We have been learning about area and perimeter in Mathematics.  We worked hard on our area problems, making sure we checked our work carefully.

We also  had great fun playing games to reinforce our learning. It was great to see individuals challenging themselves with harder problems too!

Group 1 and some children tried applying what they learned about area to calculate the area of compound shapes.

We played Area Colours which is a partner game where we had to play against each other to cover our side of squared paper in squares and rectangles, calculating the area as we worked.

We also used LEGO to create various squares and rectangles to calculate area and perimeter, reminding ourselves of the difference between the two. Two of our pupils made a vary large rectangle to challenge themselves and others. They used a simpler case to calculate the large area – well done! 

Two more pupils went to the football challenge to calculate which football team had the largest pitch. It was great to see the boys applying their mental strategies to partition larger numbers. Well done on solving the challenge correctly!

We have just started a block of Fitness in P.E where we hope to improve our fitness levels by participating in a range of games and circuits. There were lots of red faces by the end of our session so we made sure we cooled down too. Check out our efforts…

Miss Hamilton and P5.1 would like to thank all the family and friends who visited our classroom on Open Afternoon. We loved sharing our learning and working on challenges together.

We appreciate many family members cannot attend Open Afternoon due to work commitments so we would like share our displays through our blog.

Many thanks again.

Primary 5.1 have been preparing for their Scottish Wars of Independence class assembly on 23rd October for the last few weeks by designing it with Miss Hamilton. Through an online pinboard on our Google Classroom, we suggested many ideas for our show, such as time travel and battle scenes!

We agreed as a class that we would like to have people acting in the background when others are saying their lines to enhance our assembly. We have truly excelled ourselves when it comes to learning lots of lines and stage directions. Miss Hamilton is very proud of the effort put in by the pupils so far! ⭐️

We are now confident in saying our lines and singing our song. We have dedicated time this week to rehearsing on stage so that we all feel confident with our parts. We have been learning how to express ourselves effectively using our voice, expressions and body language. Rehearsing on the stage has reminded us how important it is to make sure our audience can see us at all times and we are learning to engage with the audience in a confident way!

We cannot wait to reveal our assembly to the whole school and families. Our show will begin at 11am on the 23rd October.  Prepare for lots of costumes, interesting history, battle scenes and wonderful singing that we hope you will enjoy!

Scottish Maths Week arrived on the 30th September. Our week focused on strengthening our mental strategies when adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers and fostering positive attitudes towards Numeracy and Mathematics. ☺️🤔

As always, we learned a lot through games and play. We picked five useful mental strategies to improve over the week:

• Partitioning – splitting 2 digit numbers into Tens and Units.
• Compensation – Adding the nearest multiple of 10 and adjusting.
• Bridging at 10.
• Near doubles
• Counting on and back in multiples of 10 and 100.

We now feel very confident with these strategies and will continue to revise applying these in a variety of contexts.

We also participated in many maths challenges over the week, including the national SumDog contest and NRich challenges. We had a lot of fun brushing up our maths skills!

Another month brings another birthday and we are so grateful to have this lovely young lady in our classroom.  Her secret birthday card, that was written by the class, was revealed and we can all agree… she is our cup of tea! ☕

Monday 23rd September marked the beginning of Bike to School week. Every day, the children engaged in an activity that focused on promoting cycling and a healthier lifestyle.

On Monday, we started with playing Pollution Detectives. Each child had to circle as many sources of pollution as they could find on their map which opened a discussion on the various pollutants around us and how we can reduce this.

On Tuesday, the Bling your Bike competition kicked off. We discussed the wide range of bikes that are available for people of all ages and abilities, including people with disabilities. P5.1 took part in a whole school competition to design a new bike with bright colours and bright, florescent features. In the end, one of our pupils won!

Wednesday marked National Fitness Day and we had lots of fun taking part in an outdoor cycle track designed by our P6 JRSO pupils, pictured below.

We tried to improve our balance and control whilst cycling by playing slalom races and High 5!

We continued the day by taking our Numeracy lessons outdoors, rounding to the nearest 10 and 100 in HUGE outdoor number lines! 🌳🌲

We hope our pupils continue to cycles as much as possible to school to help stay fit and reduce pollution.

We continued to learn about the events of the Scottish Wars of Independence, focusing on key battles fought by William Wallace and his peasant army.

Concentrating on the Battle of Stirling Bridge, we discovered how certain clever strategies helped the inexperienced Scottish army to win over the English. The following year, the English army were victorious at the Battle of Falkirk.

We investigated the difference between a Scottish and an English soldier in the 13th century in many different ways. We had lots of fun learning together through play.

We researched the clothes and weapons that each soldier would have using digital technology.

We completed Venn diagrams together with peers, highlighting the difference between Scottish and English soldiers based on our research.

We had a great deal of fun in the drama corner, using props from the prop box and all sorts of items we found around the classroom to act out key elements of the battles and the Scottish Wars of Independence so far.

We recreated a lot of key events using props imaginatively. The red blanket was fake blood to one group but a royal cloak to another! We all worked sensibly and had fun together, reminding each other of the events throughout the wars. We can’t wait for the drama box to appear again! 🎭

After learning all about the weaponry used in the Scottish Wars of Independence and the exciting story behind the famous sword of William Wallace,  P5.1 decided to design and build their own 3D swords in Art and Design.

We aimed to create an original design, work carefully whilst cutting and gluing a variety of materials and apply paint with increasing accuracy.

We really enjoyed seeing our creations come to life and loved looking at each other’s designs.

Our swords are now proudly on display in our classroom!

This week, we continued learning about the events that followed John Balliol being named the King of Scotland.  We continued learning how to take relevant notes whilst listening and watching short films about the Scottish Wars of Independence. We accessed the clip through our Google Classroom. We used our notes to independently complete a cloze reading passage in our journals.

We are learning a lot about Scotland’s history as well as many new words. We brushed up our dictionary skills by looking up new tricky vocabulary  that had appeared in our topic.

Later in ICT, we used what we had learned in Literacy to answer a quiz on Forms. The quiz was all about the Ragmans Roll, a document that Scots nobles and bishops we’re forced to sign to swear allegiance to King Edward  I. 

Our own version of the Ragmans Roll appeared in ICT for us all to sign! There were mixed emotions about being forced to swear allegiance  to King Edward I of England. It helped us to imagine how Scots must have felt 700 years ago. We now have it displayed on our working wall. We hope to add little wax seals down the bottom of the document.