Category Archives: Literacy and English

Expressive Arts, festival, Literacy and English, Religious and Moral Education

Chanukah Assembly

December 14, 2015 Gayle Santi

Madeleine and Hassan have been telling you all in earlier blogs about Chanukah. As part of our celebrations, we went to see the Primary 4 class performing a Chanukah Show. The parents all came along to watch.

There was a short play that included songs and the story of Chanukah. The story talks about the Maccabis and how they went to war with the Greeks because the Greeks said no to Shabbat. They only had enough oil to light the candle on the Menorah for one night and miraculously, it lasted for 8 days.

The choir completed the show with the traditional Chanukah songs. There was a lovely electric atmosphere and all the children were excited for the celebrations. It is a special assembly every year.

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Social Studies

WWII Curricular Event

December 9, 2015 Gayle Santi

On Friday, Primary 7 turned our classroom into a World War Two registration room and invited our parents and grandparents to come and enjoy our WWII event. Our class held a World War II event. It was a chance to show our friends and family what we had been learning over the past few months. We had more than 20 visitors!

We set up a number of stations:
First of all, every visitor had to register for their identification card. We have learned that at any point during the war, if you were asked to display or show your ID badge, it was crucial that you had it on you.

Then, everybody had to register for their Rationing books and a specific store. At the store, they were able to learn about all the food that had to be rationed, and why. Everyone during the war had to register to a store to stop them using their rationing books in lots of different stores.

Everyone had the chance to make their own gas masks as well, which would be necessary during the Blitz. These were quite magnificent

Outside the classroom, we had a live radio broadcast by Amy Quigley and Lyla Gaizlie-Gardiner that followed the Blitz. And we also had information about the use of Propaganda posters and adverts and we got to show off our own.

On the whiteboard, we had a film showing each of us reading out some of our WWII evacuee letters and radio transcripts that we did in writing.

When our World War II event came to a close we sang songs that were very popular in World War II.

It was a great morning and all our parents and grandparents had a great time.

Literacy and English, Sciences, Technologies

Our Class Charter

December 2, 2015 Gayle Santi

Our Class Charter for Primary 7 is based on the solar system, as we have been learning about Space in our Science lessons. The background of our class charter is black with our planets on it in 3D. We made them using papier-mâché with Mrs Santi, Miss Ross and Miss Munro. We then stuck them on to the wall on hinges so that you can lift them up to see our information underneath it.. Each planet represents one of the SHANARRI indicators:

S-safe (Mercury)
H-healthy (Venus)
A-active (Earth)
N-nurtured (Mars)
A-achieving (Jupiter)
R-responsible (Saturn)
R-respecting (Uranus) and
I-included (Neptune)

As part of homework we had to go and write about how the words above are important inside our school. We also researched whether Plutp is considered a planet in our solar system. We also found out more information about the planets in the solar system. This was great fun to do and I’m sure that we all can’t wait to use the knowledge that we have learnt during this experience in our future.

By Iman Rasool

Literacy and English

Spelling Homework

November 27, 2015 Gayle Santi

New Spelling Homework

Primary Seven have been working on different spelling strategies this term and we have been learning a lot of new vocabulary. When it came to our assessment at the end of the term, we were a bit disappointed to see that we had not all remembered the spelling of the words that we had learned, which also meant that we had forgotten some of the strategies. We decided as a class that we would continue with the regular section of the homework where we wrote out our words three times, using the LOOK, SAY, COVER WRITE, CHECK method, but we would also do some extra or extension work from the spelling book to help us with our learning. I think this will help us to remember the strategies, help us with their meaning and then how to spell and use them in real life. I will come back on and update you on how we get on next term!

Elliot Line

Class Trip, Health and Wellbeing, Latest News, Literacy and English, Religious and Moral Education

Mitzvah Day

November 26, 2015 Gayle Santi

On Thursday 26^th November, the Primary 7 class visited the People’s Palace, as part of our World War Two topic. Once we had finished with our workshops and had lunch, we drove over to Westacres Care Home as part of our Mitzvah Day activity.

The Primary 1 class had all made lovely Chanukah cards as part of their Mitzvah Day activities. Since they are all a little young to visit Westacres, we took the cards and delivered them all for them. When we arrived, we sang a number of Chanukah songs for the residents and Lilah and Maddie played a Chanukah song on their violins. We also brought our writing jotters along with us to read them stories that we had written at school. By the looks of it, some of the men and women fantastically enjoyed them!

At the end, we sang once again because they had enjoyed it so much first time round. We sang a few Chanukah songs such as Ner Li, Maoz Tzur, and Sevivon. They all gave us a massive clap at the end. Some also said that we were amazing!

To end off our visit we decided to sing Bim Bom because everyone loves that song! We said goodbye to the elderly people and they us to come visit us again soon! I think we did a great mitzvah by visiting the elderly people and hopefully we can do it more often through the year and not wait a whole year for Mitzvah Day again.

Vaneeza Ali

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English

Book Buddies

October 7, 2015 Gayle Santi

Near the beginning of term, the Primary Seven class went downstairs to the Primary One class to come up with a story with them and create our very own book.

Each Primary 7 pupil worked with one or two of the Primary 1 boys and girls. We then sat together and gathered ideas from them about the books that they enjoy reading and what they wanted their story to be about.
We made some sketches that we would include in our book and the Primary 1’s helped with these drawings. This helped them to improve their art skills. Their talents were exceptional!
We then typed up our stories and we will soon be turning these into the finished products.

Some of the Primary One class might grow up to become authors one day since some of their ideas were incredible.
Miss Jagger and Mrs Santi helped us a lot as well. We all worked together to do our very best work. It was a really fantastic activity that taught us about responsibility and learning and I hope we get to do something like this again soon.

Vaneeza Ali

Class Trip, Literacy and English

Edinburgh Book Festival

September 11, 2015 Gayle Santi

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2015

In August, Primary Three, Five and Seven were lucky enough to visit the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The book festival is now a key event in the Edinburgh festival season, celebrated annually in Scotland’s capital city.

Each year writers and illustrators from all over the world come to the book festival and incorporate amazing workshops for schools and visitors.

This year Primary Seven met Nick Sharratt and Vivian French. We were even lucky enough to be able to work with the two of them in an extremely detailed and enjoyable workshop. They helped us to learn new skills that would help us all to improve our illustrating and writing. We learned about the start of Nick Sharratt’s career and the fact that he drew a market square at the age of nine and took it into school to show to his teacher and she thought it was good enough to be put up in the school hall! That was the day he became determined to, one day, become a professional artist.

After we had completed our workshop we continued to explore the book festival and discovered the bookshop. Most of the class had brought money to buy a book. We were fortunate enough to be given a discount voucher for three pounds off the price of any book of our choice.

At the festival there were ‘book doctors’. These were people that gave advice on books and helped you make the right choice before buying one or even a series of books. Not everyone used the book doctors which is understandable because some people prefer to choose books themselves. I used the book doctor and found them really helpful.

Before we headed home, the last thing we did was spend time walking around taking pictures and meeting actors and actresses who were playing a variety of characters from all sorts of books. They were extremely good at playing their chosen roles.

Overall, everyone enjoyed the day and I hope that we can go back again, if not as a class, I will definitely go back with friends some day.

By Madeline Friel

Primary Seven