Grow Your Own Potatoes is a project which aims to teach children about the process of growing and harvesting potatoes, as well as their health benefits. We have been sent a huge box of potatoes for everyone in the school to have a go!

As it is approaching the school holidays, we thought it would be best to send the potatoes home to allow the children to plant these at home. We will give out the potatoes to the children on Thursday.

We have received the potatoes later than usual so the chitting process does not need to be done. Everyone should start the process at the Planting stage. The instructions can be found below:

https://www.growyourownpotatoes.org.uk/how-to/

We would love to see and hear about how you are getting on with your crop so please do e-mail your teacher photos, videos and successful recipes!

Primary 7B have enjoyed the sunshine this week and we have taken every opportunity to be outside!

Everyone has worked very hard to complete end of topic Writing and Maths assessments. We have also had iPad assessments to complete too! All of the children tried their best and sat quietly to allow others to concentrate. Thank you for your efforts and patience!

Here our some of the children’s highlights:

Wellbeing Wednesday 

Each Wednesday we have a short session where we can socialise with our friends, play board and card games, finish off and get help with challenging work concepts, practise skills or check-in with the teacher about particular worries or concerns. All of the children have utilised this time well and we will be engaging in a range of wellbeing activities after the Easter break.

Primary 7 had a fantastic time on our half day visit to the High School this morning.
Some of the highlights included:

• Seeing the Craft and Design classes
• Going into the canteen
• Meeting children from other schools
• Getting to meet some of our new teachers and guidance teachers

A big thank you to our parent helpers, the brilliant S3s who showed us around and the teachers who welcomed us into their classrooms.

We are all very excited for our two day visit in mid-June!

We have been enjoying the milder weather and sunshine in the playground this week. However, please remember to bring in a waterproof jacket as it is has drizzly on occasion! Our playground is also very muddy at the moment so please ensure that your child has indoor shoes as mud is being brought in from outside.

For spelling, we have focused on the ch and tch sound. The class have been  practising their dictionary skills, as well as completing question activities about our spelling words.

We have continued with Explanation texts in our writing and used one of our PM books to help us structure our work. The class helped to design a writing plan which they used to aid their writing on Tsunamis.

In reading, we have been looking at the different types of questions that we may have to answer in comprehension. We revised what each type of question was and we had to create our own literal, inferential and response questions for the class. Although some of these questions were challenging, we were all resilient in giving these a go. We will continue with this comprehension work throughout the year.

In our core maths we finished our percentages work and we have started revising function machines and basic algebra. In practical maths we are looking at 12 and 24 hour time as well as calculating short time intervals.

For our topic work, we have been continuing to learn about Tsunamis and the devastating effects they have on communities and the countries in which they occur. We have been recording our learning on Book Creator on our iPads,  carrying out research to create pages on each natural disaster. We will share our work with another class at the end of term.

In Health and Well-being we have been continuing to learn about the Reproductive System and pregnancy. The class have been very respectful and have been asking some really interesting questions. All of the resources that we use in class can be found on the following website: https://rshp.scot

We were also treated to our final Fairtrade treats on Monday. Adam very kindly spent some of his weekend baking some delicious chocolate muffins using Fairtrade cocoa powder and sugar.

We have also had a strange visitor in the classroom…can you guess what type of animal it is?! She moved around at each break time to  surprise the children. Thanks for visiting Snowy!

Over the past two weeks, P7B have been learning about Fairtrade products and how this impacts our world. We watched videos, engaged in discussion and created artwork to represent our views.

The theme for this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight is ‘Choose the World You Want’ and tied in with our learning around COP26. Each child was given the task of creating something which represents what we want the world to look like in the future. Some of the children were confident in presenting their work to the class. We were all impressed with the wide variety of talent on show and the different messages the pupils were trying to portray. Which is your favourite?

The children have been given the opportunity to submit their work to be included in the 2022 Exhibition Wall on the Fairtrade Website. All of the details have been sent to the class on Teams and can be found below:

Get involved in the 2022 Fairtrade Youth Exhibition

This week we have…

Listened to a story by Shirley Hughes and drew a picture in the style of her illustrations. Her stories make us feel NOSTALGIC!

We have been learning about volcanoes and tied this into our writing. Our explanation writing also included a labelled diagram.

We have continued learning about Fairtrade Fortnight. We enjoyed some more Fairtrade goodies. Thank you Liberty and Eliana!

We created volcano pictures using oil pastels and splattered paint all over our work.

In maths, we have been continuing to learn about percentages and finished off our mini topic on area.

We had a live assembly with the whole school, in spite of the technical difficulties! We enjoyed learning more about our new headteacher and we all have a task to do so Mrs Strathearn can get to know us a little better.

We had our book character hunt for World Book Day. We worked with our team to find as many as we could.

In Health and Wellbeing, we have been learning about the changes our bodies go through during puberty.

Written by P7B 😀

Here is a round-up of this week’s activities:

A big thank you to our ‘Star Baker’, Anna, who baked us some delicious cakes using Fairtrade ingredients at home! We will post some more of our Fairtrade learning at the end of Fairtrade Fortnight next week.

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!

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?

This week we have been continuing with our learning around our Scottish topic as the children have continued to practise their Scottish poems and have explored the Scottish vocabulary within Tam O’ Shanter and have spent time sequencing the story. The class have also enjoyed learning about different Scottish artists, discussing their work and creating our own artwork in the same style. We look forward to sharing more of our work with you in our Scottish Celebration Assembly.

In Literacy, we have been revising the qu sound in spelling and challenging ourselves to grow new words with different prefixes and suffixes. Reading for information and finding evidence to answer comprehension questions has also been a focus this week and all of the children have been working hard. We have continued to work on writing our own limericks, considering which lines should rhyme and thinking about the specific rhythm of the poem. A link to how to write your own Limerick can be found below:

How to Write a Limerick

In Numeracy we have continued to learn about fractions and we have been learning how to calculate the fraction of a quantity. For practical maths, the children have been looking at position and movement in relation to compass points and can plot points on a grid.

In Health and Well-being, we have been engaging with our Resilience resources focusing on the theme ‘Respect Yourself’. The children had to come up with a minimum of eight positive words which described them and had to create a word search. Some of us found it hard to come up with positive words but luckily our friends helped us.

A big thank you to the Prefects this week who carried out their duties this week. Many of the adults in the school have commented on your hard work and good manners. Keep it up!

Questions to consider:

1. Name one thing you enjoyed this week and why.

2. Was there anything you found hard? Why was it hard and what did you do to overcome the challenge?

3. If you could do anything in school next week, what would it be? What resources would you need?