All posts by Miss McCaskie

First Catch your Haggis!

Primary 4 have enjoyed learning and performing a Scottish poem called ‘First Catch your Haggis’ at our Burn’s Day celebration. We also had fun learning more about Scottish dialect. Oor Wullie was a great help when learning some new words!

“We enjoyed saying our poem to all the grandparents.” Connor

“We all had different parts to say in the poem. My line was all about catching the missing haggis!” Theo

“We were learning about different Scottish words with the help of Oor Wullie. My favourite word was oxters!” Molly

“I was on my quad bike and I got BOGGIN!” Liam

“My dog is sometimes crabbit and barks a lot!” Hollie

“Miss McCaskie said we were all very braw at our Scottish poem.” Primary 4

In ICT, we’ve been improving our touch typing skills using BBC Dance Mat Typing.

We have also been rehearsing for our class assembly which is next week. It is all about internet safety. We would love for you to come along on Friday 2nd February at 1.45pm.

Art and Science

Primary 4 have been learning about Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

“Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an artist from Glasgow. He was famous for his paintings, stained glass windows and furniture.” Eve and Scott

“We were drawing Mackintosh roses. We also added vertical and horizontal lines to our work.” Molly and Jacob

“He was asked to design a new building for Glasgow School of Art.” Ailsa

Here are are some photos of our fun skeleton activity.

Happy New Year!

Our first full week of school in 2018 has been a success!

We have been learning about gymnastics in P.E.

“We have learned different gymnastic shapes. My favourite shape was the bridge.” Rosie S

“The other shapes we learned were the Y, T, straight and star shape as well as the pike and straddle.”  Ailsa, Lucas, Molly and Connor.

“I really enjoyed making a short routine with our shapes. We worked in groups on the soft gymnastic mats.” Emily

“I would like to learn how to do a backwards roll next.” Harry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Science and Health and Wellbeing, we have been looking at the human body and how to keep it healthy. We were discussing the skeleton and The Eatwell Guide.

 

“We were learning about all the different bones in the skeleton. We labelled our skeleton worksheet to help us remember.” Theo

 

“I liked creating a healthy meal using The Eatwell Guide. I picked carrots, mince and potatoes.” Karine

We were very lucky to have some X-ray photos to explore in class.

 

Swimming, Christmas and Crazy Hair Day

“We have been taking part in swimming lessons for the past six weeks. I have learned how to make my front crawl and breast stroke better. I have liked going swimming every Thursday.” Jamie

“My group were learning about the back stroke. I have found our swimming lesson really fun.” Karine

“My swimming group were learning how to dive into the pool. Swimming was super fun but the diving was a little tricky!” Scott

“I was learning how to swim with ‘kicking legs’. We also had a go at swimming without our armbands.” Sandi

“On our final week, we had a fun session in the pool. We had floats, giant inflatable balls and a slide. We LOVED it!” Emily

“A Christmas elf called Elfie has appeared in our classroom. So far he has been very well behaved but we think he might be a little mischievous. We are keeping a close eye on him!” Kyle, Molly and Jamie

“Crazy hair day was lots of fun and everyone looked really cool!” Theo

Christmas Fayre Crafts and Our Learning in Numeracy

Christmas Fayre

“Primary 4 have made Christmas reindeers to sell at the Christmas Fayre.  We wrapped brown wool around the candy canes. This created the reindeer’s face.” Chelsea and Kay

“We had to make sure we wrapped the wool tightly around the canes.” Kyle

“We then glued on some googly eyes and a shiny red nose.” Liam

 

Numeracy

“We were dividing by 3 and 4. Our job was to make sure we were sharing the wooden sticks equally into groups.” Mitchell and Harry

“We were given a division calculation on a blue card and we had to use the wooden sticks to work out the answer. Using the wooden sticks helped me to count.” Sean

“We were working in a group to share pens out equally.” Theo

“We have been learning how to divide two digit numbers with remainders and exchanging.” Rosie

 

 

Our Open Afternoon

We would like to thank our family and friends for coming along to see all of our wonderful work in Literacy, R.E, ICT, Science and Social Studies. We hope you had as much fun as we did!   

“In groups, we decided what activities to have at each station.  We selected some examples of our healthy eating plates to show the parents. We also had i-pads showing our chocolate sweetie adverts.” Scott

“We worked hard setting out the activities at our station.”  Connor

“Our job was to make an online questionnaire using Microsoft Forms. We wanted to find out if our family and friends enjoyed our open afternoon.” Liam and Eve

“At our station we were matching adjectives to the correct character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Rosie

“For our R.E station (all about Shabbat), we told the parents lots of facts we had learned. For example, Shabbat starts after sundown on Friday evening and ends after sundown on Saturday. Saturday is a day of rest for Jewish people.  We also played a game matching descriptions to the correct picture.” Emily and Theo

“We were telling the parents different examples of kosher and non- kosher foods. We also designed Kosher menus which followed Jewish food laws. An animal must have a split hoof and chew their cud to make it Kosher.” Harry

“At the science station, we were carrying out an experiment to see if white sugar cubes would dissolve in water. We asked the parents to predict what they thought would happen first.” Jamie

“We showed our family and friends our writing jotters. We had written recipes for chocolate and chocolate cake. We’ve also written newspaper articles about the finding the last golden ticket” Sandi and Karine

“At the cocoa bean station, we were telling the adults how to make chocolate. We also asked the parents to find the top three countries which produce the most cocoa beans on a globe and a world map.” Molly and Lennon

“We all enjoyed taking part in our open afternoon!” Lucas

Halloween

It has been an exciting week in Primary 4. We have been engaging in some spooky activities!

“In maths, we completed Halloween multiplication and addition puzzles. Once we had answered all the questions, a hidden spooky picture was revealed.” Ailsa

“In literacy, we were working in pairs to think of as many different spooky adjectives as we could.  We wrote Halloween stories with scary characters and settings.”  Josh

“My story had a zombie in it and was set in a graveyard and down in the sewers.” Scott

“We learned a super Halloween song that we could use if we were going trick or treating.” Jamie

“We dressed up as characters from our novel study, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Theo and Lewis

 

 “All the classes in Neilston Primary had a parade to show off our fantastic costumes.” Emily

Oompa Loompas!

This week, Primary 4 have written an imaginative story involving the mischievous Oompa Loompa characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We were using descriptive adjectives and excellent openers to enhance our stories. To inspire our writing we watched a video of the Oompa Loompas in action, listened to their music and viewed pictures of them. We had super ideas…

Planning and sharing our ideas:

“The Oompa Loompas were left in charge of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and they let five wicked people inside. They ate all the chocolate!! Mr Willy Wonka was very angry but the Oompa Loompas just decided to sing and dance.” – Kay

“The Oompa Loompas turned the chocolate factory into a museum. They made cool objects out of chocolate and sweets to show the public.” – Rosie

Writing our stories:

“In my story the Oompa Loompas decided to organise a big party inside the chocolate factory. They invited everyone and all the guest were swimming in the chocolate river. They also stole all the sweets and Willy Wonka told them that they were very greedy and naughty!” – Lucas

“The Oompa Loompas turned the chocolate factory into a carnival and they partied all night long. Everyone from the town was invited. The rides were made out of sweets and there was also a chocolate river.” –Liam

 

Designing an Oompa Loompa character:

Solids and Liquids

In Science, we have been learning about solids and liquids. We investigated a variety of substances, e.g. coffee, sugar, lentils and flour, and discovered how they reacted when they were added to water. We first predicted whether these substances were soluble or insoluble and then carried out the investigation.

“The coffee dissolved in water but the dried peas did not. The peas floated down to the bottom of the beaker.” – Molly

“I learned that a solid is really hard.”- Theo

“I learned that some solids will dissolve in water. Sometimes the water also changes colour.” – Emily

“To make our experiment fair we made sure to use the same volume and temperature of water for each beaker.” – Rosie

“Next time we would like to try and melt chocolate from a solid to a liquid.” – Liam

Scottish Maths Week in P4

 

Primary 4 have thoroughly enjoyed Scottish Maths Week. We have played online maths activities on Sumdog in class and as part of our homework.

“Sumdog has helped me get better at subtracting. It has been lots of fun” – Lennon

“We have used the new chromebooks and iPads to try out Sumdog.” – Harry

We have developed our financial life skills this week through discussions about our needs and wants. As we get older we will have to decide what to spend our money on.  We are beginning to understand the difference between a need and a want and appreciate why sometimes we will not be able to afford both.

“Sometimes in life we want things that we don’t need. I will think carefully whether I need something or not.” – Rosie

We also planned a party which has developed our budgeting skills. Our aim was to carefully add together the cost of each item to make sure we did not overspend. We were also calculating the change we would receive after buying particular items.

“We solved a problem by deciding which items to buy for our party or not. My group managed to stay in budget and saved £2!” – Jamie

The Fractions Fiesta was also a lot of fun.

“We were sharing out Smarties to show different fractions.” -Chelsea

“The Primary 7s helped us to think about what we already know about fractions as well as learn some new things.” -Josh