This week, we learned about the features of a castle and how they can be used in defence. We learned about portcullises, drawbridges, moats, arrow slits, battlements, parapets, towers and keeps.

 

From there, we worked in groups to design a castle that could withstand an attack and then we used the Make-Do kits to create a model during the Open Afternoons.

On Friday, we celebrated our wonderful models with a museum walk-round.  We visited P5b’s museum classroom too!

 

 

This week, we built on our knowledge about Castles by using some of the resources from the Glasgow Science Centre.  We worked as forensic scientists to find out information from the bones of a skeleton that was found under the floorboards of the chapel in Stirling Castle.  The skeleton was one of ten found during renovations in 1987.  Looking at information about isotopes in its bones told scientists what he ate and where he came from.  They even worked out exactly who it might be… Sir john de Stricheley who died in 1341!

In Expressive Arts we practised our tinting skills to make beautiful sun or moon backgrounds for silhouettes of Scottish Castles, concentrated on shape and line work.  They look fabulous!

This week in P5a we used Hallowe’en to theme some of our work.

 

In Writing, we created spooky themed poems. We used onomatopoeia, similes, alliteration and excellent adjectives.  Some of us used rhyme too. If we wanted to, we could perform our poems to the class!

In French, we created monsters using a beetle drive to practice our new vocabulary for body parts.  Monsters are useful because they can have lots of arms, legs, ears and eyes instead of just two!

And finally, on Friday afternoon we made some spooky mummy eye art. We chose colours carefully and used our blending skills too.

 

This week we started our Castles Learning Journey.

 

 

We were researching castles, how strong they are, when they were built, interesting facts about them and people who lived there.

Me and my partner did Edinburgh and Glamis. We learned that Glamis is haunted! (AN)

On top of the research, we made Top Trump cards about the castles. the categories are on this photo.

We used collaboration to compare the castles we researched and work out a score (SS) 

We looked at the bits of paper to work out the scores like 10 or 6 (SK) 

Then we made Top Trumps to play with! Mrs Allan will laminate them for us.

We played with some original Top Trumps to help us with the design of them.

 

 

This week, we have started our lessons on Kindness and Friendship.

We did some “silent graffiti” where we answered the questions Mrs Fry had asked us silently, but using pictures, and words with different colours and writing styles.  Then we talked about how to show kindness and what friendship means to us.

After that, we started work on some friendship and kindness slogans which will be put around the school.

This week we have been focussing on Science.  We have explored forces, and looked at buoyancy.  We completed experiments on floating and sinking, making predictions and then comparing materials to work out what affects if something floats or sinks.   Then we applied that knowledge to make boats to be as buoyant as possible while exerting a force (Marvel characters!)

This week we have been learning about floating and sinking. sometimes it’s because of how big it is. (Y)

We had to choose one things we thought would float and sink and check if we were right (A)

We tested cans to see if they would float and sink.  The ones with the highest density sunk.  That was about the sugar levels. (S)

We made tin foil boats and we had to try and make it so that 24 Marvel figures would fit on it. the ones that were more successful had a wider surface area (S)

 

At the Science Centre we got our first taste of the science of castles at the Castles Rock! show.  It will be part of our learning for the next few weeks. Lots of the activities we did included forces!

On Thursday we went to the Science Centre and we explored lots of different stuff.  My favourite part was the upside down house (I).

I tried some stuff and I really liked when we built the Lego around the water (M)

I liked pumping the water with the lego and seeing how much water the dam would support (F)

I liked the spinning cars that you powered by spinning the wheel to move it. My friend got the top score! (F).

We played an air hockey game with four sides. It was harder because it kept hitting off the table.  (H)

My favourite part was between how fast you can run or the hanging bars (A)

My favourite part was the game where you had to hit the germs before the get inside your nose. I got the top score of 35 (L)

We played a game with arrow buttons and make the snake eat the apple. We got 4th place! It was about teamwork. (J)

We watched a show on Castles Rock! we learned if there was a hole in the brick then water gets in and it would break the castle apart.  If you put moss on it then it stops the water and it doesn’t break it (A).

This year’s theme for Maths Week Scotland is Wild Maths to encourage us to look for the maths in the outdoors.

To combine this with our work towards the Junior Forester Award, we measured trees outdoors.  To do this, you walk away from the tree and look upside down between your legs – when you can see the top of it, that should be the height of the tree if it was lying on the ground! We also created a forest with chalk in the playground by measuring the height of different British trees as saplings and at one year and two years.

 

 

And then… the Colour Run!

 

This week we have started our work on RME.  We have been learning about Sikhism.  We researched some important information about the faith using the Chromebooks.  We had told Mrs Allan this was one of the ways we liked to learn and she was impressed with our skills.

Later, we learned about the life of Guru Nanak, who is the founder of Sikhism and sequenced key events in his life.

One day we was protected from the sun by a snake (H H)

We learned that when Nanak went to the river to bathe and meditate, he disappeared for three days and then when he came back he told everyone that he had a vision from God. (SS)

We went outside for maths instead of the classroom and we made graphs about the lunch orders that we made that day. After exploring examples of bar charts, we made our success criteria by ourselves before we went out with our whiteboards to create our bar graphs. then we peer assessed to look for the key parts of a graph: labelling axis is tricky!

Last week, we were learning about graphs and we drew graphs outside with chalk (AM).

The salmon was the most popular option (HA)

 

 

 

Health  and wellbeing focus

Our Happy Place

We created triaramas (3d paper diagrams) to celebrate our happy places.  We created the scenery across the back and then wrote a description using our senses on the bottom. We have displayed them in our classroom and we hope that if we are having a tough day they will act as a reminder of a happy place and help us to begin to feel better.

PE

on the MUGA, we have started working on football skills, beginning with passing and dribbling. In the gym hall we did fitness stations and talked about how these stations made our hearts beat faster.   We counted how many of each exercise we did and set a goal for next time.

We did a game where you had to make it to the other side without someone tackling you – L)

Outdoor learning

We did some outdoor learning in the fresh air too.  Working with your friends outdoors is a great way to help your feel happy. We worked in teams to create artwork using what we could find in the woodland.

We were working in groups to make a art picture out of nature – K

My group made a rabbit called Willis – A