Last week was really eventful and we’ve been so busy that we haven’t posted any pics yet! So here they are…

We spent time with our P1 Rockets Buddies during our Readathon. We raised a huge amount of money for SCIAF. Thanks to all at home for your support…

We have been looking at the link between bullying behaviour and discrimination. We learned that there are different types of discrimination in our society and that people can be included or excluded because of their gender, ethnicity, age and religion. We looked at how we can work towards including others in school and how we can work together to stop children from being excluded or discriminated against. Here are some of our group posters that we hope to display around the school…

And finally… here are some pics of crazy hair day. We made Mrs McLean laugh with our weird and wonderful creations…

Well Primary 6 was taken back to Medieval times today as the children each brought in their amazing homework projects. They had an extremely delighted and proud teacher all day – the effort that went into the projects was just fantastic. Thank you to all the parents who supported the children’s projects.

We shared the projects with our Primary 1 Rockets buddies and they were fascinated.

We had fabulous castles with full interiors, drawbridges that could be lifted and lowered, shields (one made of actual wood!), swords, bows, written projects with super information about medieval Scotland, model battle scenes, a canvas of William Wallace and a even William Wallace himself…

We had some well-deserved cakes in the afternoon to celebrate…

Well done everybody!

This week we’ve been working on Angles in maths. We have been classifying acute, obtuse and reflex angles and learning what sizes they can be in degrees. We have also been measuring different angles using a piece of equipment called a protractor. It’s tricky but we’re getting there!

In language, we’re almost at the end of our novel studies. Team Sirius have been critically evaluating the actions of the main character in their book while Team Vega have been analysing the different aspects of the Demon Headmaster’s personality. Team Hadar have been creating a poster to illustrate information from their book.

We have also been learning about the Battle of Bannockburn and why it was such a crucial battle in the Wars of Independence. We have been researching the different people involved in the battle on both King Edward’s and King Robert’s sides so that we can write a play and perform re-enactment of the battle. We’re beginning to think about the props and costumes that we’re going to have to make for our play. We’ve lots of work to do but we’re looking forward to the challenge!

Finally, some evaluations this week:

Maths

*enjoyed it *explained well ! more of the fun games and active maths

It’s been such a busy week in Primary 6. We’ve been moving around since our class has been getting painted but today, we go to work in our new classroom! It really looks great. We don’t have any pics this week because we couldn’t get our hands on a camera but we’ll try to post some soon.

Today we had badminton with a coach and it was great fun. We also finished our Wallace swords and started to paint our life-sized Wallace characters. They’re looking great.

We are still taking the time to evaluate out learning too. Here are some comments:

iPad Research Lesson – really fun, can we do it again please?

Maths – I really like doing mental tasks. Can we do more text book work please?

Handwriting lesson was fun but maybe you could ask us what words we would like to do?

Balanced Argument – The writing lesson was interesting  but really challenging.

Can you make language a wee bit more fun instead of doing the same task each week?

Spelling Bee Fridays are great!

Maths – can we finish with a bingo game again?

Thank you Primary 6. I have tried to plan next week taking your comments on board. I hope I do well!

Have a great weekend from P6!

So we ended our week of historical enquiry by learning how to evaluate different sources of evidence from the past based on the criteria of relevant, rich and reliable (the 3Rs). 

First, we looked at different types of evidence and evaluated them based on the 3Rs. We had to be able to justify our decisions to the class…

Next, we played a game of Artefact Pursuit. We had to work in teams to examine and evaluate different sources of evidence from the Scottish Wars of Independence. We then had to create a group poster that displayed our findings. We had to consider whether the source was Primary or Secondary and we also had to decide how relevant, rich and reliable it was. We were being timed so it was quite exciting trying to play as many squares as possible in the time given…

Some of the squares on the board had ‘Wildcards’ and we had to carry out other tasks such as internet research…

We had great fun with our artefact pursuit!

Mr Young stopped by today to see us and he was really impressed with our knowledge of historical enquiry.

Some evaluations from today’s lessons:

I liked the change in group. I also loved that kind of game. Great!

Today was fun. I learned a lot about primary and secondary sources. No bad feedback.

Loved lesson!

Amazing! Amazing! Can we do it again.

Thanks P6!

Today we learned that these are sources of information about the past that were written or made using Primary Sources. Examples include textbooks, encyclopedia’s and replica artefacts. We looked at a variety of historical sources and decided whether they were Primary or Secondary…

We also wrote our own biographies about William Wallace’s life. We identified the features of biographies and used what we learned to write about Wallace. Our biographies are, of course, Secondary Sources!

Today we learned that a Primary Source of information is any piece of evidence from the past that was made in the time period it tells us about. We identified that some examples of primary sources are artefacts, statues, newspaper articles, letters and diaries. Next, we worked in groups to find genuine primary sources of evidence from time of the Scottish Wars of Independence…

We then shared our findings with the rest of the class…

We were able to justify our reasons for our choices. For example, Rachael explained that you could look at the date of an artefact to see when it was made. Caius told us that the word ‘replica’ tells us that the item might not be from the original time period.

Here is our finished Ragman Roll with our personalised wax seals. It’s not a primary source of information because it was made in this classroom last week!

We are still taking time to evaluate our lessons. Here are some of today’s comments:

‘I enjoyed writing a chapter summary and I think we should do more visualisers.’

‘You could make it trickier by adding more success criteria.’

‘I enjoyed the lesson because there’s a time limit and you need to work fast.’

‘I felt as if it was a 2 minute lesson because it was fun.’

‘I really enjoyed language because it was interesting.’

‘Make language more fun.’

Thanks again P6. I will try my best!

It’s been a busy week so far in P6! Be prepared for a BIG post!

Yesterday we learned that to proclaim the joy of the Gospel is to be open with others about our faith. We read a quote from Pope Francis that told us “Every encounter with Jesus changes our life and every encounter with Jesus fills us with joy.” Next, we analysed the prayer through which we profess of our faith every week at Mass – the Apostle’s Creed – and discussed it line by line. Since the Apostle’s Creed contains the seeds from which our faith grows, we drew illustrations on seed templates for our wall display. Watch this space!

Today in maths we were learning about the link between visual patterns and number patterns. We know that 1 item in a pattern is called a ‘term.’

This trio of maths geniuses discovered the number pattern to go with visual pattern above. They figured out that the rule was ‘5 x the term plus one.’ Excellent!

Next we analysed William Wallace. We read facts about him and decided where to place him on a character line, based on how our opinions were influenced…

There was lots of super discussion going on in our trios. Later on, we presented a fact each to the class, justified our opinion and asked our classmates if they agreed with us or not. It led to a really interesting and very impressive debate….

Finally, we have been having our say in class about our lessons. Mrs McLean has provided a ballot box and we have been invited to evaluate our lessons every day if we wish using ‘Two Stars and Wish.’ Some of us were really keen to have our say…

The William Wallace Fact and Opinion Lesson was a real hit…

I loved it!’ Gave my opinion. Everyone took part!

*Brilliant lesson. Well done Mrs McLean!

Really fun. Good groups. More of this activity!

We had fun. We all took part. Next time more facts please!

Phew! Mrs McLean can go home pleased. Thanks Primary 6!

We spent the afternoon exploring bias in historical sources. This is when a piece of evidence from the past has been influenced by opinion and not fact. This means it is unbalanced. We read four descriptions of William Wallace and had to identify whether or not they contained bias. We then had to decide who might have written them…

Next, we worked in groups to create a life-sized Wallace based on the biased historical accounts…it was challenging because he was probably over 6ft tall!

Now we will have Wallace figures to go with our Wallace swords. Watch this space!

Today we learned that a historical artifact is a man-made object from the past that tells us something about the time period it was made in. For example, William Wallace’s sword is an artifact. It tells us what types of materials were used to make weapons in medieval Scotland and it tells us that Wallace must have been a very strong, tall man because the sword is 5ft 6in long – almost as tall as Mrs McLean! We spent the afternoon making our own replica artifacts…

In between designing our Claymores, we finally got to use our hand-made wax seal stampers. We were working with real wax and we had to be really careful…

Here are some more examples of our finished wax seals. They worked out really well and we’re going to attach them to the signed Ragman Roll, just like the nobles did in 1296 when they swore loyalty to King Edward I…

Watch this space for our finished Scottish Claymores.

Have a great holiday everyone!