It’s been an action packed week in P5b…

Euro2020 football skills

We practised different football skills – we dribbled around mannequins, scored goals in a huge inflatable goal and played a minigame on the MUGA.  the goal had holes that were worth different points – lots of us found it tricky to kick the ball high enough.

Sports day

The whole school had sports day this week, in our stages.  P5 was Monday afternoon.  We did lots of different skills: rugby, javelin, throwing, spacehoppers, basketball, running, hockey and football.  We also did four different races.

Numeracy and Maths

We developed our estimation and measuring skills using volume this week.  We estimated the volume of different bottles and containers and then filled them with water and used scales accurately.

Literacy and English

We worked on identifying past, present and future as we have been confused these at times in our writing.  since it was Friday, we made sure we moved about while doing this job!

Coding

We used Scratch to code a Pong game.  We needed a background and two code two different sprites.  We used the forever and if commands .  We used our Maths skills with angles to make the spite bounce, by moving and turning in degrees. We also made on the the sprite be controlled by the mouse.  We will use these skills in our microbit hackathon on Monday.

Bikeability

We completed level One of Bikeability this week. We had to test our skills to check our bikes, helmets and clothes were safe. before mounting and dismounting correctly.  We worked on different stations for different skills – including pedalling in a zig zag, braking, checking over our shoulder and taking one hand off the handlebars for a high five.  We really enjoyed it.  At the end, we did a slow race to check our control. Cameron won the slow race! Zakir was our sports photographer.

Global Festival

We have explored the languages that we know in the class as part of Global Festival.  We know words in French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Korean, Arabic, Urdu, German, Afrikaans, Japanese, Dutch and Corsican. Three of us turned into teachers to teach others how to write in Arabic.

We watched videos from Crookfur pupils on how to make chapattis, pakora, Anzac biscuits and Indian tea.  We also learned some Bollywood dancing. We finished by playing Konki Noli, a Korean playground game.

The game was harder than it sounded, but all you need is 5 stones.

Did you know that we have family members in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia?  We can cover the whole world from our classroom!

In PE, We started our house point challenges before Sports Day on Monday.  We did basketball hoops, hulahoop passes and steal ball and three different races.  P5 sports afternoon is Monday – remember your kit!

Our powers of persuasion

Mrs Allan would like to apologise for any attempts made to persuade adults over the last fortnight, but she is very impressed with our new skills.

We have been learning about different persuasion techniques (word choice, appealing to better nature, problem solving and creating a new opportunity or something the other person wants to happen) and then using these in our writing.  Have you been impressed with our rhetorical questions?   We have also identified the techniques used in film posters and book blurbs.  We also spotted some when the instrumental teachers were trying to convince us to choose to play their instrument!

Flight

We used the VR headsets to look at some augmented reality barn owls, making notes on how their wings moved and the shape of the wing which helps it to glide and take off. We made notes based on our observations.

We attended a virtual visit with the Museum of flight, who explained the different forces needed to fly and land safely and the importance of aerodynamics.  We learned lots of amazing facts about Concord too.

Here, we are flapping our arms to stay in the air longer…. so fast we’re a blur!

We also debated what animals can and cannot fly, talking (at length, loudly!) about the importance of moving with your own power and the difference between flying and gliding.  after much debate, the results were:

Yes, that is a penguin!  Ask us more about what animals can, and can’t fly (as long as you have at least 5 minutes to spare).

We made some bottle rockets to explore the importance of thrust and power when making an object take off.  They were very effective!

PE… time for dance

We created disco tig, as our PE warm up.  You can see the rules in the photo. If you were “tug”, you had to be freed with a dance move. Then, we split into groups and we played a game where the first person created a dance move which everyone copied, then the second person copied the first and added their own and so on.   We were moving so fast, that some of us became a blur, and others almost began to fly….

The rules of the game

Classic running  man moves.

Mac taking off!

Outdoor learning

We went outside to the area at the bottom of the school grounds this week.

We found lots of different thickness of worms in a damp log. There were plenty of snails too. We carefully sanitised our hands after looking at them.

When we were outside, some people had a group effort to build a house.  When it fell down we had to rebuilt it again.

We made a seesaw from a log and plank of wood.

We had a competition to create the best slide down the hill.  We used, some pole, wood planks and guttering. The slide took the ball the whole way done the hill.  We had some snail spectators too 🙂

There was a secret tunnel at the back of a den! We used team work, problem solving, resilience and gross motor skills to move the equipment around, using our imaginations.

Health and Wellbeing

We explored online friendships this week, talking about the pros and cons of spending time with friends online, and how we sometimes felt after it.  We were surprised by how many of us sometimes felt a bit sad, worried or upset after spending time with friends online, compared to in the “real world”.  We spent some time exploring different alternatives to some of the more upsetting things we had heard.  Talking to friends online or while gaming should be no different so speaking to them face-to-face.

We drew detailed copies of feathers using fineliner pens, focusing on the texture and making the feathers look fluffy or not. We made sure we added that we saw and remembered that none of the feathers were perfect or symmetrical. We had a practise sheet first  and then thought about our success criteria.  We used watercolours to colour our work and we chose whether to use realistic or unrealistic colours.  our fabulous work is displayed in the corridor and we have received lots of compliments!

Flight

We were using the Chromebooks to complete some work on flight. We used our comprehension, art and imagination to complete different jobs.  For one of the tasks, we chose from a selection of birds, researched them online and then drew an accurate picture.

We learned:

• there are different wind types (gliding wings, delta wings, soaring wings and manoeuvred wings and take off wings and fast flying wings)
• on each wings there are covert, primary and secondary feathers that all do different jobs.
• there are 10 primary feathers on each wing that help flying most
• different lengths of wings are good for different jobs, such as shorter wings are better for turning corners

Time for time

In Maths we have been using time skills to look at timetables.  We found out how to fill in blanks in timetables. We learned how to calculate the minutes between times and how long journeys would take. We used real-life examples to show which bus or train to catch to get somewhere on time.  To finish, we created our own timetables based on some rules and created questions for our partner to answer.

Social Studies – Flying high!

In Social Studies we have been working on Flight.  For our first lesson, we explored and experimented with different types of flight with paper outside by making spinners and paper aeroplanes.  We used teamwork to help each other to make aeroplanes if needed!

The spinners worked much better with some weight, so we added paperclips to them to make them spin faster.   Adding a paperclip to the side didn’t make it spin faster because it moved too  much to one side.  Adding in the middle had the best effect.

If you added two paperclips underneath the “wings”, it made the spinner turn upside down.

We were experimenting with how to make paper aeroplanes go further. Ross’s went further because it was “pointy”. Haniya’s wider wings helped to turn corners in the air.

We also made a big mindmap of the types of things we want to learn and how we want to do this.  It’s on display in our classroom and we will add to it over the next few weeks.  We also had a discussion on what counts as flying.

PE

In PE we have been developing some hockey skills.  We progressed from dribbling and passing to tackling and mini-games all in one week!

Literacy

We started looking at our new reading  books for the next few weeks – we are focusing on non-fiction at the moment.

Time for Time!

As well as our number work, we worked on telling time to the nearest minute, rather than five past, ten past etc.

We worked so hard we managed analogue and digital at the same time! Ask us the time over the weekend 🙂

It’s lovely to be back together and we have been working with partners and in small groups and outside to enjoy the sunshine!

Health and well-being (Trees of life)

This week for health and well-being, we have been learning that everyone is unique and different so we have been working on our Trees of Life that show that everyone is special.

Inside our trunk, we put our strengths or things we are good at, and in our branches we wrote our dreams.  Inside our leaves, we wrote people who are special to us, and on our fruit we wrote why there were special.

Numeracy and Maths

This week we have been focusing on time, using lots of games to look at digital and analogue.  We played a sorting game in pairs and small groups to share our ideas.  We also did a scavenger hunt to make different numbers.  The numbers matched letters to crack the code.  The code was “frogs love leap years”.

We have enjoyed playing “guess the number”. A person chooses a number and each person guesses the number. This game is good fun but it also practises our memory skills and our number skills, our place value and prediction and problem solving.

We have been multiplication skills in games too!

PE

This week we have started to learn our hockey skills. We have been learning to hold the hockey stick correctly and how to control the ball and stop it. We began to speed up and practise going round corners using cones.

Literacy

We have been continuing our work on adverbs, adjective, nouns and verbs. .  We took our learning outside and played corners to practise and worked with a partner to sort the words into the different groups.

This week we wrote an informal letter to Mrs Allan about lockdown and being back at school. She was very proud of how we used our remote learning into the real classroom.

Woodlands

On Thursday, we spent time out at the Woodlands. Mr Orr challenged us to make a Winter themed sculpture. Some people made a gingerbread man with sticks, mud and apples. Some built a slay for Santa and his reindeers using some logs, tyres and some wood. We also attempted to make houses and igloos but some failed. We also made a Christmas dinner, where we made mud blended Turkey, including a sofa to sit on. We had a lot of fun doing this and showed lots of creativity, resilience and teamwork.

A snowman

Decorating the Christmas tree

An igloo for “Mick the Brick”

Christmas dinner over an open fire….

… with apple pie for pudding!

This sleigh with reindeer took lots of teamwork (and some rebuilding)

Team work on house construction.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

We learned about a famous Scottish artist this week who influenced many designs around Glasgow., We drew roses in the style of his artwork and we learned about his life. Yesterday was actually the anniversary of his death! He was born in Glasgow in the 1800s and he went to Art School where he made his friends and wife and they eventually became ‘The Four’.

Christmas Robins

We have been designing Christmas jumpers for our Christmas Robin which is going to be entered into a competition. We all did nice designs which were very colourful, with some of our class adding in backgrounds.

Numeracy and Maths

Using place value, we have been multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000.  We have also been developing skills in estimating and measuring accurately.  Everyone in the class was given a measuring stick and a sheet. We had to estimate items length within the class and use our own metre sticks to see if we were correct. We also had to convert measurements using metres and centimretres using games on the Chromebook.

Writing  

We have been continuing our learning on characterisation. We had plan continuing on a story called Black Beauty. We used STEAL (Speech, Thoughts, Effects on Others, Actions, Looks) and come up with our own version of Black Beauty, continuing the writing from the original extract. We used the same characters and developed them ourselves.  There are huge improvements in our Writing this term, as we use punctuation including speech marks more accurately; and work hard to uplevel our vocabulary.

Music

Now that we understand musical terms such as tempo, beat, rhythm and dynamics, we have been playing glockenspiels to the song “Happy”. It’s  important to ensure that we play at the same time to give the best performance.

This week has been an exciting week for P5B!

This is what we have learned this week:

Writing

We have been finishing the story of Toothie and Cat this week. We were given extracts from the text and we had to use the skills we have learned about characterisation. The challenge was to use the author’s techniques and what they did and also use our STEAL strategy. STEAL is Speech, Thoughts, Effects on others, Actions, Looks.

Expressive Arts

With Miss Burge this week, we learned about graffiti art from Egypt as part of our work on the country. We all went to the gym hall and rolled out a huge piece of paper. We each drew our own part and created graffiti art about something that is important to us.

Famous Scots

This week, we learned about Mary Queen of Scots. We found out that when she was born and that she was crowned Queen at a very young age. After we found out about her life, we created newspaper articles to show our learning of an important event in her life. We also used our drama skills and re-enacted her Trial where we had the chance to convict who did it!

P.E

Health and Wellbeing

We learned a new game called Minefield where Mr Orr set out lots of obstacles and we were given a partner, and told to close our eyes. Our partner was helping to direct us safely through the minefield without touching any of the obstacles. the difficulty levels increased with more mines and a more narrow field to navigate! We showed good teamworking and revised our direction work from earlier in the term.

We also learned about the digestive system. This is what happens after you eat. It starts off in your mouth and enzymes in your saliva break down the food and it is pushed down the  oesophagus and goes into your stomach where a weak acid breaks the food down even more. Your body absorbed the nutrients and ends up in the large intestine until it ends up leaving your body.

ICT – Spreadsheets

Today we used the laptops and learned how to use Excel. We had to find out how to use cell references on Excel.  Did you know that a row is represented by a number and columns are represented as a letter? We use this to easily find cells. A cell is any individual box on a spreadsheet. We used these to complete some tasks and we are very excited to learn how to display data as graphs tomorrow. We will be combining our grid references and data handling and ICT skills… Phew!

Music

In music, we are exploring musical terms and the difference between rhythm and beat. We danced during our Music lesson to ‘Happy’. Mrs Hutchison told us that after every few beats, we had to repeat an action and these beats changed. It was fun!

Health and Wellbeing

This week, we have been enjoying taking part in the Daily Mile. We run from the top of the playground to the bottom to improve our fitness and have some fresh air in the afternoon.  We have also  learned a new game called ‘Silent Ball’, where we are not allowed to make any noise, but have to work as a team to throw a ball to score a goal. In Silent Ball, you get warnings for touching another player, or making noise or otherwise you are out. It’s amazing to see our silent teamworking and tactics!

In Health & Wellbeing this week, we have been learning about the different dietary requirements and food groups.We learned about Halal food, Vegetarian & Vegan food. We played Cook In Castle, which taught us how to plan balanced meals and to make them have less sugar. We designed our own menu for somebody with a dietary requirement, thinking  carefully about the ingredients that went into the meal.  Some of our classmates who have experiences of vegetarian, halal, gluten-free or nut-free diets were able to offer helpful advice.  It’s great to see how we can learn from each other.

Literacy

This Thursday, we were given new reading books for our homework. We are all excited to read these as we all feel they are interesting books. We will use these texts to further develop our skills in exploring authors’ word choice.

Mr Orr gave us the opportunity to choose what we wanted to learn. We were shown facts about different famous/influential Scottish people within history. We took a class survey, something we had been learning about in Maths and from this we chose Andy Murray and Queen Mary of Scots.

We learned when Andy Murray was born, about his family, We also watched an interview of Andy Murray where he taught children how to play Tennis.  We used our scanning skills in a new way to answer questions on a factfile about him.

Maths

We have been learning about Pie Charts with Mr Orr this week. We learned how to use fractions and shaded pie charts on our worksheets. We learned how to interpret the data displayed in Pie Charts and we created questions of our own relating to pie charts.

Heartstone 

We have been reading our Heartstone book each week, and we are beginning to meet new characters.  We really enjoy the very detailed descriptions of the characters and settings. Chandra, the main character is a beautiful dancer, so we practised some classical Indian dance hand gestures, including one for mouse for Hugbundle! We also learned that Chandra means “moon” in Sanskrit.  It looks like a new character called Smirkmuzzle might be about to cause some trouble…