As part of our Bridges topic, we were experimenting with building suspension bridges.  We first built a beam bridge and tested how much weight it could stand and then we converted it into a suspension bridge.  We discovered that the bridge supports much more weight due to the extra support and the balancing of the forces, namely tension and compression.

On Thursday 29th November, the P7s went to the High School for a morning of activities as part of their transition.   It was based on Health and Wellbeing.  One session was linked to resilience and perseverance, another was in the Home Economics Department where P7s were finding out what HE would involve in their first year and the other session was PE where the pupils played a great game of longball.

The P7s really enjoyed the morning and they are looking forward to High School very much.

P7C had great fun learning the vocabulary for classroom furniture and prepositions and adding this to their previously learned knowledge of numbers, they produced, in teams, some great video tours of the classroom.  Their pronunciation has come on in leaps and bounds.  Well done P7C.

Videos to follow (once I can change the size of them!!).

On Friday  9th November, P7C gave a moving presentation on the Story of the Poppy.  They produced some amazing artwork and spoke in very clear and audible voices.

This week the P4s came to visit the P7s who shared their learning within ICT.   The P7s were showing off their core programming language skills through the creation of computer games.  The P4s played the games and gave feedback based on 2 stars and a wish.  The ‘wish’ was then incorporated into the game and the new improved games were played.  It was a very enjoyable experience for all and we look forward to working with the P4s again.

The local Rugby Development Officer has been visiting the P7C and P6/7 classes for a 6 week block on rugby.  We have been learning how to pop pass, dodge and evade and catch the ball.  We even have a go at kicking through a game of Rugby Baseball which is great fun.

The Perth Judo Club visited the school to give all the pupils a taster session.  The P7C and P6/7 pupils decided that it was great fun and some have started at the local club here at the campus.   The instructors were very good and taught us some really good moves and we had fun practising them.

On Tuesday 13th November, P7C and P6/7 visited the Forth Bridges Resource and Education Centre as part of their topic on bridges.  In the morning, we talked about what engineers do and decided we are basically all engineers because engineering is problem solving.   We then were put into groups where we all had an individual role to build the tallest tower possible out of a certain number of blocks.  We decided the best design to use and then went for it.  It was great fun and the tallest tower was 152 cm!!

After lunch, in a sunny but windy day, we all walked across the Forth Road Bridge and it was lovely to see all 3 bridges up close.  We were surprised that the Forth Road Bridge moved when we walked on it but it is a suspension bridge after all.   We also couldn’t believe how high the towers were.

On the way home we had a sing song on the bus which the teachers really enjoyed !?  A great day.

This term our topic has been India.  For the end of term we thought it would be fun to do a Shadow Theatre project.  Shadow puppetry is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment using opaque figures in front of an illuminated backdrop to create the illusion of moving images.  It is still practised in countries like Indonesia, China, Thailand and India.

In Science – we discovered:-

• how shadows are made using sources of light and opaque materials and how to make shadows big and small using a source of light.

In Language – we wrote a short fable which is a simple story that teaches a life lesson.

In Technology – we used our problem solving skills to build a model which is our shadow theatre and create silhouettes of the characters in the fable.

And through Drama we presented the fable to an audience (P3s) while using expression, voice and movement.

It was great fun and the P3s wrote us lovely thank you cards and said how much they enjoyed our shows.

In February both P7 classes took part in a Tobacco Workshop run by the NHS.  In the morning, we learnt about what goes into a cigarette and why smoking is so bad for you.  We learnt lots of yucky facts and figures.   We then practised a play where everyone had a part.  It was great fun and then we performed it to the P5s while teaching them about the dangers of smoking.