The big news since last time has to be our P4 folk making their First Holy Communion. The weather behaved and a great day was had by all. Well done to ‘The Sacramental Seven’ for all their hard work in their preparation and practising – well worth it in the end. Another well done to the rest of the class who helped support throughout. A thank you must go to Canon Eddie too for all his input to the day itself, the lovely retreat and all his visits throughout the year. We’ve also all been up to the church for Ascension Thursday and, of course, Eid has been celebrated by Rayan and Omar.

In other news we signed up to a couple of online lessons. The one on Biodiversity was interesting, especially the part about the wolves. We used the Earth Day lesson to further our knowledge on ‘Plastic Pollution’ and investigate the different (many) endangered species in our world. On that note it was our turn to Litter Pick for the week (we even went outside the school perimeter) – we did really well which was good for us in one respect but on the other hand it was pretty bad to have all that litter to pick up in the first place.

In terms of other lessons, in Maths we spent quite a bit of time on all things Time, about time Mr Burns said (yawn). We’ve now moved on to decimals, having talked about fractions again, which is new to most of us but we’re understanding what’s going on. In writing we did a couple of recounts, our own fairy tale story which was fun and a couple of informal letters, one to Our Lady and another one to ……………..We’ve also done another ‘Code Along’ where we made a ‘Beat the Goalie’ game. We’ve also started a class novel which is a nice thing to do together –‘Adolphus Tips’. This feeds into finding out a bit more about WWII and evacuees in particular.

We’ve been outside a bit, building cairns, investigating floating and sinking, learning about squatters’ rights through someone else’s den and having a ride on a log flume. The usual sort of stuff. During P.E. we’ve been focusing on striking and fielding through rounders and we had a Skipathon too which was a good laugh.

That’s about it for now – oh nearly forgot, the St Cadoc’s Cup has started again, it’s good to be in Mr Burns’ class for that one as he runs it!

Speak at the end of June when we’ll be all yours for the next 7 weeks! Lucky parents.

Roll on Friday and a well-deserved holiday for Mr Burns. I don’t know how he puts up with us. A very busy month on the religious front with the highlight being our ‘Sacramental Seven’ making their First Reconciliation – a lovely evening for families and staff alike. (pic) We obviously started Lent at the beginning of the month with Ash Wednesday (pics) and also had an online SCIAF assembly to kick it all off! (pics) We’ve all got our individual Lenten observances but as a class we have been trying to have a focus each week with ‘Do Without Wednesdays’ where we do without a snack and if possible put the money we have saved in the class Wee Box – fasting and almsgiving in a oner! (pic) Canon Eddie came in to do Stations of the Cross in the playground! That’s a first for us! This was especially for the Sacramental classes (P4 and P7) but our whole class got to go of course which was great. (pics) A big day for Shivansh during March as well, celebrating Holi. (pic)

A wee bit going on around being outdoors and PE. We did Beat the Street twice which was a terrific example of the contrast available within Glasgow’s weather! The pictures tell the story! (pics) We’ve been playing football in the MUGA on a Monday and netball in the Gym Hall on a Tuesday with some of the children taking a lead and coaching us all. (pics) We also had a taster Taekwondo session the other day which was great fun. (pics)

In other news, it was British STEM Week where we did some experiments in class (pics), someone in the class even came up with their own experiment for Mr Burns – ‘can you get the food colouring, vinegar and baking soda stain out of a white shirt?’

We also had a go at Micro:bit which we plan to do again. (pics) World Book Day was fun as always. (pics) We’re finished our Mandarin with Mrs Tao which certainly brightened up a Monday, fascinating to learn about Chinese culture and fun to experiment with a totally different language. Xiexie Mrs Tao. Our ‘Times Table Trail’ is coming to an end and the results for everyone are remarkable. Mr Burns is very happy with how it has all gone, us too if we’re being honest.

A wee snippet of what we’ve been up to, speak after Easter.

P4/5 girls and boys

Lots been squeezed into this short month. We’ve been investigating the Winter Olympics, its history, the events, past hosts and stuff like that (pics). We also had a chance to play some curling in the gym hall which was a good laugh (pics and videos on GC). To go nicely with this we’ve also started to learn some Mandarin! Mrs Tao is coming in every week until Easter to teach us some of the language and more about Chinese culture – we love it (pics).

For Safer Internet Day we discussed different scenarios that could occur when online gaming and how best to react. We also have been practising more coding (pics), this time a ‘code a long’ to create a ‘Chatbot’ with Mr Hull who’s much more of an expert than you know who (wouldn’t be hard right enough).

In Maths we created our 3D shape poster which followed on from our work on 2D shapes (pics). We also managed to consider symmetry in the wild on our last Outdoor Learning sortie (pics). We’ve also embarked upon ‘The Times Table Trail’! We should have mentioned it to you already but just in case……………….We all had a chat a while back and ALL of us decided that there was room for improvement in our multiplication tables and more importantly ALL of us wanted to improve and could see the benefits of doing so. Mr Burns was definitely up for it and he is also using it as a kind of experiment for himself and what he might do in the future. So, we came up with a plan to blitz them from mid-Feb to the Easter holidays. Rather than go on and on about the plan, ask us and we’ll tell you more!

In Language, we’ve continued our focus on Newspaper reports, this time choosing an area of interest to us and using what we had learned previously to create our own newspaper story – it was good to get advance notice so that we could have a think about it before. We then moved on to non-chronological report writing and we’ve done one in class based on our school reading book and today (Fri 25^th) we again get to take this prior learning forward when writing our own personal choice report – our homework was to decide and make notes on what to write about.

In RE some of us are obviously marching towards the big Sacrament days ahead, exciting to say the least! Canon Eddie came in this week for a Pre Reconciliation Service which was nice (pics). It’s getting close! Mr Burns would like to remind you that he has a Google Classroom folder set up that gives updates on the journal that we’re working through to help us prepare and he also sends photos from time to time. The rest of the class have been learning about St Paul and are moving on to prepare something nice about the miracles of Jesus.

Well done to the Newcastle dancers as well (pics), the competition came as a surprise to Mr Burns he says. Didn’t know anything about it………………….And well done to Shivansh, one of the great thinkers of our day! (pic)

Bye for now.

P4/5

 

Another slightly punctuated, and loooonnnnngggg, month – not to mention that the pocket money has been a bit on the low side. Pay day today we hear………Burns day just been as well (pics), seems like every day is Burns Day in here right enough.

At least we got a bit of snow near the start to brighten things up, always nice to play in with our chums (pics). Those of us making our Sacraments, a big year indeed, also started preparing in earnest and the rest of us are really excited about being able to support them through it whenever we can. We had the Rite of Enrolment with Canon Eddie this week and the ‘Sacramental Seven’ have been working on their journal in class with each other, and Mr Burns, and of course at home with you (pics). This last week we’ve also been considering all cultures and religions (did some powerpoints – pics) and it was good to hear from Liam, Omar, Shivansh and Adam about their stories (pics).

In language we’ve been doing a bit on Characterisation – looking at ways of bringing characters alive more and making them more complex and sophisticated. We’ve also started a little run of looking at newspapers and we did ‘The Three Little Pigs’, Gabriel’s favourite. We sent him a little video, Mr Burns was pleased (as was Gabriel we hear – ‘he danced all day’).

During Maths we all created posters on the properties of 2D shapes (pics), with 3D to come. Some of us have been concentrating on grid references and coordinates, some of us on weight then the compass and angles. We even managed to take the learning on compass points and angles outside (pics).

Other notables have been a bit of coding in ICT and our cartoon drawings – hope you enjoy the pictures of them.

Star Class this week as well! Looking forward to the holiday with you – might speak to you then.

P4/5

 

Not been that long since we last touched base and, as you can imagine, much of school since St Andrew’s day (pics)has been concerned with Advent and the lead up to Christmas. Mr Burns is trying to post videos and pictures of certain ‘events’ on Google Classroom, at the time, so you might have seen all our fun and games with reindeer and whatnot at the start of December – what a great day that was and a big thank you to all for putting on (and for you paying for us to go). Thank you also for coming in to see us and buying our crafts! (pics) The panto and parties last Friday are on GC too and again that was a fun, if not an exhausting, day. The Christmas lunch the day before was super tasty. (pics) We’ve spent quite a bit of time practising for our Advent Assembly (link from school office) and also a wee send off for Mr Campbell (GC too) and we really hope that you enjoy them, hopefully we’ll be back to normal next Christmas and you can come in person again. It’s not all been shenanigans of course as we’ve tried to remember those less fortunate than us this Christmas through the Advent collections and our class Missio appeal. (pics) We took to the forest to make our own Advent Wreaths (pics) and used the space to create our own light-hearted Nativity sketches (GC).

We’ve squeezed some work in there too of course, kept that going, and I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the work in our jotters. It’s good to get a focus for what to work on in January.

Mr Burns would like to thank you all for all your support throughout and sends you his best wishes for a lovely Christmas. He’s looking forward to a great first half of 2022 with us all.

 

 

 

 

Not the easiest of months for all concerned, families in particular of course. Credit to everyone for keeping it going and, all being well, there will be no more major interruptions for our class. We’re now just facing forward and concentrating on happier times in December and beyond. Despite being, at times, ravaged and depleted by various illnesses we’ve still got quite a bit to report!

We mentioned in October that we had been trying something different in class on certain days which allowed us more responsibility and choice. We’ve been doing more of that and Mrs McBride came in to see us at work, for an hour or so, the other day – she was very impressed with us all and the ways in which we were working. We’re continuing to work on punctuation and connectives in writing as well as improving our descriptive language. We’ve now moved on to summarising as a focus for reading, having spent some time on clarifying. In Maths we managed fractions (even did that outside – pics) and area and perimeter – a bit of number work and grid references are in the pipeline. It’s been a busy time in R.E. also with All Saints and All Souls at the start of the month – it was nice to go up to the church for All Saints Mass. Canon Eddie also came in last week and led a service for us to commemorate the faithful departed. Catholic Education Week started on the 16^th November with the feast of St Margaret and finishes today on the feast of St Andrew. The Theme this year is ‘celebrating and worshipping’ and we’ve been trying to marry the Liturgical Calendar to the School Calendar.

Plenty of other fun has come our way in the form of Wellbeing month – football, tennis, netball and even ultra-running with Ricky Saez! (pics). We made some powerpoints on COP26 and for UN Children’s Day and went on a ‘round the perimeter of the school’ litter pick (pics). We also took part in Book Week and celebrated Diwali – we even saw some real Rangoli patterns (pics).

So all in all, not bad for THIS November. December’s shaping up as a busy one, but there’s a big present at the end!

Be in touch before Christmas

Where does the time go? Maybe there is something in, ‘time flies when you’re enjoying yourself’, however we do think that ‘enjoying’, in the context of school, is a little bit too much! Lots of us managed to get away for the October Week, some even to foreign shores, which helped to recharge the batteries for the next couple of months ahead. Even though it was a short school month, we’ve still got plenty of news to pass on.

In terms of our learning, we’ve just started something a little different in class – just a couple of days so far, but it’s something that we hope to do more of. We’ll keep you informed but basically it amounts to Mr Burns setting tasks for the day, some we can do on our own, some we need to speak to Mr Burns about, some we can do together, some we can decide ourselves. The point is that we can choose when we do them in a day. It’s early days, but we really enjoyed the extra responsibility and the choice.

In writing we’ve been concentrating on our descriptive writing and punctuation (we know Mr Burns mentioned that to quite a few of you during the parents’ nights). We’ve been doing our usual comprehension reading and also started to focus on ‘clarifying’ using the context surrounding an unfamiliar word. In Maths some of us have finished division for a while (finally!) and we are now moving on to fractions – love talking about pizza! The rest of us are working on ‘length’ which will move onto perimeter and area. During R.E., being the month of The Rosary, we decided to say a daily rosary for the success of COP26 (pic) – Mr Burns has only forgotten once, but we caught up the next day and said two! All of us had a Reconciliation Service with Canon Eddie and the other two Primary 5 classes the other day, followed by individual confession for those of us who have already made their First Reconciliation – it was nice. Other notable learning would be exciting science lessons with Mr Harkins, learning more about COP26 – well done to Adam for winning the GlasGLOW competition (pics) – , Space Week (pics) and we’ve moved onto Vikings and Picts in our study of Scottish History timeline.

Plenty of other fun has come our way in the form of Judo, being creative with string during Outdoor Learning, Crazy Hair Day and the Halloween extravaganza. Enjoy the pictures!

Catch you in November

 

Feel now as if we’ve been together all our lives! After our last blog, telling of all our routines etc. that we’d put in place, we’ve noticed being a lot busier. With school work it has to be said, but that can be fun too as we’ve found out. There seems to have been so many different ‘days’ to report about. We had the Cycling extravaganza (at last count this had raised over £3000) which we loved being part of – we easily beat our target number of laps through cycling, scootering and running. Even Mr Burns brought his bike in – a Penny Farthing I think he called it. We look forward to benefiting from all the P.E. equipment that can now be bought for the school (pics). We also enjoyed St Cadoc’s feast day which has moved to September from January! A nice prayer service and a fun Talent Show was how we celebrated, along with a little treat from Canon Eddie (pics). We’re in the middle of Maths Week Scotland, European Day of Languages was yesterday and last week we created recipes for International Day of Peace – like we said, busy busy with lots of variety too (pics)’

In terms of ‘normal’ school life we’ve been learning about BODMAS (the order of operations), function machines (early algebra) division with remainders and some multiplication during Maths. In Language we’ve been doing some poetry, parts of speech in grammar, some dictation (Mr Burns’s choice!) and a focus on handwriting and general good presentation of all our jotters. Sounds like Mr Burns is not going to let that go so we better just do as he says. We’ve decided our topic to be a timeline of the history of Scotland which will allow us each to investigate, as we go along, any particular part or aspect that really grabs our interest. Outdoor Learning continues, come hail, rain or shine, and we enjoyed creating our own verbal biography stories of a random object we found in the forest.

October week soon – perhaps the most newsworthy item – speak again at the end of the month. Having fun here and learning (pics). Thanks.

Yours

Not a bad week or so back at the grind. We’ve been getting to know each other better through some games and activities. Most fun was the parachute and the Show and Tell (pics included). We’ve also been getting to know Mr Burns, not to mention Gabriel and Florence too, and his ways. We like the Peak of the Week treasure chest and his birthday routine especially – well done to Amber for winning the first Peak of the Week.

We’ve also done quite a lot of setting up the classroom, and routines. as you can see from the photos. We each have an individual space on our Learning Wall to put all our good work. We also have an Achievement Wall (which can be light-hearted)  and an Achievement book, both which are to celebrate achievements in school and at home. Our Class Charter has been made and agreed and our Google Classroom for homework is up and running.

Lots of hard work to come now Mr Burns says, but in a fun way too we’re sure.

Speak soon.

P4/5 girls and boys