Last week we had lots of Chanukah celebrations.

Every school morning we lit the Chanukah candles in our classroom. We had to light the amount of candles from the night before. Then every afternoon, we went down to the hall to light the school chanukiah.

During the week, we designed and created our own chanukiahs using clay. We started by getting some clay and moulding it into the shape we wanted. (We made as many as we could.) After we moulded them, we left them to dry. The following day, we painted them and put PVA on them in order for them to Once completed, we sold them to the classes and made more than £100. We have decided to give the money to a charity called Camp Simcha.

On Friday we had a Chanukah party with Primary Four, Five and Six. Each class had to choose a game for everyone to play. Primary Four chose limbo, Primary 5 chose the hoop game, Primary 6 chose four corners and we chose the mars bar game, except that it was smarties and chopsticks!

At the party, we all had a freddo and orange juice. We all had fun at the Chanukah parties and want to do it again next year.

On Wednesday the 6^th December, Stewart from The Tree of Knowledge visited Primary 7 and gave us a fantastic workshop.

This workshop was about creating a business and how to make your business successful.

First, Stewart introduced himself by telling us a funny story about him and explained that he was a motivational speaker. Then he split us into groups and gave us a challenging logo and slogan quiz.

Once we finished the quiz, we thought of our business names as well as an advert. We created a poster showing information about our business. The adverts were really funny, persuasive and really enjoyable.

When the adverts were finished, it was time for the best part of the workshop. Making money!

Stewart provided each group with a prototype which looked like a toy boat. The boat was made out of different parts called products. We had to buy products from the Warehouse and then build each one and sell them for £10. Each product had to look the exact same, if it wasn’ we would have to fix it and bring it back to him.

At the end of the first round, we had to collect our money and get ready for round 2. After each round it got trickier and trickier.  At times, Stewart changed the product from a Red circle to a Green circle or to a Yellow circle. On the last round if we gave Stewart a product that didn’t look like our prototype then he would break it up, give it to the Warehouse and we would lose our money.

At the end of the day, Stewart told us the scores and Team 3 (SuperStore) won it by making the most profit.

Ava said, “I love the idea of making the products, it was really fun!”

Faizan said, “I loved building the products.”

Jenna said, “I loved doing all the activities and it was very competitive.”

Daniel said, “It was really enjoyable. I loved it from start to end.”

Louis said, “I Loved making my own business called Super Cookie Time.”

World Book Week

Last week Calderwood Lodge celebrated Book Week. Each day we had an activity related to books.

Monday: P1 had a book bug afternoon.

Wednesday: Dress as a character from a book.

Thursday: We had a swap shop and people brought books in to swap.

Friday: We brought in our favourite books to read to the class. Primary 7 read to the nursery.

On Wednesday the whole school visited each classroom and were read a book by the class teacher.

In Primary 7, most of us dressed up as characters from Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

Jenna: Oompa-Loompa

Ava: Verruca Salt

Flora: Violet Beauregarde

Faizan: Willy Wonka

Harrison: Grandpa Joe

Jamie: Charlie

Ellie: Mike TV

Zipporah: Dumbledore

Zidane: Alex Rider

Fatimah: Shere Khan from Jungle book

Sophia: spy

Ksenia: Coraline

Zaynah: Matilda

Muhammed: Crayon

Zak: Pep Guardiola

Daniel: Horrid Henry

Louis: Greg Heffley

This week Primary 7 have been writing their own children`s books for Primary 1.

Before we started writing the books, we looked at other well-known children’s books to compare the similarities and differences. We noticed that childrens books have a lot in common for example, they rhyme, they use alliteration and a lot of the books were based on animals and aliens and more fictional characters.

Once we looked at these books, we planned our own. 

Week 1: Created our characters

Week 2: Created our setting

Week 3: Created conflict or a problem in our story.

Week 4: Created a resolution for the problem.

Now that we have written our stories, we are typing them on the laptops in the form of a book. We are even creating a title and blurb.

We are all super excited to read the stories to Primary 1!

Daniel and Zak

Last week we had a whole school challah bake, the atmosphere was amazing; everyone was singing and dancing while plaiting their challah dough!

This week, we watched the annual pantomime. The panto, Jack and the Beanstalk was in the gym hall with the AMAZING seats unfolded. Everybody had so much fun! At one point Jack’s mother got P3 teacher-Miss Reid and P6 teacher-Miss Beret up to dance with her!

By Flora & Faizan.

On Wednesday 25^th October we had our amazing Rosh Hashanah assembly. We practised our lines for multiple weeks and even had to learn a song with dance moves!

Our assembly included a detailed explanation of Rosh Hashanah with songs and dancing.

Rosh Hashanah means head of the year. Rosh Hashanah is a festival we celebrate every year and it includes: eating apples and honey to symbolise a sweet new year. We blow a rams horn called a “shofar” to wake us up for the New Year. We do something called “tashlich” which is where you go to a pond with fish and recite a prayer. Then you throw in breadcrumbs, this represents throwing away our sins so we can start anew for the New Year.

It was very fun and we hope to become better people in the New Year.

Happy New Year!

Jamie and Zipporah

This week Primary 7 and the whole school have been doing a fitness program with Joe Wicks, a body coach.

During the body coach training, there were 4 rounds of different exercises which lasted for 20 minutes. Some of the exercises: mountain climbers , squats, press ups and lunges.

On Thursday the whole school went down to the hall. We all took part in the workout and got very sweaty.

Overall we had a fun, but very tough week. We would really like to get Joe Wicks to visit our new school.

Ava and Zak

This week P7 went in to the art studio to start their class charter. If you don’t know what a class charter is, it’s a big poster with some  articles on it and the SHANARRI headings. SHANARRI means safe, healthy, active, nurtured, achieving, responsible, respected and included.  We’ve got to make sure these headings and articles are included in our charter. Our theme for the class charter is a park with houses and windmills in the background and a big pond. We decided on this theme as a whole class.

When we went into the art studio we got lots of resources like glue, tissue paper, fuzzy felt and lots of other things. We got to the tables and got our art out. It was lots of fun sticking all the different materials on and using a spacious area to work in.

By Jenna and  Louis.

On Friday 1^st of September, Primary 7 went on their first trip to Safety in the park at Arthurlee House.

Safety in the Park is an event where Primary 7 classes across East Renfrewshire come to learn about Safety in the park.  Although when we arrived Craigholme Primary were there too!

We all arrived and got into groups of 4. There was all sorts of activities like investigating a car to find evidence, seeing what it’s like being drunk (so weird) with the use of goggles, following a stranger and getting the police to stop us, learning about online safety and looking at Scottish power.  It was a really fun experience and I’m sure we all enjoyed it.

Daniel and Sophia

We have enjoyed our first week at our brand new shiny school. So far,  we have loved working in  our new school because it is so big and there are lots of new learning areas.

We had a tour of our school and saw rooms that we didn’t have in our old school like: changing rooms, art room, sensory room and science room. They were all great to look at and we can’t wait to use them.

There is a massive gym hall and with great cupboards to put our new equipment in. There are also stairs which come out of the wall. We get changed in the changing rooms.

Primary 7 is an exciting year because we get lots of responsibilities and duties such as House Captain, Buddying and monitoring etc.  We are very lucky because in the lunch hall Primary 7 have reserved tables.

We hope to have a great year and we are excited for the challenges that we will face in Primary 7.