After the long weekend we will be starting our Science topic on ‘Forces’. Our Key Assessment Task will focus on Science, Technology and People and Place, requiring us to design and make a model of a toy, in keeping with the Victorian era, which uses push/pull/magnetic forces.

We would love it if you could keep a hold of any small, dry, clean cardboard boxes, tubing, cotton reels, bottle tops, wooden dowling, string etc. which might come in handy for our model building.

The more we have the better!

Thank you in advance for your help.

Many thanks to P4/5 for coming to visit and help with the Chromebooks this afternoon. We were working on two of our targets from our Learning Overview:

• I can independently login to a Chromebook;
• I can use a browser and search engine to locate named websites for research.

We were feeling pretty confident with our login/logout/shut down by the end of the afternoon and will be able to practise our skills again next week.

Here is a look ahead to our Big Learning for next week!

In Numeracy we will focus on Multiplication and Division. Children will each target a times table to work on – learning the stations first in sequence, and then learning to quickly recall multiplication and division facts at random. We will be thinking about multiplication as repeated addition and practising drawing arrays.

Our focus sound for spelling next week will be the long ‘i’ sound using ie, i-e, y, and i. Your child should have their group words copied into their Home Learning jotter which will come home today. There was a huge improvement in the retention of spelling words again this week, so keep up the great work. The children can practise their words in any way they like, there are plenty of ideas on our Spelling Menu

We are also currently assessing common spelling word lists.

In Literacy we will look at the use of the possessive apostrophe.

We have now taken notes and created a plan for our own report on Queen Victoria, which we will write next week. We look forward to sharing these with you on our Open Afternoon on Thursday 13th February.

We will begin to look at the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Art, and begin to create our own nature inspired design for a stained glass window.

Our Victorian topic work will focus on home life for Victorian families.

We will be thinking about the 5 Ks in Sikhism. 

We will begin to look at popular foods in French.

We are really excited for World Book Day here at Crown. We will be celebrating the day with fancy dress, a competition, visitors, class buddying activities and other literacy related work within classes.

Fancy Dress

• Our fancy dress theme is simple this year – come dressed as your favourite book or film character. We would love to see some creative homemade costumes – there is no pressure to go out and buy anything for this.

Story Box Competition

• Get creative and use a shoe box to create a scene from a book (fiction or non-fiction). It could be from your favourite book or from one of the books you are reading at school. Alongside your box, give a short summary or review of your book which will inspire others to read it. Entries will be judged on effort and creativity and winners will be chosen from each class and announced in our World Book Day assembly. There will be certificates and prizes for our winners. (Please bring your story box into school on World Book Day.)
• These will be judged in 3 categories – P1 & P2; P3 & P4 and P5-7. There will be one prize for the most creative story box in each category.

Sharing our Favourite Books

• Pupils are encouraged to bring in their favourite book, comic or magazine for World Book Day. This will be used during independent reading time and in some of our class activities.

We can’t wait for a great fun-filled book themed day!

Here is a look ahead to our Big Learning for next week!

In Numeracy we will begin to look at Multiplication and Division. We will be completing some pre-assessments to see how confident we are already, and to determine a start point for each group. We will be thinking about multiplication as repeated addition and practising drawing arrays.

Our focus sound for spelling next week will be the long ‘e’ sound using ie, ei, ey, y, e-e and i. Your child should have their group words copied into their Home Learning jotter which will come home today. There was a huge improvement in the retention of spelling words this week, so keep up the great work. The children can practise their words in any way they like, there are plenty of ideas on our Spelling Menu

We are also currently assessing common spelling word lists.

In Literacy we will continue to look at the use of the apostrophe in contractions.

Last week we started to look at the key features of report writing and your child should be able to share these with you. Next week we will be taking this one step further by beginning to plan our own report on Queen Victoria.

Our Victorian topic work will focus on home life for Victorian families.

The class are showing great interest in our RME work on Sikhism. Next week we will be thinking about special places.

Our focus for PE this term is gymnastics. We will be practising moving around the floor in different ways and using our core strength to hold a variety of balances. Every child should have a gym kit in school comprising shorts or leggings, a t-shirt and suitable footwear.

We will continue to practise naming our colours in French by writing French colour words.

We will also have our final session of Kodally; a final four week block will take place in the summer term.

Many thanks to all our volunteer helpers, both at the Library this morning and out and about this afternoon. We really appreciate your help; these trips would just not be possible without your support.

Here is a look ahead to our Big Learning for next week!

In Numeracy children working on Subtraction to 100 will have a final week to consolidate strategies. Those children who have been working beyond 100 will be looking at interpretation of written addition and subtraction problems with more than one step, showing that they can apply the most appropriate known strategy.

Our focus sound for spelling next week will be the long ‘e’ sound using ee and ea. Your child should have their group words copied into their Home Learning jotter which will come home today. Only half of the class said they had practised their spelling words  at home last week; this was very evident when we complete our weekly spelling assessment. I would really appreciate your support at home with this. The children can practise their words in any way they like, there are plenty of ideas on our Spelling Menu

We are also working on personalised common spelling word lists every day in class.

Our Literacy focus as we read and write next week will be the use of the apostrophe in contractions.

We will be heading out and about on Tuesday when we will be making a return visit to the Library in the morning to swap our books.

Our Victorian topic has got off to a great start. We will be looking at old maps of the Crown area on Monday afternoon (many thanks to James’ mum for providing some links for this) and then taking a walk around the Crown area on Tuesday afternoon (weather permitting) to identify buildings from the Victorian era.

We had great fun painting our colour wheels last week; thinking about mixing the primary colours to create secondary and tertiary colours. This week we will be looking at creating different tints by adding white, shades by adding black and tones by adding grey. We do take off our sweatshirts and try to take care, but an old painting shirt for school might be a good idea as we will be using paint quite a bit this term.

Following on from our introduction to Sikhism we will be looking at the key beliefs of the Sikh faith. Your child should already be able to tell you who founded the Sikh religion, where and when.

Our focus for PE this term is gymnastics. We will be practising moving around the floor in different ways and using our core strength to hold a variety of balances. Every child should have a gym kit in school comprising shorts or leggings, a t-shirt and suitable footwear.

We will continue to practise naming our colours in French.

Helping at Home

I know our P3 parents are very keen to help support learning at home. We will be looking at Multiplication/Division shortly, so counting on and back in 2s, 5s, and 10s is a really good starting point. More confident children could start to work on times tables in this order: 2, 10, 5, 4, 3. Learning the facts in sequence by skip counting is the first step, with the ultimate aim of being able to recall facts out of sequence.

Our Maths focus this term will be telling the time, and so any support you can give with this at home would be great. We should already be confident with o’clock and half past on both analogue and digital clocks; our aim is to master quarter past and quarter to on both analogue and digital clocks. Children who are already confident with this will begin to work on 5 minute intervals.

P3 and P2/3 are hoping to go out and about in the Crown area next Tuesday afternoon 1.45-2.45pm (weather permitting). We will be looking at the buildings in our local area to see if we can spot any which were built during the Victorian Period. We could really do with a few parent helpers, just to help with road crossing and staying on the pavements. If you are free and happy to help just pop a note in to the class with a contact number and we will be in touch regarding the arrangements.

Many thanks!

In P2 & P3?

Love running?

Want to take part in the MacRobert Cup XC competition on March 18^th  2020?

Come along to the team trials on Thursday 16^th of January at 12 noon.

Running Club Coaches

Just a reminder for tomorrow. If your child wishes to take part in the team trials they must bring suitable footwear to run an extended distance outdoors.