Primary 5/4 Ladywell P.S 2016-17

We read a poem called And My Heart Soars by Chief Dan George, about all the things that make him feel happy, and we had a go at writing our own poem about what makes our hearts soar.  We put our best ideas together to make a class poem.

And My Heart Soars

The taste of chocolate
The softness of my guinea pig
The sand between my toes
Speak to me.

The sound of the sea
The mysteries of Harry Potter
The cosiness of my bed on a cold night
Speak to me.

The taste of pizza
The sound of mum’s scream when the hamster bites
The mumble of my mum
Speak to me.

The relaxation of J20
The cuddles of my dog
The sound of the rain
Speak to me.

And my heart soars.

By P5/4

On Tuesday we went  by bus to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.  Were met by Lesley who showed us where to put our jackets and packed lunches.  We got the chance to see how poor people were buried in Ancient Egypt, then rich people and finally powerful people.  Lesley made GJ into a Pharaoh and removed all his organs and we put them into Canopic Jars (not really – hes absolutely fine!).

We dressed AL, MS and MM as gods and each of them was responsible for one of the organs.  ER pretended to be the scales in the weighing of the heart ceremony, and luckily for GJ, his heart was lighter than the feather of truth so he got to keep his heart and travel safely into the afterlife.

Next we went on a hunt around the exhibition.  Lesley asked us to look out for a fake beard, a priest in a child’s coffin and a wooden pencil case.  I saw the fake beard and found out that they thought that most gods had beards and they wanted to look like a god.  This is why the fake beards were added (JF/ER).

I saw the priest’s skeleton – it looked like it had been taken apart and packed into the small coffin (AD).  He had been reburied after his remains had been found, which the reason for him being in a small coffin.

I found the pencil case – it had lots of old pencils next to it (SC)

We met Lesley at the big stone sarcophagus.  She let us all stand around it and try to lift the lid but it was so big and heavy that our whole class couldn’t even shift it (LR).  It was so big and heavy that the floor underneath it had to be reinforced with steel to prevent it falling through the floor! (DL)  It was so big and heavy that the when the museum was recently refurbished, only the sarcophagus and Sir Roger the elephant were left inside the building.  All the other exhibits were removed for safe storage.

In the handling area, we were lucky to get to touch artefacts that were 3500 years old! My favourite was the scarab beetle which would have been sewn onto the mummy’s bandages, over the heart, to provide protection in the afterlife (CG).

After lunch we watched and listened to a beautiful organ recital in the main concourse of the museum. None of us had ever seen such a huge musical instrument.  The organist was using three keyboards, one above the other, with hos hands, and another with his feet! We could feel the vibrations of the music through our whole bodies – amazing!

Next, we had a look at the art exhibitions.  We loved all the beautiful glass!

We loved our trip (especially the gift shop!)

We dressed up for World Book Day.  It was lots of fun (SC). Can you guess which book characters we are dressed up as? We were allowed to bring in our favourite book to share with a partner (BD), and we enjoyed the parade in the afternoon when we were able to see what all the other boys and girls in the school were dressed as.

A great afternoon in Ladywell PS at the Literacy Parent Drop In.

Our focus for this session was Reading.

Thank you to all who managed to attend.  Our pupils worked so hard to demonstrate their literacy skills in a variety of reading tasks.

A special thanks to all teachers and staff who prepared an excellent session to showcase pupil learning at Ladywell PS.

It has been a really busy first week of the new term for P5/4.  We have been learning about estimating and rounding in maths and have enjoyed music, drama and ICT this week too.  We wrote a recount of our October holiday and Mrs MacDonald really enjoyed reading about all the fun things we got up to.  In Spanish, we learned how to say, “How old are you?” and “I am __ years old”.

In PE, the primary fours learned how to dribble a basketball and how to shoot a basket, while the primary fives added some ‘tutting’ to our dance routine, and practised the back stroke,  breast stroke and jumping in.  We were able to choose whether we wanted to jump in at the shallow end or the deep end of the pool.  Mrs MacDonald is so pleased with the progress we are making with our swimming.  We are all so confident now and many of us can do things that we never thought we would be able to do.  She is extremely proud of all of us.

Thursday afternoon was our class reward for earning 50 tokens for showing positive behaviour and following the school rules, using nice manners, lining up sensibly in the playground and showing kindness to others.  We were allowed to wear our onesies and watched “Robinson Crusoe”.  It was fab! We had popcorn and Mrs MacDonald made us the best hot chocolate ever.

Friday was our Hallowe’en Parade in school.  We all dressed up and walked around the school.  It was great to see all the different costumes.  The winners in our class were Snow White in 1st place and Broken Doll in 2nd place.  Congratulations to everyone who took part.

Primary 5/4 have had a fantastic Health Week with lots of activities!

Monday – We welcomed Malky from Motherwell Football Club who took us through our paces with a fun warm up, dribbling and passing.  We learned that you should always pass the ball with the inside of your foot rather than your toes, because this gives you more control (JF) and power (ER).

Tuesday – Pat Kelly our athletics coach came in and took us outside for some relay racing (CG) and whole class races (GJ).  It was fun (KK).  My favourite bit was walking like penguins during our warm up! (AH)  Lyndsey from St. Andrew’s Hospice came in to talk to us about the work of the hospice and how to keep our bodies healthy.  She told us about how the hospice make people’s last weeks and months comfortable and they also make dreams come true.  Some  people have been married or baptised in the hospice (MS) and they have even brought Christmas forward for people who want to spend one more Christmas with their family (JF).  In the afternoon we did Taekwon Do with Mr Sherlock.  We learned how to kick with the ‘foot sword’ which is the outside edge of our foot from the pinky toe to the heel (MK).  We even broke a board with our foot (MG) by doing a jumping kick (MM).What a busy day! We were all exhausted by the end of it but it was great fun!

Wednesday – This was the day we had all been waiting for! The Mobile Adventure Course had been built in our gym hall and we were so excited to get started (LK).  I was a bit nervous because I thought we would have to climb over a big high wall, but it wasn’t as high as I thought it was, so I was able to achieve this (ER).  It had a big wall that you had to run and jump over, then a big cargo net where you had to climb up one side then turn round at the top and climb down the other side backwards (SM).  Then we had to cross a rope bridge and balance beam which was a real test of our balance (LB).  Next was the rope swing and we had to climb through a tyre (ZS) and finally we had to jump through lots of tyres on the floor (BH).  It was really fun but very tiring (DL).  I struggled to get over the wall but Paul helped me (SC).  My foot got stuck in the cargo net and Lee had to untangle me! (BD)  The first time I couldn’t get through the tyre, but I kept trying and eventually I did it! (KK) I thought I would need help to get over the wall, but I tried my hardest and I managed it by myself (AD).  As part our out Heartstart work, we learned what to do if  someone is choking.  We hope this never happens but if it does we will ask if they can cough and if they can’t we will give 5 back blows with the heel of our hand (LR) checking each time if the piece of food (or whatever is stuck) has come out (BI).  Then, if that doesn’t work, you start doing abdominal thrusts.  This is where you stand behind the casualty, make a fist with one hand and cover it with the other then place your hands just under their ribcage (MK).   You then pull sharply in and up (GJ) to push the air out if the lungs and hopefully fire the piece of food out through their mouth (JF).  You do this 5 times and between each one you check if the food has come out (CG).  If this hasn’t worked you go back to 5 back blows and you keep going until the food comes out (AB).  If the casualty loses consciousness, you would phone an ambulance (LR)

Thursday – P5s went swimming at the Sir Matt Busby leisure centre in Bellshill.  We practised diving and front crawl in the deep end (SM).  When it was my turn to dive in the big pool, I nearly fell in! (BI) We learned backstroke with a float (MS).  To finish we played water polo (MK).  We did team games in the gym with Mrs MacDonald and we got to choose our own games (BD).  In the afternoon we did street dance with Toni and we added and freestyle section to our routine.  P4s made a cartoon strip with a fruit character superhero (KK) and we did streetdance with Toni too.  We went to the dining hall and the lady from Bikeability told us that it is important to wear your helmet on your bike or scooter (AH).  We also got to design our own helmet.  Mine was half orange and half rainbow coloured (BH).

Friday – We learned T’ai Chi in the gym hall with Morag (CB).  We learned how to  breathe and relax and make our muscles stronger (ER).  I found it really relaxing (GJ). It was very quiet and calming (MS).  It was very soothing because the movements were smooth and slow (ZS).  Miss McLellan announced the winner of our whole school homework task and it was a fantastic lion made out of all sort of fruit and vegetables! Congratulations!

We are Primary 5/4 and we have settled in really well to our new classroom. We are already learning lots and we are getting to know each other and our new teacher Mrs MacDonald, who is very awesome (AL), interesting (ZS) and nice (AD).

We have had a very busy week in school. For literacy this week we learned how to draw a visualiser for chapter 5 of The Demon Headmaster (AL). We also took notes of the main ideas in chapter 4 and used them to write a summary (DL). We used the non-fiction part of our book about food to make a poster showing the important facts (SC). We read our book and summarised what we read by writing about the beginning, middle and end of the story (AH). In spelling we looked in our jotters for words that we had previously found tricky, and we have been learning those words this week through lots of different spelling activities (MS). We have written about the setting of a story, using the 5 senses to describe the setting in detail (MK). We talked about what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, felt like and some of us even managed to include taste (MG)!

In maths we have been learning about place value (CG) and we practised numbers up to 1000, 2000 and 5000 (MS). We had to identify how many hundreds, tens and units were in a number (SC). We also made a place value poster to show what we know (SM).

In health and wellbeing we did an experiment with three slices of bread. The first piece was put into an airtight bag using gloves. The second piece was only handled using thoroughly washed clean hands and the third piece was passed round all the boys and girls in the class for us to touch with our not-so-clean hands! The three bags were stapled to the wall so we could watch what happened (ER). We made a prediction that more mould would grow on the one handled with dirty hands. We were right! It was really disgusting! Children from other classes kept stopping outside our base to look at it too. Now we know how important it is to wash our hands before we eat or prepare food (LR) and also after using the toilet (JF). The P4s learned how to pass and catch a rugby ball correctly (KK). P5 children did streetdance with Toni at the Sir Matt Busby centre. We learned the crossbox (LR), high knees (LK) and sidesteps (JF) and balance and flight moves (DL). Then we went swimming and we learned the mushroom float (ER) and the rocket (MS, BD) and chose a stroke to use in the big pool, where we learned how to swim in the deep end (MM).

In ICT we learned how to improve our typing by using level 2 of dance mat typing (BI). In IDL we learned about the Spanish flag and made our own by measuring with a ruler to make sure the stripes were equal. Then we stuck red and yellow tissue and crepe paper on (BD). These flags are now up on our display and they look estupendo! We learned to say hello and how are you in Spanish and we practised different ways of answering the question, It’s really brilliant! (LK) Although Spanish is a little hard because it’s so new to us, we are really enjoying it and it is fantastic! (JF) This is the first time Spanish has been taught at Ladywell and the first time Mrs MacDonald has ever taught it, and we’re very excited to be learning together.