Friday 27/4/18

Yesterday we went to Edinburgh for our school trip. We went to look at the Scottish Parliament and then we went to the theatre to see war horse. At the theatre we had very good seats and a clear view of the stage. In the Scottish parliament there was a board of facts since the 800s to 2016! We had an amazing day viewing the inside of the Scottish parliament and seeing war horse in the theatre!

Summer and Grayce

 

Here are some photos…

 

 

 

Recently primary 7 have been looking at Macbeth. We did drama to act out the witches chants. In our groups we put our ideas together and made up our own verses to the witches chants and edited them as a class making sure they all had the correct amount of syllables in each line. Once they were perfected we went outside and acted them out.

Here is our version included within Shakespeare’s!

The Witches Chant (From Macbeth) by William Shakespeare and Primary 7!!

Round about the cauldron go

In the poisons entails throw

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty one

Sweated venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first in the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blindworm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing;

For a charm of powerful trouble

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Add a foot of a woman,

And a hand from a poor man.

The ragged tail of a rat,

The fangs of a possessed cat.

Take the stare from that sly bear

While he chased a little hare.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Dragon’s foot and human’s boot.

An eye from a river newt.

Remains of a parachute,

Thick black dirty chimney soot

An ant from a water-chute.

Mouth piece of musician’s flute.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Mouth of teacher, throat of goat;

Lungs of goose, wheel from thou boat.

A mummified golden egg

A Pharaoh’s rotten old leg.

A belt of the cow’s leather,

And some great Scottish weather

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Scales of fish and brain of rat,

Verruca puss, leg of cat.

Crusty boogers, salt like smell

Popping pimples in as well.

Teeth from a hammer head shark

 Dead body shocked by a spark

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Stir monkey’s bum, soaked in rum

Add a chopped little girl’s thumb.

Mix a tail of a stray cat,

Add an eyeball of a bat.

Fry a hair of a brown bear

Mix a mouldy chopped up pear.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Stir in beagle’s tooth that rot

Dies inside the darkest pot

Lion’s bones shiver alone

Cheetahs tail, is cold as stone

Panther hairs glow in the dark

To the beat of human’s heart

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digg’d in the dark

Liver of blaspheming Jew;

Gall of goat; and slips of yew

Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse;

Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips;

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver’d by the drab

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,

For ingredients of our cauldron

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

 

Before the Easter holidays miss Dennis organised for a saxophone quartet to come in and play for the school. they all had different types of saxophones. There was soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. I liked alto and soprano. they played a range of songs with different styles.

 

 

Tuesday 24th April

Last term P7 created artworks based on the Blitz and portraits of soldiers during WW2. We used charcoal to create a smoke effect around our drawings of St. Paul’s Cathedral so it looks like the surrounding of the building got bombed during the Blitz.

 

Thursday 15th March

I haven’t updated on this page for a while, but if you look back in the next week or so our bloggers will be adding lots about what we have been up to in class! I just wanted to add a recent activity that happened in class yesterday. We had a visit from Nick, a town planner who came to gather the pupils thoughts and ideas on how to regenerate Annan Town centre. P7 were very receptive to Nick. They enjoyed looking at maps from the past 200 years and seeing how Annan has changed over time. Nick gave P7 a range of photographs to look at to give them ideas on how Annan town centre could be improved. P7 came up with lots of good ideas and came to a consensus on what they would like to see; more green space, lighting, seating and a community event in the winter such as a Christmas Market. The class also discussed what a town planner was and were very impressive at building a skill set for a town planner – well done!!

Miss Dennis

 

 

 

Thursday 1st February 2018

Since it was Robert Burn’s birthday at the start of this term, P7 had to learn the poem Tam O’ Shanter but we didn’t just learn the poem we also did some activities on it which were writing and art, for writing we had to write the whole poem over but we had to write it in our own words in English. For the art we used charcoal to draw Tam riding his horse over a bridge with the witches chasing him, here are some photos of the art and writing…

By Marika & Jack H

Friday 17th November 2017

For the past two weeks P7 have being going to the Lockerbie Ice Rink to learn how to play curling. One of the  techniques we learned was to look at the stone as if it was a clock and if the skip ( which is the captain of the team) sticks out their left arm you have to turn the stone to 10 o’ clock and release at 12. We all had a great time and we would love to go there again.

By Marika and Julia

 

 

Friday 10th November 2017

Apologies for having no posts since the 13th of October. We are currently in training to take over the class blog. This is our first post on the P7 blog. Next week we will upload the photographs from our curling trip – we had lots of fun! Check back next week for more updates.

P7 Bloggers – Summer, Jack, Carly, Grayce, Julia and Marika

 

Friday 13th October 2017

Good afternoon! Apologies, I said yesterday that that would be my final post but I just had to add this further post today. I have spent this morning reading the writing primary seven produced and submitted as part of their rich task this term. It has been a very pleasurable morning reading a range of reports, book reviews and stories.  The standard of work was very high. In bags tonight are the feedback sheets from myself, a copy in the homework jotter next to the piece of writing as well as another copy in the home link book in the rich task section. Thank you for the continued support and thank you P7 for your super effort!

Thursday 12th October 2017

Good morning, this is a final post from me before our six bloggers take over the reigns next term. I will give a brief update below on the work completed this week but I would just like to take this opportunity to thank primary seven for a fun filled, hardworking, term. It has gone by in a flash. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday and is refreshed and ready for the fun and incredibly busy Christmas term ahead!

Miss E Dennis

This week we welcome a new pupil to our class. Sophie arrived on Monday and has settled well into the class. Thank you to everyone for making her feel welcome. In maths we have all groups have completed an evaluation on their work this term. They traffic lighted the learning intentions for the term and then gave themselves a star and wish. Pupils were very honest about their strengths and next steps! Writing on the hidden door way was completed and I have enjoyed reading the stories! We peer assessed the stories and the class nominated ten stories to put forward for star writer. We read out the ten stories then each pupil was asked which story they thought was deserving of star writer and why. Congratulations to Tyler G and Kelsie who are this week’s star writers.

The feedback on Tyler’s work was :

‘he used amazing descriptive language’

‘a good story that pulls you in’

‘it was exciting’

‘ it made me feel like I was really there’

‘ it was full of suspense’

The feedback on Kelsie’s work was:

‘story was interesting and you could imagine being there’

‘it was descriptive’

‘it was very intense’

‘it was really descriptive and had a great storyline’

 

Posters for operation safety were completed as well as a Christmas Card design for our Christmas card fundraiser! Overall another busy week!

 

 

Monday 9th October 2017

Today was map making day. First of all we sat together as a class and discussed our previous next steps from our last group task in the hope we could achieve some of the targets this time; this was certainly the case, everyone contributed throughout the day.

We started by planning the display. Some members of the class couldn’t believe we were back to using maths first thing on a Monday morning to calculate the perimeter and area of each section of the map as well as calculating the number of 25cm x 25cm card squares we would need.

Each group then made the area required for their section, sticking it together on both sides with masking tape. Once this was complete each group held their cardboard up onto the smart board where part of the map was projected and a member of each group pencilled in the border lines. Once this was complete each section was laid out on the floor to check each matched correctly, thankfully this was he case- phew!!!

After break the groups worked together to go over the lines in felt pen and then paint each section. It was lovely to see pupils helping each other out, with some offering to do the task of filling the paint for all groups. Once the painting was complete we matched up each section again ensuring it was correct!

After lunch, once the paint had dried, each group went over the borders with black marker. Then each group was given a different task, group one had to stick the sections together and border the map with border paper, group two had to create labels of key cities and oceans/seas, group three made arrows for the labels and group four made the title. Once this was complete a group of pupils attached all the labels, arrows and title. Another group then turned the map over and stuck down doubled sided sticky tape and blu tac around the edge of the map. Whilst this was happening two pupils went to ask Mr Nicholson if he would help us display the map. A final group then helped move the map into the stairwell and assisted Mr Nicholson by holding the map up while he used a staple gun to firmly attach it to the wall.

Overall today has been very successful the pupils have been very excited about this task and excelled in team work today, even if they did go a bit daft with taking photos on the iPad ( as you will see below, quite a number were deleted!). Well done primary seven.

Miss E Dennis

 

 

 

Thursday 5th October 2017

This week started with a trip to Operation Safety. The pupils behaved well and enjoyed the variety of workshops on offer. They learnt about ABC (airway, breathing and circulation) as well as the recovery position with the paramedics. With the police pupils learnt about internet safety, and I was very pleased at how much the pupils knew and were aware of . With Scottish Power they learnt how to keep safe with power lines and what to do if their football landed in a substation. With the fire service pupils had two inputs, one was on fire safety and being proactive to ensure no house fires. The second workshops was all about staying safe with fireworks. At the lunch break there was a competition between schools for the quickest nominated person to dress in fire safety clothes. Well done Eva who represented Hecklegirth and won the race! Overall this was a particularly successful day which the pupils enjoyed.

 

 

 

This week in maths we have continued using addition to subtract as our strategy  for mental subtraction. The circles have continued with long multiplication, applying the concept to a range of word problems. The triangles have continued to work on subtraction. In writing we have been planning and writing the initial paragraphs of a story with a stimulus of a hidden door way. The initial paragraphs have been excellent so far and I can’t wait to read the finished stories next week. It is no pens day today, so maths has been completed verbally, we have completed a second lesson on the Demon Headmaster extract, discussing the impact of word choice as well as reading each others story starts.

Next Monday we will be having an art day, creating a large scale image of a map of India to scale. Pupils should make sure they come in clothes for painting in and will not require their P.E kits. I cannot believe next week is the last week of term, this term has gone by so quickly and I would just like to say thank you to all pupils in the class for their enthusiasm and effort.

Miss E Dennis

 

Friday 29th September 2017

Another week has gone by in a flash! This week we have moved onto mental subtraction, using addition to subtract! One group has been focusing on long multiplication, they have been colour coding their calculations to show each of the steps to the process. Another group have been revising the standard written method for addition and subtraction. In writing we formally self assessed our descriptions of the slums of Mumbai, and informally peer assessed them verbally. In art we created autumnal pictures using oil pastels and black card. Photos to follow. In music we have been learning how to read music by learning our lines and spaces ( Every Good Boy Deserves Fun and FACE). We peer assessed our group comparison tasks using the success criteria we set as a class at the beginning of the series of lessons. We made a list of next steps to make our group work more successful next time.

These included:

creating a detailed plan

 listening to each other

 making compromises

  allocating tasks to people so everyone was included

  allocating specific time for each task to ensure we don’t run out of time.

New roles and responsibilities have also been allocated this week. Tyler G and Sarah are our newly appointed learning council reps. Summer, Grayce, Carly, Jack H, Marika and Julia J have been appointed bloggers. They will be taking over this page next term, and will be responsible for updating the P7 page as well as uploading any text or images for other classes and also the main page!

For the final two weeks of term homework is going to change. Mental maths will continue as normal but there will be no word problems, spelling or comprehension. Instead there will be the first rich task of the year which is a writing task. This will be sent home next Tuesday, 3rd October.

Please remember Operation Safety is on Monday.  This is an incredibly valuable experience with children partaking in a range of workshops with outside agencies to learn how to stay safe at home, in the community and online. Please remember to bring a packed lunch.

Miss E Dennis

 

 

Wednesday 20th September 2017

This week we have delved further into our topic, finishing our group work on comparing life in India and life in Scotland, further adding to our fact files on Sikhism and working on our descriptive writing based on the slums of Mumbai. We took notes on a documentary film on the slums of Mumbai and looked at photographs before writing a brief description, focussing on creating imagery. Mrs Alexander worked with Primary seven whilst Miss Dennis was away at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon and was impressed at the enthusiasm shown by primary seven. In maths we are finishing our focus on addition in mental maths and will next week move onto subtraction. The circles have completed their unit on negative numbers and triangles will continue to work on rounding into next week.  A quick reminder to all primary sevens to be good role models to younger pupils in the school and in the playground! Well done to those who have worked hard to be a good role model to their buddy.

 

Friday 15th September 2017

As promised, here are a few examples of our writing from the past two weeks… Can you see the difference in the initial paragraphs of our short stories.

Short Story 1 : 6th September 2017

One stormy evening the boy called Bobby cycled to the abandoned park because he was dared to. When he got to the park he saw a dark figure pointing to a death list so he went over to it and looked at it. He looked down to see what was on there and his name was in red writing.

Short Story 1  edited: 12th September 2017

One stormy night a boy called Bobby excitedly cycled to the abandoned park because his friend dared him to. Bobby was excited because it was his first ever time going to the abandoned park, which had been empty for years.

Arriving at the park Bobby began to feel frightened because the swings were moving on their own despite there being no people or wind. He noticed a dark figure at the top of the slide. He decided to climb up the slide. As he climbed, Bobby felt scared, his heart was beating very fast. When he reached the top he realised the dark figure was just the shadow of the trees.

Jack W

Short Story 2: 6th September 2017

The boy arrived at the abandoned park. He strolled to the top of the climbing frame and he took a glimpse around and he saw a group of people.

Short Story 2 edited: 12th September 2017

The terrified young boy cycled to the abandoned park. The only reason he was there was because he was dared to by his new friends. He met them at his new school, he didn’t quite know their names, but the went anyway because he felt like he had to. He had no clue where his friends were. It was more terrifying than he thought because the sky was dull and stormy. The wind was so strong he almost fell off his bike. He finally arrived but as soon as he got there his bike chain broke. He had cycled very far so he couldn’t run back. He was stranded.

Dylan

Congratulations to Summer and Cameron who are our star writers in this task. Below are some extracts from their writing. Can you see why they were awarded star writers?!

Extract from Summer’s Short Story…

‘… As she walked further into the park it got darker and darker. The rustling of the trees gave her shivers. The ground filled with crystal white mist. The swings were moving back and forward very slowly. The sky turned smoky grey and the wind began to whistle fearlessly. She had had enough. She turned around to go back to her friends, but they were gone. Glaring into the darkness, she saw a shadow. Then suddenly she heard a stick break. She held her breath, waiting for the monster to appear.’

Extract from Cameron’s Short Story…

‘…One stormy evening the excited boy cycled to the abandoned park because he was dared to. When the boy arrived at the park his blood ran cold and his fingers were shaking. He felt unsafe. The swings in the corner of the park moved even though there was no wind. He was confused and scared. He walked up to the swings but saw nothing. He tried to stop the swings by grabbing on to them but they swung back and hit him. They hit him so hard that he fell to the ground. He ran for his bike but the gate slammed shut. He climbed up the slide to yell for help but his foot got stuck in a crack. He ripped off the rotten wood to free his leg.’

 

Wednesday 13th September 2017

We are heading towards the end of another busy week, which takes us to half way through the term already! In maths the triangles continue to work with numbers to one hundred thousand and the circles have used negative numbers in a real life context, managing money. In literacy we have become editors, self editing our short stories from last week.. check back towards the end of this week where we shall have some examples of last weeks work and this weeks improvements uploaded on the blog. In art we created pencil sketches of the Taj Mahal and have created a display in class (mounting skills are continuing to improve!) IDL group tasks continue and our comparison posters are starting to take shape. Today we participated in the triathlon, see the pictures below! Congratulations to our newly elected house and vice captains and junior road safety officers, but not to worry as there are more roles to be appointed within the coming weeks!

Miss E Dennis

 

 

P7 Class Newsletter
term 1 p7 newsletter

Thursday 7th September 2017

Heading towards the end of week three already and we have yet another busy week! Assembly on Monday was focussed on the Health and Wellbeing indicators (SHANARRI)- can anyone remember what they stand for?! This month we are focussing on staying safe in school, at home and within the community. This was a perfect topic for primary seven as on Tuesday we enjoyed a day of workshops at Annan Academy which included staying safe online, and looking after ourselves. This day was an opportunity for the pupils to mix with other pupils in the cluster and gain vital information and knowledge from outside agencies on personal hygiene, internet safety, peer pressure, and healthy eating. Pupils also got their first experience of Annan Academy’s dinner hall –  a very busy place at lunchtime! Later on in the term primary seven will be attending operation safety in Dumfries, another workshop day all linked to the theme of staying safe.

In maths one group has concluded their work on place value and moved on to negative numbers, linking the work to practical examples. The other maths group continues to consolidate place value. In mental maths we are nearing the end of adding whole numbers and will move on to adding decimals. We have written short stories this week, ensuring our plans had a clear introduction, dilemma/climax and resolution. We have started two group tasks, one comparing India with Scotland, and the other is a factfile on Sikhism.

We look forward to announcing house and vice captains tomorrow. Pupils are very excited to find out who has been elected!

A quick reminder that next Wednesday is triathlon week!

Miss E Dennis

 

Friday 1st September 2017

I can’t believe Friday has come around again so quickly! We have had another busy week. The first full set of homework has now been completed. We have continued to work on place value and rounding in maths as well as mental addition in our mastery sessions. We worked independently on a challenging cloze procedure task that made us have to think carefully in order to be successful. We have discussed how to write a successful story – it needs a good idea (plot) to begin with and we have been turning boring sentences into brilliant sentences using adjectives, adverbs, powerful verbs, openers, and conjunctions. All Accelerated Reading ranges and targets have been given and some pupils have nearly achieved their targets already! There is such an enthusiasm in the class for reading and I am asked daily if we can have extra reading. Art this week was again painting, but using a different technique to create a map, where the colour was in the back ground, not in the actual image. Have a look at the pictures below.  Today we have twenty members of our class standing for house and vice captains. I wish them all the best of luck…

Miss E Dennis

 

Friday 25th August 2017

Wow, it has been a very quick first week back! It has been lovely to see primary seven settle in so quickly to the routines and work in class. We welcome two new pupils to our class this year; Jacob and Julia. It has been a delight to teach primary seven this week, they have come back to school refreshed, enthusiastic and ready to learn. This week we have so far written first drafts of house captain speeches, completed cloze and comprehension tasks, started mental addition and place value in maths, started our P7 profiles in ICT, been successful in learning new skills in hockey and completed an art lesson, and learned how to mount and display our work on the wall to name a few! Have a look below at some of the art work. As the weeks progress, primary seven will be learning how to use the blog and will then take over responsibility for updating our class page on a regular basis.. Check back regularly to find out what is happening in primary seven.

Miss Elaine Dennis

 

 

 

 Welcome to Primary Seven!

As promised, I have displayed your collage work from the move up afternoon ready for you coming back in August! I think it brightens up the room. Hope you are enjoying your holidays and are looking forward to the challenges in the year ahead! Check back here regularly throughout the year for reminders and examples of class work!

Elaine Dennis.