Instructions and leaflets

This term we are concentrating on non-fiction writing and the features of non-fiction books. In the morning we worked in groups to write instructions for the bird feeders we made on our special Eco day. This group worked really well together and produced a super set of instructions. They reached all the writing targets by numbering their instructions and writing about the steps in order, including all the important information while making sure it made sense and using bossy verbs. Well done!

In the afternoon we discussed some of the features of non-fiction books using our library topic books about Antarctica. We looked at the contents page and the purpose of a glossary. We also looked at how the cover might differ from a fiction book.

We then began to make leaflets about Antarctica. We chose penguins to decorate the cover of the leaflet. We will finish these over the coming weeks.

Some of our leaflets.

Properties of 3D shapes

We are great at naming 3D shapes but thought we could be a wee bit better at describing their properties. Today we worked in groups to make mind maps about 3D shapes and their properties. We then described them to the rest of the class.

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Scott of the Antarctic

Today we started to learn about Captain Robert Falcon Scott. He was one of the early explorers to Antarctica. He led two expeditions. The first of these was on board a ship called the “Discovery” in 1901. This is of special interest to us because this ship is now docked in Dundee and we are going to visit it in two week’s time.

We are beginning to learn about writing non-fiction texts. Mrs Stewart gave us a piece of writing about Captain Scott. We had to highlight important information, then we worked together to put this into bullet points. We discussed how bullet points are a good way of summarising information. We made a poster about Captain Scott using some of our bullet points.

One of our posters using bullet points.

Mrs Stewart has a new Flip video camera. We made this wee video as a test. We think we are going to be using it a lot to share our learning with you!

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Snowflake printing

This afternoon we tried out snowflake printing. We used the edge of a piece of card, cut from a box, then dipped in paint to do our printing. We are going to put the finishing touches to these next week. We will post a picture of them when they are finished.

We are planning to add them to our Antarctica roleplay and information corner.

Under the Sea!

We are lucky to be having a dance teacher called Kym working with us for the next few weeks. She started to teach us a dance to the the tune of “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid.” She thought we picked up the dance really well and that we were super listeners.

Thank you for a great lesson, Kym. We are really looking forward to working with you.

Warming up by twirling our ribbon batons!
Practising our dance.

Exploring Antarctica

Our topic this term is all about Antarctica. We will be finding out all about Antarctic explorers and the geography, climate and animals.

This week we found out that Antarctica is one of the seven continents of the world.

We also found out that millions of years ago our continents were not shaped the way they are today. As a matter of fact, they were not separate continents at all! Scientists now believe that the earth’s land masses were once all one giant land mass called Pangaea. Over the last 250 million years the continents have broken up and drifted to where they are today. Scientists call this Continental Drift.

They also believe that Antarctica was once a warm land roamed by dinosaurs!

You can read more about this here.

Click here to play this game testing your knowledge of the continents.

Keep checking our blog to keep up to date with our Antarctic Exploration!

More toothy activities!

This term we will be concentrating on non-fiction writing. Today, we wrote our own instructions for brushing our teeth. We spoke about the importance of making sure our instructions are written in the right order.

In the afternoon we learned about the structure of a tooth. We learned that the outer layer is called enamel, the layer under that is called dentine and the middle is very soft and called pulp. We made our own paper models of the layers of the tooth and labelled them.

Concentrating on the tricky bits!
The inside of a tooth.

Here is a good website for learning about the structure of a tooth.

2D Shape

This week we have been learning all about the names and properties of 2D shapes in maths. We made these shape riddle books.

What shape am I?
That's right!

Here they are as part of our maths wall.

We have also been learning which 2D shapes can tile. We say a shape can tile if it can fit together to make a pattern without any spaces.