Author: Mrs Ferguson

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.

In Art, we were working on our crafts for the Christmas Fayre which are tea light holders. Some people have stars and some people have snowflake designs on theirs. We used glitter paint, sharpie pens and regular paint for our designs, however, some people wanted theirs to be plain. Groups were mixed to use different resources so that we had a range of designs. We are keeping them safe in the classroom just now but can’t wait to sell them at the Christmas fayre on Monday. We hope to see you there!

We were linking Art with RME and drawing mosques.  We focused on the visual elements of line, tone and pattern.  First we drew the outline of the mosque and we focused on the tower and dome (Onion dome).  We used Wolff’s Carbon Pencils to shade it in going from light to dark.  Some of us used a brick pattern, stone or tile pattern using squares, triangles, rectangles and semi-circles.  Some people also included the Islamic symbol on their mosque.

Today in Science we were making our baby Reebop.   A Reebop is an alien which we were making during our Inheritance topic.  Before we made our baby Reebops, we had a planning sheet to plan out what our baby Reebops will look like.  We did this by crossing the genes from the mum and dad Reebops and coloured in which genotype we wanted from one of the possible baby Reebop outcomes.  We used clay, pipe cleaners, lollipop sticks, rubber bands, wooden sticks and straws to make them.  We have learned what happens when you cross the genes of the mum and dad and what the baby could look like.  Most of us managed to successfully cross the genes and make the baby Reebops look a bit like one or both of the parents.

 

In R.M.E. we were building Mosques with different materials.  We were using straws, card, Lego, match sticks, cubes, plastic shapes and cups and we worked in groups of 4.  Every Mosque was different but most groups included the Minaret (which is like a tower) and the dome.  We made the Minaret out of stacked cups and other groups made it from connecting shapes or cubes.  Some groups added detail to the inside of their Mosque with prayer mats and Lego characters praying as well as the Imam.  At the end we all got the opportunity to look at each group’s masterpieces.

Some photos of our Mosques will soon follow…

In Science, we were making Reebops.  Reebops are aliens and we used different characteristics to make a mum and a dad. We used different letters to show the genes for example: BB or Bb for the dominant body shape which was square and bb for the recessive gene for the body which was circular.

We used pipe cleaners, large fluffy fake snowballs, lollipop sticks, clay, match sticks with the ends broken off, Plasticine, rubber bands, art straws, straws and coloured card/ paper.  Next week, we are going to cross the genes from the mum and the dad to make the baby reebop.  It was a very fun experience for all of us and everyone had a good time but it was a wee bit tricky sometimes too.  We rate the experience 10/10.

We have been learning about Guru Nanak.  Guru Nanak grew up with a Hindu family and one day had a dip in the river and he didn’t come back like he usually did.  After a while Guru Nanak’s family thought he had drowned and 3 days later he came back and said he was with the Gods.  He went on a journey around the world with his friend Mardana. He started to preach Sikhism and he said that it doesn’t matter if you’re different, you can still make friends and play with others.  He also invited people of all wealth to the town hall and they ate altogether to show that everyone is equal.

On Tuesday we were starting to make Guru Nanak birthday invitations because it was Guru Nanak’s 550^th birthday.  Some people drew Guru Nanak on their invitation.  All of our invitations looked different and had slightly different information about where the party was taking place and the date. Take a look at a few examples below…

 

D.Y.W.

There are 4 D.Y.W. groups.  There is Learning for Sustainability, Life Skills, Digital Technologies and Design and Manufacture.

The Learning for Sustainability group were designing plastic bottle pencil cases before we make them next week.

Life skills group were learning how to sew with needles and it was very tricky but we succeeded!

The Digital Technologies group were learning about Scratch which is similar to the Spheros and is on the computer.

The Design and Manufacture group were painting boxes and started making a little town by turning the boxes inside out and next week we will decide on our town names as well.

We can’t wait for next week!

Post from 11th October has been updated.

P4b’s photos of their shoebox dioramas have been added.  Scroll down to have a look!

In literacy we have been looking at a Humpty Dumpty crime scene where Humpty Dumpty got pushed off the wall.  We wrote police reports about who we thought pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall.  We were doing this to practise writing summaries.  We all tried really hard to work out who did the crime but only one person out of 29 managed to work out who the prime suspect was, who committed the crime.

Some of our suspects were Hansel and Gretel, the Queen, the Guards, the Horses and Little Red Riding Hood.  Hansel was a suspect because Humpty Dumpty didn’t listen to Gretel when she advised him to be careful and Gretel was also angry with him for not listening and she showed this by snatching the skipping ropes off of Humpty.  The Queen’s motive may have been due to Humpty Dumpty climbing on her palace wall.  The Guards could have done the crime because they scowled at Humpty when he climbed on the wall and Humpty Dumpty shrugged his shoulders and didn’t listen.  The horses might have committed the crime because they could have ran up the stairs and pushed him off the wall.  We thought it could have been Little Red Riding Hood because there was something silver at the crime scene and we thought that might have been Little Red Riding Hood’s mushrooms that she picked that day and also there was something red at the crime scene which we thought was Little Red Riding Hood’s hood.

After a lot of working out and also creating WANTED posters, the 2 suspects who actually did it were revealed…it was…Hansel and Gretel.  The evidence from the text was that Hansel and Gretel were angry with Humpty at the start of the story and there was a sweetie wrapper at the scene.  The story also revealed that 4 footprints were seen in the egg yolk.  We were very surprised that they were our criminals.

     

Lots more examples of our work will be making its way to our corridor wall display very soon.  Keep an eye out!