drawings carved into stone – shapes to represent objects and tell a story. We decorated our own initial with Scottish patterns. We also did a ‘Spot the Silly Word’ reflective reader task on a passage from the book, we read the passage carefully, spotted the silly words and suggested more suitable words to use in their place. This really helps to increase our vocabulary as we work together, discussing possible words to use.

We now have music lessons with Ms Bain on a Thursday. This week we were singing the Scottish song – Katie Bairdie, I haven’t heard it yet but I got very good feedback from Ms Bain on how well P3A sang 🙂

In PE we have begun a block on football. We were improving our dribbling skills this week – trying to keep the ball close to our bodies and in control while we move around quickly.

Another great week, well done P3A. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

December 20, 2019

Merry Christmas from P3A

Wow, what a fun, busy week!

I’ll just mention some of the highlights. On Monday we had a technology afternoon. We were set two challenges – the first was to build the highest tower possible using only newspaper and cellotape. It had to stand unaided, with a platform at the top for a toy car. The car had to balance on it for 10 seconds. Every team fulfilled the brief and the winning team built a tower that was 57cm high! The second challenge was to make elf shoes that fitted someone in your group. They had to be able to come off and on and be strong enough to last in a parade around the classroom. Every team succeeded and we got two children from P3B to judge the best looking shoe to help us to decide on a winner!

Our party on Tuesday was great. It was like a real disco with cool lights and Mr Wells was our DJ, he played lots of good music and helped with instructions for the games. We played pass the parcel, musical statues, Christmas corners and had a Christmas zumba dance to finish off.

A large bag of daffodil bulbs was recently donated to the school and Mrs Tucker (who usually helps us with reading) came in to do some planting with us on Thursday. She could only stay for a while so she got us started and trained a few helpers to show the others what to do – thank you! Also, a big shout out to O, L and S who did an amazing job – helping all the children in both P3 and P1 classes to plant some bulbs – thanks boys! The plants are for the children to look after at home and hopefully they will see some flowers in Spring.

We sang so well at the Carols Around the Tree concert – especially as we we opened the show 😉 We had been practising hard and are very proud of ourselves. We hope you enjoyed it.

Have a wonderful Christmas,

P3A and Mrs Kennedy

December 13, 2019December 13, 2019

Good Friends in P3A

We are still working away in P3A, trying to keep as much normality as possible in these last two weeks before Christmas. We have been continuing our learning of column addition, focusing on carrying this week. To begin with we all sat together and worked through some addition problems, helping each other if we got a little stuck. We have really enjoyed the challenge of these sums and by the end of the week we all got it.

‘Kindness’ was the theme for both our health and our writing lessons. We watched the animation – Giraffes Can’t Dance and then went into groups to discuss how the animals reacted to Gerald, how Gerald felt, what advice we would give to the animals and possible solutions to make Gerald feel better about himself. We then worked individually to draw a picture of ourselves and Gerald dancing, we then wrote some sentences of encouragement for Gerald. The encouragement P3A gave him was fantastic! For writing we wrote a ‘Recipe for a Good Friend’. On Tuesday we wrote grafitti walls of words about what qualities we look for in a friend. We used these words to make our own word banks. On Wednesday, we wrote our recipes, choosing the qualities we like most as our ingredients – almost as though we were baking a gingerbread friend. For the method we used ‘bossy verbs’ to give instructions. I’ve put a couple below so you can see what they’re like. They’re such lovely recipes and the children know what positive traits our friends should have.

We worked in groups to paint large pictures to decorate the school hall for the Carols Around the Tree event next week. Each group could decide to paint any Christmas image they wanted – but they all had to agree on what it was, there was some compromising to be done but we got there and the pictures are looking really good.

On Wednesday, Mrs Kennedy’s neice came to visit. She lives in Saudi Arabia and she showed us a little film she made about her life there. We asked her lots of questions about living in a different country. She also taught us some Arabic. P3A were very welcoming, polite and kind and although she was pretty nervous she had a lovely afternoon and thought our school was great 🙂

I can’t believe it’s just a week until the holidays! We’re looking forward to our last week in school, the children’s excitement, although loud 😉 is lovely and we get carried along with it.

Have a good weekend, P3A and Mrs Kennedy