A busy few weeks in P4

This term has flown past and we've been so busy.

Here is a few pictures from our Diwali assembly, we really enjoyed sharing our learning with you, thank you for joining us.

We've begun to work with P2 and we're enjoying the opportunity to support them in their reading.  Over the last two terms we have been working on reading fluently and using punctuation to help us read.  So, we've got lost of tips to share with our P2 partners.

Our topic this term is transport and last week we were lucky enough to visit the MV Hamnavoe.  As part of our tour, we met the captain and his crew, were mesmerized by all the buttons and levers in the bridge and found out a lot of facts about what happens behind the scenes.

We've also been looking at what forces some vehicles use to move, we've had great fun making parachutes and testing them outside.

In our Jigsaw sessions, we've been celebrating differences and how words can hurt people.  We've also been thinking about how we can be a good friend and give and receive compliments.  Here are some pictures of us making letters with our bodies to create the word family. 

In RME we've been looking at the meaning of Christmas and thinking about the why it is important to us and our families.  We've taken snapshots of what we do on Christmas day and the class were tasked with guessing what was going on.

We really enjoyed Christmas dinner last week and we all wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.   

Term 2

We've had a busy and enjoyable start to term two.

In PE we've been working on developing our teamwork skills in lots of fun and challenging ways.

We've also been enjoying our new reading corner.

In RME we've started our investigation into Diwali, we've been working in groups and sharing things which give us a shared identity.

We've enjoyed spending time with Jigsaw Jino and we've been celebrating differences.

Finally in Numeracy, we've been sorting information into different groups and looking at how information is displayed in Carrol, Venn and Tree diagrams.

On Friday we enjoyed our first trip to the Stromness Library, we found lots of books and borrowed plenty to keep us reading until our next visit.

Week 7

We've been busy in our Reading Cafe developing our understanding of texts, improving our fluency whilst reading and expanding our vocabulary through language games.

As part of our mindfulness project, we explored our reticular activating system (RAS) and what role it plays in helping us focus on important sounds whilst filtering out the rest. We made our own RAS with a colander, stones and sugar.  The stones were the unimportant sounds which didn't pass through and the sugar was the important sounds which filtered through. 

Scottish Folktales

We've been busy developing our confidence and skills in skipping and we've been sharing lots of good tips.

This week we have been exploring traditional Scottish folktales and finding out about all the mythical creatures in them.

We've been creating our own folktale and acting out well known folktales to the rest of the class.

Mindful learning

We've been working hard developing our use of descriptive words and phrases.  On Wednesday we worked in pairs and had to describe people from photographs in as much detail as possible.  Our partner covered their eyes and used the descriptions to imagine the person in the photograph.  This was tricky but lots of fun.

As part of our learning on mindfulness, we explored how our brain reacts in times of stress.  We found out about three important parts of our brains.  Then we created our own brain by adding sand, glitter, confetti and water to a bottle.  We shook the bottle as hard as we could and this represented our brain handling stress, with lots of thoughts and feelings flying around.  We then placed the bottle on the table and the sand, glitter and confetti began to settle at the bottom.  This represented how our brain calms us down and allows us to respond to stressful situations appropriately.

 

Have a lovely weekend.

Welcome to P4!

We've had a busy start to the new term in P4 and we're all settling in well.

So far we've been lucky enough to have a visit from Dynamic Earth with an excellent workshop called 'Destination Space' where we discovered what is was really like to be an astronaut.  We found out how to filter water, what to wear and how to sleep in space along with lots of other information.

Last week we visited Glaitness to watch a National Theatre of Scotland production called 'Martha'.  We all really enjoyed the performance and had to think about what friendship means to us.