Happy New Year from P5a!

This week we looked at non-fiction texts in literacy and chose the facts we thought were interesting.  Then we created questions for each other.

We made 2026 calendars using lots of different techniques:

pointillism for the 2026 using paint

zentangles for the background

paper sculptures for the bouncy springs.

They look great!

And that’s the end of term from P5a!

From Mrs Allan:

Your fabulous children have worked this socks off this term.  I wish you and your families a wonderful break together.  If you’re celebrating, have a great Christmas!

Many thanks for my generous and lovely gift… I’ll see P5a’s smiling faces next year.

This week, we were brilliant, wonderful, tremendous and magnificent in our P5 Cakes and Carols performance.

We spoke clearly, sang beautifully, danced elegantly and acted awesomely.  We hope you enjoyed it.  We thought you did very well during the 12 Days of Christmas too.

Some of us also performed our writing this week.  We wrote the dialogue of two snowman from an advert.  By using different words for “said”, we could tell how the snowmen felt and then performed it.

I enjoyed doing impressions if they were super excited so you acted super excited – L 

I liked reading out my dialogue and using the different emotions – A 

I enjoyed watching other people because they were funny and dramatic too – B A 

I really enjoyed acting out the drama – S 

As part of our Learning Journey on castlesm we had researched 4 weapons and made notes on a sheet during the open afternoon.

This week we had a choice of how to show our information.  We could choose between making posters, a Google Slide or using Chatterpix.

If we chose a poster, we had to include facts and make sure it included colour and pictures.

If we chose Google Slides, you have to includes facts and pictures from the internet. You could also choose a more interesting background.

On Chatterpix we had to choose a picture of a knight and then record ourselves for thirty seconds so you have to choose your words carefully. When we press play, our voices come out of the knight’s mouth.

Hello,

This week we developed our ideas as part of our work on Upstream Battle with Mr Atkinson.  First, we created our plans on paper and then used Tinkercad to create a 3D representation on the Chromebooks.  Next, we will vote on our favourite designs and create a model using junk materials.

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.