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…

We were very lucky to have 3 special weeks in one week!  Here are some examples of our learning this week.

Anti Bullying Week

We talked about the difference between bullying, being rude and being mean.  Being rude is accidental, being mean can be accidental or on purpose with actions or words, bullying takes place over a longer time and is on purpose. Bullying can sometimes be calling people names.  We created anti-bullying posters to show the things that we learned.

Road Safety Week

This’ year’s theme for Road Safety Week was “No Need to Speed”. We were working with Mr Orr to discuss Fair and Unfair statements about road safety and we sorted them out in pairs.  We debated each statement.  We talked about things like “Drivers should not use hands free phones”; “Parents should only walk to school with their children”;and “Kids should only cross the road with an adult”.

Book Week Scotland

We created our own blurbs using a website which asked questions about characters and adjectives and then we made fronts covers to match. Blurbs and front covers are very important because they tell us what the books are about.  The blurb gives you an idea of what happens in the book, but shouldn’t include any spoilers.

We played a listening game while Mrs Allan read a book, to do actions for verbs, characters name, adjectives and connectors. Then we played the game in pairs.

As the finale we all wore hats to school as a Mad Hatters Tea Party.  We heard part of the story of Alice in Wonderland over the tannoy on Monday. We think we look fabulous!!

French

In French, we practised out numbers to 20 and revised our French colours.  We played outside with Mr Orr to run and find a colour after he shouted the colour in French.

Le coleur est jaune.

Le coleur est rouge.

Apologies for the lack of photographs this week – the class camera was uncooperative!

In Numeracy and Maths we have been learning about bar graphs. We have been learning that all bar graphs must have a title , labelled axes and we have been using scales at the side to compare variables.

We have been exploring equivalent fractions too.  Did you know a half is the same as two quarters and that four eighths is the same as two quarters? We noticed patterns from our multiplication tables in the rows of our fraction walls. We have been shading and creating fractions, remembering to  look at the numerator and the denominator.

In Literacy, Mr Orr has worked with us on scanning. This is looking through a text for specific words.  We used this this new skill to answer questions and to find words in the dictionary. We started our Heartstone Odyssey book this week too and we’re excited to find out what is so special about the Bishop’s story. The whole class will read this book together, and discuss the themes raised, and explore the characters, setting and message through Expressive Arts.

As you might have been able to tell by the way we came home on Friday, we had a fabulous time in  our sponsored Mini Mudder!  We made some spider and ghost decorations to make it more spook-tastic. We were (very) muddy and wet thanks to the super soakers and water guns.  The final obstacle was a crawl under a net… we were VERY muddy by then. Some of us almost fell!

Our jotters have gone home with us today (Friday 6th November).  Please enjoy looking at them and send them back to school  on Monday 9th November.

African adventures

With Miss Burdge, we were studying the continent of Africa.  We explored different African patterns and made some ourselves using coloured pencils. There are two different types of pattern: symbolic and geometric ones.

After some group research using the Chromebooks into different countries, we had a class vote and we will be exploring Egypt from our classroom!

 Beautiful blending

We used primary colours to mix into secondary colours and blended them (1 + 1 = 2) . Some of use did such a good job with our blending that you can see tertiary colours too. A tertiary colour is when you mix a primary colour and secondary colour (1 +2 =3). We used charcoal and 6B and 2H pencils to create shade and tone to make 3D shapes.  We cut out our 3D shapes and added them to our beautiful blending as a background.  Mrs Allan was very proud of our hard work and we’ve had two compliments on our display already!

Compasses and directions

We have been working on directions and compass points this week. when you are giving directions, we have been using forwards, backward and turning right and left through 90 degrees.  the four compass points are North, South, east and West and we followed the compass points in chalk to in the playground before we completed the work in our jotters.

We have been exploring patterns in Maths Week 2020.  We created patterns using lines, and looked at the patterns and links between multiplication and division.  Exploring the links and patterns helped us to create more complex calculations.

Perfect parabola

A parabola is a special type of bend in a semi circle (R.H).  Parabolas make an upside down U, and you can predict the angles, which makes them important for satellites.

We made these part-parabola patterns using lines and rulers not curves! Some of us coloured them in like a checker board to make it look more 3D. We created parabolas in PE on the MUGA by throwing balls to each other, making them high enough to see the upside down U shape.

Amazing arrays

Arrays can help us with multiplication and division. We used pebbles in rows and columns to make the calculations.  for example, 4 rows of 7 pebbles would make 28, and then show the division for that too. We wrote all the calculations we could make with the array next to it: 2 multiplication and 2 division. Making arrays helped us to do more complex multiplication and division, as you can see…

Marvellous multiplication pebbles

Through the week, we made multiplication stones.  We used chalk pens to create dots and numbers for multiplication tables.  We are going to use them to make calculations and to skip counting. We also added them into our fraction walls…

Fabulous fraction walls 

When we were at the woodland, we gathered some natural materials to help us make fraction walls.  These showed us the patterns and links between fractions and multiplication and division.  We created walls, some of us showed complex fractions, some equivalent fractions, and some showed division facts.

We used different colours to make our fractions. We divided our shape into ninths. 4 ninths were green in different ways, using leaves, apples, grass and parts of a tree.

In our wall, the top is one whole and then halves, then thirds, then quarters, then sixths.  We talked to Mrs Allan about equivalent fractions, that 3 sixths is the same as one half.

We used different colours of leaves and stones for our wall.  We used one colour at the top of brown leaves, two colours in the middle and then four colours (red, yellow, and brown leaves and stones for quarters.

We found it difficult to gather all the resources. We used the multiplication pebbles on each part.  On the top, we used 4 stones to make 36 (4 x 9), and then we divided in each half (2 x 9 twice) and then again (1 x 9 four times). when we divided the quarters again, it was 4.5!

We used twigs for the top part and it was hard to snap the twigs. We wrote calculations using the multiplication pebbles at the side.  The total that we had was 24 using the 6 times table stones.  Every layer added up to the same amount because it was the same as the one whole at the top.

We were going to make our lines longer, but we changed it because we didn’t have enough resources.  We talked about moving from halves to quarters and then we talked about eighths, but it was hard to show the eighths using the resources.  We had a lot of different ideas!

Sweet Dreams!

Inspired by the BFG and Roald Dahl Day on 13th September, we made dreamcatchers from lollipop sticks and wool. The trickiest part was tying the knots together. Once we made the outer triangle we used coloured wool to make the web to catch the bad dreams.  We went to the courtyard to make them in the sunshine.

Delightful division

We have been working hard on division and now we are very good at it! We have been using different strategies including sharing matchsticks equally and using multiplication squares to help work out remainders. We have been working using 3 digit numbers and remainders.  Fixing our corrections is helping us to learn even more about how we think about our calculations. We know we can keep it up next week!

Marvellous Mandalas

We were creating mandalas outside with Miss Burge. A mandala has lots of different patterns inside it. Some religions create mandalas as part of their prayers and ceremonies and share the blessings by pouring the sand in the river. Sometimes they take weeks or months to make from sand, but ours were created in one afternoon from  things we found outside.

Sugary Sweetie Structures

We developed our design and technology and maths skills by  making models from toothpicks and gummed sweets, inspired by famous buildings such as the Golden Gate Bridge , the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben.We had a budget of £100 to buy our resources.  It was difficult to make sure they stayed up straight as they grew taller. It needed lots of teamwork to make it!

Nessie Hunters!

As part of our topic of Myths and legends topic, we were exploring the Scottish myth of the Loch Ness Monster. We acted out different hoaxes of photographs of Nessie. Despite the hoaxes, sonar has shown that there might be something in the water, but it’s too murky to be photographed. ..We improvised different versions of the story or created our own hoax and then performed them in the courtyard for each other.

Smashing Shape work

In Maths we have been exploring 3D shapes.  We were making 3D shapes out of matchsticks and blutak. We made cubes, triangular prisms and challenged ourselves to make other shapes too . We revised the properties of 3D shapes, looking at edges, vertices and faces.  We have also focussed on multiplication this week, with a choice of activities to challenge and extend our learning.

We also linked Maths and Expressive Arts. On Thursday we made a 2d circle into a sphere and we used toning and shading and different types of pencils to make the circle look 3D. It was quite tricky getting the shading in the correct place.

Wonderful Woodland

We braved the elements on Friday to visit the woodland. As you can see from these fabulous photographs we showed creativity, bravery, teamwork, resilience, problem solving and perseverance!

“It was hard… we had to do a lot of team work. We used logs and tyres as seats. I’m holding the torch for the fire.” (H.F)

“We needed lots of wind to keep it up.” (R.J)

“I was the security guard while we were working on it” (D.C)

“We had to break some sticks to hook the tarpaulin onto” (B.H)

“I did my den by myself. I found a tyre lying next to the tree and I used that for the base of my den. I also used sticks for the roof and decorated it with leaves, weeds, grass and apples. I also used a muddy brick for the door and I used a big log for the chimney of the house.” (R.G)

“The idea started off as a raft, but then people were using it as a bridge so it turned into a bridge” (R. H).  “We used lots of logs to make a bridge” (I.G)

“We also had to get thick logs and skinny ones” (E.G)

“It needed a lot of team work and negotiation to tell everyone where to put the logs” (D.S)

“We all worked together to bring the logs” (Z.A)

“The logs were very slippy and I almost ended up in the mud! (C.B)

“It was great fun to walk on the bridge” (K.W)

“The mud was VERY slippy.” (H. S-A).

“Even Mrs Allan helped” (I.G)

“I got a nettle sting, but we put a dock leaf on it” (A.H)

“Eventually the bridge went around to the tree.” (R.L)

Chalk Obstacles

We used chalk to make obstacle courses in the playground for PE.  It was a lot of fun. Some groups found it easy to combine their ideas, but some groups had to work on their negotiation skills.

Abstract Emotions Art

We explored showing our feelings by using colours in oil pastels. For example, using blue for sadness and yellow for happiness.  We talked about what colour more complicated emotions (like confusion) might be. We also used shapes, lines and squiggles instead of making our picture look like a real thing.

Outdoor Learning

We used clay to create faces on trees in our woodland, based on Green Men, which appear in lots of cultures to help new starts and rebirth. We gathered branches, stones, leaves and sticks to create our faces.  Some have beards and some have nostrils…

Numeracy and Maths

We were exploring symmetry this week.  That means that both sides of something are the exact same.  Our patterns and pictures had two lines of symmetry. We practised these skills inside and outside the classroom, using things from nature and other materials to make pictures in the playground. We also did some pixel art.

Literacy and English

We completed a story starter this week about a cable car, trying to make our story funny or scary! We worked very hard on our vocabulary and our punctuation.  We used pyramids to help us with spelling exciting words and suggest punctuation.

In our Wandering Adventure we used a story to think about questions. Ask us what we think about living somewhere instead of visiting and if you can be sure that you know something…

We have been settling in well to Primary 5b, concentrating on working together again and enjoying spending time getting to one another once more.

We made paper planes about ourselves and threw them in the MUGA.  When we picked up a plane, we had to think about who it described.  We know lots about each other! We created self-portraits with a fold down mask, and talked about our personalities… Who is the person behind the mask?

We watched a short film about vultures and meerkats called “Catch it”. As you can see, we learned a lot about teamwork and resilience by watching the meerkats working together.  We want to Be more Meerkat!

In Health and Wellbeing, we have been taking about keeping our worries in perspective and that talking to someone can really help. We talked about two stories together to explore these ideas.

In Numeracy and Maths, we have been practising our skills through games using our own resources. In our dice games, we have been using careful thinking to make the largest number possible… although sometimes our dice are only rolling the number 1!