Feeling Festive 19.12.2024
Primary 5 got together to have their Christmas Party yesterday. They danced their Scottish Dances beautifully and had a lot of fun playing games. Everyone looked fabulous and festive.
The class have been learning how to present ideas to an audience. Their talking and listening skills were excellent and the class shared what they had learnt about Energy this term. A great opportunity to use their communicating meta-skills.
Primary 4/5 wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Lights, Camel, Action! 12.12.2024
Well done everyone for being super stars in our Christmas play. Our week has been full of singing, dancing, lines and acting. Thank you for all the amazing work. See the school page for photos and to see us watching the high school panto of Cinderella.
It is December! 5.12.2024
Can you believe it, December already! Our rehearsals for ‘Lights, Camel, Action’ are coming on a treat and we are all set for a super Primary 4 Christmas party. 
We collaborated to make the longest paper chain you have ever seen! Our procedure writing on how to make it will guide you, so you can create one yourself. Our festive crafty sides came out to make cubist trees, cute elves and sporty Christmas characters for a competition. What a week!
Lovely books… 28.11.2024
We were so lucky this week to have a visit from a real author who shared music, stories, a cheeky monkey, and tips on how to be creative. (See our main page for Photos). We have been inspired to draw and write using these skills ourselves.
Keep practising those songs and dances. Really not long until we perform Lights, Camel, Action. Everyone has been working very hard, well done!
It is the time of year that we all learnt Scottish dances ready for our parties. P4 has theirs next week. Pick a partner and 1-2-3-4…
Lovely to see you… 21.11.2024
It was lovely to see so many families this week and talk about our amazing young people and to see their hard work.
We had our first joint play practice on Wednesday. I think we have some super singers, dazzling dancers and awesome actors. I bet you can not wait to see it. We will continue to practise songs and words at home and at school so we can go script-free next week.
We investigated potential and kinetic energy in our final experiment this week. The class used their Meta-skill of curiosity to play with lolly sticks and elastic bands until they created a catapult to send a pompom flying. They found that if they increased the height of their pompom before it was pulled back to fire, the potential energy that the elastic bands held for the pompom increased too. This transferred to a larger kinetic energy, and you could hit your forehead or even the teacher! Take a look…
Poppies and Bangs! 14.11.2024
We took time to reflect on Monday. We thought about past wars and talked about what we were thankful for. We marked Remembrance Day with a 2 minute silence and made poppies for our window.
Hopscotch Theatre came to school to perform Pinocchio. The class loved it and were a very enthusiastic audience. It was World Kindness Day on Wednesday too and p4/5 were even more caring than they usually are (if that is possible).
To demonstrate Kinetic Energy we made balloon rockets and sent balloons off course and round the room. I think we had more fun than success. Ask your young person what they know about Energy so far.
Energy and Christmas Songs. 7.11.2024
We have been practising the songs and dances for the Christmas play. Words are in school bags and I am sure you will have a preview as pupils practise their parts. It is getting exciting!
Our topic is Energy this term. The class collaborated in groups to create structures that gave a stationary object potential energy which transferred into kinetic energy. They used Makedo tools and cardboard with super results. I heard a lot of kind language, positive praise and comments to each other, and saw super engineering.
Welcome back! 31.10.2024
It has been wonderful to have the class back after the October break. Everyone has settled into our routines. We have had Halloween fun in PE throwing and rolling to spooky targets and playing ghoulish games. This term we will be writing procedures. This week we wrote ‘’How to make a Halloween mask’.
PE is still on a Tuesday and Wednesday. We will be learning our songs and dances for the Christmas performance in December and working hard to learn our times tables this term.
For Homework, we will learn times table facts. Look for a folder that can be kept in pupil school bags for work and guidance. Spellings will be learnt in class through November and December.
What a sporty week! 10.10.2024
Thank you to everyone who helped us have a super rugby tournament on Wednesday. The difference in everyone’s skills was noticeable over the morning. Primary four five became more confident as the games progressed. They showed wonderful sportsmanship and recognised it in others. I am so proud of you all. Thank you Miss Dooley for organising it, and thank you to Iain, Ross, Chris and Amy….
Well done Primary four five for being brilliant during our walk today. What a super morning!
(Photographs of both events will be on the main school page).
This week’s learning… 03.09.2024
Bonjour! The class have been learning the days of the week in French and have found out some facts about where the names have come from. Most of the days have been named after objects you see in the night’s sky.
In numeracy we have practised our chimney sums and learnt how to use symbols for equals, not equal, greater than and less than.
We have been engineers designing a machine with four steps that separate a mixture of materials. We started with a beaker of water, sand, paper clips, salt and plastic packing peanuts. The designs used magnets to remove the metal, a scoop to take off the floating plastic, filter paper to remove the sand and finally evaporation to separate the solution of salt and water.
Our morning of rugby training is next week. We have been practising our passing and working on our racket and ball skills in tennis.
Here are some of the arty creations that Primary four/five made with Mrs. Harris.
Maths week Scotland and more… 23.09.2024
It was Maths week Scotland this week. We celebrated with problem solving puzzles and a live lesson called Maths in Alice in Wonderland hosted by an ambassador for STEM. He was a real life mathematician who worked in brain imaging.
Our scientists created filters with natural materials to separate different sized objects that you find in nature. We applied the knowledge we have investigated over the last few weeks. Our investigation last week of evaporated water left lots of salt crystals for us to look at.
What super musicians! We have been singing about friendships and listening to different songs with this theme. P 4/5 used the glockenspiels to accompany a chorus in a song we have learnt how to sing. They kept to a rhythm and found the correct notes.
Mindfulness and well being have been a focus this week. We looked at our SHANARRI characters and evaluated how we each felt in school and tried a few mindfulness exercises too.
A Sumdogtastic week! 12.09.2024
The class have joined classes at Dalbeattie Primary school in a Sumdog contest for Dumfries and Galloway. Fingers crossed we will be high up on the leader board. To encourage super calculations we had a visit from Sumdog himself! What a treat! (You will see photos on the main page).
We continued to investigate dissolving and designed our own fair tests and learnt how to describe solids as soluble and insoluble. We planned a descriptive piece of writing for an emotions character we each created in the style of ‘Inside Out’. Ask your young person about the descriptive bubbles. To get better at our communicating Meta-skill, we played a game that ended in lots of laughter and crazy pictures. Let us just say that we all have a lot of scope for improvement. 
What have we been up to?
Primary 4/5 have investigated dissolving with materials you can find at home. Maybe they can show you this weekend. We used words like solvent, solute and dissolved. We collaborated to set up fair experiments, observed and made conclusions. What scientists!
We caught a bit of the lovely weather and practised bat and ball skills, got used to reading in our groups and accessed Glow and Teams to find our spelling lists.
We focused on the Meta-Skill – Collaborating. Look at the super shelters we built together as we learnt what we needed to do to be good at collaborating.
Work this week?
The class have been enjoying our novel ‘The Twits’ and took part in a Blooket to test P4/5’s memory and listening skills. They were brilliant, and even came up with their own multiple choice questions.
Ask your young person about their Rights in school. We have picked the most important to us, and have created a Class Charter. What do you think?
Hello Primary 4/5!
We have had a lovely Monday settling into our first full week back after the holidays.
Just a reminder that P.E. kits are needed to be brought in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We will change in school so come in your uniform both days.
Clothes appropriate for the weather will be necessary for outdoor learning on a Friday each week.
There will be no homework this week. Just sleep, relax and look after your health and well being as we get used to our routines.
We have been creating our Class Charter. We picked four rights that were important for the class and talked about how we can support them in our classroom. Pictures will follow this week.
