Happy New Year from P6/7!!

We have been reflecting back on 2019 and remembering what happened last year.  We know that when we reflect, we need to think about the good and bad parts.  Reflecting is a good way to remember what we have done and to make us cherish memories.

After we reflected on last year, we used what we remembered to make goals and targets for this year.  These are called New Year’s Resolutions.  When making these, we thought about things we could do which would benefit us and other people and then we based our resolutions on these.

We each wrote two resolutions, put them all together and displayed these in our classroom so that we can go back to them to remind ourselves of our resolutions.

We visited Kelvingrove Art Gallery and went on a trail of World War 2.  The gallery is very grand and is full of interesting historical items.

During our visit, we looked at items from World War 2 and learned how they were made and what they were used for.  We recognised some of the items from our learning in class and previous trips.  One person we learned about was Anne Frank who wrote a diary as she was hiding from the Germans, with her family.

We learned about the clothes worn during the war and compared them to clothes we wear today.  We even got to try some of the items on which was cool. It was fun to pretend we were people from history by putting on their clothes and using props to act out scenarios.

We learned lots about bombing, soldiers and everyone coming together for the war effort.  This was a very educational, but fun, trip.

This week, we were lucky enough to visit Scotland Street Museum and take part in a Victorian classroom experience.  This is related to our IDL work for this term were we are looking at people in history.

The first thing we did was separate into a boys group and a girls group.  We went up different staircases and to different coat rooms to put on costumes.  We wore clothes that children would have worn as their uniform in Victorian times.  The clothes are different from what we wear and this was good to compare clothes from history to clothes we wear now. Then, we had to line up in perfectly straight lines outside the classroom and wait for our teacher.  A few of us had nervous giggles.

After this, we took part in an arithmetic lesson which is like our mental maths lesson.  The teacher was so strict and made us all sit up straight with our spines against the back of our chair.  We had to sit boy girl, boy girl. It was really scary as you can tell by the look on our faces.

Our Victorian teacher told us she did not tolerate talking or carrying on in class.  We found out she was telling the truth when she made some of us stand up as a punishment for disobeying her.

Next, we took part in a handwriting lesson.  The handwriting back in Victorian times was very different to handwriting today.  We wrote with ink and a quill which was very hard to do.  Much harder than writing with a pencil or a pen.

For another task, we had to use mini black boards.  We all thought it was much easier to use the whiteboards and pens that we are used to.  The questions our Victorian teacher was giving us were so tricky as we had to convert money used in 1884 into money we use now.

Our Victorian teacher told us of ways that teachers used to punish children who misbehaved. She showed us the belt which is made of leather and children were hit on the hand within this several times.  She also showed us the cane which was made of wood.  Some children would be hit on the hands with this and others would be hit on their bare legs with it.  This sounded agony! The last punishment was the Dunces Hat. Children would be made to wear this hat and stand out in the playground as a form of humiliation. Yahya very kindly offered to model the Dunces Hat for us.

This was a fantastic experience for finding out what school life was like back in the Victorian times.  We found out there were lots of differences and think that we prefer the school life we have today.

We’ve had a fantastic week taking part in the I’m a Scientist Get Me Out Of Here project.  We have explored different areas of science and taken part in cool experiments.

The first experiment we took part in was to do with electricity.  We worked in pairs and followed instructions on how to make a model car using different materials to build a circuit.

We worked with wires, batteries, crocodile clips, a motor and a switch to try and power fan blades.  We had to work out how to connect all the equipment in order to work the fan.  It was tricky to know what piece of equipment connected to another piece of equipment.

After we worked out how to power the fan, we then had to connect it all to a cardboard tube and try to make power it so that it would move like a motor car.  It was so cool when we eventually made it work.  A lot of hard work and perseverance went into this activity.

Our next experiment was linked to biology.  We learned how our digestive system works by combining different foods and liquids and mushing them all up in a sealable bag.  It didn’t look appetising at all! This represented what all the foods and liquids look like in our digestive system.

Next, we transferred the contents of the bag into a stocking and drained all of the liquid from it. This was the messy part …

After that, we moved on to the final stage of our experiment – releasing the contents…

We used scissors to cut the tights and release the ‘poo’ from the body. There were a lot of screams at this stage 😂😂 This was a funny yet educational lesson.

On the final afternoon of our I’m a Scientist Get Me Out Of Here project, we used our iPads to take part in a live chat with the different scientist who were involved.  This was a good chance for us to ask them questions and find out more about their research.  At the end of the lesson, we voted for our favourite scientist based on which one of their work we believe will have the greatest impact on society.  We will find out who won the competition soon!

This is a reminder of homework which should be done each week:

• an activity from your homework grid
• Practise your spelling words
• Read for at least 10 minutes each night
• Practise your times tables
• Play maths games online
  

Thank you 🤩🤩

As part of our inter-disciplinary learning, we are learning about Force K6 and the British Indian Army.  We are focusing on the contribution of the British Indian Army in World War 2.

To develop our understanding of South East Asia’s contribution to Glasgow, we visited Scotland Street museum.  They have an exhibition set up called GlaswegAsians.

We learned about the contribution to work and society that people from South East Asia brought to Scotland. Many men would take their suitcases and go from door to door selling things like radios. This was called pedalling. The women would sow their own outfits using sewing machines.  Men became bus drivers and sometimes worked 72 hour shifts. When people had enough money, they opened up their own businesses like fabric shops and restaurants.

Some people chose to work in the police, some people worked in politics. The Indian workers union Glasgow was also started because people who came from South Asia felt they weren’t been treated the same as Scottish workers.

After this, we worked in groups and chose an item to create a dance about.  This was fun but very embarrassing.

We also had the chance to record some of our ideas in the recording studio using a voice recorder app on the iPad, which was very  cool.

For our last activity, we imagined we had moved to a new country.  We had to come up with a business idea and open a business in the new country.  This was hard because we had to say why we were opening the business – was it because of personal interest, a family tradition or to bring something new to our new country. There were lots of great ideas, from fabric shops to gaming shops. We used out artistic talents to create what our shop front would look like.

What a fun time we had for Halloween this year.  👻🤡🎃☠️

Everyone looked fantastic in their costumes.  Some looked very glam and some were super scary.

Our class party was lots of fun with games, treats and dunking for apples.  We painted each other’s faces and made each other into mummies too.

Here is a planning map of our intended learning for term 2.

Please remember to think of your inspirational woman for our Arts and Writing Project.

By Next Monday, you should know her name and have reasons why she is inspirational to you.  Can you bring in a photograph of her too please? We will photocopy this in school and give you your photograph back.  You could also email it to Miss McCue – gw17mccuecatherine@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk or bring it in on a USB stick and we can print it in school.

We are learning about shape for our new maths topic.  Following on from our learning in class on quadrilaterals, triangles and polygons, we took our learning outside and used the environment to identify shapes that we know. We also used natural materials to make our own 2D shapes. To challenge ourselves, we made 3D shapes too.

In our groups, we had different roles.  Some of us hunted for shapes, others noted the shapes in our jotted and others videoed us as we made short clips of what we have found.  We took turns of each role too.

All of us successfully worked together and achieved the success criteria for the lesson. Here’s one of the videos we made.

At the end of the lesson, we played a game against the other teams.  Miss McCue would shout out the name of a polygon and we had to work together and use our bodies to make the shape.  This was so much fun and much more difficult than it sounds. The winning team got 5 Dojo points each. 🥳🤩