January 2024 – P5b 23-24

January 27, 2024January 29, 2024

Primary 5B: Week Beginning 22/01/24

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

I am delighted to announce that our P5B entry for the first National STEM the Flow Competition has won the Best Overall Project! The pupils were so pleased with the result and we are all very grateful those who voted.

Literacy and English

In our Writing lesson we created poems based on Victorian items such as popular children’s toys. Applying our knowledge from the previous poetry writing lessons; some of us included similes, alliteration, rhyming patterns, onomatopoeia and for a challenge personification in our stanzas! Personification was tricky but as a class we discussed some ideas that we could use. We also all redrafted our seasons poems on the Chromebooks!

We have also enjoyed reading our new group books, doing some active spelling and answering comprehension questions based on different poems.

Numeracy and Maths

In Maths we have been working on different Mental Maths approaches and the steps involved to reach an answer. We have also learned the process to calculate the perimeter of shapes, how to convert CM and M, the probability of an event happening and different ways to record data for example in bar chart or tally chart.

Health and Wellbeing

In our Growth Mindset lesson we discussed what frustration feels and looks like and if we could think of any examples of when we have experienced it due to making a mistake. Following this we explored how Growth Mindset is like a bouncing ball as it represents bouncing back from challenges and tough times. A Fixed Mindset might look like a flat ball because if you don’t persevere or try something then you are just staying stuck in one place.

Outdoor Learning – LEAF

For our outdoor session we went around the school grounds to identify an area where we could study the changes over the seasons. We looked at the colour of the trees and branches, if they had any leaves on them, the plants growing around or on the trees and if there were any insects nearby. Afterwards, we went back into class and drew a picture of our chosen area and wrote a description about. We will update our records in Spring!

RME

In our RME with Miss Campbell we were organised into groups and given a religion to research. We have started to gather information on them such as major events, beliefs and religious symbols. Next week we will use the information to create posters.

IDL – Victorians

We drew artwork inspired by the Victorian artist William Morris who created tapestries, stained glass windows and patterned wallpaper. His wallpaper designs included floral features and sometimes had a repeated pattern in them. Using this style, we all created our own wallpaper which can be seen in our classroom Victorian art gallery!

January 21, 2024January 22, 2024

Primary 5B: Week Beginning 15/01/24

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

If the Scottish weather allows for it we will be resuming our outdoor learning sessions next Thursday so please can pupils have appropriate clothing in order to fully participate. The Woodland rotas have also been sent out with the Weekly Round Up which lists all the dates that we will be going outside, again weather and state of grounds dependent. Thank you for your support with STEM the Flow, we are eagerly awaiting a further update on the results of the voting.

House Spirit afternoon

All the pupils had a great Friday afternoon in their houses where they researched different ideas for the banner designs.

Literacy and English

Continuing with a our poetry writing this week our theme was a season of our choice. We decided to organise the class tables into different seasons and we sat around the table that was our season. This meant that we could talk and share our ideas which helped to inspire us with our writing. We were encouraged to include a simile, adjectives and alliteration as well as using the rhyming pattern ABAB to create the stanzas.

With Miss Campbell we also answered questions about our reading books to to ensure that we had a good understanding of the story.

Numeracy and Maths

Everyday this week we have been doing Mental Maths as our starter tasks and discussing the wording and strategies. We have also been learning about order of operations, how to calculate the area by using the formula L x B, creating timetables and determining the duration of events.

Health and Wellbeing

In gymnastics we developed our balancing techniques by performing them on benches and walking across beams and holding a pose which was more challenging.

Expressive Art

To support us with creating our poems we drew scenery of our season to help us visualise actually being there.

IDL – Victorians

On Friday we learned about some of the toys children from the Victorian era played with and discussed the differences with toys we like now.

RME

In our RME lesson with Miss Campbell we were learning about Judaism. One of our activities involved researching key beliefs and celebrations of the religion.

Science

In Science, Miss Campbell taught us about the electrification of transport. This is done through using green hydrogen as fuel. We looked at the process of electrolysis and how this is the splitting of water molecules to make green hydrogen.

January 16, 2024January 21, 2024

Primary 5B: Week Beginning 08/01/24

Mr Atkinson’s comment:

I hope everyone had a great festive holiday! This week homework will be resuming and we would also be very grateful if you voted for our entry in the STEM the Flow competition which can be found here: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-action-schools/upstream-battle/stem-the-flow/2023-24/crookfur-ps/

Literacy and English

We started the year with learning our new spelling sounds and words and reading our new books with Mr Atkinson.

We have now started our poetry writing block with a focus this week on learning how to rhyme using the ABAB structure in our stanzas and onomatopoeia linked to the theme of our winter holidays.

Numeracy and Maths

There was a lot of practical Maths this week involving using jugs to measure in ML and L and comparing how much water was in each container by looking at the scales. Using our knowledge of kilograms and grams, some of us estimated the weight of objects and then checked our estimations by using weighing scales. We had to read the intervals very carefully to ensure we got an accurate measurement. In another lesson we used the Chromebooks to explore calendars and solved questions based on the months. A challenging topic we learned about was what square and triangular numbers are and then we applied our understanding to create some of these patterns.

Health and Wellbeing

For our indoor P.E. session we have started our new Gymnastics series and this week we focused on honing the different types of rolls and group balances by discussing techniques. On Thursday for P.E. we are going to be developing our tennis skills. We have begun by making sure that we had the correct grip and hold of the tennis racket and then we started to work on improving our forehand by aiming and hitting balls at targets.

In our Growth Mindset lesson this week we discussed that failure and success can take many shapes and we all agreed that failure helps us to eventually succeed. Then we worked with our partner to help create a child-friendly definition of what being successful means. We then explored some famous failures such as J.K. Rowling and Walt Disney.

Science

With Mr Atkinson we created energy themed Top Trump cards by writing key facts about the type of energy and then we drew what they look like. We later used these in a game whereby one person was the judge who decided which person out of the two competitors had the better argument or stance for their energy source.

We also formed debating groups are defended our energy type by applying our knowledge of non-renewable and renewable energy to help counterargue points made by the other team.

After these activities we then wrote a balanced report pretending to be a scientist employed to champion and persuade the increased usage of renewable energy.