We have had a fun and busy last week before the end of term. At the start of the week we had our Christmas party with games and dancing.

We also designed and printed Christmas cards, listened to some more presentations, made 2D Shape Santas  pictures and erupted our volcanoes.

As we are now at the end of our topic the children have been sharing their knowledge with their classmates.  This term we have been learning how to write information reports, so we started by everyone writing a report on volcanoes. They then researched their own volcano to allow them to add in some extra facts. After discussing how to create a good presentation on the iPad they used their reports to help them do this.  Finally they have been presenting these to the class.  The children have been fantastic at giving their talks and have also been supportive audience members so I’m very proud of them all.

Last week we began making our paper mache volcanoes which we are going to paint and then make them erupt which everyone is very excited about.

We also had a go at being able to create an electrical circuit.  We will be looking at this in detail next term.

Our focus recently in maths has been fractions and decimals. We have been learning how to find a fraction of a quantity and being able to identify equivalent fractions. We used the Lego blocks to show different fractions.

We are now looking at decimals and money.

It was nice to be able to share some of our science knowledge during our open afternoon. We were continuing on with our friction topic by looking at air and water resistance and how we can reduce friction by streamlining.

This week we have been look at one point perspective art. We started by drawing a horizon line and a vanishing point and then used these to help us complete our city landscapes.

In Science we have been working on friction. We started by testing how different surfaces can change the speed of something then discussed what friction is and how friction can sometimes be helpful.

We then looked at air resistance and how the size of objects can be affected by the air.  We had lots of fun testing out our helicopters to see which one would fall quickest.

We have also had time to be creative with the blocks and lego and shown a steady hand to create a tower.

P5b had a fun visit to the library this week as part of Book week Scotland.  We got the chance to borrow some books and look at some of the reference books related to our Natural Disaster topic as well as take part in some topic based activities.

We have enjoyed learning all about the Romans this term and the changes they made to Britain after they invaded us.  One great piece of engineering  they built were aqueducts to help transport water.  In groups the children were challenged to build their own aqueduct to help supply the city of Aqueductis with clean water. It was a good test of their problem solving skills and learning how to work effectively in a team.  Once they were built we tested them all with good results.  They all managed to carry some of the water to the city although we did have a few leaks or over spills.  They evaluated their designs and discussed what they would do to make them better.

Another great Roman masterpiece are mosaic pictures.  I’m really pleased with how these turned out and they definitely brighten up the classroom.