All posts by Mrs Robertson

P7 Outdoor Learning

@AttainRen @OutdoorClassDay We had a fantastic time for our Outdoor Learning Day! We have been thinking about what Maths means and we how we can use our Maths skills in a new and interesting way.  We decided to use our school playground to create, research, interpret and present our own Maths investigations.  We looked around us to see what problems we could solve.

We then created our own Big Maths Question and worked in small groups to find the answers to our problems.  Some groups decided to investigate the different types of trees in the playground, some used scale and angles to estimate the height of the tallest trees and another group decided to find out how many benches we would need in our playground to have enough seats for everyone!

We then presented our findings to the class through a poster or presentation…one group even recreated a BBC News Report and recorded it for the class!  It was a great use of our school playground and Maths skills.

Tennis Stars

A huge well done to the P4 Tennis Team who won an inter-schools competition at Strathgryffe on Monday!  The team worked at various stations testing their tennis skills and all supported each other throughout the event.  Well done everyone!

P7 and Castlehead Cooking

Primary 7 had a visit from Mr Simpson and Miss Martin from the Home Ec department at Castlehead.  They worked in groups to make a chicken pasta bake and a fruit smoothie!  Everyone was given a card in their groups with different tasks and had to work together as a team to create the dishes.  They tasted amazing and the pupils can’t wait for more Home Ec lessons!

P7 Anderson Shelters

As part of our WW2 topic, P7 have been learning about Anderson shelters.  Pairs were set a challenge to design and build and Anderson shelter model which could withstand a 1kg weight, be waterproof, hold at least 6 Lego people and be appropriate for the time.  The pupils were very creative and before testing, evaluated their models by comparing them to their original designs.

Some of the models coped better with the 1kg weight and water than others!

P7 Character Analysis

In our shared novel ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’, we have looked closely at the character of Kensuke.  In our most recent chapter, we’ve seen a different side to him and some of our opinions of him have changed.  We discussed his various personality traits and used evidence from the text to support our opinions.

The following day we wrote a persuasive essay to answer the question ‘Kensuke is a kind and caring man.  Do you agree or disagree?’.  We structured our arguments and wrote detailed points.

Finally, we then held a mini debate to argue for and against the question!  Each side made their points really well and had challenging questions from the audience.

Our Chairperson did a fantastic job of ensuring a balanced approach to the debate.  In the end, the vote was 15-4 to…the For side!

P7 Maths Journals

@AttainRen Primary 7 have recently begun using Maths Journals as a way to explore Maths concepts and ideas in more detail.  The class have ownership of their Journals and the way in which they choose to present the information is entirely down to them.  The pupils were really excited to share their knowledge of Area in their Maths Journals…we can’t wait to see what goes in them next!

P7 Music

P7 have had a very musical week!

We first listened to a classical piece of music and, without being told the title or composer, were asked to interpret the music through Art! We listened to the piece several times and produced some very interesting drawings…

We then learned that the piece was called ‘Storm’ by Benjamin Britten.  It was interesting to compare it to our story, Kensuke’s Kingdom, as the main character Michael had just survived a storm.

After this, we worked in small groups to create our own piece of music to re-tell a part of the story.  We used a range of percussion instruments and also created graphic scores to organise our pieces with one member of each group taking on the role of conductor.  Our graphic scores used symbols, shapes and arrows to explain how the music should be played.  The conductor controlled the tempo.

We spent time rehearsing and then performed our pieces to the rest of the class, explaining the moment in the story they were interpreting and justifying our use and choice of instruments. They were fabulous!