Category Archives: Home

Health & Wellbeing, Home, Literacy, Numeracy, Primary 7, Remote Learning, Technologies

REMOTE LEARNING TAKE 2: DAY 3

Happy Wednesday!

Today is the third day of our remote learning and I must say that I am so impressed with the engagement level of the class.

I love logging on in the morning and receiving comments alongside the register of ‘Good Morning’, so thank you for this.

Also, I really appreciate those who are keeping me in the loop regarding their family situations. It can be extremely difficult and a very stressful situation trying to complete work at home, especially if people become unwell. That being said, please make sure you are looking after your mental and physical health first and foremost. Do what you can, if you cannot get everything completed – don’t worry. I would much rather you did a few things, very well.

We started the day by revising some previous concepts and converting between fractions, decimals, and percentages. The children then learned some new information about adding and subtracting fractions, before undertaking their differentiated tasks.

The Grammar Police were out in full force today looking for the misuse of apostrophes. Interestingly, lots of mistakes spotted on social media and from a number of celebrities.

Ibrahim pointed out that he’s seen someone say “Not many Tuesday’s left until…” and knew that this was incorrect. An eagle-eyed pupil also caught me out for forgetting an apostrophe in my post on the Google Classroom. Was it done intentionally to catch you out, or a genuine mistake by me…?

We also continued with our learning in RSHP this afternoon. As if I would miss out on our favourite part of the week! We thought about what makes a good friend and the qualities that we possess which make us a good friend for someone to have. We completed a google form to assess what qualities we have in 7.27 that make us good friends to others, and what areas perhaps we should work on. Here are the results.

With this information and then we created a wanted poster, showing the characteristics, qualities, and traits of a good friend.

Kara created a brilliant poster demonstrating some things which she looks for in a friend.

As did Zaina,

and Henry

Our final ‘extra activity’ today was a link to Kevin Quantum’s website where we could watch some of his tricks and videos, or have a go at some as there is a ‘how-to’ section. I received a lot of comments saying that people enjoyed this addition to the google classroom.

Thanks again for all of your hard work. Keep it up, I think you’re all amazing, and remember it is a tough time for everyone so be especially kind to yourself, as well as to others.

Over halfway through the week now… time really does fly when you’re having fun!

Health & Wellbeing, Home, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Primary 7, Remote Learning, Technologies

REMOTE LEARNING TAKE 2: DAY 2

Today is day number two of 7.27’s remote learning experience. I have taken the children’s views from their Jamboard into account and have created an interactive poster for them to show their learning for today.

If we had been in school today, this morning would have seen the start of outdoor learning with Mrs. Kelly for three periods. The class would then have had three periods of either recovery time in the kitchen, or recovery time with me – where we would have hosted the ‘Mearns Film Festival’ to watch your creations.

For this reason, today’s learning has been designed closely to what we should have been doing in school, and we will still celebrate the Film Festival when we return as the children worked so hard on their projects.

It seems everyone enjoyed their learning today! Here is a snippet of what some pupils got up to…

Aatish, Wint, and Zaina completed some film reviews of their favourite moving images.

Ibrahim took his learning outdoors today and created a map of his local area. Very detailed!

Amaya also undertook some outdoor learning and sent a hilarious video of her completing an obstacle course that she designed.

Delisha went outside and investigated which 2D and 3D shapes she could make with natural materials. She also created an amazing animation too! What a busy day of remote learning.

In the image below, you will see that Olivia took part in a scavenger hunt in her garden with a little help from her Mum hiding some rocks for!

Jamie decided to build on his filmmaking skills by planning and producing an animation. Well done Jamie!

Lea has also created an animation which is BRILLIANT but unfortunately too large to upload, so I will post a screengrab of her film instead.

Lucy spent a lot of the day writing and working on her film as well. Unfortunately it is too large to upload the whole thing but here is a little taster of it…

Some people chose to bake as well. I said that I would have a go at the banana bread recipe, as I had some bananas going off, and I didn’t disappoint. Below is my bread in the oven and then once it was out and cooled. I must admit, it doesn’t look great but it tastes amazing. I had to drizzle some extra chocolate on top to make self-isolation a little bit ‘sweeter’!

Jemma baked banana bread as well, she did this completely independently with only a FaceTime to her gran to find out how to work the oven and mixer. Amazing! Jemma also confirmed that it tasted scrumptious.

Here is Olivia’s banana bread mix before it made its way to the oven.

Not everyone made the same thing, Lewis and his family baked some brownies together. I think that’s something that I’ll be trying next time. Sounds delicious.

I hope everyone continues to stay safe. Let’s see what tomorrow brings!

Well done everyone. Day two – complete!

Home, Literacy, Numeracy, Primary 7, Remote Learning

Remote Learning Take 2: Day 1

Well, what an unexpected Sunday/Monday! Primary 7.27, and I, find ourselves in self-isolation! I hope that everyone is keeping well during this time and that you are all looking after yourselves.

We started our first day of remote learning very similarly to how we would usually start our days in class – by watching Newsround.

I then asked the children to collaborate on a Jamboard to get their views on what they would like from their remote learning experience. It also gave us some time to chat with each other which was lovely!

Favourite ideas seemed to be:

Kahoot quizzes, Goodnight Mister Tom book to be made available, time incorporated for homework, ‘Fun Fridays’ with activities like Origami, opportunities for filming and writing scripts/plays/alternative endings, interactive posters, outdoor learning, and also some cooking!

Flipgrid was also a popular suggestion but unfortunately, this cannot be used at the moment as the council is having to ensure that it is GDPR-secure.

People also said they felt it would be important to keep it similar to school with literacy, numeracy, and another task for each day and I tend to agree.

I’m ever so glad that Mr. McKenna has worked with the class this term on improving and enhancing digital skills, and that they’ve been able to teach me, as we are now more ready than ever for the next few weeks.

Today we worked on a variety of literacy skills whilst reading about Polar Bears and then self-assessed our work. Some people chose to then use their new knowledge to create a new text – which was AMAZING!

George chose to create a leaflet, with some outstanding artwork!

Ibrahim created a really impressive poster about Polar Bears, using Google Drawings. Fantastic!

We also completed some numeracy work where we consolidated last week’s class learning of calculating percentages of amounts.

I’ve taken everyone’s views into consideration when planning our day tomorrow.

Bring on day 2…

Home, Primary 6

Distance Learning – Day 55 and the last 😥

Well, this is my final post on the P6.23 class blog. I want to thank everyone who has supported our class by visiting here regularly, over 1600 visits in a month at one point. Wow! 😲🤯

Of course, I want to thank the children who have worked so hard to allow me to share their awesome work with you. Their imagination and hard work are evident when you look back on these pages. I feel that the blog has allowed us to stay connected during this unprecedented period in our lives and I’m happy about that.

From all the Primary 6 teachers and the rest of the school staff, we wish you a very enjoyable and restful summer holiday and look forward to your return in August.

Home, Primary 6

Distance Learning – Day 55 and farewell 😭

Well, this is my final post on the P6.23 class blog. I want to thank everyone who has supported our class by visiting here regularly, over 1600 visits in a month at one point. Wow! 😲🤯

Of course, I want to thank the children who have worked so hard to allow me to share their awesome work with you. Their imagination and hard work are evident when you look back on these pages. I feel that the blog has allowed us to stay connected during this unprecedented period in our lives and I’m happy about that.

From all the Primary 6 teachers and the rest of the school staff, we wish you a very enjoyable and restful summer holiday and look forward to your return in August.

Home, Primary 6

Distance Learning – Day 54

The children are looking ahead to Primary 7.

Primary 7 Flipgrid MixTape

Last week was Inquiry Week and I received lots of amazing work that I shared with you on here. Over the weekend, I continued to receive work from Grace and Lewis that I have posted below.

Grace already submitted her report for her inquiry but I couldn’t share it on here as it was a written report in a Google doc. However, she has included this nice little addition to her inquiry. Not only is it relevant to her topic, history of ballet and the Scottish Ballet, but it demonstrates several digital skills such as time-lapse recording and video editing. Of course, it also shows her artistic skills. Well done Grace!

Lewis made this brochure on Nutrition in Sport and Fitness which is something he is passionate about and demonstrated previously in Sports Week. He interviewed two professionals in the field who, as well as providing him with a wealth of information, also advised him to make a brochure as they thought young people were more likely to read a brochure handed to them rather than looking up a website later. Either way, it is a great piece of work with a nice recipe at the end.

 

 

 

Home, Primary 6

Distance Learning – Day 51

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic and the shutdown of all schools, we missed out on a lot of experiences in our last term. One of those experiences was our end of year show. Understandably, some of the children were quite upset about this so I came up with a solution to allow us to be together, in some way, one last time.

Four pupils and I have been working very hard to record and create this special video. It has been challenging to combine 4 videos and 5 audio tracks together without the proper hardware or software, but here it is our “Breaking Free” song from High School Musical.

Hopefully, this is a suitable ending to our year and let’s hope that next year brings lots of special moments like this.

 

Home, Primary 6

Distance Learning – Day 50

This is the last day of Inquiry of Week and I have a few more of the children’s project to share with you. Inquiry Week was a great opportunity for the children to take ownership of their own learning, providing them personalisation and choice.

For instance, Grace in our class is passionate about ballet and we are all very proud of her success with the Scottish Ballet.  However, she has admitted herself that she did not know much about the history of ballet or of Scottish Ballet. Given her normally hectic schedule with school and extra-curricular activities, she wouldn’t have time to research this topic that is close to her heart. She has used Inquiry Week to research ballet and has produced a written report with lots of historical facts.

Again,  Lucy shares a  common passion to me, the Harry Potter book series. She has used her time this week to research into the making of the movies and particular the magical creatures.  I like the parchment background used in the slides.

Wint has done her inquiry into the very interesting phenomena, the Mandela Effect. Give it a Google search, you won’t be disappointed.

Zac has continued his interest in animals, and particular big cats, with this presentation on tigers. Love the thank you dance!

 

George’s inquiry is about peregrine falcons. Great illustration as always.

Aatish has made great use of diagrams and tables in his inquiry presentation.

 

Jamie has been looking at a few very interesting questions about space and grappling with some huge numbers.

Ibrahim has been looking into the rules of basketball, old and new, and learning a few new skills along the way.

When sharing work with your teacher, you should always share through Google drive in the first place otherwise it may become lost in the mountain of emails teachers received. Here is another pleasant surprise I found in my emails from last week. These are Safa’s drawings from Field Trip Week and they are great.

This is Safa’s “Starry night” and it captures perfectly the movement that Van Gogh has in his paintings. Look at that sky!

This is Safa’s very friendly-looking Mars buggy.

Home, Primary 6

Distance Learning – Day 49

The children’s inquiries have been slowing arriving today and I hope to share them with you over the next two days. Jemma’s inquiry was to plan and make a 3-course meal for her family. Here is her PowerPoint presentation.

I like that her inquiry has lots of different elements to it and she has executed them in a logical order. She carried out a survey, she did research both online and offline, created a menu, a shopping list and recipes. My favourite part is her great feedback from her family and of course the delicious food.  Can I book a table for three in the name McKenna when lockdown ends?

This is Lea’s inquiry on Ada Lovelace. Lovelace was a famous mathematician and widely thought to be the first computer programmer ever.

Zac shared with me this presentation of the endangered snow leopard.  I liked all the facts and the quiz at the end. My son loved the Stitch gif at the end so here’s my impression for all the Stitch fans.

Teachers at Mearns Primary (and other schools) have two email accounts: the main email that we use every single day and our glow account which is connected to all our Microsoft and Google apps. The Glow account receives an email every time I or one of my pupils does something online, like making a comment or handing in an assignment on Google classroom. As you can imagine with more than 30 pupils this account receives over 100 emails a day and is very difficult to manage. However, every now and again I check the account and I am sometimes treated to a nice surprise like Jemma’s presentation you just saw and this one too. Lea has created this great summary of our amazing Field Trip Week. I particularly love the Mars gif on Day 5. Very cool!

Home, Primary 6

Distance Learning – Day 48

The children have been adding their best memories of Primary 6 to our class Flipgrid. Flipgrid is a social learning platform that allows pupils to post video responses to questions or stimuli posted by their teacher. Furthermore, pupils can then respond to each other’s videos promoting discussion and collaborative learning in a safe and controlled environment.

 

Grace and her family shared this fantastic movie of them discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun. It will definitely have you screaming for mummy!

The detail on the sarcophagus is amazing and the acting is great too. Well done!