Primary 4/5 Starbursts

In Primary 4/5 we are currently focusing on:

Our Literacy writing focus is Explanation.
Our Numeracy focus is on column addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Our Problem Solving focus is 'Making a list and Drawing a Table'.
Our World Around Us topic is ‘Energy and Environment’
Our Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities focus is 'Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making'.

Trocaire Workshop

Fire Safety Talk

Safer Internet Day 2019

Mobile Zoo NI

Rainforest Animals

Rainforest

Effective Questioning

Some helpful questions to ask children during homework activities:

Before beginning:

How are you going to tackle this?
What information do you have? What do you need to find out or do?
What operation/s are you going to use?
Will you do it mentally, with pencil and paper, using a number line, with a calculator…? Why?
What method are you going to use? Why?
What equipment will you need?
What questions will you need to ask?
How are you going to record what you are doing?
What do you think the answer or result will be?
Can you estimate or predict?

Make positive interventions to check progress while children are working, by asking:

Can you explain what you have done so far?
What else is there to do?
Why did you decide to use this method or do it this way?
Can you think of another method that might have worked?
Could there be a quicker way of doing this?
What do you mean by…?
What did you notice when…?
Why did you decide to organise your results like that?
Are you beginning to see a pattern?
Do you think that this would work with other numbers?
Have you thought of all the possibilities?
How can you be sure?

Ask children who are stuck:

Can you describe the problem in your own words?
Can you talk me through what you have done so far?
What did you do last time? What is different this time?
Is there something that you already know that might help?
Could you try it with simpler numbers… fewer numbers… using a number line…?
What about putting things in order?
Would a table help, or a picture/diagram/graph?
Why not make a guess and check if it works
Have you compared your work with anyone else’s?

When finished:

How did you get your answer?
Can you describe your method/pattern/rule to us all?
Can you explain why it works?
What could you try next?
Would it work with different numbers?
What if you had started with… rather than…?
What if you could only use…?
Is it a reasonable answer/result? What makes you say so?
How did you check it?
What have you learned or found out today?
If you were doing it again, what would you do differently?
Having done this, when could you use this method/information/idea again?
Did you use any new words today?
What do they mean?

In Primary 4/5 we are currently focusing on:

Our Literacy writing focus is Non-Chronological Reports.
Our Numeracy focus is on Fractions, Symmetry, Time, Multiplication and Division.
Our World Around Us topic is Rainforests.
Our Problem Solving focus is 'Finding all possibilities’.
Our Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities focus is ‘Being Creative’.

Reindeer Food Advertisement

Our very proud winner of the Armagh,Banbridge and Craigavon Poster Competition for Road Safety NI!

Primary 4 and 5 have been designing persuasive posters for Anti-Bullying Week 2018

In Primary 4/5 we are currently focusing on:

Our Literacy writing focus is Persuasive.
Our Numeracy focus is on Time, Multiplication and Division.
Our Problem Solving focus is on 'Making a Conjecture'.
Our Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities focus is 'Working Together'.

WALT: problem solve by guessing, checking and improving.

Happy Halloween!

We had a visit from Matthew on Friday. Matthew works locally as a personal trainer as well as running a course coaching adults to become the best versions of themselves. He very much believes that to have a healthy body you must have a healthy mind.

Matthew had brought with him some pictures of well-known celebrities that the children look up to. They included authors, footballers, singers/bloggers and even some professional fighters!

The children had a chance to work in groups and come up with the personality traits that those people have which made them so successful.

Matthew spoke to the children about believing in themselves, finding what they are passionate about and giving it their all! Primary 4 and 5 had a great time presenting their work.