Hello and welcome to our Class Blog. Our teacher is Mrs Hussain :)
On Monday we brought our bikes in to be checked before we begin bikeability. We learned about the M check, starting at the front tyre, up to th handle bars and breaks, down to the pedals and chain, up to the seat and back down to the front tyre. We also checked our helmet size and that they were correctly fitted. If we have things to fix we were given a checklist away with us. We are looking forward to starting after the holidays!
This week we have been learning about forces and gravity. We began by learning about static electricity. We have experimented with balloons and know static electricity is related to electrons and lightning is linked to it too. We will be learning more about this next week.
We learned about magnetic poles and experimented with different sizes and shapes of magnet. We know a larger magnet doesn’t mean it is stronger. Next week we will make a game using magnets.
 
Finally we learned about gravity. We know gravity is a force which draws objects to the centre of earth and that two objects of the same size and shape will fall at the same rate because of gravity. It doesn’t matter what weight they are! We designed parachutes using our knowledge of air resistance and gravity to see if we could safely transport mini eggs from the balcony to the atrium. Everyone tested their original design and then made improvements. We discussed our changes with different teams to help us think about why we thought our changes would make the parachute better.
We then tested our designs twice. Some were more successful than others. Some toppled and the eggs cracked. Some had one or two eggs fall out. One parachute safely landed upright with all eggs safely intact and one box fell apart, though their parachute design was very good. All the eggs fell from quite a height!
This week was Ballot Week in P6a. The candidates had written their manifestoes, presented them and produced their own election marketing material such as rosettes and posters, before a final question and answer session with the electorate. The admin team made a ballot box, polling station and voting slips for the big day.Â
Heather was successful in winning the election and was named Class President Heather. She won following a campaign which focused on allowing the class to sit with friends until Easter, ensuring a fairer allocation of the p6 muga time for all the class, maintaining the class pencil drawer and a pledge to set up a class forum for discussing any issues which arise over a week.
Well done to Heather, her campaign manager Abby, all involved in the campaigns and the election preparation!
Congratulations P6a! You finished this week in 8th place overall, out of 111 East Renfrewshire classes that competed and qualified to enter . Your average score was 850! Wonderful work!
Abby’s final position was actually joint 7th place with three pupils from other schools, with 985/1000. Great work, Abby! Tom was joint 14th in the authority and Cameron was joint 42nd with 981 and 954, respectively. As you can see the competition was stiff! There were 2739 pupils competing so this is quite an achievement!
Next time we compete it will be a national contest with 1450 classes currently entered. As always there are 1000 questions, aimed at your level, and accuracy is key. If we all answer our 1000 questions we can climb even further up the table as the score is a class average for correct calculations, no matter how many you answerred. Last year Mrs Horne and Mrs Jamieson’s class won access to all areas of sumdog, not only maths, which was an exciting tool for their class to use while learning in P7.
Mark the 3rd – 9th of May in your diaries!
Today we took part in the school science fair. This meant some of the class displayed their science presentations in the gym hall for P1-3 to see, we all visited P7 to see their wonderful interactive biology, chemistry and physics rooms and we then shared our displays with P7 when they visited us. We learned a lot and enjoyed sharing everything we have learned, so far, this year in science.
We have had a really exciting week focusing on Science.
We started on Monday with some technology, making cardboard boats, made water resistant with tin foil, competing to hold the most weight. Dasha, Charlotte, Zara, Melissa, Heather and Ruby crafted the winning boat. It held 1300g, (Ben said, “That’s 1.3kg!”). Well done!
On Wednesday our writing was related to topical science news. We read a few articles and related fact files. We worked on our note-taking skills and next week we will created a sci-fi story of our choosing, linked to our chosen article.
That wasn’t all! Also on Wednesday we visited a planatarium…in our gym hall! It was awesome. We learned lots about stars, which was really useful as we recently began our Space topic with Mrs Horne.
Thursday’s science was preparation for our Friday showcase. We picked our favourite topic from science so far this year, and I’m groups prepared a display to tell everyone about it. We made displays for electricity, rock types, the eye, the ear, chemical reactions, light, shadows and the planets.
 
On Friday we shared our knowledge and learned lots from the p7 displays which were interactive!
We had lots of fun all week!
We are now in 8th position in the East Renfrrewshire contest. Congratulations to Abby who has completed 1000 questions and is currently in 8th position overall with 985 correct answers! There is still time to climb up the leaderboard. The contest ends at 8pm tonight. Good luck!
Today we visited a planetarium in our gym hall. Continuing the Science Week theme of journeys we went on a journey to the moon in the past, the moon in the future, the stars, Mars and Jupiter. This was very interesting as we have recently completed research projects on a planet from our solar system. We also posed a question we were interested in, and then found the answer to share with the class.
“The pictures are quite dark because the planetarium had to be dark so you could see all the stars and planets.” Heather
“Light pollution from street lights makes it hard to see the stars so we can only see the brightest when we are outside.” Ayah
“If you go to the countryside you can see more stars.” Emily
Below is a picture of Jupiter.
“It is the biggest planet in the solar system. It was Steve’s favourite planet (The man who ran the planetarium) because it is interesting.” Dasha.
“It is the King of the Planets.” Heather
Below are pictures of Jupiter’s moons. “These were the first four to be discovered. They were discovered by Galileo Galilei.” Sonny
“He saw them first because they were the biggest.” Tom
“This shows the orbit of the four moons.” Cameron
“The big red spot is a storm that has been going on for a long time.” Adam
“”You could fit three Earth’s in it side by side.” Tom
“The red colour comes from the gases.” Max
“This is Roz the explorer that will be sent to Mars.” Abby
“It will take 6 months to get there and then it will dig down to see if there is life underneath.” Tom
“Once it gets to Mars it will stay there. It will send pictures and information back.” Emily
“It can identify life on the planet(biological matter).” Adam
“This is a footprint on the moon. It was made by Neil Armstrong. He was the first man to step on the moon.” Ayah
“It will have happened 50 years ago on the 20th to the 21st of July” Lewis
“When Neil Armstrong went on the moon he was joined by Buzz Aldrin.” Adam
“Michael Collins was there too but he stayed on the shuttle. Someone always stays on the rocket.” Reuben
“12 people have seen Earth while standing on the moon.” Lewis
We all enjoyed the experience.
“It felt like you were moving when you watched it” Hannah
“I liked when we saw the future moon. He said that in the future people might be able to live on the moon. It had big solar panels and garden areas.” Alasdair
“I liked the star constellations” Aaliyah
“I liked the idea of all the people visiting the moon” Irina
It was a great day!
This week we are participating in the ‘East Renfrewshire Sumdog Challenge’. P6a are currently sitting in 10th postion with an average score of over 300 points! Keep it up!
This Thursday was World Book Day! We brought in props from our favourite books. Ayah had a full Hunger Games outfit and Heather had a bow and arrow set to match. We had special personal reading time, took part in a book swap and added to the ‘A Classes’ Travelling Book’.
P1 to 5 had written about a starfish that was rescued by a unicorn and taken to a magical land with lollipop trees and odd black goo puddles. We worked in pairs to think of ideas about where to take the story. We voted for our favourite and worked as a super team, contributing and voting on each event. We used great openers and wow words to create a problem for p7 to resolve in their conclusion. We can’t wait to hear how the story ends!
