In literacy, we have been discussing the book Wonder. It tells the story of a boy called August who has a facial disfigurement and about his life at home and at school. The book is very powerful and emotional, it discusses topics about friendship, love and loyalty. Throughout the book, Mr Brown (Auggie’s English Teacher) writes a precept for each day, like “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.”
Category Archives: Literacy and English
Christmas Fayre Enterprise
We really enjoyed making marshmallow snowmen to sell at the Christmas Fayre. We also used smarties for the eyes, an oreo and a rolo for the hat and a strawberry lace for the scarf. We had to calculate the total cost of the ingredients and then we worked out how much each snowman would cost to make. After that we discussed how much we could sell each snowman for and how much profit this would allow us to make. We made posters to advertise the Christmas Fayre and our snowmen. The finished snowmen were very successful and were sold out quickly.
Imaginative Writing
We have been improving our imaginative writing skills this term. In particular we challenged ourselves to use more ambitious and descriptive vocabulary to set the scene and also to describe our characters. We also used the five points of characterisation to help us to invent more believable characters. We wrote three pieces of imaginative writing- The Lighthouse, The House in the Woods and The Blitz.
Literacy Across Learning.
We have been working on note-making skills and then using our notes to create new discursive and persuasive texts. We have found the topics really interesting and had some excellent discussions and debates in class.
During Big Writing lessons we spend time on VCOP (V- Vocabulary, C- Connctives, O-Openers and P- Punctuation .) We can then use some of the ideas to improve our writing. We have also managed to find some fabulous WOW words to incorporate into our own writing.
The literacy skills that we learn are applied across different curricular areas.
Debate at East Renfrewshire Council Offices
Today PR7A and Pr7B were invited to take part in the Provost’s Debate at East Renfrewshire Council Chambers. The motion being debated was-
This house believes that People Over 60 Should Continue to Receive Their Free Bus Entitlement.
In our class Olivia proposed the motion with Paige, Aiden and Lewis along with some children in Pr7B forming the remainder of her team.
Lily was second to oppose the motion and she had Emily and Kirstie along with some children from Pr7B in her team.
We had a fantastic morning and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being allowed to have our debate in the Council Chambers.
Both teams made some extremely relevant, interesting points during what turned into a very lively debate. At the end of the debate the motion was carried by 23 votes to 9.
Primary 7 would like to say thankyou very much to Provost Jim Fletcher for ensuring that they had such a memorable experience.
Science – IDL – Food Chains
For part of our science topic we made two posters. This linked with our literacy work and also our expressive arts work.
One was a food chain process . We researched information using the internet and made notes about the animals in our food chain. We used scientific vocabulary to create a food chain process.
We also used our design skills to create a food chain collage using a range of media.It was a really interesting topic and we learned a lot about animals and their habitats. It was really fun and they turned out amazing and everyone had fun.
Lewis – I liked the art part and I really enjoyed it.
Adrian – I liked the art when I made my Jungle food chain.
Connor-I liked the art food chain because it makes it look 3D and it was cool.
World Book Day March
On Thursday 9th March the whole school visited the Foundry in Barrhead. We took our £1 gift vouchers for World Book Day and each pupil collected a book that they had chosen.
Where’s Wally was the most popular book in our class.
On Friday 10th March we had an assembly where we dressed as our favourite characters. Each class also read out a piece of writing, Kirstie read her story, ” If I could travel in time .”
Thomas was Wimpy kid.
Mia was Cat in the Hat.
Ross was Gansta Granny and won the best dressed in P6a.
Kirstie was Annie.
Emily was Gabby Douglas.
Olivia , Lily and Paige were Hermione.
Kenzie was Pikachu.
Mrs Moody was Clipper the clown.
It was great to see all the different costumes that everyone was wearing.
Literacy – Writing a newspaper report.
We summarised the key events of chapter 5 of Why the Whales Came. We identified the key features of a newspaper report by looking at articles.
We created a plan then wrote a hard copy report. We then re drafted by self correcting to produce a soft copy using Microsoft Word.
Ross- Once I knew what the features of a report were , I found it quite easy.
Adrian – I found the redrafting quite tricky at first but them it became easier.
Scottish Parliament – Social Studies
On 19th September our local MSP Tom Arthur came to visit the two primary six classes . Mr Arthur is the MSP for Renfrewshire South. We had written a formal letter to Mr Arthur inviting him to come to our school. We prepared questions to ask about the Scottish Parliament and about his job as an MSP. Everyone in P6 had the chance to ask a question.
Lily – It was fascinating to hear all the different things he had to do as part of his job.
Jamie – We learned a lot about the Parliament building in Edinburgh.
Olivia – His answers to our questions were very interesting.
Literacy Circles
We sorted our class library into different genres e.g. adventure, friendship, fantasy, horror, comedy. This enabled us to easily choose books according to their genre.
We selected 5 books that we would like to read, 5 books that we might want to read and 5 books that we didn’t want to read. We had to justify our reasons for our choices . We recorded this information in a table.
We started a reading log of books we are reading which will help us make our reading. We will write a book review which other boys and girls can use to help them select a book. Once we have completed books, we will discuss the books with our peers .
We selected our favourite texts to discuss with our peers and we made recommendations .
We are aiming to create a community of readers within our class.
Lewis “at first I was not keen on reading but once we got started and I read my first book, I am more interested and I found I enjoyed reading my book”.
Kirstie ” We thought that if sorted the library , it would help us find books we liked”.
