Primary 5A have just finished classifying animals and researching endangered and extinct species.

Cameron M says, “I can classify vertebrates into mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians and birds.”

Kate C says, “I feel very confident using a classification key independently.”

In addition, taking notes from online research and turning these into fact-files helped us become more knowledgeable about the adaptations animals have which help them survive in their environment. In pairs, we shared what we had learned to the class. Now we know about a wide variety of animals such as meerkats, thorny devils, penguins, polar bears and artic foxes!

In PE we have been working on core strength and stamina. We have used aerobic dance and circuit training to enhance these and have been keeping a record of our improvement over the 6 weeks. We have now moved onto possession games which will include hockey, rugby, basketball and football.

We have just kick-started our Fairtrade topic! Josh from the Paisley based charity, Rainbow Turtle came to visit us. He told us about the production cycle of cocoa and we discussed the number of people involved at each stage of this process. We even designed our own chocolate factory and considered how we would run our company. Some of us had to think about how we would run these to make the most money and others considered how they could run theirs to make the workers happy.

James recognises, “the logo shows a farmer with his hand up, saying ‘Don’t forget about me!’”

We are very excited to explore more about Fairtrade and develop new skills.

In HWB, we have been learning about emotions and stranger awareness. We now feel confident that we can explain verbal and non-verbal communication and know which actions are appropriate and inappropriate with strangers and acquaintances.

Moya says, “I feel confident that I could act appropriately with strangers.”

We have now moved on to exploring healthy diets and food groups.

 

Owais enjoyed learning about Sway, he says, “I can create a Sway on my own most of the time.” Now we have created our Sway based on Giffnock’s School Values, we are moving on to learning to word process tables, headers and footers.

In Art we have been blending tones. With a little bit of support, we have all created wonderful pieces of art. Hannah really enjoyed making bright Halloween monsters with oil pastels. She feels confident that she could mix lighter tones with darker tones to make more natural blends between colours.

Awesome Achievements

P5A have had a very successful term outside school so far. We have had a variety of achievements such as: becoming a professional kid coder; throwing successful parties; learning to toast pop tarts and make noodles on the stove; being brave by doing things that scared us such as, going on high rollercoasters and walking across the glass floor in Blackpool Tower; coming first at a long jumping competition; and learning to safely light sparklers on Bonfire night.

 

Article 31: You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sport, music and drama.