Month: January 2020

This week we have been doing art.  In art we have been looking at the pictures and deciding how we feel about it.  We looked at a picture which had elderly people floating in the air holding umbrellas and dancing.  We think it was raining or snowing and there was a reflection from the umbrellas.  We discussed how this piece of art made us feel such as joyful,  happy, excited and maybe even sad because the characters could be lost.  It made us feel happy because the characters looked like they were having fun, the characters looked like they were together as friends, the artist used bright colours such as orange, light blue, red, yellow etc.  and many of the colours were the primary colours.  The other piece of art included lots of people walking in the rain and were also holding umbrellas.  This picture mainly made us feel unhappy, sad, scared or bored because the colours were dark and there wasn’t many bright colours, the characters looked sad themselves and looked as though they were walking alone.  Next week we will be choosing a random feeling written by one of our peers and we are going to draw a picture which would make us feel that feeling.

In Art we were making fans just like the fans in China of which we added drawings of flowers, bamboo and some animals which represent Chinese New Year such as a rabbit, rat, ox, tiger, pig, sheep, horse, monkey, dog, dragon and snake.  The day before Chinese New Year they give the house a good clean and decorate the house with red Chinese decorations such as lanterns and signs.  Red is the main colour which stands for good luck.

In maths we were doing word problems related to Robert Burns.  In one of our word problems we used our chance and uncertainty skills when discussing the chance of picking someone called Elizabeth to play with.  Of the 7 daughters Robert Burns had 5 of them were called Elizabeth and the other 2 were called Francis and Jean.  The chance of playing with an ‘Elizabeth’ is very likely. We also learned that he died when he was 37 .  One groups’s question said his age was 3 tens and 7 units and the other group’s clue included a number line with the year he was born and the year he died.  We added on in tens and units.

This week, Learning for Sustainability DYW group were creating pictures out of natural materials.  Have a look. What do you think they have created?

  

    

      

In P.E. we were learning how to use the tennis racket and how to hold it as if shaking someone’s hand.  We learned that you have to hold it top the side and flick your wrist.  We split into groups of 3 of our choice and had a job each.  The runner, the batter, the baller. The baller’s job was to throw the ball and the batter’s job was to hit it back to the baller.  The runner’s job was to catch the ball when it bounced it in a different direction.  We discussed that in tennis the proper name for the runner is the ball boy or the ball girl.

In writing this week we were making leaflets about Newton Mearns and persuading people to come here.  We were focusing on including a bold heading, a few sub-headings, lots of information in paragraphs under the sub-headings or in bullet points.  We discussed that it would need pictures and colour to make it attractive to the reader and some pictures could have labels or captions to tell the reader what the picture is of or where it is.  In addition, we tried to include persuasive language which are adjectives that describe something to make it sound great and to encourage the reader to want to go there.

In P.E. this week we have been developing our balance skills with a tennis ball and racket by dropping the ball from different heights and trying to catch it on the racket without it bouncing off.  In the next few weeks we will be building on our skills to play a game of tennis.

D.Y.W. started back up again this week and in the Life Skills group we made breakfast bars with apricots, raisins, sultanas, coconuts and oats. We will be making pancakes, pitta pockets and learning how to sew.  In Design and Manufacture we were being engineers and in groups from mixed classes we had to make a table from scrap paper and our aim was to make the table stand and hold a lightweight book.  It also had to be 20cm tall.  In Learning for Sustainability we gather natural materials outside such as sticks, leaves, stones, bark and pine cones to make a piece of Eco Art next week.  In Digital Technologies we were learning how to control Spheros.  First, we watched a video on how to programme the Spheros.  We had to download an app and have learned how to change colour, direction and speed of the Spheros.

In R.M.E. we were learning about Shabbat.  Shabbat is celebrated by Jews every Friday and finishes at sunset on Saturday. Just before sunset, the woman of the house lights 2 candles and the father blesses the children.  The father then pours wine or grape juice into a special cup and passes it around.  After that, they cut the Challah bread and sprinkle it with salt.  Then families have a meal around the table and  talk to each other about their week and sing songs together  Shabbat is celebrated because Jews believe God built the world in 6 days and took a rest on the 7th day. Therefore, they rest on Friday evening through to Saturday so in preparation for this they have to tidy their house, do their shopping and chores beforehand.  Today is Friday so Happy Shabbat!

Today, in Science we have been learning about sound and vibrations.  We participated in an experiment where we got a bowl which had clingfilm over it and we put sprinkles on it.  We had to talk or sing over the sprinkles to see if there was a vibration.  We knew there was a vibration if the sprinkles bounced a little or if there was a slight noise.  We learned that when 2 things touch they push air around it and it vibrates creating sound waves and when the waves touch your eardrum you hear the sound.  When you are in a cave or an empty room and you speak, there is an echo.  This is when the sound bounces off the walls back to your ear.  We also did a sound field trip to learn of the sounds in our environment.

In Maths, some groups have been making 24 hour clock pie charts to show what activities we do throughout the whole day.  We have also been using calendars and exploring months to find out how many days there are in each month and a leap year.  We learned that 30 days has September, April, June and November.  All the rest have 31 except for February alone, which has 28 days clear and 29 in a leap year. One of the maths groups has been exploring strategies such as CUBE to figure out a word problem. C = Circle, U = Underline, B = Box and E = Evolve.  We will be continuing with this next week.