Castles CSI with Glasgow Science Centre. On Monday, we had a super visit from GSC who explained some of the science of castles. We also got to take part in a workshop being forensic scientists to investigate two different skeletons. It was a lot of fun and we definitely had to use great communication and teamwork to solve some trickier problems.

Shetland fir Wirds. On Monday, Bruce came in to help us begin to learn our words for ‘Da night afore Yul’. The learners all did so well and gave it a go, even when some of the words were very tricky. They’ve really embraced the theme for the Christmas Concert and have started to learn lines for other parts of the concert too.

Little people, BIG dreams. This week our Big Question, has focused on discrimination. The learners grapsed this concept well and explored it further by looking at different historical figures who had faced discrimination.

Monster Kickabout. We’ve had a super week celebrating football through the Monster Kickabout celebration. The football coaches have led sessions with the younger pupils in the multicourt each breaktime. It was that popular they held additional sessions with both the nursery and the P1/2 class. They held competitions for each class and then hosted a peerie assembly to give out cerificates to the MVPs and trophies to the competition winners. The coaches planned and organised the event themselves and have blown everyone away with their leadership and teamwork skills.

Shetland fir Wirds. This week, Bruce Eunson came to visit the class as we started our work in preparation for the Christmas Concert. We had a lot of fun thinking about different Shetland words in general and then more specifically linked to animals and foods. This will come in handy as we write our own version of the ’12 Days of Christmas’ and also practice for the concert.

Monster Kickabout. For this week and next week, we are celebrating football in the class and encouraging other classes to do the same.  A  group of pupils in the class are leading this and have planned different activities and events for the school. They organised a competition for each class and then the P7 pupils are working independently or in pairs to create trophies that will be used as prizes.

Writing. For our writing this term we are having three different focused tasks each week – 1 story, 1 ICT based task and 1 poster based task. We will also have an overarching theme each week and this week, we used ‘Coco’ as a stimulus looking at ‘the best festivals’ (persuasive text) and then creating posters about ‘The Day of the Dead’. The learners did an excellent job of creating their persuasive pieces of writing on the computer and their posters were amazing.

It has been lovely to have the class back and they’ve already been very busy.

Maths – Multiplication Master. This week we started our new mental maths activity called Multiplication Master. It allows the learners to focus on a particular times table per week and apply this to increasingly challenging questions. over the week.

Big Question. For this week’s big questions, we have been looking at different customs and values of  different countries around the world. The learners worked in groups to research a given country and then present their information/props in our class Cultural Fair. The groups then went on a world tour to learn about the different countries from ‘an expert’. It was so lovely to see the learners all working so cooperatively and sharing their research with great confidence and enthusiasm.

Happy Term 1. We have had such a busy week for the last week of term 1.

Shetland Youth Orchestra. This week we had a visit from the Shetland Youth Orchestra who treated us to different spooky tunes. The whole class really enjoyed some familiar music as well as the stories behind some of the new pieces we heard.

Famous Sportspeople Homework. The whole class had an opportunity to share their homework projects this week and I was so impressed with what everyone had done. It was lovely to see the learners full of confidence and able to share their research clearly with the class.

Salt Crystals. A couple of weeks ago we set up an experiment, when learning about separating materials, to grow salt crystals. The results have been really interesting and different results occurred depending on a range of factors, so it led to a lot of rich discussions around fair experiments.

Big Question. Our Big Question this week has been focusing on different religious festivals that take place at this time of year. We looked at harvest and why this is important for Christians. We also learned about Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and how this is celebrated within Judaism. We watched a couple of video of people explaining how they celebrated it and then discussed the similarities and differences between our own New Year celebrations. The class also got to taste some different foods that are eaten at a Rosh Hashanah celebration. Our ‘Big Question’ wall is now finished for the term too.

100 Club for writing. As the class achieved 100% in their writing once again, we celebrated with a hot chocolate. Well done P6/7!

A Whole New World. This week the task was to build a new habitat for an animal of their choice. The class all made some excellent new habitats and certainly had a lot of fun playing with the animal figures.

End of Term fun.  We’ve had a very busy but fun end of the week for the last few days of term 1.  We got to do some baking, making truffles with Carrie-Ann and pancakes with Mrs. A. We have also had ‘Big Play’ and a movie with popcorn to end the week.

Learner Led Event. Here are just a few snaps from our learner led event last week. Thank you to everyone who came along and took part in the different learning activities within the class.

Floppy Fingers Fun. To practice our times tables, the class played a new game this week called ‘floppy fingers’. There was a lot of laughter and competitive spirit on show but it did make practicing quick recall of tables facts lot of fun. See if your child can teach it to you at home.

Lemon experiments. This week we continued to look at batteries and circuits. We tried to make  our own batteries this time using a lemon. Unfortunately this wasn’t successful as the battery didn’t work to light the bulb. However, I was so impressed with the class, especially their resilience and problem solving skills as they tried many different combinations to get their lemon batteries to work. A great lesson in what we can do when things don’t go as planned.

A Visit from Mrs. Meadows. On Tuesday, Mrs. Meadows came to speak to the class about having a baby. She spoke about how she is feeling and things she is doing to keep her and the baby safe. Mrs. Meadows also brought two large water bottles and let the class see how much extra weight a pregnant lady can carry around. She also showed us her scan picture so that we could see how the baby is developing and we got to look inside her baby box too. We had a lot of fun and got to ask some questions of our own too.

Cooking with Carrie-Ann. Over the last 4 weeks, the class have gone in groups to work on some cookery skills with Carrie-Ann. They have made tomato pasta, macaroni cheese, vegetable soup and pizza. They have all worked so well together to create their dishes and certainly enjoyed the results of their cooking.

This term in PE we have been doing activities from the Better Movers and Thinkers programme.

“Better Movers and Thinkers (BMT) is an approach to learning and teaching in physical education designed to develop the ability of all children and young people to move and think in a more cohesive way with a specific focus on developing, enhancing and fostering Executive Function (EF) skills within the learning process.” Better Movers and Thinkers Resource Pack.

Although our main focus has been on Coordination & Fluency, we have worked on many different Specific Aspects of Learning including, kinaesthetic awareness, gross and fine motor skills, communication,  decision making and stamina are just a few.

The following videos show the class, in 2 groups, performing a sequence.  The activity started with each person creating their own sequence.  The second stage was to pair up and choose one of the sequences to perform together.   5 pairs then grouped together to, again, choose one of the sequences that the whole group learnt and performed together.    The pupils used lots of skills to be able to perform the final sequence, including communication, cooperation, decision making and respect & tolerance.

Maths. This is a favourite activity in class as we practice counting skills in the 5 minute challenge. The learners showed different skills as some looked for patterns in the numbers to help them whilst others used their tables knowledge to help count backwards and forwards.

Writing. This week, P7 were asked to help the P3/4 class with editing their writing. It was lovely activity and the learners enjoyed reading the wonderful writing P3/4 had produced. I was also really impressed with the Primary 7’s understanding of the writing process and their awareness of all the elements needed within any piece of writing.

Big Question. We have been looking at batteries this week and had a go at building our own using vinegar, cardboard, 2p coins and silver washers. The learners were not sure that it would work but every group was able to light a bulb using their created battery cell.

Big Question. This week we have continued with our science focus and thought about different ways that materials go together or can be separated. We looked at the different states of matter and used our awesome poster making skills to make posters, either handwritten or on the computer. We then carried out some different experiments linked to dissolving and separating materials and are trying to grow our own salt crystals (watch this space). We also had some fun creating Oobleck which is a non-Newtonian fluid (it can be solid and liquid).

This or That. There has certainly been a lot of creativity and hilarity surrounding our independent learning tasks this week as our focus was clocks, Hansel and Gretel and ‘Talk like a Pirate Day’. The learners were keen to perform plays, write raps, host talk shows and more linked to these different topics.

Maths. For maths this week, we have been very busy. We played the silent count game where we had to take it in turns to count to 100 by finding the numbers on a number board. It seemed like a simple task but was actually quite tricky. We then did some ‘blether stations’ outside to practice learning about using timetables. We’ve also had a lot of fun playing ‘Blooket’ to practice our times table knowledge.

Symmetrical Artwork. For an art this week, Mrs Adamson challenged the learners to complete the picture of different animals. The results are incredible and the learners all did such an amazing job.

Big Question.  This week we have been thinking about different materials and their properties. We had a scavenger hunt to find as many different materials as we could in and around the school. We  also looked at reversible and irreversible changes and did a fun experiment to test this out.