All posts by Mr Hendry

December in 7B

7B December Blog

We have had lots of exciting experiences over the past few weeks. We would like to share them with you.

Christmas Lunch and Ceilidh

Last week, we had two days out. On Thursday we walked to the Boathouse and ate a delicious lunch together, we pulled crackers, told jokes and had a great time. It was a great chance to relax and enjoy spending time with friends. Declan thought “it was tasty” and Aribah loved the dessert.

On Friday, at Woodfarm High School, we came together with Thornliebank and Braidbar to have a Christmas Ceilidh. Katie enjoyed “meeting all of the people we will be going to S1 with”. Iona liked “leanring new dances and performing them”. During the practices Rory learned “the Canadian Barn Dance and the Gay Gordons, it was fun dancing with other people.”

Intergenerational Project

“Me, Ruaridh and Salihah spent time with some of the older people from the church. I have made a better understanding of living throughout a war by working with people who have lived shortly after and through WW2 and the Cold War.” Matthew

“I enjoyed learning about their lives and what they were like. I liked making snowflakes with them.” Salihah

Model Making

As part of Social studies and Technologies we designed models from World War 2. Ellis thought “making the tanks and planes was fun, so was researching them to make sure your model was accurate”.

 Atomic Bomb Debate

As part of our talking and listening we had group debates about whether the USA should have dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Freya said “it was interesting to hear others’ opinions, we used our research and writing to inform our opinions. The Giffnock Communication Code was very successful at helping us discuss as a group.”

At the end we had to vote and it was 15 agree vs 15 disagree which shows what a hard decision it must have been.

Achievements

As always, there has been a huge amount to be proud of in P7. Here are a few we would like to share:

Annabel and Daisy ran their first House Challenge, which was very successful. It took a huge amount of preparation, hard work, and energy.

Ross came 3rd in a Cross Country race with a time of 9 mins for 2km.

Ibrahim achieved a green belt in Taekwondo and is working hard to fulfill his ambition of a black belt.

Aribah was proud of understanding volume. It took some hard work and perseverance but she is now able to find the volume of cubes and cuboids.

Cameron is proud of her improvement in spelling and mental maths. She is beating her score every week due to her effort and application.

7b Blog November

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Here is our November blog, 7b have written about just some of the learning experiences undertaken so far this term. At the end we would also like to celebrate some achievements from the last couple of months. We hope you enjoy!

Social Studies (Zara, Kirsten, Mairi & Kyle)

During the first term of Primary 7 we have chosen different types of conflicts we wanted to learn about. We chose 5 very different conflicts, some that have included the UK and Scotland. For World War 2 we have created timelines for important events. We have also made remembrance poems and looked at propaganda posters.

“Propaganda art was my favourite part as we all got to decide what we thought it was about and how it influenced us.” (Kirsten)

“It is very enjoyable to learn about the important people and events of these wars.” (Zara)

Art (Emily, Aribah & Kimberley)

In Art we have created poppy art and enjoyed it because we had multiple choices to choose from, like pastel drawing, Van Gogh art, finger paint, and silhouette.

Katie and Daisy taught an art lesson to the class with water colours and Katie said “I felt like a real teacher when I did teach a lesson, I got to choose what I wanted to teach. Everyone did very well with watercolours.”

Our main focus in Art is Conflict and Resolution. We have created a massive picture about what we wanted to learn. To make this we used a variety of resources such as card, paint, tissue paper, glitter and more.

We are excited to see how our Art will progress throughout the year.

 

Writing (Ellis, Iona & Euan)

In Writing we have been creating stories and poems about the World Wars. We have also been creating our class assembly scripts, descriptive stories and poems. These have been developing our skills in using similes, metaphors, personification and adjectives.

When we wrote our Remembrance poem we looked at famous poems such as In Flanders Field and Dolce et decorum est. These gave us ideas about what to write about. We then wrote a descriptive Declaration of War (kind of) diary entry and had to include metaphors, similes and personification to describe the atmosphere.

We have been further developing our skills in using similes and ambitious adjectives. We wrote a descriptive story about fruit, trying to recreate James and the Giant Peach.

French (Matthew, Katie & Mia)

In French we have been learning lots of ways to describe our appearance and personality. We have been learning how to change words depending on the gender of the person.

“We think French is interesting because we are learning about a different language and place.” (Matthew)

ICT (Aidan & Ruairdh)

In ICT we have been learning to code microbits. We have also been making Scratch animations to code sprites to turn, move or bounce. We have now learned to make animations or games using conditional repetition.

This year the whole of P7 have been using ICT to create iMovies and a Scratch Project for the School Improvement Plan.

This year Ruaridh and Mia will help Mr Hendry and the school with ICT equipment.

“I have been developing my skills in ICT by learning new ways to code on Scratch”. (Katie)

PE (Ibrahim, Hamish, Travis & Hamzah)

“I enjoyed Hamish’s ‘teach a lesson’ because he taught us the basics of rugby like catching, passing, working as a team, and some of the rules like passing it back” (Ibrahim).

We have had a taste of Volleyball from a coach called Andy. He taught us skills like a serve and a dig. Hamzah thought it was amazing, exciting and engaging.

Declan and Euan led a lesson on how to dribble and pass in football. “It was fun to play more football” (Travis).

We have been focusing on possession games and how to keep the ball by thinking fast so we can score.

Health & Wellbeing (Freya, Niamh & Erin)

We have been learning about good (medical) drugs and bad or illegal drugs and how they affect the human body. We had a visit from PC Grant Traynor and we also discovered categories of drugs and the harmful effects they have on the human body: Upper, Downer and Confuser. Some drugs can be an Upper and Confuser, or a Downer and Confuser.

Leadership (Freya, Niamh & Erin)

We have been writing a file on the leadership we have shown in P7.

For example:

“I have been very busy looking after my buddy and I made my file about her. I hope Eloise has a great school time because I have had an amazing 6 years”. (Niamh)

“I have had a great few weeks in the Pupil Council and I’m excited about what’s to come.” (Freya)

“I’ve been very busy with my reading buddy, making sure they can understand the book and help them with some of the words they struggle with” (Erin)

Achievements

Kimberley Maguire – Learning new skills at Netball club & working as part of a group to make and edit the final child friendly school improvement plan which was shown at assembly.

Zara Ali – Being hard working and cooperating while doing her job at the community café at a very busy table.

Aidan Thomson – Completing Level 4 Sailing and Level 2 Windsurfing in very choppy waters.

Mairi McGurn – Despite being disappointed about not getting a house captain role she put a lot of effort into her RRS application and was successful and taken her new leadership role very seriously.

Niamh Taylor-Young – Succeeding in lighting a fire with flint and steel for the first time and creating a new top using her sewing skills.

Freya Campbell – Showing determination in managing her own table at the Community Café, including her own family.

We have also had various competitors representing the school in Badminton, Football, Running and Swimming over the last couple of months. Well done everyone!

7B’s Term 1 Blog September 2018

Primary 7 has started with a variety of challenges and responsibilities for our learners, from House Captain and Committee elections to visits to Woodfarm High school, we have started with a positive attitude to our learning across the curriculum. Below is an overview of what skills and activities we have begun learning about as well as what we will be learning about throughout Term 1. We have each discussed a different part of the curriculum.

Expressive Arts

We have had a visit from Mango Music who taught some of us to play new instruments. In Art Daisy led a lesson teaching us Blow Art. We used our Dance and Drama skills in our School Improvement plan videos, we created scripts and spoke loudly, clearly with confidence and expression. In Art we used our line drawing and shading skills inspired by Blue Period Picasso. Our posters and manifestos for the House Captain Elections had to be bright and attractive. Throughout the rest of the term we will be taking inspiration from battle scenes and creating images through our Conflict and Resolution topic.

Freya, Cameron and Niamh

PE

We have been teaching our own lessons, Freya taught us athletic skills and drills. We have been learning about High Intensity Interval Training where we are building core and upper body strength, stamina and flexibility through different exercises. We have been using Better Movers and Thinkers exercises to improve our memory and decision making to different signals. Throughout the rest of the term we will be playing possession games such as football, netball, hockey and rugby.

Zara, Mustafa, Ibrahim and Hamzah

Science

We have been learning about circuits and how they work. This has been developing our problem solving skills. Circuits have contained crocodile clips, switches, batteries, lightbulbs and motors. While doing this we have been looking in our classroom for insulators, conductors and resistors. This helps us with teamwork and it’s really fun.

Ellis, Declan, Travis and Iona

RME

We have been researching important people that have changed the world. We have discussed Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and others. We have been taking notes on their lives to see how they became a great person and what their achievements are.

Zara and Katie

ICT

We have been using Microbits to code our name and control LEDs on the Microbit. We have been using lots of different devices to research and present information about our table names, as well as people in RME. We will be using Sumdog to improve our Maths and Literacy skills. We used iPads to create videos for our Child Friendly School Improvement Plan. We are learning how to share and collaborate on documents through Glow and Google Classroom. We will learn more about coding and create games using Scratch.

Erin, Emily, Kimberley, Annabel, Daisy

Design & Technology

We took part in the Woodfarm Design challenge, we learnt how to make scones. We had to plan, design and test our product. We made cars to knock down Humpty Dumpty. “It was hard to make the car strong and go straight”. We got to use drills, glue guns, saws and sanding machine. It took a lot of confidence to use these safely. We had to improve our cars as we made them.

Calum, Ruaridh, Nadar and Euan

Social Studies

Our IDL topic is Conflict and Resolution, as a class we chose the areas we wanted to learning about, we chose WW2, the Cold War, the American Revolution, and more. In class we’ve discussed some of these battles, we’re excited to learn more. We are developing our knowledge about history and have researched our table names which link to some of the battles and planes in World War 2. We will learn about previous events, how these wars start and finished.

Katie, Aribah, Mairi and Mia

Health & Wellbeing

PC Grant presented a problem solving task involving a knife crime that had taken place, we learnt about ‘No knives, better lives’. At Safety in the Park we learned street sense and how to keep ourselves safe. We went with the stranger when we should have shouted “Stranger Danger”. We also learnt about a balanced diet and the traffic light packaging for foods. This term we’ll learn about drugs and how  harmful they are.

Kirsten, Hamish, Matthew and Rory

French

In French we have been learning how to describe hairstyles, hair length and colour in French. We will be learning to describe in more detail through the term.

Kyle, Aidan, Ross and Salihah

Literacy and Numeracy

Our learning in these areas will draw upon the contexts listed above but will differ according to the needs of each class / group. Your support with consolidation of core learning through homework activities will be very beneficial to our children.

Achievements

As always there are so many fantastic achievements across 7b. We have picked 6 to share.

Iona has been taking care of two horses and can tack them up.

Mia has been looking after her buddy and her buddy’s twin sister which has helped her grow in confidence with younger children.

Travis has become a sixer and has leadership responsibility in Cubs.

Ellis has been practising his violin over the holidays and has perfected his pieces of music.

Kirsten scored 48 par at Kilnwick Percy Resort in York.

Rory ran an 80m sprint in 12.16 seconds and won the 4x100m relay as a last minute replacement.

Well done everyone!