Class Trip, Religious and Moral Education

Chanukah

December 14, 2015 Gayle Santi

chnaukah

Every year, Calderwood Lodge celebrates the Jewish festival of Chanukah. All of the world Jewish communities celebrate this festival and in Calderwood Lodge we feel that it is a great time to show how much we appreciate everything we have in life.

In our school, the primary four class preformed The Story of Chanukah at the school Chanukah Assembly. Other performances included:

A group of primary sevens preforming the Chanukah story by taking song lyrics from the well-known musical “Les Miserable” and turning them into Chanukah related lyrics,
Children playing Chanukah songs on the violin or viola,
The school choir preforming their Chanukah songs to the whole school.

We also go down to our school hall each afternoon and watch a selected child from each class say the brachot and light the Chanukah candles.

This year, all the classes have had the opportunity to visit Shul and light the cnadles there. You can read more about that in Hassan’s blog entry.

Chanukah is about rededication and remembering the great miracle that happened many years ago. It is also about showing thankfulness to the people around us that we sometimes forgot and also forget how much that person has helped us. It is also about having fun and continuing the Chanukah traditions that are carried out every year by people all over the world.

Happy Chanukah Everyone

By Madeline Friel

Class Trip, Religious and Moral Education

Candle Lighting at Shul

December 10, 2015 Gayle Santi

On Tuesday, P5, P6, P7 went to Giffnock Shul. We went to Shul this week because we are celebrating Chanukah. When we arrived, each of the boys had to wear Kippot to respect the Jewish Religion. We read the afternoon prayers with Rabbi Eli and afterwards we lighted the candles on the Menorah.

When we finished prayers, we had sugary doughnuts, chocolate doughnuts and orange juice and also the Rabbi gave us gifts which were dreidels, to help us to celebrate Chanukah. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and found the Jewish traditions very interesting.

By Hassan Hashmi

-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

Health and Wellbeing

Hockey Tournament

November 30, 2015 Gayle Santi

On Thursday 14th November, schools from all over East Renfrewshire went to a hockey tournament to compete with each other. At first, each team had 4 points each. Many people participated in the event.

Most of the teams were older and had more experience than our Calderwood Team had. We hadn’t been a team for as long as some of the other schools, so we had not had as much time to practise. Pupils from primary 4, 5, 6 and 7 made up our team. We did try our hardest, but we weren’t good enough for them this time round.

What I found fascinating, was that there were two people in one of the teams that we played against that were actually Polish!

In the end, we finished and had not scored any points. However, Miss Abercrombie and Miss Munro were right, it wasn’t about winning or losing, it was about trying our hardest in the time we had and also about having fun. That’s what makes Calderwood Lodge so special, always trying our hardest in everything, no matter what.

Anna Karpov

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

Class Trip, Social Studies

Our Trip to the People’s Palace – WWII Workshop

November 26, 2015 Gayle Santi

Today the Primary 7 class went to the People’s Palace as part of our World War Two topic in school.

To start the trip, we met Laura who asked us lots of questions about World War Two, to see how much we had been learning. We got lots of questions correct! We then split into two groups. One of the groups went to the dairy shop and learned all about rationing. We learnt that you had a ration book and had to get it stamped every time they did a shop, we also learnt that you would get a block of cheese that would have to be shared between a family of 5 or more 5 and it would have to last about 3 weeks. We asked about the other foods and what might happen if you had allergies or needed Kosher food.
While Group 1 were at the Dairy, the other group were given a clipboard with a piece of paper which had a series of questions to answer and they had to find the answers in the museum.

Once both groups had a turn at both areas, we all got together again to take part in some role play and some of us even got to dress up. There were four groups: Woman’s Land Army; children and babies with gasmasks; first aid kits and injuries and Anderson shelters. We learned a lot here and got some great photographs too.

After that we all got to have lunch in the Winter Gardens in the lunch area and we all got a lot of time to eat and enjoy some time with each other. After we had finished our lunch we all got to look at all the interesting plants and trees that you don’t normally see in parks and gardens. It was a great day and it will help us a lot with our own curricular event for WWII when the parents visit.

By Amy Quigley

The whole class!

Questions about WWII

The Dairy Shop

An Anderson Shelter

What to take with us?

Real life War experiences!

Latest News, Religious and Moral Education

Shabbat U.K.

October 26, 2015 Gayle Santi

On Friday 23rd October 2015 it was Shabbat UK.

Shabbat UK is part of the Shabbos project. The purpose of the Shabbos project is a project that is made to call on all Jewish people and encourage them to celebrate Shabbat together. This project is celebrated all around the world and Shabbat UK brings lots of people together in so many different ways.

Our school celebrated Shabbat UK at our Kabbalat Shabbat Assembly on Friday. We started off with our normal Kabbalat Shabbat routine, with a few surprise changes in between. We also got to listen to a video message from the Chief Rabbi.

In this Kabbalat Shabbat we learned that it is important for all communities to work together in unity.

By Iman Rasool

-My Achievements, Religious and Moral Education

Simchat Torah

October 19, 2015 Gayle Santi

Calderwood Lodge pupils, teachers and parents celebrated Simchat Torah in style this month, with the help of our dynamic school Chaplain Rabbi Moshe Rubin.

The entire school from Nursery to Primary Seven gathered in the assembly hall for a short but lively service.

To begin, Rabbi Rubin got the school warmed up by singing Mazel Tov to Mrs Carlton in celebration of her recent marriage. Then every class got up and performed a traditional Israeli dance led by Ivrit teacher, Shosh Greenberg.

During this process the Primary Ones where blessed by Rabbi Rubin. They gathered together under his tallis as he recited a prayed, accompanied by the whole school.

The school where then led in a rendition of ‘O da vee noo chai’ by Rabbi Rubin who urged pupils to punch into the air whilst shouting, “Oi!” There was also lots of drumming on the floor, adding to the excitement of the day.

Next, The Chatan Torah (Freddie Hyman) and Chatan Bereshit (Josh Lewis) came forward to perform the most important part of the assembly. Freddie read the prays to end the years Torah readings and Josh read the prayers for the beginning of this year’s Torah reading.

Finally the assembly came to an end with a special reading performed by Elliot Line.

By Lilah Cowen