With only 4 weeks to the end of term and the end of our time at Kingsland we have started lots of planning for our virtual Leavers’ assembly. We have also been busy –

• Completing our writing assessments on response writing
• Watching and taking part in transition lessons from the high school
• Drawing shapes and tiling shapes to make patterns
• Writing about our memories of Kingsland
• Thinking about inherited characteristics and dominant and recessive genes
• Up-levelling our sentences to make them more interesting
• Studying Banksy graffiti art to find hidden meanings. We designed our own with positive messages and drew them around the classroom

1. Who was in your back up team this week and how did they help you?
2. What are you most looking forward to in the last few weeks at Kingsland?
3. What was your most valuable learning experience this week?

P7A also had a go at extracting DNA from strawberries in our Science lesson on Thursday. It was fascinating and it got us thinking how much more complicated it must be to analyse human DNA.

We also made models of the DNA double helix structure using edible parts.  It was a great afternoon!

We’ve had a very busy week in P7! Here are some of the highlights –

• Maths assessments for high school
• Spelling with the m, mm, mb, sound
• Writing a response to the spooky animation ‘Francis’
• Analysing Banksy artwork using our inference skills
• Finding out how a baby grows and develops before birth
• Finding out about how twins occur
• Extracting DNA from a strawberry
• Building double helix structures with base pairs out of sweeties
• Planning our Leavers’ Assembly
• Watching some video messages from teachers at Peebles High School
• Walk to School Week with the help of our JRSO team – William, Summer and Tara

1. What surprised you this week?
2. What do you wish you could do again and why?
3. What’s the most important thing you learnt this week and why?
4. Who have you shown kindness to this week?

This week it was Walk to School Week and the return of the ever popular “Shoesday” Tuesday. Here are some of our footwear choices

P7A created these beautiful eye drawings recently using soft drawing pencils to work on our sketching techniques.  To add a bit of colour we used coloured pencils in the iris and drew something we were looking forward to.

We have been learning about reproduction and DNA in class. Today we carried out an experiment to extract the DNA from a strawberry. We discussed where extraction of DNA might be used to help in cloning, forensic crime investigation, studying genetic diseases and bacteria and viruses in the environment.

It took quite a few steps and we had to be very careful but we were so happy when we finally managed to lift the DNA extract out on a cocktail stick.

We’ve had a great week in P7. Here are some of the highlights –

• Our final session with Jen and Jen from Live n Learn
• Writing a response text for Aquarium from Carnival of the Animals
• Finding rules in algebra
• Planning our Leavers’ Assembly
• Thinking about what love means to us
• Using the speed, distance, time triangle
• Looking at the features of different species and how these help them survive and reproduce
• Cricket and rounders in PE

What did you enjoy most this week?

What challenged your mindset this week?

When did you have to look on the bright side this week?

This week P7B have been applying their learning about the speed, distance, time triangle to real life scenarios.

We ran a sprint and a middle distance run in the playground and calculated our average speed. We then compared it with the world records for these distances. We couldn’t believe how fast Usain Bolt ran his 100m record!

We have also used the scale on an atlas to find the distance between countries and used this and the average speed of a plane to predict flight times.  We used a bus timetable and the average speed of the bus to calculate the distance travelled. We built a ramp and raced different toy vehicles to calculate speed. We also looked at how time zones impact the way businesses work and worked out which country will celebrate new year first.

Some of our tips for P7A who will do some of these challenges soon are –

• Read the task CAREFULLY
• Follow the rule of the SDT triangle
• The lines on the world map can help you with time zones
• Make sure the angle of your ramp is the same on each go or it will affect your results
• Use a ruler the find the scale on a map – we rounded to the nearest whole centimetre to make it a bit easier
• Look for a pattern in the bus timetable

We had a very interesting start to Thursday morning this week. When we arrived at school we were shocked to see a scary message left in blood on our classroom windows. We also had a note to say we were going to be investigating a crime that had happened in our classrooms.

We used our inference reading skills to solve a murder and create a crime report to present to the rest of the class. We were very relieved to find out it had all been pretend and just a way for us to practise what we have been learning about in reading. Quite a few of us managed to correctly identify the victim, suspect, motive and weapon!

This week we also –

• Learnt about the speed, distance, time formula
• Listened to a piece of spooky music and created a response text about it
• Had another session with Jen and Jen from Live n Learn
• Thought about some of the physical and emotional changes during puberty
• Explored Anthony Browne’s ‘Voices in the Park’ book
• Learnt about reproduction in flowering and non-flowering plants
• Set up an experiment to observe germination
• Continued to learn about why we use algebra in maths and in real life

1. What did you enjoy this week?

2. Who was in your back up team this week?

3. What tools from your Skipper toolkit did you use this week?