Mrs Norman and Miss Kelly are excited to announce to you our ‘Alternative Residential.’

All information has been shared on our Google Classroom so please take a look and see. For some information check out the pictures below.

We can’t wait for an exciting week at Loch Down Lodge.

This week was the start of your home learning journey. Both of your teachers have been proud of all your efforts and attitudes towards your new way of learning, there will definitely be more house points handed out over the next few weeks.

It has been great to see so many learners engage in activities at home, both set tasks and letting us see some extra activities you are enjoying at home. Thank you to everyone who has shared with us so far.

At our ‘hub’ school our learners have continued to demonstrate resilience as well as all their school values during these challenging times. Well done to all of you. We hope you enjoyed your Friday afternoon treat!

In the coming weeks please remember to check our information sections within Google Classroom to check for any information you are unsure about.

Mrs McGuigan and Mrs Slorach have posted their first ‘virtual’ assembly in to the Google Classrooms so don’t forget to check it out.

Let’s take a look at some of the work that has impressed us this week –

Art challenge completed by RM P7A. Look at the great detail achieved through using shade and tone. Well done.

CK from P7B chose to complete their art digitally. What a great way to complete the task.

This Banana Loaf made by LC P7A looks amazing, I wonder if they could share the recipe?

DL from P7A enjoyed coding and set out a great page in their home learning log.

Another great example of how you may want to set out your home learning log by CS from P7B. We enjoy hearing about everything you are doing.

EC from P7B completed their reading task about the book ‘My Brother is a Superhero.’ It sounds like a great book.

RT from P7B and EM from P7A both shared great examples of their STEM challenge towers. We hope you helped to tidy up afterwards as well.

Thank you again for all your work this week, we are looking forward to working with you again next week.

Mrs Norman and Miss Kelly

Primary 7 Home Learning Information – Updated (26/03/20)

Hi everyone,

This is an overview of what we are expecting over the next week and information on some of the things that are on Google Classroom. Take your time and read through this.

• Daily check-in – this is an opportunity for you to interact with your peers and class teacher. There will be different questions daily and remember you can respond to your peers too.
• Daily question and answer sheet – this is a chance for you to ask any questions about your learning/tasks for the day. Remember the class teacher may not see it right away but if you know the answer please help your peers.
• Weekly timetable – a weekly timetable will become available at 9:00am on Monday morning. This will allow you to see what will be expected throughout the week. There is flexibility around this timetable so don’t feel like you need to follow it exactly, particularly the afternoon tasks – you can swap these around. We recommend that you try to do some tasks daily, where possible.
• Home learning log – each student has a Google Slide/PowerPoint. This is for you to take pictures/write reflections on the tasks you are doing, particularly for the other curricular areas (Expressive Arts, Science, etc). This will document your learning for assigned tasks and you can also share any other learning opportunities you may be doing at home like cooking for example. Dating each slide will be helpful in the long run to let us see when tasks have been completed. Please also remember that you can upload anything you are doing at home to your home learning log, for example if you have played a board game with a family member take a photo and post it!
• Written work – Numeracy & Mathematics tasks can be completed in the jotter given to you in your home learning pack or you can use your maths homework jotter. Reading tasks from your booklet can be completed in your booklet. Any other reading tasks can be completed in your jotter you were given in your home learning pack. Writing can be done on Google docs and will be assigned to you. Any other tasks can be photographed and out on to your ‘Home Learning Log’.

UPDATE – 26/03/20

• Weekly Reflection – this is a blank timetable where you can record your self-assessment and comments. This is a self-assessment on your tasks throughout the week. Please record any marks/scores you have gotten. You can complete this daily. Please hand it on Friday when you have completed it. This will allow the teachers to reflect on the week and make any adjustments.
• Wraparound Spelling – Spelling for the week should be completed on the attached Google Doc, you can choose to submit it each day and then request it back or just submit at the end of the week. Remember to hand it in when you are finished with Friday’s task. Please check the example of a completed wraparound spelling document to check if you are unsure. If you are finding anything tricky, please ask any questions in the Daily Question & Answer Sheet.
• Answers – every Friday at 10:00am we will out up a PowerPoint of the answers for the Literacy and Numeracy booklet tasks. Please self-mark or ask an adult to mark them for you. You can record your self-assessment on your weekly reflection. You can also add any images to your Home Learning Log if you wish.
• Handing in work – please hand in your work when you are finished for example when you have completed your writing or your weekly reflection. Please hand in your work when you have updated it so that we can check what you have updated (for example like your home learning log). The teacher can return it to you, but you can also un-submit it also.

I hope you find this information useful and I will continue to update it where appropriate. Remember this is new for us all, even the teachers! We will continue to work together and help each other along the way.

Thank you,

Miss Kelly & Mrs Norman

Primary 7 Home Learning Information

Hi everyone,

This is an overview of what we are expecting over the next week and information on some of the things that are on Google Classroom. Take your time and read through this, particularly if you were absent on Friday.

• Weekly timetable – a weekly timetable will become available at 9:00am on Monday morning. This will allow you to see what will be expected throughout the week.

There is flexibility around this timetable so don’t feel like you need to follow it exactly, particularly the afternoon tasks – you can swap these around. We recommend that you try to do some tasks daily, where possible.

• Home learning log – each student has a Google Slide/PowerPoint. This is for you to take pictures/write reflections on the tasks you are doing, particularly for the other curricular areas (Expressive Arts, Science, etc). This will document your learning for assigned tasks and you can also share any other learning opportunities you may be doing at home like cooking for example.
• Daily check-in – this is an opportunity for you to interact with your peers and class teacher. There will be different questions daily and remember you can respond to your peers too.
• Daily question and answer sheet – this is a chance for you to ask any questions about your learning/tasks for the day. Remember the class teacher may not see it right away but if you know the answer please help your peers.
• Written work – Numeracy & Mathematics tasks can be completed in the jotter given to you in your home learning pack or you can use your maths homework jotter. Reading tasks from your booklet can be completed in your booklet. Any other reading tasks can be completed in your jotter you were given in your home learning pack. Writing can be done on Google docs and will be assigned to you (Remember this week as we are continuing ‘Megacity’ it will be on your old Google Classroom). Any other tasks can be photographed and out on to your ‘Home Learning Log’.

I hope you find this information useful and I will continue to update it where appropriate. Remember this is new for us all, even the teachers! We will continue to work together and help each other along the way.

Thank you,

Miss Kelly & Mrs Norman

We started Monday morning by welcoming Miss Gordon to our class, over the next six weeks we will be learning with Miss Gordon and Mrs Norman and we can’t wait to show her how wonderful life at Crookfur is!

On Monday afternoon Mr McCormick from Eastwood High School science department came to teach us all about batteries and how they are made and powered. It was a great hands on lesson with the opportunity to work in groups to create our own batteries out of fruits and vegetables.

‘I was surprised that the potato wasn’t as powerful as I thought.’ AC

‘The apple had the highest reading of all the fruits and vegetables.’ MS

‘I liked that when you closed the circuit you got to watch the metre reading change.’ JL

‘It’s made me excited to work in science at high school.’ YM

This week we spent some time learning all about 3D printing and how we can design our own objects to be printed. We used tinkercad.com to design our own playing pieces and we were able to print a few already. The printer takes a while to print and some things work better than others. We will keep working on designing and creating objects. On Thursday night at our school curriculum evening our digital leaders were teaching other pupils and their grown ups how to use tinkercad and showing off the printers. It was a great night.

‘They are cool!’ Holly

‘They are very useful, we can replace small parts that break of objects around the school.’ JL

‘I like that there are so many useful things you can print.’ LC

‘Watching the printers work is really satisfying!’ JL

‘Sometimes they can be really quick if you scale down your objects.’

Wednesday lunchtime was once again Primary 7’s woodland day. Some of our woodland visitors decided to create a band and it was great fun to be part of!

P7B Term 2 – 29/11/19

Week 6

It has been a great week in P7B.

In writing we were learning about advertising. In advertising we were learning about how to make slogans, use persuasive language and make eye catchy images. We were advertising toys and we used a lot of bright colours, eye catching images, persuasive language and relevant information! 

In PE we have been learning ceilidh dancing.We are going to an event called ‘Community Unity Ceilidh’ in Eastwood on Tuesday 17th December. Today everyone got a partner to dance with. We did three dances: Gay Gordons, Dashing White Sergeant and the Virginia Reel.

In science we have been making planets! We were put into groups of 3 or 4 and then we needed to figure out a suitable scale for our planets so they weren’t too big or small. At first our Jupiter was 140 cm diameter!  But in the end our scale was 0.2 of a centimeter for 1000m.Once we had finished putting it to scale, we had started to make the planets with a balloon paper mache. It was messy but a lot of fun.

Primary 6 & 7 have been working on christmas cards for the Whitecraigs Care Home. Everyone in P7 made a card and we did a vote on who would get theirs sent of to the Whitecraigs Care Home. We used our imagination to create some fantastic christmas cards.

In french we have been working on pronunciation and spelling of french words with Miss Gourley. We got booklets and we made a powerpoint about our family and ourselves.

At assembly we discussed advent calendars and about creating an advent calendar that included our school values. We agreed on each day you had to show a different value (honesty,respect,kindness,fairness and friendship)

It was St Andrews day today. Here’s an interesting fact unlike Jesus St Andrew died on an X instead of a cross so that’s why the Scotland flag has an x on it.

By Emily, Ava and Holly

We were all ready to come back to school for the second half of Primary 7! We were looking forward to seeing our friends and keen to start some new areas of learning.

We concluded some science lessons based around our Space topic by looking at relative motion and the scale of the planets. This linked in to some of our work in numeracy and mathematics.

By using our model planets we had to calculate the correct scale to position our models around our sun. This was trickier as the smaller the scale, the closer the planets became and we could not place them on top of each other. It was interesting to learn about the movements in the planet and Einsteins theory of relativity.

On Wednesday we had visitors in to talk to us about the ‘Make it h’app’en’ competition where we get to design our own app. There will be a winner picked from the school who will get to work with some software engineers to make their app, it will then be put on the app store to be bought by people around the world! We will be planning and thinking about our ideas over the weekend.

This term we have switched our DYW groups in to our third pathway. The design and manufacturing group have been planning some very interesting products whilst the life skills group got to make and try their own hummus. The learning about sustainability group are continuing to build on the hard work of the previous groups and developing our woodland area and lastly the digital technology group are excited to do some animation and programming.

In literacy we have a selection of new reading books that share the same theme, war. The Zeus group have started reading ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ and are really moved already by the emotions and experiences they are discovering. The Apollo group are reading a non-fiction biography about Adolf Hitler, we have a lot of questions about how he managed to become so powerful and why the war happened. The Poseidon group have a fiction book named ‘Under the Bomber’s Moon’ that tells the story of a young boy named David who is searching for his dog on a night of enemy bombing. All groups have worked hard and produced excellent work relating to their texts, Mrs Norman is very proud.

It has been a busy but tiring first week back. It was rounded off nicely by the winning house afternoon reward, well done to Fleming and their house captains for all their hard work. We are looking forward to all the exciting opportunities we have over the next term, including swimming at Eastwood with Mr Brown, and Miss Gordon is coming to work with us for a few weeks too.

P7B Term 2 – 22/11/19

Week 5

 This week was a busy week. We had Road Safety Week and Book Week Scotland. This week we have all enjoyed learning together throughout the week from PE, french to music we all enjoyed it and had lots of fun.

This week was road safety week as part of this we had a homework activity the JRSO gave us we had to make a ‘Step up for Safe Streets’ posters. They showed how we cross the road safely. 

This week for book week we brought our favourite books and made a front cover to a sequel/prequel for the book.  We also paired up with Primary 3, Miss Agnew’s class. They read their favourite book to us then we read our favourite book to them.  

This week we were focusing our writing on our topic space. We all made an imaginary story all about a man/woman who lived on the moon. We had to create a main character and describe their thoughts and feelings and say how they got there in the first place. We all ended up with completely different stories to each other but they were all equally good and we had lots of fun throughout.

In PE we have been learning different gymnastics rolls, jumps,balances and positions. In PE we got into twos and threes and we made a sequence or rolls, jumps and balances. Then we performed our sequence to the class. Once we performed it we self and peer assessed it.

In french we were learning different speeches and talking to our shoulder partner in french.It was also challenging as we had to say our names, ages, family, friends and lots more stuff.

For music we have been using Chrome Music lab. How it works is that you use the solfa scale to make the music along with beats. The sounds in the solfa scale are: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti and do. The first “do” being the lowest and the last “do” being the highest. Then there was the beats which are the (in music) basic units of time. We got to choose different instruments such as: marimba,strings,keys and synth. Then we made a tune then presented it to the class. 

By Emily and Naomi R

P7B Term 2 – 15/11/19

Week 4

This week has been a pretty busy week for P7B. There has been a lot of events this week. P7B have contributed to these events,such as Anti-bullying week, PE, French and art, as busy as its seems it was a lot of fun.

This week was anti bullying week and we learned the three main ones of bullying are physical, verbal and mental. We were learning that you should not retaliate if someone is bullying you; you should tell a teacher or an adult you trust. Bullying is bullying when it happens repetitively. We also made posters to raise awareness about being kind.

In PE we are currently doing Gymnastics. This week we focussed on jumps. There was lots of equipment and we practiced our jumps.

In music this week with Miss Gourlay we have been using Chrome music lab to write our own songs. We learned about the solfa scale and we made some really cool songs.

In French with Miss Gourlay we are learning to introduce ourselves. Miss Gourlay gave us french booklets that tell you how to greet people and tell them about yourself. We have learned lots in French and it’s been a lot of fun.

This week in P7B has been really busy and fun and we have learned lots. 

By Cameron and Emily

The last few weeks have passed really quickly with lots of exciting things happening in our classroom. We have welcomed in two new students to our class who are already settling in and becoming part of our Crookfur family.

Along with the Primary 7 teachers we have created a ‘Crookfur Values Advent Calendar’. Each day we are focusing on a different school value and completing small actions to make a difference.

In numeracy the calculators and protractors have been continuing with negative numbers and progressed on to applying our knowledge of negative numbers and coordinates in to Cartesian diagrams. We learned how to play ‘Battleships’ and we taught it to other members of the class. We have been thinking of other ways we can apply this knowledge in to other activities.

The compasses are continuing to work with Mrs Fry on working with numbers to a million. We learned new games that we are looking forward to teaching our friends. With Mrs Norman we have been working on algebra and we are already confident in many areas.

Our writing has been focusing on the power of advertising. We investigated different styles of persuasive writing that encourages buyers to buy items they didn’t even know they wanted. Our first piece was to create an advert for our favourite toy, we think Mrs Norman was ready to buy all our products as our writing was very persuasive.

In P.E. we are developing our social dancing skills before we go to our ‘Community Unity’ Ceilidh later this month.

We are pleased that most of our class have now returned after some winter sniffles. Next week we are looking forward to inviting you all in to buy some of our winter crafts.