Open Afternoon

Guess the Teacher

On the ‘Open Afternoon’ we were trying to guess which teacher was who from when they were younger.  Some of them were easy and some of them were hard.  It was good fun!  Some Mum’s and Dad’s were able to help us with our guesses. – Ava

Royal Weddings

We were learning about the two royal weddings in the 1980’s.  We measured out the length of Princess Diana’s train and marked it on the floor; it was really long!

We were dressing people up in toilet paper dresses/gowns.  It was lots of fun!   We had to be strategic as we only had one roll of toilet paper to make our dress and train. Farouk

Live Aid

We made ‘Live Aid’ stadiums out of Kapla. We worked in teams to make a Wembley Stadium or JFK Stadium.  We had to be careful so that we didn’t knock it over.  Anna W

1980’s Board Games

We played board games that were made in the 1980’s i.e. Twister, Battleship, Guess Who and Kerplunk.  I had played Frustration and Twister before, but all the rest were new to me.  Achintya

Gymnastics

On Monday we were doing gymnastics.  We were learning how to do partner balances.  It was quite tricky, but we learned how to do four different balances. it was fun. – Menaal

Viridor – Sustainability

On Monday we had a parent visitor who works for Viridor speak to us about her job.  She told us all about how our litter is recycled.  She told us how machines sort our rubbish and how it is recycled into lots of new products.  I had a chance to try on all of her safety clothes for the Viridor site. – Leiyaa

IDL – 1970’s

This week we have been learning about the 1970’s.  We learnt that the first microwave was invented in the 1970’s.  Margaret Thatcher was the first female Prime Minister.  Our money became decimalised in the 1970’s and Glam Rock, Punk and Disco became popular in this decade. We also watched short clips of the ‘Wombles’ and ‘Basil Brush’ which were children’s cartoons in addition to making some paper dolls.  At the end of the day we had a practise of ‘The Hustle’ which was a popular 1970’s dance.  Theo, Oliver & Michael

    STEAM

With Mr Atkinson we carried out an experiment about ocean acidification i.e. pollution in the sea.  We put shells into jars with water, salt and  pure vinegar.   We found the shell in the pure vinegar jar dissolved.  The shell in the salt water jar was just the same and the one with salt water and vinegar was ok, but had changed colour i.e. it was bleached.  This tells us that pollution is destroying the seabed.

PE

Through the Decades

We worked as experts last week learning about different aspects of the 1950’s.  We learnt about the ‘Space Race’, ‘Windrush’, the ‘Queen’s Coronation’, ‘Cars’ and ‘Sir Edmund Hilary.’  We shared our expert knowledge with our groups.

This week we started learning about the 1960’s.  We have been learning about The Beatles and we listened to and watched the ‘Yellow Submarine’ song.  We realised that we do actually know a lot of Beatles songs too.

Tests!

This week we were surprised with some literacy and maths tests.  We worked hard and did our best, so we have earned a rest this weekend!

PE – Hockey & Gymnastics

This week we have started a block of outdoor hockey and  gymnastics when we are indoors.

Hockey was very cold, but very fun.  We practised dribbling the ball which I found quite easy. – Beau

We were learning lots of different rolls in gymnastics this week.  My favourite one was the teddy bear roll.  I was able to do it with a partner and it was good fun.  – Noelle

Reach for the Stars

We have been thinking about new year resolutions this week.  We have all set ourselves a new year resolution in regard to school and created a display with them for us to refer to.

Up Stream Battle

This week Mr Atkinson showed us a video with a design brief for our ‘Up Stream Battle’ challenge.  We have all brought in lots of left over boxes and resources for our groups to complete the challenge.  We need to design a piece of equipment that will catch litter in rivers and burns.  It is going to be an interesting challenge.  – Alexander

Quentin Blake Illustrations

We joined a BBC Teach event on Tuesday morning where we looked at the illustrator Quentin Blake’s style and created our own characters for the ‘Zagazoo’ story.  The story shows a baby growing up and how the child changes into lots of different animals as it grows up.  We practised making different facial expressions for different emotions to help us with our illustrations.

I really enjoyed the fun video we watched to do this.  I loved my ‘Zagazoo’ elephant I drew. Leiyaa

Escape Room Maths

We worked in pairs or small groups to solve the maths problems to release the reindeer from their stable.  We worked well as teams and we were all able to find the correct number code for stable padlock. Phew!

Grow Your £5

This week we evaluated how we worked as teams in our different companies.  We recorded our evaluations using the app Chatterpix.

We have made a profit of £280.  We have decided as a class to donate all of the money to charity.  We will split the money between the UNICEF and Cancer Research charities.

We learnt how to take pictures of a Virgin Money or Richard Branson picture with the iPad and drew a mouth on it.  We could them record our evaluations in order to make it look like the picture was talking.  It was fun!  Menaal

The Snowman

We watched ‘The Snowman’ and considered how the music represented the emotions of the little boys in the story.  We then created our own snowmen pictures using pastels.  We used shading to show perspective in our pictures.

While we were doing art, the hardest part was blending it all together.  It was quite fun, but very messy!  Jack J

PE

Due to the wet weather, we done some Christmas themed Zumba.  We all got in the Christmas spirit and had a lot of fun.

Music

We did music with a twist this week.  We learnt how to play the rhythm of the ‘Sleigh Ride’ song with cups.  It took a lot of concentration, but we mastered it!  We then did a boys v girls competition to see who could follow the rhythm and keep in time with the music; it was a tie!

It was very hard and fun at the same time.  Noelle

I liked all of our Christmassy activities this week. Emily

Christmas Fayre

Selling at the Christmas Fayre was lots of fun as I was one of the people who got to sell our products. Our group was very happy about the amount of money we made. – Annie

I wasn’t meant to be helping my group sell our products at the Christmas Fayre, but I popped in and out and helped my team.  As a bonus, we sold out.  It was great fun and we made lots of money. – Michael

Christmas Jumper Day

We were first in the Present Room today, so we go the first choices and best presents.  The turkey and trimmings for Christmas lunch was very nice. – Jack J

Christmas Maths

We did lots of different maths tasks today including Christmas problem solving, online games and making clocks with minutes to and past the hour.

P5 Christmas Show

I enjoyed doing the ‘Run, Run, Rudolph’ dance at the P5 Christmas Show.  It was exciting and I loved our songs.  It was also my birthday which made it extra  special. – Connie

The Christmas show was exciting.  I liked everything about it and I’d love to do another show. – Emily

Bumble Bear

Bear came to visit P5a this week.  Annie and Finlay go to the same Brownies and are in the same six.  Every member of their six gets the opportunity to take bear on adventures for a week, then get to feed back to their six what they have done through pictures and notes in a diary.

This week I go t to take home the bear and I’ve planned lots of fun things we can do and take pictures of.  I like Bumble Bear more that the owls we had at our old Brownies.  Annie

At our old Brownies we had a big owl called Mr Brownie and a little owl called Chocolate Chip.  I think I prefer Bumble Bear.  Finlay

Grow Your £5

Our product production lines have been in full swing this week.

My group made marshmallow snowmen and we put them in little bags.  It was easy to draw the faces and buttons on them, but it was a bit tricky to put them in the bags.  Ephraim

Literacy

In literacy this week, we worked in our ‘Grow Your £5’ teams to write instructions as to how to make our products.  We worked as a team to generate clear instructions using time connectives, adverbs and connectives to give reason for some of our instructions.  The end result has been fabulous.

Frosty PE

PE was freezing, but very fun.  Snatch the bib was my favourite activity.  We played one game in small teams, but came in early because it was so cold. Jack J

Sikhism

We were looking at countries around the world where the Sikh religion is found.  Me and Finlay found it fun and entertaining.  It was a bit of a challenge to find the countries around the world, but we worked as a team to help each other.-Annie

Science Centre 

My favourite part of the Science Centre trip was making the batteries in ‘The Lab.’ It was good fun!  Aaniyah

It was amazing when Jack and I made a circuit!  When we made a circuit, the tube was colourful.  We passed electricity through our bodies to complete the circuit. Beau

Grow Your £5

On Thursday we started making sample products to show to the class.  Some groups are still waiting on all their products to arrive, but we will carry on making them next week.  Some of us have made lots, but some of us have only made a few.  Jack J

My group managed to make lots of cany candy cane reindeer.   We found it quite hard to keep the candy canes in the right position whilst we wrapped the pipe cleaners around them.  It was tricky to stick the nose and eyes on too.  Ava

Digital Leaders

We now have seven members of the class who have achieved their Bronze Digital Leader award who will now take responsibility for organising our Chromebooks and iPads when we use them in class.  They will also use their knowledge and skills to support their peers where appropriate.

PE

We have continued to learn a new dance routine to ‘I’ve Got a Feeling,’ by the Black Eyed Peas.  We had great fun learning to keep in time to the music and recalling the sequence of the moves.

In netball we participated in lots of different skills practises to improve our, passing, pivoting and team work skills.  We then played a game of netball where we introduced the positions of goal shooter, goal attack and goal defence.  Next week we will continue to work on using the whole court to create space to pass to our team mates.

 Grow Your £5

We have now moved onto creating our company logo’s for our ‘Grow Your £5’ businesses.  We have also finalised our shopping lists ensuring we have kept within our budgets.  Our next step will be to make our products once all our resources arrive.

Maths Problem Solving/Games

We used the strategy of ‘Guess, Check and Improve’ to create as many shapes as possible using four isosceles triangles.  We had to ensure sides of equal length touched which really got us thinking.

We also learnt three new maths games this week that will become part of our maths rotations.  We learnt how to play 101, Magic 6 and Guess my Calculation.  We learnt that many of us are very competitive, but we were all good sports about winning and losing.

We have internet!

Halloween

Yesterday we did some Halloween art.  We used pastels to create our mummy eyes, then tore strips of paper to create the bandages.

I thought it was fun! – Connie

I thought it was entertaining and the eyes were very majestic.  I really liked how we used the chalk for the eyes.  I thought it was a really good idea. – Theo

We discovered that if we rubbed the pastels, they blended in for a better effect. – Achintya

I thought using the pastels was cool even though our hands looked liked rainbows. – Farouk

Netball

Last week we started learning Netball skills in PE.  We started with some team games to develop our team work and ball handling skills.

We then learnt about chest passes and pivoting.  This week we added in defenders and attackers to small games.

I love netball because we get to do lots of different things like passing, defending and shooting. – Anna W

We went into mini groups and did mini matches. I loved it. – Ava

Dance

Last week we started our dance block.  We learnt how to sequence the moves to the Wolverine and Deadpool dance using a Zumba Dance YouTube video.  We learnt about the importance of timing and to add some attitude and pop to our moves to make them more distinctive.  As we had no internet this week, we learnt the ‘Gay Gordons,’ but we will learn a few more modern dances before returning to Scottish country dancing towards the end of November.

I really like dancing. – Isla

I really like dancing  because I think moves stand out. – Ewan

I liked the ‘Gay Gordon’s because we got to learn tricky, but fun steps. – Anna O

I quite like the dancing. – Menaal

I am looking forward to moving onto the traditional Scottish dancing in a few weeks.  – Ephraim

Grow Your £5

Last week we started learning about our ‘Grow Your £5’ topic.  We learnt about the importance of different personal qualities and the impact they have in contributing to a strong team, which can run a business.  We used this knowledge to form our ‘Grow Your £5’ business teams.  This week we considered products we would like to make and how much it would cost to make them.  We then considered how much we could sell items for and how much profit we may be able to make.

We got into groups and sorted out different jobs and from there we started thinking about products we could make from the jobs we have. – Cameron

Our groups were bigger than expected, but this means they have more money to spend.  Some groups have 8 people, so they have £40 to spend. – Farouk

I think it was really fun, although there were a few problems/calamities forming the teams. – Michael