This term so far in numeracy we have been learning about place value and practising our times tables.  We have been introduced to these fun games to support and consolidate our learning.  We work together with children in different maths groups and learn from each other.  We have had lots of fun learning through these games.

This week we have been learning how to take notes.  We have found this really tricky to do as we are usually working hard writing full sentences ensuring they make sense.  So, trying to change our good habits and just write brief bullet points has been difficult, but we have agreed that throughout our topic we will practise taking notes from a variety of sources and develop our note-taking skills.

Over the last few weeks we have taken notes from online sources, Titanic reference books and information leaflets and from the teacher’s powerpoint presentation.  We have started to record the important and interesting facts onto a final draft to be inserted into our personal profiles. (See attached photos.)

This week we also learned about the Morse Code.  We then had fun writing our name in morse code. (See attached photos.)

We also designed and created our own posters to advertise the Titanic.  We had to plan these by deciding what persuasive language we were going to use on our posters.  What title and picture will capture our audience and decide what information would entice people to book the Titanic.  We already have had practise creating posters when we did the Road Safety posters.  We tried to make our posters bold, neat and interesting also. (See attached photos.)

We are learning in P4/5 that solving maths problems involves using a lot of skills we already have and some we develop through problem solving e.g. collaboration (teamwork), listening, talking, numeracy, reading, analysing, justifying and lots more.

Today we were solving problems using our place value understanding as well as adding and subtracting.  We also had to ensure that everyone in our group understood how we got to the answer and then justify our process and answer to the class at the end. We found that part a bit tricky but we will continue to practise this weekly and get better at it.

It was clear to some of the groups where they had went wrong throughout the problem solving process which meant we learned from our mistakes.

The four groups used a different way to solve the problems e.g. act it out, use concrete objects, adding and subtracting and working backwards.

Some of the groups worked really well as a group – listening to everyone, taking turns, working in a quiet organised manner and trying out different ways to solve the problem.

Throughout the year the children will take their turn to feed the birds and pick litter up from the school grounds and the community.  The children will next week discuss the importance of litter control as well as the dangers if we don’t.

The children were so inspired by their visit from children’s author that they came back to class and asked to write their own chase scene.  So as a class we brainstormed some of the exciting phrases and words we learn4ed from Lari Don and added a few of our own.  We put these up on the board and they have now been transferred onto our Amazing Adjectives wall to use in our stories.

The children have now completed their chase scene short stories.  Most children have left their story on a ‘cliffhanger’ as they would like to complete another chapter of their story and keep their readers in suspense and wanting to read more.