Month: December 2023

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

The class had a fantastic time at their Christmas party with the other primary 5 pupils, I was very impressed with the different dance moves! Well done to the pupils who, alongside Miss Campbell,  demonstrated Growth Mindset and determination with threading and sewing to create their Christmas craft.  I would also like to express my thanks for your support and generosity, I hope everyone has a brilliant Christmas and New Year when it comes!

Primary 7 Lesson

Earlier in the week three primary 7 pupils came to our class to deliver a Christmas themed art lesson. We all really enjoyed drawing and colouring in our penguins and winter settings.

Christmas Party

At our Christmas party we played lots of games like corners, musical statues, musical bumps and a best dancer competition! Some of us even won prizes for winning these games! Afterwards, we went back to our class and enjoyed some food and drinks.

STEM the Flow

We listened to one of the STEM the Flow sessions and during it we were challenged to build bridges using certain measurements out of Lego or KAPLA. It was very difficult to create a stable bridge and when we were testing them we discussed what we would do next time to be more successful.

Our winning design for the STEM the Flow competition can now be viewed here: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-action-schools/upstream-battle/stem-the-flow/2023-24/crookfur-ps/ we would really appreciate your vote!

Science

We had a great time this week learning about renewable and non-renewable energy that is used in Scotland. Using our summarising skills that we learned in our Literacy lessons, we researched some of the different types of energy and wrote short definitions of them, recorded where some of these energy sources can be found and if they are renewable or not.

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

We hope everyone who was able to attend the P5 Christmas Carols performance enjoyed it on Friday! The pupils had a great time and as mentioned in previous blogs I am very grateful for the support you have provided in the lead-up to this. They all did brilliantly and I am so proud of them!

Literacy and English

We have been learning about the differences between facts and opinions and how to recognise them in texts. We discovered that it is very important to look for key vocabulary such as “I think” as this helps us to identify that a sentence with this phrase in it is likely to be an opinion.

Numeracy and Maths

We have been working incredibly hard in Maths this week by learning about different Mental Maths strategies to help us with adding and subtracting, converting grams and kilograms, surveying classes and inputting the results into Google Sheets to help us to create bar graphs, using right angles and directions to record instructions which we tested on each other and deciding if particular objects could be measured using millilitres or litres.

Health and Wellbeing

With the hall being used for rehearsals we decided to put our fitness levels to the test by competing in races using the tracks outside! 

STEM the Flow

We have done a lot of research to help us finish our science posters that included a detailed explanation of our creations strengths and weakness, instructions of how it operates and recounting what ideas inspired us when planning the prototypes. Each group also presented their models and drawings to the class and now Mr Atkinson needs to review our projects and select one to submit to the competition.

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

The pupils had a great time wearing their Christmas outfits and visiting the present room on Friday. They are also very excited about the P5 Christmas Carols performance which is next week! Thank you for supporting your child with learning their roles, parts and songs. Also unfortunately due to the wet weather aspects of P.E. and Outdoor Learning may take place in class for the time being.

Literacy and English

This week Mr Atkinson challenged us to apply everything we have learned about letters to write an informal letter to a relative that we haven’t seen in a while recounting all the highlights of P5 so far. We organised our writing into paragraphs, structured our letter in the correct format, used connectives to create more detailed sentences and included some contractions.

Numeracy and Maths

In Maths we have been adding four digit numbers together involving carrying, learning about directions and how to read a compass, writing times in the digital format and using our multiplication skills in word problems.

Health and Wellbeing

We enjoyed doing timed stations in the hall and because of they wet weather we also did a workout in class to keep building our fitness levels. Then we did Pokémon yoga for a cooldown which was great!

STEM the Flow

This week we build our prototypes and compared our creations with our Tinkercad designs and drawings. We made some changes to improve our models and we have now started to plan our project posters which we will present and vote on to be the P5B entry for the competition.

Science

In our science lesson we discussed some examples of renewable energy such as solar, tidal and wind power that inhabitants of an island could use instead of fossil fuel. We also applied our knowledge of bar graphs to record energy usage at different times of the day. We then debated as to why more energy was used between certain hours. Some reasons included that more energy is needed from 5:00pm to 9:00pm as it is dark so lights are turned on in houses.

Expressive Art

For our P5 Christmas show we designed tickets and some them will be used to send to parents and guardians inviting them to the performance.

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

Rehearsals are well underway for the Christmas performance! The lyrics and video links to some of the songs can be found on our Google Classroom to help learn at home. As mentioned in the homework guidance no more homework will be issued for this term and it will resume in January.  Also some of the pupils in the class who have been attending recorder club performed at the assemblies – well done to them all!

Literacy and English

In our Writing lesson we discussed that you can write a formal and informal thank you letter depending on who you are sending it to. Afterwards, we wrote thank you letters to the Glasgow Science Centre and we focused on including connectives so that we could create more detailed sentences explaining what our highlights of the trip were.

We have been learning how to summarise paragraphs and texts by identifying what are the important parts that the reader needs to know and then reword the information in our summaries.

Numeracy and Maths

In Maths some of us have been investigating different multiplication and division links involving the 6, 7, 8 and 9 timetables.  We have also been ordering numbers, learning about place value, answering questions based on bar graphs and organising daily events in to AM and PM.

Health and Wellbeing

In our fitness session we competed in group races – it was very tiring!