All posts by Miss Graham

Interdisciplinary Learning

Easter 2019

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This week we were learning about the Easter Story and the importance of learning the meaning behind Easter.

In summary, Jesus was named ‘The King of the Jews’ and the Jewish leaders did not like this so they arrested Jesus and beat him. This was because Judas betrayed him.

He was then sentenced to crucifixion because they claimed he committed blaspheme. He had to carry the cross up to Golgotha. The soldiers then ripped his clothes off and nailed him to the cross and spat on him. At this point, the sky turned black and the soldiers started to believe that Jesus really was the Son of God. Jesus died after 3 hours and his body was taken to a tomb by Joseph.

Three days later, Mary Magdalene and others went to visit Jesus’ tomb and realised it was empty! They thought his body had been stolen but an angel appeared and told them that Jesus had resurrected.  They knew that Jesus was alive and they knew where to find him.

To celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection, we went to St Andrews church for an Easter Service.

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Interdisciplinary Learning, Sciences

Introduction to our John Muir Journey

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This term we have started learning about John Muir. John Muir is one of the most famous explorers and conservationists. John Muir was born in Dunbar, near Edinburgh in 1838. He became known for his fascination with nature and how to conserve it.  He introduced the concept of National Parks. These days, there is a charity named after John Muir called the John Muir Trust and various walks and paths in his name.

So far, to gain the John Muir Award we have:

  • conducted litter picks
  • created a portrait of John Muir
  • conducted a Tree Health Survey
  • created natural art using various pieces of nature from our school grounds
  • conducted a bird count
  • clear an area to help us conserve our grounds
  • worked with the Neilston Development Trust to plan various vegetables

We will be continuing to work towards gaining the John Muir Award and are looking forward to completing our journey!

Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Writing

Wild Life Posters

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This week our writing focussed on structure and layout. We chose to write about a wild animal that we are interested in. We then chose to lay our writing out in poster form. We structured our writing under 4 subheadings:

  • Habitat
  • Diet
  • Physical Appearance
  • Interesting Facts

As part of our Big Talk homework, we researched our wild animals at home using our subheadings to help us. We then discussed our animals at home with our friends and family. In class, we discussed specialist vocabulary that we might want to use in our posters.

Here are some examples of our finished posters:

Beth’s poster on the Orangutan
Connor’s poster on the Koala
Renaska’s poster on the Hazel Dormouse
Abbie’s poster on the Meerkat
Beth’s poster on the Blue Tongued Skink
Digital Literacy, Health and Wellbeing, Technologies

Safer Internet Day

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The theme for Safer Internet Day was consent and we looked at lots of different scenarios involving consent on the internet.

We looked at different scripts for making a drama scene about having or giving consent to do things online.

The first scenario looked at two friends  who were taking selfies. One friend liked the selfie and wanted to post it in a group chat. The other did not want it posted however the friend posted it anyway. This resulted in a fall out and feelings being hurt. We felt that if the friend had asked the other friend for consent to post it then they would still be friends.

The next scenario looked at a group of four friends playing a zombie game online in a private group. One of the friends started to play a new game and met another player online. The friend invited the new player into the private group game without asking the other friends’ permission.  The group of friends wee angry that the friend had invited a stranger into the group without asking. They should have asked the group’s permission before inviting the player.

The third scenario looked at a child and the child’s mum. The child wanted a new version of his game and his mum was on the phone so the child decided not to ask for the game. The child bought the game anyway and cost the mum extra money. We felt the child should have waited until the mum was no longer on the phone to ask permission to buy the game.

Digital Literacy, English & Literacy, Literacy and English, Technologies

Fact or Opinion? That is the question!

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This week during Literacy we were learning to identify a fact and an opinion.

We now know that a fact is something that can be proven to be true and is backed up by evidence.

We now know that an opinion is something that can’t be proven to be true and some people can agree or disagree with it. This means it is subjective!

We took part in carousel activities to learn and practise how to identify a fact and opinion and justified our answers to our partners.

After that, we made our own Google Form Quizzes with several statements which were either fact or opinion. We shared our quizzes on our Google Classroom and our classmates were able to complete them .

Health and Wellbeing

Gymnastics

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Welcome to our blog, we are now in term 3!

This week in PE we started learning gymnastics. We were learning to balance and do inversions.

Firstly, we had to stretch to make sure that we didn’t injure ourselves or pull a muscle.

Then, we took out floor mats and got ourselves into pairs. Some of us demonstrated some balances that we could work on or improve on. Some examples of balances were: V sit, shoulder stand, Y stand, arabesque and one leg stand.

After, we worked on inversions. Again some of us demonstrated our inversion skills. We worked on techniques such as cartwheels, round-offs, handstands, crabs/bridges and head stands.

Below you can see some  pictures of what some of us were able to do:

O

verall, we really feel as though we have already improved our skills and we are looking forward to learning more skills and techniques this term.

Art & Design, Interdisciplinary Learning, Literacy and English, Sciences

The Solar System

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our science topic has been the Solar System this term. So far we have created posters, newspaper reports,  leaflets and power points during our writing. We were learning to create informative texts.

We used our newspaper reports about the first ever moon landing and we  changed them into a script for a news report. You can see some examples on our school Twitter. We also have been working on taking notes from a text. We watched informative videos on the planets and took  notes then created a mind map poster.

We have also made power points to share information about all of the 8 planets in our solar system.

 

During art, we created papier-mache planets using different sized balloons to try and make scaled down replicas.  We have not yet finished but we are well on our way to a classroom sized solar system.

Jessica and Beth S making Jupiter
Laurie and Callum making Venus

 

Expressive Arts, Interdisciplinary Learning, Technologies

Outdoor Classroom Day

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On Thursday 1st of November we took part in Outdoor Classroom Day.

First we went on a nature walk to take pictures for our Digital Photography Competition. We took pictures of things like flowers, leaves, trees, clouds and rainbows. We then entered our photographs into the competition. You can see some of our entries below.

Next we collected materials from the school grounds that were natural. We then went into the outdoor classroom and created our own pieces of natural art. You can see some examples of our art below.

Art & Design, English & Literacy, Interdisciplinary Learning, Social Studies

The Victorians

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Last week we started learning about the Victorians. We began learning about Queen Victoria and went on to learn about the life of the Victorian people.

We did a Big Talk about the workhouse and spoke about the jobs, the conditions, the food and how we would feel if we had to live there. Then, we wrote a diary entry about a day in the life of a Victorian child in the workhouse.

This week, we started doing some art work related to the Victorians. We have painted some cityscapes which are the outlines of Victorian rooftops with chimneys and a chimney sweep. We looked at different shades of blues and oranges and mixed the paints to create different shades for each layer of rooftops.

Beth S brought in some Victorian artifacts for us to look at and discuss. Some of the items were:

  • Wash board
  • Iron
  • Tea pot
  • Money
  • Fountain pens
  • Jelly pan
  • Hot water bottle

It was fascinating to see that these were real Victorian objects and how different the same objects are today.

Literacy and English, Social Studies

2018 Pupil Elections

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Today we went to the polling station in our school and voted for who we wanted to be our representative for the Pupil Council, Eco Committee and the Rights Respecting Group.

Our Candidates for the elections were:

Jessica

Renaska

Laurie

Tyler

Beth M

Olivia

Callum

In the voting room there were two election booths and a voting card with each of the candidates for us to vote. When we had voted we put our votes into the ballot box.

We can’t wait to find out who will win each of the elections!