Category: Whole School

When I asked the children today what they would like me to include in our blog this week there was a resounding  cry for coding.  We had a session with Generation Science called ‘Bricks and Blocks’ On Wednesday. We learned about computer programming. We began by discussing robots and how they work, we learned that they are given their instructions by computers.  To help us to understand the importance of instructions a bit more, we instructed a human robot to make a jam sandwich.  If our instructions are not correct, the results can be very wrong!   We then worked in pairs to build Lego robots, learning more about  coding as we worked.   We used instruction blocks to program our robots. Our challenge was to score a goal against our robots which were programmed to be goalkeepers. A big thank you to Generation Science for an excellent session.

We also carried out a science experiment.  We discussed why science experiments are a very important part of our world today, the children mentioned medicine and looking after our planet as two big areas where science can really make a difference,  We were very professional in the way we carried out our water absorption experiment.  Our question was ‘How does the type of paper affect how far water will travel through it?’  We observed and discussed the properties of the three types of paper – kitchen towel, A4 paper and tissue paper, then we each wrote a hypothesis on how far we thought the water might travel up each paper when the end was placed in water for 30 seconds.  We planned the resources we would need made a diagram of how our experiment would look, making sure to note down anything we had to keep the same to make sure it was a fair experiment.  We then we carried out the experiment in groups.  Finally, we measured the distance the water had travelled and used our findings to write up and record the results.  We found that the kitchen towel was most absorbent and the type of material definitely has an impact.

In our writing lesson this week we used the notes we wrote before and during our experiment to write a science report.  They are detailed reports, set out with headings and sub-headings.  We used some good science vocabulary too.  We  all self assessed our writing today.

In numeracy we have begun to increase our knowledge and understanding of multiplication.  We have worked on 2, 5 and 10 times tables this week, and some children worked on 3 and 4 times tables.  We have been quite active whilst saying our tables – getting our brains and bodies working at the same time and have also played lots of games to help us to recall our tables facts.

Some children have been practising their tables in Play Based Learning time.  Excellent work girls!

We begun to look at fitness in PE.  We had one fitness session outside and one inside this week.  We did circuit training, working really hard at each station to increase our heart rate.  Each station also worked on a different skill and a different part of our body.

Have a lovely long weekend everyone, see you on Wednesday.

P3B and Mrs Kennedy

 

 

We started the week finishing off our social studies history trail.  We have been learning about the development of cameras throughout different periods in history.  As part of the project we worked in pairs to create a powerpoint presentation to present to children in P3A.  Each week we added a slide showing our new learning, building up to a complete presentation. P3A have been doing a similar project although they studied computers.  On Monday we shared our work with p3A. During the presentations, Mrs Kennedy and Miss Harrison were able to listen in  and observe each group to assess their learning and understanding.  We were very impressed.  The powerpoints were very professional, the content was good and the children were great at both presenting and listening to each other’s presentations.

On Tuesday we spent most of the day outdoors.  We had an outdoor learning trip in the morning.  We walked to Linlithgow Loch where we were met by two West Lothian rangers.  They taught us about animals that are found in our local environment.  One of the rangers, Hannah, set up an animal hunt where we had to find a toy animal hidden in the trees.  Each time we found one, Hannah told us a lot of information about it.  We learned about: Squirrels, Badgers, Bats, Spiders, Rabbits, Foxes and Otters.

The other ranger was called Tracy, she played a game with us where we had had to find three cards representing food, shelter and water – all the things animals need to survive.  She then sent in ‘predators’ to catch us as we were trying to find the cards we needed.  We then did an animal footprint activity.  We were given an information sheet with a picture and some details about each animal, we had to find the footprint cards hung on trees and match the footprints to the correct animal – this was not as easy as it sounds!

We really enjoyed this outdoor session and were very lucky with the weather.  It helped us to enjoy what we have just on our doorstep.

On Tuesday afternoon we had a visit to the park as our treat for collecting ‘springs’ for our houses.  We went with P3A and everyone had a great time 🙂

On Wednesday this week we drew some spring flowers and painted them using watercolours.  We were looking closely at shape and colour, trying to make our work as accurate as possible to what we could see.  To get the correct colours we used mixing palettes.  This was a nice opportunity just to practise drawing and painting, the work wasn’t for display and we could try as many times as we liked.

We enjoyed our walk to St Michael’s this morning, again the weather was very kind to us. We took part in a lovely Easter Service. A big thank you to our parent helpers.

Well done P3 for continuing to work incredibly hard right up to the end of a very long term.  I hope everyone has a good break and I’m looking forward to all that we will do in the summer term.

Thanks for reading our blog, P3B and Mrs Kennedy