Here’s an update on what P5B have been learning and what we’ll be focusing on.

Olivia reports, “We’ve been learning about the Scottish Wars of Independence.  So far we have learned about the death of King Alexander III and the selection of John Balliol as king with King Edward I of England as Overlord of Scotland, the creation of the Auld Alliance when Scotland and France refused to join England in battle against each other.”  “After King Alexander III died, Margaret Maid of Norway became queen but on her journey to Scotland she fell ill and died,” recalls Phoebe.

Izaan says “I’m looking forward to learning about when King Edward gets angry when he finds out about Scotland refusing to battle France.”  “I want to find out what happens when Scotland and England battle,” says Finn.  Kate is interested in discovering more about the Battle of Bannockburn and Noah is curious as to whether William Wallace will feature in any battle.  Through this focus, P5B are developing their awareness of significant figures and events from the past and their influence on the future.

Scott has found it interesting and fun learning about Figurative Language, especially alliteration, and is looking forward to learning about other types and spotting examples when he is reading.  “I have learned to regularly use similes successfully throughout my writing,” adds Phoebe.

Chloe says, “I enjoy using the Communication Code as everybody has their turn to speak and I like having questions to think about and share our ideas on.  My favourite discussion so far was on what time the school day should start!”  Kate would like to discuss whether it is acceptable to keep dolphins in captivity or if they should only be in the wild.

We have been creating persuasive texts about Scottish landmarks.  “We have been working on using wow words, figurative language and bossy verbs to persuade,” reports Sherwan.  Lucy is excited to create her own imaginative text, inspired by the Wars of Independence, featuring soldiers and weapons.  Olivia reflects that “I can regularly and successfully use persuasive language throughout a text.”

Ruby recently enjoyed measuring playground items to find their perimeter and area and would like to do more of this, selecting what to measure herself and says “I feel like now I can always confidently measure  perimeter but am still developing my skills in measuring area.”  Zara is keen to learn more about algebra as she did some work on this in P3 and enjoyed it.  In our number talks work Olivia and Corey enjoyed learning the grid method and found this an easy way to multiply.  Kate prefers long multiplication but enjoys learning lots of different strategies then choosing the best strategies to find a solution accurately.

Emma says “We made calm jars for when we feel angry or stressed and we can shake it and it will relax you.  I find my one really relaxing, it’s not entertaining because that would be distracting, instead it helps to make you calm.”  “I think the calm jars are really good and I would also like to make a stress ball,” added Scott.  We will go on to learn about  food and hygiene and Taha is keen to learn how to tell when meat like chicken is cooked properly because if it’s still raw he knows you could get sick.  Finn knows that you can get food poisoning and would like to learn how to avoid this.

Chloe has enjoyed doing gymnastics as she has been able to share her skills and experience with others.  Leena enjoyed using the equipment, especially when she had to do a balance on top of the table and Amy enjoyed doing forward rolls on the horse.  Iain is excited to work on his badminton skills because “It’s really energetic and the racquet is more powerful than you think.”  Others would also like to try out some hockey, volleyball and netball.

Billy is enjoying our science topic, Materials, because “It’s fun to mix different materials and time how long it takes for a substance to dissolve.”  Emma would like to experiment by dissolving other materials and would like to learn more about rusting by putting a nail in a variety of substances.

Andrew tells us “I enjoyed researching internet safety and creating a PowerPoint to develop my presentation skills and share my learning,” and Abdullah is keen to develop his coding skills further while Izaan would like to create more PowerPoints.

Judah has enjoyed creating his own monster and describing it in French.  Zara is enjoying learning how to introduce family members in French and would like to learn how to order food and drinks at a French café.

Awesome Achievements

Well done Corey for showing commitment to her new dancing class where she is developing her dance skills and confidence.  Congratulations to Noah and Oscar who performed their first live gig playing their instruments!  And well done Kate who has been really responsible at home helping looking after their new family pet, Zoe the puppy!

Article 29: You have the right to education which develops your personality, respect for other’s rights and the environment.

P5B Class Blog December 2017

Our Fairtrade focus has now come to an end and we have been reflecting on what we’ve learned.  Needless to say everyone thoroughly enjoyed organising and running our Fizz Boom Fairtrade stall.  “By being a cashier we learned how to calculate people’s change,” said Finn.  Leena enjoyed being a sales adviser and using descriptive language to promote the products on sale to our customers.  Maya pointed out that they also developed their social skills through working together as a team and interacting positively with customers to ensure they were informed about the products, costs and where to pay.  Everyone was delighted with our final sales total of £1155 and our profit of £265 which was donated back to Fairtrade to support the work of the charity.

Sherwan, amongst others, has enjoyed learning more about figurative language.  So far we have focused on alliteration and onomatopoeia.  We have noticed lots of great examples while listening to our class novel, The Christmasaurus.  We have also been working hard on developing our skills in answering comprehension questions.  We have been practising taking time to read questions thoroughly; identifying key words and ensuring our answers come directly from the text, using our skimming and scanning skills to locate important information.

Corey is enjoying our work in Numbertalks where we have been developing a growth mindset while learning a range of multiplication strategies.  “I’ve learned that sometimes when you start to learn a new strategy it can feel like a snowstorm in your head.  Then as you do more it starts to settle down and when it has all settled you feel confident with the new strategy.”  Finn is finding the gird method easy to get to grips with and useful in solving larger multiplication problems.

We made 3D shape snowmen recently.  Hannah wasn’t sure what a shape net was before, “Now I know that a net is when the 3D shape is flattened out and you can see the shapes within it when it’s flat.”

All have enjoyed developing their coding skills through using Kodu to create a programme of instruction for a game.  Sumdog continues to be a popular way to develop a wide range of skills in Numeracy and Mathematics.

A huge thank you to Mrs Ali who came into class to teach us about Georges Seurat and Pointillism recently.  We enjoyed learning about how the artist developed and how colours can be blended using pointillism.  The children’s own pictures were very successful in creating new colours simply by printing the primary colours close together.  Dougal also enjoyed using clay to make Christmas tree decorations.

Phoebe though another fun activity was Superchair where we learned how to use mime to create a character and use objects for imaginative purposes, such as a chair as a telephone!

Awesome Achievers

Thanks to all those who have returned their completed booklets with their November achievements.  Recent accomplishments include caring for ill family members, learning new skills in skiing, taking increasing care over looking smart for school, coming second in the senior talent contest (Well done Scott!) and earning a medal in MMA.  Well done P5B!

P5B Class Blog November 2017

We have been exploring the topic of healthy eating lately, revisiting the main food groups and finding out more about their benefits.  Dougal:  “We discussed what the word DIET means and learned that it has various meanings such as what you normally eat, or eating a restricted selection of food for medical reasons, personal choice (such as vegetarianism) or for religious reasons.”

We started our new topic on Fairtrade with a visit from Josh from Rainbow Turtle in Paisley who told us lots about what Fairtrade is and does and how much work is involved before things like chocolate bars reach supermarket shelves.   Finn: “We know that when we buy Fairtrade products the workers get paid a fair wage.”   Olivia:  “We drew the Fairtrade symbol and noted what each part represents.”  Phoebe:  “We put pictures of the journey from Cocoa seed to chocolate bars in shops into order.  We learned what cocoa pods and beans looked like and how much work was involved in the process.”

Through our research into animal adaptations the children have developed their skills in recognising how animals are equipped  to survive, how to use search words to locate the information required, how to take notes using headings and key words only, how to organise information into logical sections and how to transfer information into your own words.  They have used their ICT skills to present their findings using Sway, a new presentation app that everyone is enjoying using.  Maya: “We had a homework task to design an animal to survive on an imaginary planet to show what we have learned about how animal adaptations help them survive.”  Leena:  “We have been researching animals online to find out about animal adaptations and have put the information into a Sway document.”  Billy: “We are learning how to use Sway.  We know how to put images into it and text.”  Andrew:  “We can also make a picture stack.”

We have some keen actors in our class who have enjoyed our recent drama activities to develop skills in creativity and expression.  Noah:  “We have been enjoying doing some action songs such as Boomchikaboom.”  Ruby:  “We made up plays about how to deal with negative situations to help us when this happens in our own lives.”

We have been developing our French vocabulary to include parts of the body, including reading and writing texts.  Iain:  “We made monsters and labelled their body parts in French then wrote a description.”  Zara:  “This activity helped us to develop our knowledge of the French words for parts of the body.”

To conclude our Blob book study we all took part in a hotseating activity.  This helped to develop skills in interpreting information given about characters in texts.  The children completed character studies then had to answer questions from the class as that character.  Amy:  “We got into groups and were given a character from Blob.  We took turns sitting in the ‘Hot Seats’ and had to answer questions as our character.  I thought it was really fun.”

Through our work in Numeracy and Mathematics we have been exploring concepts including measuring length, time, and multiplication strategies.  Izaan:  “I’ve learned how to measure in mm and cm.  You have to be very exact because mm are so small.  I’m really confident with it now.”  Andrew: “I’ve been learning more about telling the time and finding information on calendars.  It was really tricky to begin with but now I understand it.”  Iain: “I’ve enjoyed learning about equilateral and isosceles triangles.  I feel confident in identifying them and describing their properties.”  When introduced to the long multiplication strategy, some pupils found it very tricky on their first attempt, but showed a remarkable jump in confidence during the second lesson.  Scott:  “We’ve all been learning how to do long multiplication.  It’s fun and helps make tricky calculations easier.”  We also worked in mixed groups to discuss problems and share our knowledge of the strategies we have been learning.  Abdullah:  “We got into groups and chose a calculation then had to show all the different strategies we could use to solve it.”

Awesome Achievements

Izaan is really proud that he achieved a place on the St Cadoc’s football team.  Sherwain is proud to have started piano lessons and is looking forward to learning his first song.  Chloe and Natalie are excited to be learning how to perform an aerial (no handed cartwheel) on the beam at gymnastics.  And Abdullah is now able to hold his breath underwater for 20 seconds, helping him to complete underwater swimming challenges.

Article 13: You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing unless it breaks the rights of others.

Article 29: You have the right to education which develops your personality, respect for other’s rights and the environment.