As part of our science learning, P3/4/5 have been exploring the properties of different materials and why their different properties make them suitable for different jobs. This week we explored waterproofing and carried out an experiment to find out which materials would protect an item from getting wet. Before the experiment pupils discussed each material and its properties and made predictions about which material would be best for waterproofing. Next, everyone coloured in 6 dinosaurs and then covered these with the six different materials. The same amount of water was then applied to each. It was interesting to see which dinosaurs ink ran the fastest based on which material was protecting it. 
Angles
In maths today P3/4/5 were working with Mrs McClymont to explore angles and identify angles within a full rotation. This linked to our previous learning knowing the cardinal and intercardinal compass points. It was great to see everyone working hard, especially when breaking angles down into smaller parts to work out degree turns.
Topic Time
This week we have been learning about Democracy in Scotland as part of our new topic. We read through a PowerPoint, and then tested our knowledge by playing the Scottish Parliament Democracy board game!
Chinese New Year!
This week we celebrated Chinese New Year by having a special lunch in the hall. Afterwards we learned about the Chinese Lantern Festival then used our research skills to find out more information about Chinese New Year. We found out lots of interesting new facts!
Gymnastics
We have recently started our new PE focus of gymnastics and this week we explored different balances. We practised balancing on lots of different body parts and found that some balances were a lot trickier than others! Once we had learned some new balances, we worked in pairs to create a sequence, linking five different balances with a range of rolls and floor movements from previous weeks.
Scottish Art!
Recently P5-7 have been creating some Scottish art in the run up to Burns Night. We created our own tartan then painted silhouettes to go on top to make some very bonnie pictures!
We have also been looking at colour palettes and created design backgrounds for a Scottish product based on the products colour palette. We had to make 4 different backgrounds, and they have turned out very effective. Well done P5-7!
Science – materials
Mrs McClymont has been helping us learn about materials. In previous weeks we learned what a material is and what words we might use to describe them (the properties). This week we were sorting bags of objects by their properties. We talked about opposite pairs – rough or smooth / hard or soft / rigid or flexible / transparent or opaque / waterproof or absorbent.
Being Active!
This month our health & wellbeing focus in nursery is being ACTIVE! We are active every day both inside and outside. The children love building obstacle courses outside and working together to make sure they are safe as well. We have also had our gym equipment outside this week.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
In November, the children started to think about recycling or reusing things to “make less rubbish”.
This fell in alongside the COP26 summit, and there were some Education Scotland Dug resources that we explored on the computer at group times.
We tried to think of as many things that we could recycle or reuse as possible. There is a special picture we need to look for to say that we can recycle it.
Almost all of the children recognised these bins when some of us went our community walk.
We made some recycling posters to display and some of us practised our writing for the posters too.
We asked families to start collecting ‘rubbish’ so that we could start junk modelling, but we also experimented with what junk would be fun to use in our water tray.
“cardboard melts” “it’s soft”
We can reuse clothing too as spare clothes in nursery.
(Nov 2021)
