During our ICT time this week we spent time on the First News ihub. This allows us to read news articles and answer comprehension questions based on the article, take part in polls and debates and also work with members of our class in group tasks.

Remember First News can be accessed at home and if you complete tasks at home you gain more points!

This afternoon, Primary 7 spent time with their buddies and played bingo together. The Primary 1’s were great at recognising the numbers and tried to spot the numbers before their buddy!

Yesterday, Primary 7 (and Mrs Paton) received their leavers hoodies, we are looking forward to wearing them next term!

This week, Primary 7 have been learning about crime and punishment in the Victorian Era as part of their IDL topic.  We watched some clips about the different punishments that were given to criminals and also learned that children as young as 12 could be sent to prison! We then took on the challenge of becoming crime-fighters and decided appropriate punishments for various crimes that would have been committed during this era, for example stealing apples and pickpocketing.

Primary 7 joined the P1 buddies at the Pod this afternoon, they had great fun together and created a ticket office where they were selling tickets for their train!

During ICT time this week, Primary 7 were working on their P7 profiles. These profiles will be shared with secondary schools and is in the format of a blog, similar to our class blog. The pupils have added information about themselves, the things they are looking forward to at high school and their personal achievements and goals for the future.

Each week we use the Pod, Primary 7 create new and interesting things – obstacle courses, boxing rings and dens are just a few of them! What great imagination, problem solving and teamwork you all demonstrate!

Next week the children will be writing a fictional biography of a Victorian child.  Research has shown that when children talk about their ideas they produce better writing. This weekend, it would be great if you could do some ‘Talk Homework’. You can do this by helping your child think about the following aspects of their fictional biography:

• Who are they writing about? A poor Victorian child or a rich child? Think about their name, research popular names in the Victorian Era. What was early childhood like for them?
• Did this child go to school or did they work/go to the workhouse like Jim in Street Child (the novel we are reading in class).
• What happened to them after they left school/workhouse? Remember this is a fictional biography therefore you can use your imagination.

I am sure that if the children come to school with great ideas, they will be able to focus on their vocabulary, punctuation and grammar in class and produce fantastic biographies.

Thank you for your support, Mrs Paton 😊

Every Friday as part of our Get Spelling programme, the Primary 7’s take part in Team Teach and this is proving to be a very successful tool for the children to improve their spelling and share strategies with their classmates.  Connie and Riley were particularly proud of themselves scoring 5 out of 5, well done!

Huge congratulations to Taylor who was extremely successful at her swimming competition last weekend, winning 4 medals and a trophy for Best Girl! What an achievement, well done Taylor!