This week started with us taking part in the Christmas concerts. This year, the format was slightly different in the fact that we performed in our houses. We were singing song from the Peace Child. Several members of our class took on extra roles within the performance, singing solos and small groups, dancing, playing instruments and being narrators.

Whilst the concerts were going on, the others were taking part in science lessons. We were focussing on the states of matters. we used water as an example as it is readily found in the 3 different forms; liquid, solid and gas. We used crushed ice and ice cubes as part an experiment to look at temperature and which keeps the water colder longer. We discussed negative numbers and the freezing point of different liquids.

We visited Alloa Academy on Thursday, to see their panto. We saw lots of past pupils and really enjoyed the show.

We have been reading lots of picture books recently and we like discussing the different books.

Dear Parent/Carer,

I hope you find the following information useful.  If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Term 1 was very busy with a variety of different projects being started. We started with our mini Space topic looking at constellations, space travel and the size, scale, time and motion. We even found out what age we would be on other planets!

We then started our Scottish Parliament and Mock Court projects. They are linked by the law and justice systems. We learned about the different political parties, their manifestos and plans for the future.

Mock Court was a project that we all enjoyed. We took on a variety of roles such as solicitors, researchers, journalists, gown makers, court artists, and witnesses. We worked with a real solicitor who supported us at various points throughout the project. We have written legal documents and created productions to show in court. We recently visited Falkirk Sheriff court, where we were able to take our learning into a real world context. All children worked extremely hard and represented the school well. We are waiting to find out which teams will progress to the next stage of the competition.

General Information:

Children should bring a snack to school each day, to be eaten at break time, and a reusable plastic bottle with water in it to drink in class at appropriate times. To allow us to embrace opportunities for outdoor learning, children should come to school each day with an outdoor jacket.

Homework will be given each Monday, to be completed and returned by the Thursday. This will normally consist of a spelling activity and pages from their reading book, as well as often including work to consolidate the maths work done in class, and occasionally an activity relevant to our topic.

This year, our class will have PE on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. We also have our art specialist, Mrs Barron, coming to teach us every Monday and this term we will have Music with Mrs Pennie on a Tuesday in the lead up to the Christmas concerts.

Positive Behaviour

To promote positive behaviour Primary 6 are using Class Dojo.  Please note we cannot access the messaging aspect of Class Dojo. Should you need to contact us please do so by telephone or in writing.

Each child will remain in the same school house team as last year. They are able to earn points for their house by following the Redwell Way in class, in the playground, and around the school.

Learning focus this term:

This term the children will be learning about Sustainability. Through this topic we will be learning about/to:

• How water changes state in order to understand the water cycle.
• Investigate different water samples from the environment and explore methods that can be used to clean and conserve water considering the properties and uses of water.
• Renewable energy sources and how they are used in Scotland.
• consider where energy is conserved, how it is transferred and ways to reduce wasted energy.
• The Sustainable Development Goals and our responsibilities as Global Citizens.

 

Core Literacy:

• Pupils will be using our topic as a stimulus for writing in a variety of different styles.
• Pupils will continue to use VCOP strategies to develop their writing.
• Pupils will develop their Functional Writing to share the information they have researched through a variety of genres (reports, fact files, posters etc.)
• Pupils will be given opportunities to develop their listening and talking skills through a variety of class based activities, including cooperative group work.
• Pupils will read a novel during class reading lessons and will use Blooms Buttons and Book Detective strategies to develop their comprehension
• Pupils will show an understanding of fact and opinion
• Pupils will develop their skimming and scanning skills to find key information when reading.
• Pupils will be able to use the ‘Three Sharings’ when discussing texts

Core Numeracy:

• Pupils will consolidate their multiplication skills – practice at home would be greatly appreciated
• Pupils will learn to multiply and divide by 10, 100 and 1000
• Pupils will work with place value of positive and negative numbers
• Pupils will be using mental and written strategies to solve mathematical problems
• Pupils will investigate measure as they learn about:

• • length using appropriate tools and units
  • perimeter and how to calculate using mm, cm or m
  • area and how to measure in cm²
• Pupils will investigate volume, measuring and estimating capacity
• Pupils will continue to develop their speed and accuracy of number recall

Health and Wellbeing:

As a Health Promoting school we actively encourage and teach our children to make healthy choices, to enable then to become healthy, active and emotionally resilient young people of the future.

We are delighted to be able to continue to deliver 2 hours of PE a week as well as opportunities for children to be active in our fabulous new grounds.

We would appreciate your support in promoting a healthy and balanced diet, both in your child’s morning snack and in their packed lunch.  We would discourage any type of fizzy juice in school or energy drinks.  Children are encouraged to bring in a water bottle, which they can use during class time and refill during the day.  There are water fountains situated throughout the school for daily use.

Please encourage your child to participate in the Active Sports Clubs that are on offer at lunchtimes and after school, as well as any school based clubs that take place throughout the year.  Keep looking in school bags for further information.

A reminder that all children who cycle or scooter to school must wear a safety helmet and ‘walk’ their bikes whilst in the playground. There are bike racks available.

Playground toys:

We have a playground equipment for children to play with during lunchtime.  Please do not bring in your own toys – except for Golden Time on a Friday – so that we can be sure that all toys in the playground belong to the school.  Many thanks for your support.

Golden Time toys:

Children can bring a ‘toy’ to school on a Friday to play with during Golden Time. Please remember that the school cannot take responsibility for the safety of these toys and therefore we request that your child does not bring in expensive/ electronic items without your consent.  We appreciate your support with this matter.

Mobile Phones:

Children may bring a mobile phone to school however these will be stored in a locked classroom cupboard until home time and cannot be used during the school day.

Book and Blether

We have morning sessions when parents and carers can come in to the wing and read with their child. The next day is Wednesday 5th December.

I look forward to working in partnership with you this session.

 

Kind regards

Mrs Hunter

 

Our Sharing Learning Afternoon was a fabulous success. We shared about our school values of friendship, respect and resilience.

When our visitors returned to the class, we had a variety of tasks to complete and take part in.

As a class, we have spent time working with Leanne from Active Schools to take part in Young Leaders training. We focussed on a variety of skills to help us to work with the younger children and be able to run games. We took part in lots of games and activities to use these skills. Later in the week, P1C came along and allowed us to try out what we had been learning with them.

As a part of mock court we have been writing newspaper reports about the party. This was a massive project which took many weeks and lots of work for all involved. We all took on a variety of roles as both pursers and defence teams. The roles were solicitors, researchers, journalists, gown makers, witnesses and court artists.

We had to work to deadlines and complete work. These are important life skills that we continue to use in everyday life.

The end to the project was a visit to Falkirk Sheriff Court. We were up against teams from Sunnyside PS. The experience in the court was very interesting and a different place to be. Mrs Hunter was incredibly please with the way we presented ourselves at the court.

We are still waiting to find out if any of our team have progressed to the next stage of the competition!

We have been researching about Remembrance Day and the 100 year anniversary. We discussed the event and the importance of that to society.  We designed postage stamps to commemorate the anniversary. We watched a video from CBBC, focussing on the animals that have played an important part to the efforts.

As part of the national Outdoor Learning Day, P6H took their learning outdoors on a noticing walk. We had taken part in some learning prior to going outside thinking about onomatopoeia. We combined this with our previous work on our senses that we had used during term 1 in our imaginative writing.

We were walking around the grounds quietly taking notes on the different things that we could see, hear, touch, smell and taste. Mrs Johnstone made it possible for us to go into the garden area and spoke with us about the different herbs that we have growing. Due to the frost, some of the herb were going to die so she cut the herbs and allowed us to bring them into the class to be cleaned and tasted.

We enjoyed our time outside and then used the notes that we had taken and looking at some of the photos to create Autumn poems using onomatopoeia in them. We created some interesting poems and thought about everything that we had taken in.

 

Today we have been doing some problem solving with a Halloween theme. We had to work in pairs to solve a variety of clues using our addition, multiplication, rounding and subtraction knowledge to complete the clues. We even had to work with Roman numerals to answer of of the clues.

We worked hard as part of our pair to support each other and work on our cooperation skills.

This term, Mr Swan has been working with us for a short session to help with our mental maths and agility.

Each week, we are using different skills and ways to answer questions and problems. We are learning these ways and trying to use these in other sessions throughout the week.

Last week, we were thinking about different ways to show how to find the answer. We could write it in words, show it as a picture, write it in numbers or put it in a story. We liked this as it helped us see the answer in different ways.