Despite the wintry conditions this week, the Primary 3 children had an exceptionally exciting and enthusiastic beginning to Term 2 as they engaged in various activities revolving around their new World Around Us theme, 'Food Glorious Food.' We began the week by reading the story 'Oliver’s Fruit Salad.' The initial literacy task involved recording all the fruits Oliver purchased at the supermarket, followed by listing them in alphabetical order. Progressing further, the focus shifted to becoming more familiar with this term's writing genre—instructional writing. The students explored a variety of instructions and identified the common features. They then read a set of instructions on how to make a fruit salad, gathered the necessary ingredients, and followed the steps to create a delicious fruit salad collectively with their friends. On Tuesday, as the snow fell outside the children continued to develop their reading and comprehension skills by completing a comprehension exercise titled 'Snow Snow’. The children also thoroughly enjoyed exploring a wide range of non-fiction books where they were able to recall some interesting facts about food. This encouraged them to think about what they would like to find out by the end of the topic. In Numeracy, the students actively participated in various hands-on learning experiences centred around money. They used coins to make amounts needed to pay for food items, priced different types of fruit and engaged in role-play activities where they used 20p to make purchases and calculate change. This activity-based learning further enhanced their mental addition and subtraction skills. Before creating our fruit salad, the class gathered to create a pictograph on our favourite types of fruit. We closely examined the process of labelling a pictograph and engaged in discussions about terms such as "most popular" and "least popular”. The delightful range of fruits heightened our anticipation for making a fruit salad, mirroring Oliver's experience in our story. Carefully cutting up the fruit, we also introduced the terms "halves" and "quarters" in preparation for learning more about fractions in the upcoming week. We were very excited to welcome our new coach, Conall, from AB Coaching, who guided us in enhancing our fundamental movement skills through a variety of engaging activities. Our ICT lessons were centered around the Flipgrid app, where the children had the opportunity to personalise their backgrounds before recording short videos introducing themselves and sharing something they enjoy. These videos will serve as a virtual meet-and-greet for our Primary 3 counterparts at Cookstown Primary School and Phoenix Integrated Primary School before we embark on collaborative Shared Education lessons. Our Religion focus this week was on the Gospel. We talked about how to respond to the priest when he introduces the Gospel. We then discussed some of the stories from the Gospel that we were familiar with, chose our favourite one and made a lovely bookmark to bring home. Well done boys and girls for all your hard work, we are all very proud of you.
