This afternoon we were working hard in our reading groups. Some pupils were finding clues in the text about characters’ feelings, reactions and responses to other characters. Another group was selecting the relevant information in the text to answer questions and another group was doubling a constant before adding “ing” to verbs from their book, as well as answering questions about their text.

In Maths we will be looking at Co-ordinates.

Treasure Map: Ask child to draw an island (top down view) on squared paper. Ask them to number each line along the bottom edge (zero in the left corner) and up the left edge (from that same zero). Draw some ‘treasures’ and other features on the map and ask child to identify their positions. Start along the horizontal line (x) then up the vertical line (y) and write the coordinate as: (x, y).

Battleships! Draw a 10×10 grid. On your map, you need to mark 7 boats… two boats with 2 spots, 2 boats with 3 spots, 2 boats with 4 spots and a 5-spot boat. The spots in each boat can only be horizontal or vertical (NOT diagonal), and must be placed on the grid-lines. Decide who is starting. Try to guess where your enemy’s boats are, by asking them for a co-ordinate. If it hits one of your boats’ spots, draw a cross on that spot, and you get another guess… if it’s a miss, draw a circle there and your enemy has a turn to guess where your boats are hidden. Keep playing by taking turns until there is a winner – the one who sinks all SEVEN boats.

Coordinates: Here are the coordinates of some quadrilaterals but in each case one coordinate is missing!

1. (2,11),(0,9),(2,7),(?,?)
2. (3,7),(3,4),(8,4),(?,?)
3. (18,3),(16,5),(12,5),(?,?)
4. (13,12),(15,14),(12,17),(?,?)
5. (7,14),(6,11),(7,8),(?,?)

The quadrilaterals are all symmetrical. This may be rotational or line symmetry or both. Can you work out what the missing coordinates are if you know they are all positive? (Hint: draw a 20 by 20 grid and plot them out) Is there more than one way to find out?

Useful Websites

http://www2.smarttutor.com/player/swf/Geometry_Coordinate_L5_V1_t3a.swf Park the car – This grid activity will set your graph reading skills on track.

http://nrich.maths.org/1279 – Coordinate Cunning- Combines ‘4 in a row’ with knowledge of origin and coordinates

Literacy

We will be looking at Non- Fiction books

Compare a story book and a fact book. (Look carefully at them and find things that are the same and things that are different.)

Fact (Non-fiction) Book Title_______________ Author __________________

Story (Fiction) Book Title __________________ Author _________________

Things that are different
Fact Book	Story book
Things that are the same
Both books have:

 

Non-Fiction Feature Find!

 

Use non-fiction books, you may have to go to the library, to find one example of each common nonfiction feature below. Write the title of the book you found it in and a brief description of what the feature is showing in that book.

 

Non-Fiction Feature	Book & Page Number	What did you find out?
Table of Contents
Index
Glossary
Headings
Subheadings
Text Boxes
Bold/Italicized text
Pictures and/or diagrams
Captions
Anything else?

 

Health and Well Being

When you get you Kid Power Band you need to think of a place to keep it safe when you have a wash/ bath or shower. As you will be taking it home every night you must also remember to bring it to school to earn your points.

Learn more about promoting healthy eating by playing this game:

http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/science/pdfs/pileitonmyplate.pdf

There a five different food groups. Can you draw a table with the 5 different food groups and give examples of food from each group?

Keep a food diary for a week. Remember to stay healthy you should eat mostly from the Carbohydrates group and not too much from the Fats group. Try not to have too many of these: – chips, sausages, hamburgers, bacon, crisps, sweets, peanuts, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks. Don’t forget to eat at least 5 lots of fruit and vegetables every day

Learn more about “World Food Crisis” from this Oxfam website:

https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/resources/world-food-crisis

This afternoon we walked to the Luggie Nature Reserve. We had hoped for a snow afternoon but unfortunately there was no snow!!!

We discussed the dangers of frozen water and explained why the pond was frozen yet the Luggie wasn’t.  We compared the difference in vegetation between Autumn and Winter.  The Luggie was very fast flowing and it was far too dangerous to paddle.  The waterfall looked amazing because of the extra volume of water.

P6/7 and P5/6 have been very lucky to have been chosen to take part in Unicef’s Kid Power pilot!

We have been lucky enough to be offered a free day by Microfitness and this will take place in school tomorrow. Please make sure that your child has a pair of indoor shoes and their gym kit with them to enable them to take part. (P7 and P3/4 can wear their gym kit to school and can change into their uniforms after their session as theirs will start promptly at 9am!)
All school children will be given a 45 minute session on the Mobile Military Fitness equipment and the house winners from terms 1 and 2, ASH,  will recieve an extra session as their reward!
Hopefully this will be a fun experience for all of the children (and staff who are very welcome to join in!) Check back here tomorrow and on our twitter page for photos from the day.

Today we played some games together and watched a Christmas Dvd- we were a bit too excited for hard work!!

Wishing everyone a Happy Christmas and many joys in 2016,

Mrs Pollock

This morning, the whole school went into the hall and the choir sang many Christmas songs and carols. The singing helped us all to feel even more excited about Christmas!!!

Today we all wore Christmas jumpers to raise money for charity.  We had a lovely Christmassy assembly then we helped the little P1s with their Christmas cards. In the afternoon we looked at Victorian Christmas traditions then made Santa mobiles. 

This morning we planned another great story.  This week we had a Christmas theme- “The Nightmare Just Before Christmas”.  We looked at WOW words then shared some ideas, first with a partner, then with the class about our stories.

Tomorrow we will write our stories up then peer mark them using our success criteria.

This afternoon we sang, danced, played games and, of course, ate at our Christmas party.  A great time was had by all!!!