Here is an update on the work we have been doing on the subject of peer pressure and how to handle it.

We took part in some role play scenarios and discussed strategies that could be used to avoid peer pressure.  We then designed posters to help others who are suffering from peer pressure!

Here are a few more photos of us making our paper mache planets.  We need to leave them all to dry and will finish painting them after the October holiday!

On Tuesday, we were very lucky to have a visit from one of our parents, Hina Khan, who works for the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications, based at Strathclyde University.  This helped to support our Space topic and World Space week (4th- 10th October).

She came in and worked with us to teach us all about satellites space exploration and the development of this over time; in particular, that satellites are getting smaller!  She also told us about the important work being done in Scotland to support space exploration, through’ Clyde Space’ and Prestwick Airport.

We spent time researching information on 3 satellites – ROSETTA, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION AND UKUBE-1.

We also got to make a model of a CubeSat, which is the actual size of a real satellite!

Thank you to Hina Khan for the fabulous afternoon.

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As next week is the October week, and we won’t be at school, you do not have to take your homework jotters home to complete any formal written homework.

However, here are a few ideas and activities that you could be doing over the holiday which will help you to progress:

• reading – books, recipes, newspapers, magazines, catalogues – anything, as long as you are reading at home, with or without an adult.
• choose a recipe to follow and make a delicious meal, cakes or biscuits, with an adult.  This will help your reading, maths and organisational skills.
• go shopping with an adult.  Add up what is going in the shopping basket as it goes in.  You may need a notepad to help you jot calculations down.  Can you get your estimation close to the final total at the till?
• Alternatively, ask for an adult’s shopping receipt, with the total amount scored out – can you calculate the correct total?
• watch the news and read the newspaper! Can you find any current developments or news about space and space exploration? If you find any articles, cut them out and bring them in for our topic!

Finally, just have a wonderful holiday and stay safe!

Miss Donald.

Today, we joined the Primary 7 class to take part in a beeswax filtering experiment.  We had to melt the beeswax down and then filter or sieve it to produce a purer and cleaner wax, which in commercial terms, could be used to make candles, furniture polish, lip salve etc.

The variable that we chose to change was the material used to filter the wax.  The rest we kept exactly the same.  The 4 different filtering material were:

• coffee filter
• kitchen roll
• muslin cloth
• dish cloth

First, we predicted which one would act as the best filter.  Most people predicted the coffee filter or kitchen roll because the holes were smaller so less dirt would filter through the material.

Here is a slideshow of our scientific experiment.  We hope you enjoy!  The results of the experiment are on the last slide, although we also discovered that next time we would use only the cleanest, newest wax and discard the more blackened old wax as this did not melt as well and had to be double filtered.

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Today, we had maths expert Lynda Keith in school.  She spent time in our class on strategies for mental addition.

We found lots of different strategies for solving the same calculation.  Some of the strategies we used were:

• Counting on and Back (CO)
• Partitioning (splitting) a number (P)
• Rounding and Adjusting (RA) or Bridging and Adjusting (BA) – Looking for numbers that are close to a multiple of 10, so that you can round to a multiple of 10
  and then add or subtract a small number (adjusting). For example:
  64 + 79 = 143 Work this out as 64 + 80 − 1 = 143
  138 − 47 = 91 Work this out as 138 − 50 + 3 = 91

We practised using empty number lines and partition grids.

We know that we don’t always have to go straight to the column method to work out calculations.  There may be a quicker and easier mental strategy, so we should always look at the numbers first to see if we can spot any number bonds we know, any doubles, near doubles or connections.

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Today, we mapped the solar system and then took part in art activities, including beginning to make a 3D planet display using paper macher.  We still have a couple of layers to paste over our balloons before letting them dry completely and paint them to resemble the planets.  We will keep you posted on progress.

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Homework due next Monday 9th October 2017.

Literacy

Reading

• Read at least up to chapter 4 of your reading book at home.
• Wow Words – Record new and interesting words that you read, have a guess at what you think they might mean from the context of the sentence and find out their meanings.  Were you correct?
• V.I.P.s – (Very Important Points).  In class, we have been practising identifying the Very Important Points in a text i.e. The Main Points without the detail.  Record the VIPs in a list in your jotter.

Maths

Ordering  and Partitioning (Splitting up a number).

• Order the set of numbers from smallest to largest.

• Partition 6 of the numbers in your jotters:  (Choose your preferred set or try all 3!):

1. 2156,   1211,    5369,    1456,    2191,    6819,    1126,    9105,    8888,    2145,    2399, 1365,    9499,    5876,    9091,    5010,    6151,    8527,    3013.

2)   21156,        11211,       53169,        11156,      50786,       27191,       67819,       19126,      91005,       88888,    27145,     233999,     13165,      91499,      58976,     97091,      51010,     60151,     85127, 20555

3)   5.6,   4.04,    8.12,     5.3,    7.8,    1.0,    0.8,    9.4,    0.3,     8.4,      6.06,     7.7,     1, 65,      1,      0.3,     8.03,       0.4,      0.12,     2.

Space

• Research a famous astronaut / space explorer.
• Create a poster at home about this person – Remember it can be a male or female!
• Just as we have been creating planet posters in class, these astronaut posters must include: a title, subtitle, a picture / photo of your astronaut, at least 5 detailed facts about your chosen astronaut, with subtitles.
• It must also be eye-catching, neat and well presented.
• You may complete this on the computer or handwrite on paper.

Remember the Top Tip for creating a poster on word – Use Text boxes to move pictures and text around on the page.

This morning, in maths, we chose an activity related to place value and played some games with a partner.  We used game boards, dice, templates etc. to practice partitioning, making the biggest number and change the digit, change the value.

Some of us also got to further our maths skills on our favourite maths app – Sumdog!

Today we practised up-levelling sentences in our BIG writing lesson. ‘Up-levelling’ means making writing a higher level, by adding interesting and ambitious VCOP – Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation.

This was the one of the sentences we up-levelled:

‘The dog ran after the ball.’

Here are our up-levelled texts…