We have had a busy week in P7B!

In Literacy we have been looking at the following:

Spelling: Looking at words containing the ti and si sound. As part of our spelling routine we have to extend the words, look for rhyming words and using them in context. Our words this week were: lotion, fraction, option, mansion, extension, admission and impression.

Writing: We have been continuing to explore the features of Explanation Writing and worked in small groups to create a class piece on earthquakes. We then spent some time proofreading and editing our work together.

Reading: This week we read an extract from a text called The Cay which was based in Venezuela during WW2. We considered the contrast in the last piece we read which was set during a similar time period. We had to answer comprehension questions on the text and completed some grammar work around the different types of nouns featured in the writing.

We are also having a reading session each Thursday where the children are encouraged to read a variety of texts of their choice. We have created a class Reading Record to keep track of what everyone is reading which the children add to at their own pace. Some of the children are reading articles online, whereas some are bringing in novels from home. Mrs Dundas kindly gave us some new novels for the class too.

Numeracy

Number Work: We have had a short focus on multiples and factors this week. Everyone has shown a real improvement in recall of their multiplication facts as they have been able to apply their knowledge of tables to this topic.

Practical Maths: We have been revising how to calculate the perimeter of a shape and we have been learning how to calculate the  area of a square and rectangle using formula. Again, everyone was able to  demonstrate their knowledge of multiplication facts as they applied this in a different context. Well done everyone!

RSPB Bird Watch:

We supported the Primary 1s on their windy Bird Watch walk. We helped our partners identify a range of birds around the school grounds and worked well together.

We finished the week with some Valentine’s art and our final leadership skills session with Paul Murray.

We also held a class prefect meeting to discuss what was going well and what we could change about our roles and rewards going forward. The prefects who have been carrying out their duties were all rewarded with a prefect break where they could go into the MUGA, have free iPad time or paint and draw.

Have a safe and relaxing February holiday. See you all on Tuesday 22nd February!

A huge thank you to all the kind people who donate rocks and fossils for our geology corner. We have loved finding out about the rock cycle and how the different rocks were formed.

Our writing this block is poetry, so we are becoming collectors of words!

We have written poems in different styles and his week it was Haikus and limericks. Both of these poetry types have a specific length, rhythm and number of syllables.

Haikus are mainly about nature, and limericks are usually nonsense!

In maths we learned about tenths and hundredths, and how to write tenths as a decimal. This helped us in a measure task, as we measured tenths of a metre strip and marked the tenths as decimals.

Our topic is about the surface of the Earth and we learned how tectonic plates converge to form mountains. This happens over millions of years.

Our Skipper topic, ‘respect yourself’ teaches us that we are unique and shouldn’t try to be somebody else. We listened to a story in which the mouse realised he didn’t need to have a lion’s roar to be brave and use his voice.

We watched the school Scots celebration yesterday and were really impressed by the poetry, dancing, singing, art and bagpipe playing. It was braw. Well done to everyone involved.
Thanks to Mrs Clyde for the delicious Scottie dog shortbread!

What have been your highlights this week?

How have you helped to make Kingsland a better place this week?

We have been very busy in class again this week.

One highlight for us was learning about the story of the willow pattern that we see on many dinner plates. We then designed our own willow pattern plates that look good enough to eat our mince and tatties from.

We made sure to include a pagoda, bridge and 2 turtle doves in our designs.

In Numeracy we have been exploring numbers to 100. This week we worked hard at reading the text in our workbooks, working with a learning partner if we got stuck and trying to work out what the tasks were a little more independently.

We have also been working more on feedback when we have completed our tasks and sharing how we reach our answers with our partners. We have really enjoyed this part of our Numeracy sessions.

We have been working on planning and writing our final story in the narrative style. Next week we will explore our stories in more depth through Drama and by sharing them with our friends.

Our Virtual Scottish afternoon was amazing. We have to thank Mrs. McGilp, Mrs Little and the Digital Ambassadors for all of their hard work in putting the video together.

We really enjoyed seeing what everyone had been learning about during the Scottish topic. How do P6 and P7 remember all the words in their poems?

Another highlight was savouring the Scottie dog shortbread that Mrs Clyde had made specially for us. Mmmm!

Now we are learning to add some text and drawings on our iPads.

Today we explored the Notes App.

Here are some of our highlights of the week in P7B:

Literacy:

Spelling: The sh and ci sound. The words we learned, grew and used in context were – dish,  bash, shield, shape, astonish, dietician, paediatrician and statistician.

Reading: We have been focusing on more challenging fiction texts and exploring questions which examine the plot, characterisation, language features, figures of speech and imagery.

Writing: The class have started to look at Explanation Writing which explains why or how something happens. We have broken the text into its key features and have worked in groups to write our own piece of Explanation writing together. We will collate each group’s work next week and work together to proof read and edit our work.

Numeracy:

Number Work: We have been looking at number patterns this week, applying our knowledge and understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to each set of numbers. Some of the patterns were particularly challenging but we were resilient and gave them a go.

Practical Maths: We have been practising measuring accurately with a ruler, converting different units of measure and learning how to calculate the perimeter of a shape. We have been able to apply our learning in word problem activities and problem solving tasks.

Health and Wellbeing 

We have continued with our ‘Respect Yourself’ topic in class as part of our Building Resilience work. This week we thought about how we could respect our bodies and look after our physical health. It made many of us consider changes that we could make to our daily routines.

Scottish Celebration Afternoon 

We had some lovely Scottie Dog shortbread to eat while we watched our Scottish Assembly. It was a brilliant display of learning from all of the children at Kingsland!

Music:

With Mrs Inglis, we have been looking at Scottish songs and creating our own songs. We have also been playing games to help with our memory and rhythm.

PE

We are lucky to have a wonderful new PE teacher, Mrs Edge, who has joined us at Kingsland. We are very much looking forward to developing our fitness and skills with her. Welcome Mrs Edge!

IDL – Natural Disasters

Our new topic is Natural Disasters and we have begun learning about how the earth is made up and how tectonic plates move, resulting in earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. We will be recording all of our learning on Book Creator on our iPads.

Questions to consider:

1. We have completed a number of activities with a partner and in groups this week. Do you think you worked well within your group? What skills did you need to use to help you? If you didn’t feel you worked well, what skills do you think you need to develop?

2. We watched the Scottish celebration assembly together on Thursday. What was your favourite part of the assembly?

3. Think of something you did to help someone in school this week. What did you do and how did it make you feel?

We have been learning about different food groups and the journeys that some of our foods make. Bananas can travel over 4000 miles to get here! We made tattie scones and butter using products that all come from Scotland.

Tattie scones

INGREDIENTS

• 500g Potatoes
• 25g Butter or Margarine
• 125g plain Flour

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Peel your potatoes and cut into even sized halves/quarters. Place in a pan with enough cold water to cover and bring to the boil. Boil gently for 15 to 20 minutes or until potatoes break apart easily when pierced with fork.
2. Remove the pan from the heat and drain the water. Allow your potatoes to air dry for a few minutes before mashing them with a potato masher. Add the butter/margarine and mash through the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
3. Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl. Add the flour to the bowl and using a wooden spoon, mix the flour through to potatoes to create a dough. You may need more/less flour depending on how moist your potatoes are.
4. Once you have a dough-like consistency, tip your potato mixture onto a well floured surface and gently knead it briefly, before dividing the dough into 3 even sized balls.
5. Warm a non-stick frying panover a medium-high heat (with no oil/butter). Roll your first ball into a circle about 20cm diameter and 5mm thickness, using lots of flour on your surface and rolling pin so they don’t stick. Using your rolling pin or a large spatula, transfer the potato circle to your hot [dry] frying pan. Score the top of the circle with two lines evenly down the middle, two create 4 triangular shapes.

(Alternatively, cut the circle into the 4 triangles before transferring to the frying pan, if you find moving the circle to be too tricky).

6. Allow the potato scones to cook, checking the underside every few minutes. Once the underside has a good colour to it, flip the potato scones to cook the other side too. It is usually easier to divide the potato scones into it’s triangles at this point, if you haven’t already..
7. Once our potato scones have a good colour on both side, remove from the heat and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with your remaining potato balls.
8. Enjoy warm with a slathering of butter, alongside your cooked breakfast, or in a roll with some sausages/bacon and sauce!

We are learning about the surface of the Earth and today we observed how plates move on the magma layer under the plates. There are 7 main tectonic plates and several small ones. They move very slowly, and there are three ways in which they move.

1. away from each other- divergent boundary

2. towards each other – convergent boundary

3. slide side by side – transform boundary

We made these movements using corn flour with food colouring for the magma, and crackers for the plates. We described each movement as we moved the crackers.

Wow, these are amazing P5a!