Happy New Year to everyone!

Here is a summary of what we have been learning in P4 this week:

Literacy:

• We started a new class novel called The Legend of Spud Murphy.  We will be looking at characters, humour, themes and how the story is told and finding out more about the author Eoin Colfer.  We drew and labelled a picture of Spud including her characteristics.   We also wrote an email as if we were Will in the story and discussed what “first person” means.
• In Spelling we did a dictation to see how well we had learned all of last term’s spelling words and patterns.
• We practised cursive writing.
• For fun we are reading Matilda.
• We all got our first reading books of 2019- please check reading records.  Gangsta Granny and Matilda groups will usually read on Monday; BFG and Dumbledore will usually read on Wednesdays.  Captain Underpants will usually read on a Monday and Wednesday.  Please complete reading and sign your child’s reading record- thank you!

Numeracy and Maths:

• In time we are learning about analogue time and about minutes to and minutes past and 
• We’ve been practising our times tables using Hit the Button- see link below:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

• We continued to work on formal addition methods.

Can you set out these sums as column additions and work out the answers?

203+162; 453+234; 38+27; 47+36; 349+464  

We are showing our working out by recording any carried numbers above the top number so we don’t get in a muddle.

• In beat thats we were all working on getting faster at take away sums.

Other Areas:

• In PE we have worked on gymnastics on mats.
• We created colourful artwork using oil pastels in the style of Steven Brown.
• We acted out some scripted drama of the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
• In our Vikings topic we worked on posters on an area of learning of our choice and we were also researching Viking heaven “Valhalla”.

What we have we learnt in Primary Four this week.

Literacy:

• In Spelling, our pattern was soft g, please see the link below for words:
• Week 11 Spelling soft g rule
• We wrote about the frosty day outside using descriptive vocabulary.
• In Reading we made summaries of our reading books by drawing a comic strip.
• Thank you for all your support with reading at home- almost everyone had their reading records signed this week .

Maths and Numeracy:

• We have continued to work on our beat thats.

Beat that 1

Beat that 2

Beat that 3

• We learnt about time using 5 minute intervals- please practise at home as much as possible!
• To continued our learning on addition by choosing our favourite strategy from partitioning, number lines and 100 sqaures to solve some addition problems.

Other Areas:

• We designed our table name signs.
• We made a being kind and helpful Advent calendar that we are choosing something from each day in December.
• In PE we continued to improve our badminton skills.
• We designed folders for our work on Vikings.  We also used the laptops to research gods and godesses.
• We have worked on our learning stories which are coming home today.  Please have a look through them and make a comment and sign.  They should be returned to school by 14th December.

Our learning this week in P4G:

Literacy:

• Our spelling pattern is soft c; we looked for as many soft c words as possible in a newspaper.  See words below:  week 10 soft c
• We continued working on news and the media- looking at headlines and making our own news reports.
• We wrote about the pantomime- a summary and our favourite part.
• Please remember to be prepared for your reading group and get your reading signed by an adult.

Maths and Numeracy:

• Continuing to work on telling the time using o’clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past.
• Addition using partitioning and addition of lots of numbers.  See this example worksheet below:

Partitioning

Can you explain how you would add these numbers by partitioning?

35+23, 74+24, 46+23, 105+224

What would you do if the units added up to more than ten?

Can you add all of these numbers together by thinking about pairs of useful numbers?

2+7+9+1+11+8+4+3+6?

• We’ve continued to practise our beat thats.

Beat that 1

Beat that 2

Beat that 3

Other Areas:

• To celebrate St. Andrew’s Day we all took part in a ceilidh dance- it was great fun!
• We looked at Viking long boats and created our own Viking boat.
• We learnt about Viking runes and wrote our own names and secret messages using these.
• We visited the Brunton Theatre to enjoy Jack and the Beanstalk.
• The first round of auditions for Buckstone’s Got Talent have taken place.

What another busy week!

What have we been learning in P4G this week?

Literacy:

• We read with P7F as part of Scottish Book Week.
• A storyteller came in and told us some really funny stories.
• In our news project we took on news jobs.  The jobs were: photographer, editor, journalist and reporter.
• We chose our own reading activities.

Maths and Numeracy:

• We learnt about quarter to and quarter past when telling the time.  Please practise as much as possible at home.
• We used empty number lines to add and take away. 
• We also looked at partitioning a number to help us to add.
• We worked on our beat thats.

Beat that 1

Beat that 2

Beat that 3

Other Areas:

• We went to a Viking workshop, which was really good fun.  We learnt lots of new things.
• We have continued to learn massage and we found out about some new strokes.
• A high school art teacher came to teach us about making a landscape picture using mixed media.
• We learnt about where Vikings came from and where they attacked and settled.
• We all made our own Viking shields in preparation for the workshop and were learning about Viking weapons and armour.
• We have renamed our tables names based on the Vikings.

What have we been learning in P4G this week?

Literacy:

• We began looking at news reports and thinking about the five w’s: what, where, why, when and who.
• Our spelling words this week were using the igh sound.  See link below.  We made up our own games and activities to practise the rule.

week 9 igh words

• We continued to work on our VCOP in writing by describing a sunset setting.
• In reading we worked on characterisation and questioning.  Please can all parents make sure that they sign their children’s reading records and that reading is available in school every day- thanks in advance!
• We continued to work on our cursive joins.

Maths and Numeracy:

• We began to work on time this week and revised o’clock and half past times.  Please practise this at home as much as possible.
• We are looking at strategies to help us add and take away and have been looking at using a hundred square.  Can you add these numbers using a 100 square to help?

23+55, 36+23, 54+28, 67+28

https://primarygames.co.uk/pg2/splat/splatsq100.html

• We have continued to work on getting faster and more accurate at our beat thats.

Beat that 1

Beat that 2

Beat that 3

Other Areas

• We chose our new history topic- The Vikings- and worked in teams to think about what we already know, what we’d like to find out and how we will share what we learn.
• We made our own Viking timeline of some of the big events that happened during the Viking era.
• In PE we worked on invasion games and discussed all of the skills that we need to succeed in these games.  We also worked on improving our fitness skills.
• We made sunset silhouette pictures using paints, these are the pictures we based our descriptive writing on.
• The Primary Sevens did an amazing job in organising Children in Need Day and we had a great time getting our faces painted, guessing Pudsey’s age and all sorts of other great activities!  Thank you P7!

Next Week

• Scottish Book Week: please have a book that you enjoy reading available every day in school for when we “drop everything and read.”
• On Thursday we have our visiting Viking.  It would be great to see the children dress up for this day.  Please see links below for some ideas.

https://vikingschoolvisits.com/costume-ideas-for-dressing-up-day/

http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/viking/clothes.html

http://primaryfacts.com/5614/what-did-the-vikings-wear-facts-about-viking-clothes-and-costume/

What we have been learning this week in P4G.

Literacy:

• In Reading we were looking at Bloom’s Taxonomy questioning skills.  We have worked on the super powers of: remembering, understanding and applying.  We became the teachers and created worksheets of questions for our partners about the novel Storm.  Thanks to all the parents who came to join us in this learning.
• We worked on Halloween comprehension.
• We looked at the correct use of question marks and wrote questions about some very strange pictures.
• In Spelling we looked at the patterns ar and or.

Here is a list of examples: shark, yard, artist, alarm, orbit, forty, horse, core, inform. 

Challenge words: enlarged, artistic, uniform, fortieth. 

Tricky words: only, little

• We practised all of our cursive letters.

Maths/Numeracy:

• We continued to work on Venn diagrams and started to work on Carroll Diagrams, please see the link below.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=carrollv7

• We worked on our rounding skills: we priced some food and rounded it up or down to the nearest 10.  We each completed a shopping list and talked about why rounding might be helpful in a shop situation.  Can you think about
• We continued to try to get faster at our beat that sums; see sheets below:
  

Beat that 1

Beat that 2

Other Areas:

• In Living Things we worked on invertebrate posters and vertebrate powerpoints.
• We finished our posters about ways to de-stress for our Resilience ‘Take a Moment’ unit.
• In Outdoor Learning we made stick skeletons to celebrate Halloween.
• We enjoyed our visits to the Book Fair.
• In PE we worked on fitness skills.

What have we enjoyed this week?

We enjoyed the parent drop in and Halloween; we liked finishing our powerpoints.

Any challenges?

Bloom’s Taxonomy was quite challenging.

Here is a summary of our learning in P4G this week:

Literacy:

• We used our senses to write a paragraph about our playground.
• We completed our cursive alphabet so we are now ready to start all of our joins.

• We worked on our comprehension skills.
• In Spelling we added ed endings to words where we need to double the consonant, for example: drop becomes dropped.  See link below.

Week 5 ed endings

• In Reading we looked at characterisation.

Numeracy and Maths:

• We gathered information using a questionnaire that we made up and made them into a bar chart or a pictogram.
• In Place Value we looked at rounding up and down to the nearest 10.

• We continued to work on our jigsaw numbers to 10, 20 and 100.
• We are still trying to get faster and more accurate at our beat thats.

Beat that 1

Beat that 2

Other Areas:

• In ICT we worked on making Powerpoints about Living Things- Vertebrates.
• Mrs Richie came to give the class a talk about living things including how living things began, habitats, evolution and extinction.
• In PE we worked on our defending skills and on fitness.

Have a great HOLIDAY and we will see you on Tuesday 23rd October!

(Apologies for the upside down pictures!)