Sea Life Centre

The highlight of this week has been our trip to the Sea Life Centre.  We loved seeing the otters and turtles!  We learnt about the impact plastic pollution has on sea animals and seen first hand how harmful it can be.

1990’s

This week we started researching the 1990’s as part of our ‘Through the Decades’ topic. We worked in groups to research Fashion, TV, Music, Toys and Technology. We started making a group piece of installation art too, which we will complete next Friday.

Indoor PE 

As it was very wet on Wednesday morning we created an indoor skill game whereby we had to get different types of balls or beans bags into or onto given surface to earn a range of different points.  We had to be tactical in ur decision and accurate with our throws to earn the most points.  We also had to be good at totally up all our scores.  In order to make it more challenging we adapted our games and found we got lower scores in the second round.

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!

Hello to all the P5A blog readers, it’s Mr Atkinson here! As you will know this year I am doing NCCT for primary P5A with a focus on developing Crookfurs Inquiry Based Learning approach so I wanted to give you an update of what we have been doing.

In our first Learning Journey – Energy Sources and Sustainability, we revisited the definitions of renewable and non-renewable energy sources and discussed examples in our lives of when we may use them. The class researched and plotted locations onto maps of Scotland of where a variety of energy sites are. We also participated in heated debates about the advantages and disadvantages of different energy sources which allowed the children to demonstrate their understanding and it led to them constructing compelling arguments. Amongst all of this we visited the Glasgow Science Centre to attend an energy workshop and Mrs Dowse, a parent of P5, spoke to the class about her experience of working in this sector which led to lots of questions! We also briefly explored the different types of energy stores and transfers by completing chains and diagrams of real-life examples. Finally, as part of our end of Learning Journey showcase, the pupils worked in groups to build sustainable cities and they drew and labelled a picture of Crookfur Primary being powered by renewable energy sources for the Renewables Challenge.

We then moved onto learning about some of the META Skills and explored how these can be used both in school and at home. The META Skills lessons helped the pupils to recognise what Creativity and Curiosity may look like!

Our current Learning Journey – Upstream Battle, is being supported by the organisation Keep Scotland Beautiful. We watched a live lesson from Arrochar where the presenters shared with the class the journey of litter from land to sea and how it can affect the environment. To help illustrate the problem we visited Capelrig Burn where we found litter and a trolley in it. The children also created a map and tracked the journey of 28,000 plastic bath toys that fell overboard from a ship to show how items move across the sea. We have also been learning about which items are biodegradable and the class were shocked to read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The pupils are now working in groups and preparing for the Keep Scotland Beautiful marine litter art competition by researching which rivers in Scotland have been polluted and making presentations of incidents that have damaged marine life. The showcase for this Learning Journey will be marine litter themed models that the pupils will soon be creating. Again, thank you for the donations of materials!

Mr Atkinson

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