Primary 4a Class Blog
Miss Connelly
Literacy📖
In literacy, we have been developing our letter-writing skills! We planned and wrote a letter to Professor Dumbledore to ask for a school trip to Hogwarts. We were very excited when we received a reply!
"We used paragraphs and also made sure that we wrote 'Dear' and the address. We finished our letter with 'yours sincerely' which is a formal way of writing 'thank you'."- Ellie
We have also been developing our grammar through learning about nouns, adjectives and verbs. Using books from our class library, we went on a grammar hunt to find particular types of words.
Numeracy➗
In numeracy, we have been learning about properties of 2D and 3D shape, multiplication and mental maths strategies. We are now able to identify how many edges, vertices and faces a shape has!
Some of us have been practising multiplying numbers by 2, 3, 4 and 5 and others have been learning about written multiplication calculations.
On Fridays, we have an active maths lesson where we apply our problem solving and numeracy skills that we have been developing to a variety of games and challenges.
The boys and girls enjoy taking leadership of their learning and working together to learn new skills!
IDL (Animals)🦓
Our context for learning is 'animals' and we have been learning lots about climate zones animal classification.
We used our literacy skills to create fact-files about elephants. We were skimming and scanning to find important information and chose suitable headings.
We chose either polar, tropical or temperate before drawing animals that could be found in that climate. They all looked fabulous!
October🍂
Numeracy
We have been busy in numeracy exploring grid positisions and compass points. Some of the boys and girls were plotting points on a grid and naming coordinates whilst some were creating treasure maps and writing down directions using the directions on a compass. Thankfully we all managed to find the treasure!
Literacy📝
P4a have been developing their grammar skills and how to arrange words into alphabetical order. We know to look at the first letters of the words or, if the words both start with the same letter, to check the second.
Next week, we are going to put these skills into practice by developing our dictionary skills. We will be hunting for new words and using the dictionaries appropriately.
In writing, we were working together to think about setting in a story. We discussed our 5 senses and what we might see, feel, hear, smell and taste in a certain story setting.
We applied this to our writing when we chose our own setting to describe using 'wow words' (interesting adjectives) .
Art🎨
In art, we explored patterns on a peacock using finger-painting. We enjoyed exploring the patterns and shapes that we could make that looked like feathers (and getting messy)! As our IDL was animals, we were expanding our knowledge of peacock facts too.
IDL- Animals🐍
As we rounded up our animals context for learning, we were lucky enough to have a visit from Miss Connelly's Dad, Joe. Joe has worked as a Wildlife Crime Officer and for Scottish Badgers, so had a wealth of knowledge to share with us. P4a have been learning about climate, camouflage and adaptations, so we were very lucky to have a visit from 'Bella the badger'. P4a had lots of questions and we learned lots about their sharp claws, patterned hair and their diet. Joe even brought a cast of a badger skull to show us how sharp their teeth are!
Health and Wellbeing💭
In health and wellbeing, we have been exploring the world of work. We discussed a variety of jobs and the skills needed for these roles. We then wrote about and illustrated our 'dream job' that we would love to try when we are older! We chose lots of different jobs such as artists, footballers, skydivers, doctors and teachers. This block P4a are going to research more jobs and share these with our classmates.
Numeracy🔢
In numeracy this month, some of the children have been learning about common fractions such as 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4. We then linked this to our knowledge of division and found 1/4 and 1/2 of certain amounts.
This children have been working extremely hard!
"I like learning about times tables and fractions"- Sri
"I was learning about how to find out the area of different shapes. I looked at the top side and the bottom side and multiplied them together" Ella M
Some boys and girls were challenging themselves even further by finding the area of a right-angled triangle.
"First you find the area of the square then you half it. I enjoyed it."- Finn
Literacy✏️
Primary 4a have been planning setting, characters and plot to write our own books! We created story mountains that helped to understand the events at different points in our stories.
We will write our stories next and hopefully read them to the ypunger classes!
Christmas Party🌲
The primary 4s had a fabulous time at the Christmas party this week. They played games, danced and even won prizes! Everyone looked so festive in their party outfits and showed off their best dance moves 😁
IDL🥣
We have been very busy exploring our Scotland context for learning!
We were lucky to be able to try Scottish food with Mrs Gray! We tried cheese, oatcakes, shortbread, tablet and a little bit of Irn Bru. It went down a treat!
"I liked trying the shortbread and tablet."- Isla
"I liked trying new food that I haven't had before."- Ella M
Primary 4a have been working together with Primary 4b to learn some ceilidh dancing. It was quite tricky but we managed it!
"It was kind of tricky, we were doing it because it is close to Christmas". - Katie
In art, we have been using oil pastels to draw our national flower, the thistle. The drawings turned out beautifully with lovely purple and green colours!
We also recognised, and drew, the Scottish flag, the Saltire.
"We were drawing thistles. They are jaggy and their petals are jaggy. They are purples".- Isabelle
January🌟
In PE, the boys and girls have been developing their gymnastics skills by jumping, balancing and tumbling. They have been trying a variety of equipment and have even been trying out tricky partner balances!
We had a fabulous day for our class International Day! We are so lucky that we can celebrate the many nationalities and cultures in our classroom as well as others from around the world. As the class had their 'Countries' context for learning, they wanted to share their knowledge with the rest of the class. Thank you to everyone who dressed up, brought in food and showed us souvenirs!
In the afternoon, the children created their own passports and 'travelled' to a variety of new places. They learned new information about those places and noted them down before getting their passport stamped! A great day had all-round. Thank you to grown-ups for helping us out 😃
February🥰
IDL
Primary 4 classes have been working together to investigate how we can help save Scotland's Seas! They have been using their research skills to find out important information about marine animals in Scotland, as well as possible dangers that they may face.
We used this information and evidence to write persuasive letters to Mr McDonald convincing him to hopefully let Maidenhill do more to help such as recycling and litter-picking.
We also had a competition where the boys and girls designed an invite advertising an 'Under the Sea Showcase' that grown-ups will be invited to. Some chose to draw their invites and some decided to make them digitally! It was a very tough decision but Miss Connelly, Miss Lees and Miss McLauchlan decided upon Ella N and Amelia's beautiful design! Well done, girls!
Writing
The class received a letter from their angry chairs explaining that they needed to be persuaded to come back to the desks!
"I hated that we had to just stand at the desks" Rez.
"We used persuasive language" Jackson.
"The chairs came back! It was like heaven" Finn. 😁
As you can see, the boys and girls found it tricky to learn without their chairs!😆
They did however work extremely hard with their persuasive writing, using emotive language and a variety of connectives.