Writing 

In writing, p7a took part in the 500 words challenge. The 500 words story is a writing competition that needs to have 500 words or under. The story can be anything the author chooses. Some p7’s did absolute belters of story’s and impressed everyone and blew Miss Hillhouse’s socks of, like Michael, Patrick, Henry, Sergio… and me!

Nelson’s Nitty Noggin

By Luca Di Ciacca

Once upon a time there was a boy called Nelson with chocolate brown hair, pale white skin, grass green eyes, and a long bulky nose and annoying little sister named Maggie. Maggie was 4 so that means she could speak, mind you she could only speak poorly but she could speak. Nelson was 3 foot 7 so him and Maggie often got mistaken for twins. Nelson was 9 and often stayed in his room with a toxic smell, remember this, as this is important. Nelson hated baths, he hated showers, hated swimming, basically anything which involved getting his body wet. He’s like a cat, he sleeps all day and hates water. Nelson also had nits- lots of them! So many that he couldn’t feel the burning sensation of their little mouths biting his head (for those of you who don’t know, nits are small black creatures that bite your head). Nelson didn’t have a lot of friends because of his nits and how he refused to get his brown tangled tuggy hair washed.

However, for once in his life he could feel one of these horrible creatures bite his head, he itched. It bit again, he itched again. He went and itched and saw a massive clump of nits. The massive clump of nits jumped off his head in sheer terror! Nelson saw them jump off his hands and then onto his cabinet. Nelson’s nits we’re fed up of Nelson’s head. He they wanted something different, so they formed one big nit (a super nit) and off they went chewing up clothes, furniture, carpet, and even his homework.

(Try explaining that to your teacher!)

Nelson rushed to the bathroom looking for soap “Hand sanitizer no” “Explosive diarrhoea pills no” “Itchy butt cream” “No!” “There it is … soap!” He dashed back to his room and squirted all the soap on the nit monstrosity, but it did nothing. The toxic smell and the horrible condition of his bedroom had made the nits immune to any soap!

Now boys and girls, remember this… when your mum and dad say get into the shower, they really mean they can’t be bothered explaining to your Headmasters why their grubby little kids’ homework was eaten by nits.

– Luca Di Ciacca

Art

In art this term we have been learning about some artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Wassily Kandinsky. Some of the types of art we have done are perspective art, pop art, sketching and collage (collage is when you stick stuff on top of each other to create art). We used oil pastels, coloured pencils, paint, pens, coloured cards, etc.

During all the art we have done this term we learned how to use different skills with different tools/materials of art. What I have liked in art is the perspective and pop art because basically you got to do whatever you wanted to draw and use any colours you like. It was so fun getting to be creative and imaginative.

– Ellis Martin

Topic- The Holocaust  

During our topic, we have been learning about the holocaust. We are learning about the concentration camps where 6 million Jews died. Adolf Hitler, the ruler of Germany at that time, didn’t like Jews and their lives were made terrible. The food they got was watery soup, plain water & once a week they were given a ¼ inch slice of bread and a tiny sliver of salami. The biggest camp was nicknamed the death camp, was Auschwitz. Jews had their head shaved & wore pyjama like striped clothes. They had to sleep in bunk beds 3 to a bed stacked 3 tall and 3-foot-long, called the barracks. Each person had a number tattooed on their forearm, so the solders knew if someone was missing. Some people were killed in the gas chambers. All things were taken from them.

I enjoy this topic because I learned lots about Hitler and the life under rules of the Nazi party. I know how lucky we are now compared to the Jews who were treated badly because of their religion. I love my topic! There is lots to learn about, & it links without novel “the boy in the striped pyjamas”.

–          Bowie Hew

Health and Wellbeing

In health and wellbeing we have learnt about the dangers of smoking and alcohol. Since the start of term we have learnt the consequences of drinking and smoking. Meanwhile we learnt laws about it too. Some facts that we have are: In advertising alcohol you must include DRINK RESPONSIBLEY. In 2015 displays of tobacco were band in all shops. Hear some more, Smoking can cause a condition called Gangrene, which can make you lose your fingers and toes. If you smoke, you normally hold your cigarette in between two of your fingers so that eventually turns your fingers and nails yellow. Also drinking can damage your liver.

– Eva Saez

Sky studios trip

Earlier on this term we went to the Sky Studios in Livingston. We learnt how to make a video with their equipment, there was different roles like directors, producers, camera operators, script writer, experts, editors, eye witness and presenters. When we got there we went into groups then went into different rooms and got started.  First off we wrote down scripts on an IPad then practiced them. Then we got to choose our own costumes, the editors chose the background for the video, we all set up the IPads so we could read off of them, and the camera operators got the cameras working and in the right positions. In the rooms we made a short clip then then the Sky people put them together to make a news report. After we had finished we got a tour round the Sky Studios and watched some people work. We all got a USB- wrist bands so we can watch the news report on “should we be spending lots of money on space travel?” whenever we want.

– Eilidh Anne Harvey

P7a Class Blog- 8.11.19

Writing- Halloween

We have created a number of imaginative stories, like ‘Harwell Hall’. We started with a story extract and had to continue the story in the style of the author. We had to include descriptive language, good character description and setting. We then redrafted our story, up-levelling it and typing it on the Chromebook. Then we made a cover for our story that resembled a door for Harwell Hall.

We have also been busy writing some poetry pieces like ‘Autumn Poem’ and ‘The Witch Next Door’. We started off gathering words that described a witch. Then we thought of rhyming words. We structured our poem so the rhyming words were at the end of each line and we challenged ourselves to include descriptive language alliteration.

Space- Teacher for the Day and at home project

We have been learning about our solar system during science. We have been put into groups and are making PowerPoints and posters about a specific planet. We are also working on projects at home, building models to do with space. We will be using recycled materials to create a model.  

Dyslexia PowerPoint-

Some pupils in our class created the PowerPoint (Sergio, Ellis, Eva, Patrick and Luca). We presented it in assembly for the whole school. It featured us talking about our dyslexia and how we cope about it. It helped pupils understand what dyslexia is and it helped us know how to approach dyslexia in a mannerly way. We presented it during dyslexia awareness week.  

St Ninian’s-

At St Ninian’s we did loads of things, such as Art and Design, Technology, Music and Science. We had the opportunity to meet lots of teachers from the secondary school. In science we used Bunsen burners. In music we got to try the drums. In technology we got a piece of wood and we had to use saws to build a wooden pull along toy. In art we made a safari mask using printing.

We could not not do the blog for a while because we had technical difficulties, but they are fixed now.

Make £5 Grow!
We’ve been creating businesses in small groups and we have created a business which sells a product or a service.
Some of our businesses include:  A Car Wash, A Joke Shop, Bottled Pots, Phone Accessories stall and Recycled Stationery.
We created a business plan looking at the finance.  We have to think about how much money it costs to make the product and add a little bit on so that we can make a profit.  We also learnt about budgeting and sensible ways to spend our money. We have got a loan of £5 from Virgin Money and we’ll need to pay this back at the end of the term.

Watch out for our products which you can buy in the near future!

Literacy
We wrote a piece of writing called ‘The Arrival’.  We watched a video of a picture book and in groups we came up with our own interpretation of the story.  Marie-Clare thought the girl’s dad was leaving for the Titanic and he never saw his family again, she also thought the family were in danger.  Whereas, Oliver thought that the dad was a German spy and they were trying to get informaiton on the British Base because the Mum was Churchill’s daughter.

Maths
In maths we have been working on decimals, fractions and percentages.  We know how to convert a decimal into a fraction or a percentage.  We were also learning how many degrees were in a triangle.   We also learned about place value and how to write numbers to one million in figures and words. There are different types of triangles like equilateral, isoceles and scalene.  We’ve been making sure to read questions slowly so that we understand what they mean.

“I feel like I’ve improved at writing numbers in words” – Patrick
“I think I’ve got better at multiplication by practising every day” – Ciaran
“I feel like I’ve become faster at mental maths questions because I practise at school and at home” – Ava

Art
We learned how to draw a converse shoe with the colour wheel we had to choose hot and cold contrasting colours.  Our most recent piece of art was ‘The Starry Starry Night’ by Vincent Van Gogh.  Did you know that he had two brothers and three sisters; he was born in 1853 and he lived a depressing life so used the colour blue a lot in his artwork.

Science
We were learning about chemical reactions.  Katie built a volcano which showed us a chemical reaction which produced a hot foamy texture. We also did STEM week, we made bath bombs, made O-wings and tested them out and we made a Donald Trump hydraulic puppet!

“Hydraulics uses water pressure to create movement” – Adam.

Well done to everyone today for putting on an amazing Christmas songs performance!  You should all be very proud of yourselves! Thank you to all the parents, grandparents and families who came along to see it! 😁

You are all FABULOUS!

Miss Gray

Sorry that this post is a little delayed – we have been very busy and working really hard! 

Maths
This busy week in maths some of us did algebra – we were writing equations and solving them too. Some were doing fractions like learning how to write equivalent fractions. Others were focussing on function machines and using their knowledge of multiplication and division to solve problems. All groups had to work very hard!
Once every one had finished we got to go make chocolate apples (because it was Halloween)!

Religious
This week was All Saints day and the Primary 6s walked to mass. We did posters to show our chosen saint, like St. Maximillian Kolbe, St Patrick or St Helena. We also learnt about the Pope Francis Faith Award.

Writing
In writing we did Tom’s Terror a Halloween story that was very cool.  We were trying to use VCOP to up-level our characters and setting.  The week after we also created a Newspaper report about the story of Guy Fawkes.  We had to note-take and then change our notes into a report and all created excellent newspaper articles (journalists in the making!)

Reading
We started to do reading teams and we were picking books that our team would like. On a Friday morning we have Fun Read Friday and  we get to sit anywhere in the class (even on the table and under the table) and read our chosen book. Our teams are made of people who like the same things as you. We are allowed to read off a kindle too.

Art
We were doing sugar skulls because in Mexico they celebrate a day called ‘Day of the Dead’.  This is kind of similar to the Catholic celebration of All Souls day and it was nice to learn about what they do in other cultures too.   Australia is still our topic and we also looked at Aboriginal art.  We created stories through our art work and some of us made our own digeridoo!  We also all got to try playing a digeridoo – it was really hard!

Written by Ava and Patrick

In Primary 6a our blog this week will focus on three subjects!

Maths
So far in maths we have been learning something each in our groups. We have been learning how to name different triangles like scalene, isosceles and equilateral. There are 4 different angles that we were learning about these are the right angle, acute angle, obtuse angle and finally a reflex angle. We have also learned to work out the duration of time and how to identify 2D and 3D shapes.  We also love playing the game Kaboom which helps us to practise our times tables!

Religious Education

In RE this week we were learning about the story of the shepherd in the field and he went to go look for the lost sheep and reunited him with his flock. We have also been learning about St. Teresa of Calcutta who did a lot of work with charity to help people in India.

P.E

In P.E we had a special P.E teacher visit us to teach us how to support younger children in play and get more active. We learned how to lead new games like duck duck goose, clock in the tower and what’s the time Mr Wolf.   We also learned basketball with Miss Gray – how to dribble and chest pass the ball.

Here we are practising as playzone leaders.

Writing
This week we did writing on The World’s End!  We worked really hard on using good vcop [vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation] in our stories.  We self assessed our stories and traffic lighted them green, amber and red.  We all worked really hard and came up with great stories including super vocabulary like:  ghostly, ambushed, deafening, exhilarated and annihilated.

Here are some extra photos from golden time and science too!

By: Emily, Michael and Oli

Come to Australia!!! We are making brochures about  Australia to tell you about the different landmarks and creatures including the Sydney Opera House, Great barrier reef , Shark bay , Uluru and Whitsunday island, q1 towers and swan bell and horizontal falls.  We have been researching prices, show times at the Sydney Opera House and making sure our brochures are eye-catching and persuasive!

For our school trip we went to Diversity Day and we did lots of things.  We did athletics and we learnt about the diffrent cultures. We did bollywood dancing and we did a mug competition. They have not said who won yet but people have worked very hard so we all have a chance.  The dances we did were bollywood dancing and israeli dancing.  We tried out dressing as a diffrent religion, it was very fun and we would do it again.  The fun didn’t stop because we had a very fun trip home!

In Science, we have done an amazing experiment on friction. The car went so far (to Emily !!!)  We tested on the carpet, laminate and concrerete.  Here are our results.

For Art we have been learning about self portraits and how to draw realistically – the eyes on our portraits look great so far it is very fun.

For Maths week, we had a teacher carousel with Miss Hillhouse on symmentry and we did special symmetry patterns that are multi coloured and symmetrical.  That was amazing!!! It was a shape of a star and a circle.  Mrs O’Malley also came in to talk to us about her job as an accountant – she uses maths and numeracy a lot!

What have you enjoyed at school in the past few weeks?

Written by Eva and Katie

The highlights of the first few weeks in P6 have been amazing!
In Maths we have learned about how to write, order and add decimals and we’ve been practising our multiplication and division.  In Literacy we were learning about singular and plural words and we wrote an imaginative story about ‘The Storm’.On Fridays we do computing, in computing we have been doing coding.  We made our own Google logo and we were all very good at it!  On a Monday we have Drama and we really like the ‘Park Bench’ game that we play to help us with improvisation. In Art, we have started self-portraits and are focussing on sketching and making our portraits as realistic as we can.

In Science, we have been learning about Friction.  We did an experiment to test which surface was best for a toy car to move on.  We also used our measuring skills to calculate how far the car went each time.  We know that Friction causes things to move slower because two surfaces are rubbing together.  The laminate was the best surface because it was smooth and the concrete was worst because it was rough.
We are excited to learn more about Australasia, which is our topic.  We have already learned about Aborigines (the first people to live in Australia) and listened to the sound of a digeridoo.  We used atlases to identify the continents in the world and locate them on a map.  We would like to learn about The Great Barrier Reef and some of the landmarks in Australasia.

In P.E. our favourite thing has been the bleep test which tested our stamina.

Let’s see where this year takes us, we think it’s going to be great!

Written by Kitty and Henry