Category Archives: Curriculum

Health and Well Being, Outdoor Learning, School Events

Santa Fun Run 2014

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The Santa Fun Run was held on the 29th of November. An amazing 248 people signed up to put on their Santa costume and run two kilometres around Gordon Park.

The event saw young and old, babies and even dogs waiting with anticipation and excitement at the starting line. When the horn blew at 10.30am the fun began. Each Santa had the finish line firmly in their view as they went, “ho, ho, ho” around the park.

However, not only will they receive an applause and a medal to keep for life, they were then greeted by the extravagant Christmas fayre. This included a number of stalls, spectacular food, bouncy castles and even a glorious Santa’s Grotto once we managed to tempt Santa away from the chocolate fountain!

We would like to say a massive thank you to Erin’s mum, Tracy Kelly and Mrs. Stewart who put so much time and effort into organising the event. We really appreciate it.  Have a look at some of the pictures below.

Written by the P4-7 Skills for Life, Learning and Work Newspaper Group.

Waiting for the start

Mrs Stewart, Santa's best helper
Pupils from P3 selling candy cane reindeer at the Christmas Fayre
Lots of stalls selling great stuff made by pupils at Ellon Primary

Expressive Arts, Languages, Mathematics, School Events, Social Studies

shape, topic, art, Romans, Celts, Alec caravan

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The P2s were making symmetrical t-shirts and shorts with patterns on them for maths.  We looked at shapes for maths.  The P2s and P3s were making different patterns with shapes. 

 At story writing we were writing a postcard from a roman soldier.  We made Celt torcs.

We were learning about the body inside the ALEC caravan.  We touched parts on Tammy and when we touched them they lit up. We learned that our heart keeps us alive.  There was a fancy dress party for Harold. 

At art, we were drawing a picture of roman soldiers.  We folded the paper and in each part we had to draw a part of the body.  Some of the parts had two parts of the body in them.

Expressive Arts, Languages, Mathematics, Social Studies

Romans and Celts, Story Writing, Archaeology

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We have been painting Romans and Celts.  Some people have been painting shields and swords.   In Art we have been painting Mount Vesuvius which is a famous volcano.  We are writing stories about a time machine.  Our story about the time machine is in chapters.  We have written one chapter. 

We have been learning about time.  The P3s have been learning quarter to and quarter past.  The P2s have been learning about o’clock and half past.  We went to cooperative learning groups to  learn the months of the year and make a paper chain of them.  Some people knew all of the months and some people didn’t.

Some people have been digging for finds in the playground!  Some people think that they have found things from the Roman times or a long time ago!  We have put them in our Roman museum.

Expressive Arts, Social Studies

Romans and Celts

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We thought about what we thought Romans looked like and what we wanted to find out about.  We were archaeologists and we were digging up objects and some were old and some were new.  We played the archaeology game on the computer.  Some people have been looking for old objects out in the playground!  On Friday we drew round a person to make Roman and Celt warriors and ladies.  We are making volcanoes with Mrs Connell at Art.

Expressive Arts, Languages

The Magic Bike stories, games, leaving

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We wrote stories at Big Writing about a magic bike.  Some of the stories were really long.  We have enjoyed doing our stories for Big Writing. 

We made board games because our topic is toys.  It was really, really fun.  Some of the games were hard to make.  Then we had to make our counters and make dice.  They were hard to make. We did them in our home building teams and we have 4 people in our teams.  Most of the home building teams worked well.  Today one of our class is leaving.   She is happy and sad to be going.

Health and Well Being, Languages, Mathematics

Red Nose Day, subtraction, story writing

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We are doing lots of subtracting and some people are enjoying it!  We have been stuck with a kind of take away – the one with the missing number at the start! Yesterday we played a game of subtraction bingo on the computer and a few people missed out some numbers!

We all  came to school in red clothes and red hair because it is Red Nose Day.  We also wore our red noses. All the red noses are dinosaur themed.

We have been writing stories about a magic paint brush.  First we  heard the story called The Magic Brush and it was a good story.  Some of us have written really long ones!  We had to follow a plan to write the stories.

Languages, Religious and Moral Education

Mother’s Day cards, verbs

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We were making Mother’s Day cards for Mother’s Day. We enjoyed making the cards.  We made hearts for the front of the cards and wrote in gel pens.  Some of them were sparkly!  We can’t wait to give them to the mums on Sunday!

We were learning how to play a game called Vigorous Verbs.  To play Vigorous Verbs someone gave you a card.  You weren’t allowed to look at the card until it was your turn.  On your turn you would look at the card and if it was a verb. You would act it out in the middle and if it wasn’t you took another card. We drew our Vigorous Verbs.

Expressive Arts, Health and Well Being

Assembly, Toy Shop

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We made posters and one group got to go up and tell everyone all about it.  They told us about feelings – feeling happy, sad and excited.  The P1s posters were about happy and sad.  All the posters were brilliant. 

We drew pictures of a toy shop and we had each square with toys from different years.  We looked at  The Toy Shop picture painted by Peter Blake.  The Toy Shop is an olden days one.  We are getting on great with them.

Expressive Arts, Languages, Technologies

The Magic Toy Maker, drawing, toy talks

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The Toymaker gave us 3 letters.  The first one was about making toys out of junk, the second one was to say that we did use our imagination to make a toy.  The third one was that he had run out of ideas and he wants us to help.  We made toys out of junk which were fantastic!  We drew pictures of toys like Noah’s Ark, a fire engine, a fire station, a farm and a car park.  We are in the middle of talks about our toys.  We had to take in one of our favourite toys and we had to talk all about it to the rest of the class.  The class had some questions to ask at the end of every talk.  The talks are excellent.

Curriculum, Languages, Social Studies

BAKING BUDDIES – Christmas treats to share

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Over the last three weeks the baking buddies have been getting into the spirit of Christmas by making a variety of festive goodies to take home and share with their families.Following each Christmas baking sessions the children have discussed Christmas and shared stories. Some of the buddies have then had the opportunity to create craft related to those discussions. All the results can be seen in the photo selection below.

Christmas Tarts

One of our buddies had requested that we bake jam tarts. To give these a more festive feel we adapted the recipe and filled our tarts with mincemeat and decorated them with a star. The children made their own short crust pastry and used cutters to make the tart base and cutters for the star shaped decoration.

Cinnamon and Vanilla Stars

This recipe was for a basic biscuit recipe that we adapted slightly by adding cinnamon and vanilla to the ingredients.

When we introduce our recipe each week we spend time looking at all the ingredients and talking about them. The children are encouraged to smell the ingredients before we use them describing what they notice or if they like it.  Some of the buddies recognised the smell of vanilla from ice cream and sweets they had before.

As we made star shapes we discussed where we see the star and how relates to Christmas. This week we were very lucky to get invited along to see the nursery nativity as our biscuits cooked in the oven.

Reindeer Cake Pops

This recipe is called a cake pop because a lollipop stick is used to stick onto the end of a ball of cake to create a lollipop cake. The buddies decorated the cake pops with melted chocolate and cake decorations to make a reindeers face.

For this recipe the children had to crumble up a ready bought Christmas cake. We added a vanilla flavoured butter icing which is mixed in together and dough is made. The buddies rolled the dough into smaller balls and they were put in the freezer to harden slightly. The cake pops were then dipped into the chocolate and decorations added.

Snowmen

Whilst we waited for the cake pops to harden in the freezer the children used a selection of marshmallows, melted chocolate, fruit string chews and cake decorations to make their own snowmen lollipops.

Curriculum, Social Studies, Uncategorized

Primary 4

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We have been learning about the Jacobite advance. They managed to get all the way to Derby but not to London. They battled at Culloden with the Redcoats and lost. We have been learning about the Highland Clearances too.

We have enjoyed practising for our play called The Christmas Story. Our voices have improved a lot over the last few weeks. We hope mums and dads enjoyed it.

Merry Christmas from P4!

Expressive Arts, Sciences

Christmas, Light and dark

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We are making origami Christmas trees  to put on cards and give to other people.  We made Christmas cards with our handprints on them with Mr Cordiner.  We had a Christmas party in the hall on Tuesday afternoon and we ate some snacks.  We played lots of games at the Christmas party.  We have two advent calendars in the classroom.  One is chocolate and one is pictures.

We put cress seeds on wet cotton wool and we put one tub in some light and put one tub in the dark cupboard.  We were put into groups to do it.  We talked about whether the seeds would grow in the dark or in the light and we are going to look at them this afternoon.  We had to work out what would grow in the dark and what wouldn’t.    We are wondering which will grow and which will not.

Expressive Arts, School Events

Cinderella and Rockerfella

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Everyone is really enjoying the rehearsals for the Cinderella  Rockerfella Pantomime and we can’t wait to perform infront of an audience. All we need to do is practice a little more to ensure we all know our lines and come in at the right time. The scenery crew are working hard on the backdrop and the props. We are all very excited about performing on the 19th of December to family and friends.

Here is a sneek preview of the ugly sisters practicing their routine.

The ugly sisters are having a great time!
Religious and Moral Education, Sciences, Uncategorized

Noctural animals, Hanukka

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We have been learning about nocturnal animals and have been using the computer for researching the animals.  We had to find out where the animals live, what they eat,what type they are and how they get around in the dark. 

We looked at the story of Hanukka because it is another celebration about light.  We learned abut the menorah which is a big lamp with 9 candles.  Jewish people celebrate Hanukka for 8 days because the oil miracle lasted for 8 days.

HAPPY HANUKKA!!!!