The class have been busy settling into the new school year and getting used to being up the stairs as Primary 4's.
"P4 so far has been a great class" - Euan
"Do you know the happy feeling in your tummy, I have got that...... yes I'm proud I got my targets done" - Sandy
We have been working so hard on our Literacy since the start of P4. We take time every week to read with the teacher, with a partner, and on our own to help improve our fluency and expression. As a class we have a lot of enthusiasm for reading comprehension and enjoyed reading and finding our more about Roald Dahl's life during Roald Dahl day.
We have also focused a lot on up-levelling our written work by adding adjectives, connectives, and detail into our sentences. We enjoyed describing characters and used all of our skills to write fantastic formal and informal letters. Learners enjoy practising their spelling words daily through active activities.
We have also been developing our talking and listening skills. Children are always very keen to share their weekend news and participate in class discussions/ circle time. We are much at showing good listening skills through eye contact and good listening whilst others are talking.
So much Numeracy and Maths learning has taken place since we returned to school only a few weeks ago, and the children are showing great progress already. We all began the year revising 3D shapes, and can now name most shapes and discuss their properties with increasing confidence. We enjoyed going on a 3D shape hunt and were surprised at the number of cuboids that we have in our classroom! Some of us have been practising multiplying and dividing larger numbers by 6, 7, 8 and 9 and others have been learning about inverse operations. We have developed our knowledge of fractions through practical activities, and some learners have been delving deeper into symmetry; lines of symmetry and rotational symmetry.
Children are also given the opportunity to develop their maths skills through purposeful, child led play. One of our current favourites is using the large playing cards and 'Times Tables Heroes', and our own maths board games.
During these first few weeks we have been learning across the curriculum through the context of 'The Ice Age', which we voted on at the beginning of Primary 4. So far we have learned about the importance of fossils to discover more about the past and got messy creating our very own! We have also been comparing life for homo-sapiens who lived during the Ice Age to humans today through letter writing. We wrote informal letters as if we were homo-sapiens living during the Ice Age telling the class about the harsh climate and living conditions. We then developed our formal letter writing skills and wrote detailed letters to the National Museum of Scotland asking questions about the Ice Age. We really hope that we get a response soon!
"Do you have any Saber-toothed Cats fossils?" - Harper
"My favourite Ice Age animal is the Glyptodon, how big do you think they were?" -Grace
"How do you think the mammals survived during the Ice Age?" - Hadi
During Health and Wellbeing time, we have been focusing on our rights as children in relation to the UNCRC. We have explored our rights and discussed how we can make sure these are met throughout our time at school. We linked our class charter to the rights that we feel are important in a classroom setting, and enjoyed sharing our learning with parents and carers at the 'Learn with us' afternoon.
We love our P.E days in p4b. We have been focusing on fitness during our P.E lessons and the benefits that good fitness has on our overall health. We enjoyed completing a fitness circuit and analysing our heart rate before, during, and afterwards.
We are sure you have all heard of Fluffy our class pet by now! At the start of Primary 4 we used Fluffy to help create rules and expectations for our classroom. Fluffy now gets to go home with one lucky person each Friday to spend the weekend with them and their family - throughout the year everyone will get a chance to take Fluffy home. So far Fluffy has been to the park, taken part in piano lessons, and has had a trip to the opticians. We love hearing all about Fluffy's adventures on a Monday and can't wait to hear what else he gets up to over the year. r.
Take a look at some of our letters to the National Museum of Scotland!
