This week we have been learning:

Ancient Egypt

Ryan shared a fact with us this week: The British archeologist, Howard Carter, that discovered Tutankhamun’s body, died with Hodgkin lymphoma. Many say this was because there was a curse placed on the tomb for whoever touched it would die a horrible death. 

We learned about the river Nile and how important it was for Ancient Egypt. Did you know: The Nile is 6,650km long and is the longest river in the world.  It starts at the top of Egypt and goes all the way through Egypt to the south. The Ancient Egyptian’s lives depended on the Nile because they used it as their water source and it was used for transport and trade. They would travel up and down the Nile in boats to trade. The river Nile is 15 times longer than Scotland. When the Nile flooded it would fertilize the soil and allow the crops to grow. It would flood once a year from July-October (Ahket). When it flooded the men would build pyramids as they couldn’t work on the land. In Ancient Egypt they only had 3 seasons which lasted 4 months each. These were all based around the Nile and planting. Peret was November to February and this was when the fields were planted. Shemu was March to June and this is when the plants were harvested.

We continued learning about some pharaohs this week. We learned about Seti I who believed a prophecy about a boy who would overthrow him. He was so scared by this that he ordered his men to kill every male born in Egypt. You may recognise this as the story of Moses. 

Seti I son was Ramses II also known as Ramses the Great. He built many structures including 4 statues of himself that were 69 feet tall. He built a temple called the Ramesseum.

We learned about Hatshepsut who was one of the first female pharaohs. She wore a headdress, beard and kilt like the men to be accepted. She was one of the most successful pharaohs.

 

Cleopatra VII was the last ever pharaoh of Ancient Egypt even though her family was actually Greek. She was a very clever woman and was able to speak, read and write Egyptian, Greek and Latin. She died just 30 years before the time of Jesus. Cleopatra VII married her brother at the age of 12. When he got older, he wanted more power and exiled her. She then fell in love with Julius Casaer (ruler of the Romans) and together they defeated her brother, Ptolemy XIII, and took over Egypt together. When she died Egypt was ruled by the Romans.

Literacy

Handwriting – we continued with our phase 4 tricky words. Our letter formation is getting better and we are remembering which letters join at the top and bottom.

Spelling – we all did very well with our spelling test this week. Most people got full marks or 1 wrong.

Grammar – we helped out Mr Whoops again with some more difficult fix the sentences. He really is a bit silly.

The Witches

We read about Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker and decided this week to make some of our own potions like the grand high witch. First we needed to make up some new animals. We used their body parts and thought of verbs to describe what they do. We then combined these to make a new animal name. e.g. the snout of a Woinka (pig – oink and wallows), the paw of a Snoopite (wolf – bite and snoops), the neck of a Kickseats (giraffe – kicks and eats). We are going to redraft these next week so stay tuned!

We also met Bruno Jenkins this week. The witches turned him into a little brown mouse to demonstrate Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker. We can’t wait to find out what happens to him.

Maths

On Monday we focussed on Sumdog as we had a national competition and it was our day with the ipads. We worked extra hard on this.

As it is national maths week we have taken a break from place value and have been learning how to crack different codes. We started by learning our names in the Phonetic Alphabet.

Arran – Alpha Romeo Romeo Alpha November

Leo – Lima Echo Oscar

Eden – Echo Delta Echo November

Jessica – Juliet Echo Sierra Sierra India Charlie Alpha

Eva – Echo Victor Alpha

Harris – Hotel Alpha Romeo Romeo India Sierra

We then learned a couple of Ciphers. We learned a transposition cipher and a shift cipher. Did you know the shift cipher was used by Julius Caesar to send messages to his troops in battle. Mrs Munro hid some secret codes outside for us to crack. We became detectives and used our shift wheels to work out the answers. 

Sophie has been nominated as our class maths champion this week. She has been brilliant at working out all the different codes. Make sure you look out for her on our school Twitter page.

We also did some more time jobs with Ms Kelso this week. We are really getting the hang of telling the time. 

Sumdog Competition

We weren’t lucky enough to win the SumDog competition for the whole of Scotland but we were able to WIN the in school competition. We were the highest placed class in our school so Mrs Robertson has given us 900 seconds extra play. We have worked out that this means we get 15 minutes extra play next week. Woohoo!!

Other

For ICT we had a discussion on what our digital footprint is with Ms Kelso. We will be working on this some more next week.

This weeks PAThS kid was Arran. 

We managed to get our targets up on the wall this week. This will remind us of what we are working on in class. (Mrs Munro can’t seem to get a good picture of them just now. She will keep trying).

This week Mrs Munro has been carrying out Parent phone calls. She has spoken to most of our parents so far with just a few to catch up on next week. These are for Mrs Munro to discuss our targets with our parents. They have all gone well so far. Please remember to fill in the bottom of the target talks sheet and send them back into school.