I hope everyone has had an enjoyable weekend in the sunshine. We are at the beginning of our second week of term and I wanted to share the weekly learning with you. It has been suggested that it might be easier if activities were released on a Monday, giving families greater freedom to decide when they have time to work together over the course of the week. I will trial this with a couple of activities this week, but will also provide a daily timetable to follow for those who prefer more structure.

I am going to share the entire ‘Talk for Writing’ resource tomorrow. It is an excellent resource and is not designed to be devoured at one sitting. I have given you access to the original document, but I have suggested which pages to work on each day in a timetable attached in google classroom. Please feel free to complete the activities which you feel are appropriate and do not feel obliged to complete every activity suggested. I know the children will be excited to ‘talk’ about the story.

Remember that the P2-4 classroom has a host of resources and links for any families looking for additional materials.

Have a great week!

Mrs Patterson

Welcome Back!

I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday. While we are starting the final term in unusual circumstances, one which changes our normal school day; we will still all be able to learn and connect together with google classroom.

Using this facility, I will post Literacy, Numeracy along with a Health and Wellbeing assignment each day. At 9am the learning assignments will become available and can be completed at any point throughout the day. You should also find a daily timetable every morning highlighting the big learning for the day ahead. I would kindly ask however you register by 12om each day on the attendance sheet.

Every Sunday night I will post a brief overview of our weekly learning activities on our class blog. Initially all the learning activities will build on prior learning and should reinforce existing knowledge that your child has. When your child logs into google classroom the learning activities, online links, games and activity grids will be specific for your child. Each assignment will have written instruction to help you complete the activity and should contain all the online links etc required. However, there may be the odd glitch to start with as I navigate my way around google classroom!

Thank you for your continued support

Mrs P

Hello

I have been absent from school the last few days but I am very happy to be back and ready to start working with you again.

I am hoping that you have all had a chance to read Ms MacDonald’s message on the main school blog about the use of Google Classroom.

The only expectation for this week was that the children should register. Ms MacDonald has a host of good ideas, and don’t forget the Learning Hub at https://www.digilearnhighland.co.uk/

A change to registration today

A message from Ms MacDonald:

As you can imagine there is considerable pressure on Highland Council bandwidth so Head Teachers have decided to stagger registration to see whether it makes an impact. Our school is 11am for registration from today. As you can imagine there is no precedent for this and there will be a great deal of trial and adjustment ongoing.

Many thanks

Mrs Patterson

In Literacy we are going to be focusing on descriptive writing. In spelling our sound patterns are ‘o-e’ or ‘ea’ sounding as a. In reading we are going to be looking for sound patterns and punctuation marks hidden in our books.

In Numeracy we are continuing to work on division with a focus on answering word problems. We are using skip counting and our knowledge of times tables to solve questions.

In P.E we will be playing team games. We are looking forward to planning and building our own toy out of junk materials this week. We will be creating toys that have a push/pull force. We are looking forward to our visit from the SSPCA. P3 are working very hard to learn their lines for the Easter Service at the end of term. We will be having several rehearsal slots this week.

This week we were learning about ‘Retail and Customer Service’. We had great fun creating our own shops and modelling our own customer service skills.

In Literacy we are going to complete a report on Victorian schools. We are enjoying listening to our class talks and sharing our learning with the class. In spelling our sound focus is ‘i-e’ or ‘c’ as in s. In reading we are comparing our stories to other stories we have read and looking for similarities and differences.

In Numeracy we are continuing to work on division and we are starting to answer written questions independently. We are focusing on dividing numbers by 2/5 and 10 but some are ready to progress to dividing by 3 and beyond. It would be really helpful if children could continue practising skip counting at home.

In Science we are looking at friction and using everyday materials to investigate its effect on moving toy cars.  As part of Careers week we will be looking at Retail and Customer Service. We also have a visit from the SSPCA to look forward to next week.

There will be a Technologies focus this week as we research and plan our own Victorian toys which use a push/pull force. We are planning to build our toys next week. Thank you to everyone who has handed in junk materials for the modelling. Unfortunately, only a small number of children have handed in junk materials. I have a small supply that can be shared in the class but I know that many of the children are keen to use their own junk materials that they brought into school. It would be great if any junk materials could be handed into school by Monday.

In Literacy, we are continuing to develop on our report writing skills. We will be using the notes we made last week to write a report on Victorian schools. In spelling our sounds are (‘y’ or ‘se’) and words will go home today in blue jotters. We are continuing to work on apostrophes and we are starting to identify them in our reading books.  We are discussing the difference between possessive apostrophes and apostrophes as contractions.

In Numeracy, we are developing our knowledge of division and linking it to multiplication. We are starting to work with concrete materials and discussing the language of division for example sharing/groups of/sets. We are continuing our work on time and completing written questions in jotters.

In Science, we are learning about forces and learning about push and pull. We are identifying toys and everyday objects that need a push, pull or both to operate.

This week is World Book Week and we will be celebrating this as a whole school on Thursday the 5^th of March (please see previous blog posts for details).

P3 will be presenting the Easter Service at Crown church on the last day of this term. This week we are going to start preparing by looking at the Easter story.

I will let children know today the day for their personal talk on a famous Victorian.  Class talks will be spread over the next few weeks.

P.E will be on a Monday and Tuesday for the rest of this term. Thank you to the children who are bringing in a P.E kit every week however not all children are bringing P.E kit to school. It is important that they have a P.E kit in school so they can benefit fully from the lesson.

In Literacy, we will be continuing to develop our note taking and report writing skills. Our spelling sounds this week are igh or ch (sounding as K). I apologise that the blue jotters did not go home today but they will go home tomorrow. Here are the words in case you want to practice tonight. The children have been told the sound they are working on this week and have been introduced to the words.

high

right

thigh

bright

might

light 

school

chorus

Christmas

chord

headache

choral

archaeology

architect

archive

chameleon 

 character

chiropractor

We are continuing to work on the possessive apostrophe and will be searching for examples in our reading books.

In Numeracy, we are going to complete written questions using our times tables knowledge. We will start to learn about division using practical materials. We are still working on reading digital and analogue times.

We are going to start exploring Victorian toys and think about how they differ from modern toys. We are completing our learning on Sikhism and will learn about the five Ks.