Recently a group of us were asked to build our class Christmas Tree. We needed to work together and use our maths skills problem solving when we build the Christmas tree we had to match the letters on the branches and the stand.  When we had finished building it, anther group decorated it with Mrs Hunter. I think I have achieved how to build a Christmas tree 😉
Recently we made a Greenock Blitz scene and it was lots of fun to make. Everybody went into groups to make lots of different things for it. There was a plane group where we had to do observational drawings of planes and add in loads of detail! Another group was a fire group were we had to make fire and to do that we got tissue paper yellow for the bottom, orange for the middle and red for the top. We had to tear small pieces of tissue paper and make a collage.  We also had a building group were we had to get lots of black card and look at silhouettes to make building shapes and we put white paint for the highlights of the windows. We put them along the bottom of the scene. We also had the sky group. In the sky group we got white paper and painted them strips of blue with hints of black, grey and different shades of blue. The second last group was the search light group and in that group we got cut black card in a triangle and brushed yellow and white chalk round the outside and some in the middle and we smudged it out. The final group was the bomb group. Some made black round bombs and some made the proper bombs they used in World War Two! We placed them down under the planes so its like they are dropping bombs! And that was how we made our WW2 Greenock Blitz scene!
By Cerys P7
Last week we were learning all about Place Value. We had to write three columns of numbers, one is Millions other one is Thousands and Tens so it looks like this 2,745,146. I knew I was successful because I had completed the success criteria and the learning intention was to recognise and write numbers to ten million. We learned by writing a example of a number then writing it in words so we can show our understanding. We were learning this so we know how to write big numbers on special occasions. I found it a bit challenging because it was really high numbers but I managed to overcome it because I have a game that includes really high numbers so I knew what to do. I have achieved how to write really big numbers by myself :D. I want to improve on my billions because I really find that tricky :).
Today we were helping the primary 1’s learn more about shape. My buddy Jude wanted to make a 2D truck so we needed a lot of different shapes to make it. We also needed glue and scissors we had to teach them all about squares, circles, triangles, rectangles and semi circles. It was all coming together quite well and the truck had awesome wheels. We had to make a road for the truck and we used a rectangle for the road I was also learning jude how to cut and glue some of the shapes as well. Thanks for reading.                                                                        Â
  Â
We are blogging live from the Scottish Learning Festival. Scott, Ellie, Mrs Hunter and I have just presented about how we blog in the classroom . We talked about why we blog, how we organise it and how we write our posts. It was a bit nerve-wracking but we were confident and spoke with a loud clear voice! At the end everybody told us that they enjoyed our presentation and going to look at our blog. We have enjoyed looking at all the stands and we got to control a robot using coding! We also loved getting lots of freebies like pens, badges, bags and pencils!
Read all about it from John Johnson here!
On Thursday we went to Inverclyde Academy for our first induction day. When we were driving there our bus broke down but we got there eventually! We all got off the bus and went around to the dance studio where Mr Brown was waiting for us to tell us what to do. I felt better when I saw Mr Brown because I had met him before when he came to our school to talk about high school.
Everybody went to their first class and I had Home Ec. I really enjoyed it because I made rice crispie cakes. I felt a bit nervous going in to class but confident when I was cooking because it wasn’t the first time I had cooked. I was really excited for my next class which was P.E. We played rounders and I was glad that I was prepared and had brought my P.E kit! We got to meet the head girl who did a quiz with us, it was quite difficult but fun. Another subject we enjoyed was science. Our science teacher set her hands on fire, I couldn’t believe it! Mr Rodgers and Mrs Hunter had a turn and they both set their hands on fire too. The teacher also tried to burn a £20 but luckily it didn’t burn. She taught us about the things we needed to make combustion; the fire triangle is oxygen, heat and fuel.
After science we had to go back and pick up our rice crispie cakes – they tasted delicious! I was tired at the end of the day and was glad to get back to school. I really enjoyed my day at Inverclyde Academy and am looking forward to going to high school next year.
By Luci in P7
In Primary 7 we have the responsibility to help the P1s settle into school. We are their buddies and look after them. It’s important that they feel safe, nurtured and included in our school. We had to show them little things like where their seat was and also help them change into their coat and shoes for going into class and out into the playground. I think they are all very happy, especially my buddy! I am very happy Mrs Reid and Mrs Hunter picked me for my buddy. He is a lot more confident and he is talking to me and my friends more. Mrs Hunter says that I have really helped him come out of his shell. I had to find out things to talk to him about that he liked and his favourite things are Mickey Mouse and Wreck it Ralph. He always talks about it, he is very funny and likes the song head shoulders knees and toes. When I do it with him he says ‘again, again’ because he likes it so much! We have all loved working with our buddies and we go down to Primary 1 every Friday to help them learn skills like literacy and maths. One of our favourite things to do with our buddies is read with them. We have to be really expressive when we tell a story to keep them interested. Then we use our Talking Round Corners questioning skills to ask them about the story we just read.
HereToday Ellie taught us how to knit using a special loom. Ellie has been busy making lots of knitted hats for babies and we were all really interested in how she made them.  Ellie plans to hand them in to a baby unit in our local hospital – how thoughtful! What a wonderful Whinhill girl! Here is a ‘how to’ video so you can learn to knit too!
Here is what Ellie had to say: It was so fun creating my hat ‘how to’ video for you. I love to knit. As I said in the tutorial, I am making the little baby hats for the babies in the hospital. This great idea came to my mind and I thought, why not? You can get all different sizes of looms. It is so handy to have this equipment because if it’s a cold wintery day you never have to go out and buy a hat why not knit one? Thank you so much for watching and if you did watch I hope this tutorial helped you. Please leave a comment below! By Ellie
Today we are writing this blog about Primary 7a’s class assembly. Since we are focusing on Article 15 – you have the right to be with friends and join or set up clubs, unless this breaks the rights of others, our assembly was all about friendship. In the last few weeks we have been learning about being a good friend and how to help our buddies in P1 make friends. In the assembly we thought would make it funny and put the Great British Bake Off (The TV show) but instead we called it the Great Whinhill Bake Off. The hosts for the Great Whinhill Bake Off were Jamie Hollywood and Ellie Berry with their glamorous, fabulous and totally exotic assistant…Joanna Jelly (aka Scott Orr)! They were really funny! They told us all about the qualities of a good friend for s recipe for friendship.
An important part of our assembly was the story called ‘The Crayon Box that Talked’. Some pupils dressed up as a colour and acted like a crayon. In the beginning they all hated each other but then at the end of the story they became friends. Things we had to focus on were having a loud, clear voice, thinking about our body language and responding to the audience. We found it difficult at first but we all were delighted with our performance! At the end we sang a song called Count on me by Bruno Mars. The video was animated and it had the lyrics so everyone could sing along!
Today we went outside to do some art in the sun. We were creating pieces of art using natural materials from the environment around our school. In groups of four we had to look around and collect anything that we thought would look good in out picture. It was important not to destroy any flower beds or vegetable patches and find things on the ground. Some of the things we found were stones, weeds, leaves, broken flower heads or petals, sticks/bamboo, logs, grass, bark and mint leaves.
We had to work together as a group by having some people as collectors and some to organise the materials. We had to communicate with one another to tell the collectors what to find and to decide what our picture would look like. It was good exploring parts of the school that we don’t usually get to go to and it was fun! We had to watch our time because we had a time limit. It was a competition to see who could think creatively and use the materials usefully. It got quite competitive hunting for unique things. Kai even turned up with the top of a broken bird table. We liked learning out doors and enjoying the environment. It was difficult to choose the winner but as a class we decided to have two winning groups – my group who made ‘Joanna Jelly’ the Hawaiian lady and ‘Funhouse’. Well done!
