Our new bug hotel
John has been busy again creating a fabulous big hotel for us. We were very excited to make our way to the frog pond area this morning to put it in position. We are planning to go on a class walk to find some items to put in it to encourage more bugs into the area.
Class Planters
John has very kindly made us a planter for our topic this term and we are hoping to build on this further throughout the remainder of the term; adding bulbs, plants and maybe some paint to it.
We are waiting to hear if we will be lucky enough to get some funding for our compost and bulb request but in the meantime would appreciate it if the parents in our class could collect some of the small milk bottles please. We are hoping to use these to plant some seeds that will be in class and out on the planter if the weather is fine. The pupils will then bring them home at the end of the school year.
Thank you to John!
Star constellations
We’ve been researching star constellations in class in preparation for making posters to share with the class.
Today we have been trying to recreate our constellation using marshmallows and spaghetti. Once we had succeeded in creating that some tried to make their own star constellations too.
I think the favourite part was eating the marshmallows at the end of the lesson!
I have no pictures because I was busy enjoying our maths class today…
We set ourselves some chimney sum addition challenges outside and then finished the session with a group maths relay race, tiring but fun – never doubt that maths can be fun!
We’ve made some huge steps with our chimney sums in the past 2 weeks, well done P4/5!
Outdoor learning – maths
Today we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went outside to do a little revision for our maths lesson. The pupils had to work together to use their bodies to answer the maths question. They had to show an understanding of the maths task and work well within their team to get themselves in the correct position to provide the correct answer – sometimes easier said than done…
Firstly we described a 2D shape.
A rectangle –
An equilateral triangle –
A pentagon with only person speaking to position bodies –
A maths sum where the answer was 4 –
A maths sum where the answer is 10 –
A maths sum where the answer is 14 –
The answer is 15 and 102 –
Just for fun we joined together to make a big wind turbine.
We had a lot of fun in our maths lesson today!
Escape room fun
On the last day of term we performed our escape room challenges. The class were split into small groups. They researched escape room challenge ideas and then thought of their own versions that they could set for the other teams within the class. They had been working on this over a few sessions and there was much excitement to see what all the other teams had come up with.
There was a great variation in the types of challenges that had been set, they covered a good range of skills for the pupils to try and solve. Some were more challenging than others, some were single steps, some multiple steps and they used a great range of resources and skills to complete their set tasks.
Treasure hunts.
When we returned to the classroom I asked the pupils what activities they would like to do before the Easter break. They came up with some super suggestions and we have slowly been working away through them.
One of the activities has been the treasure hunt, there has been much excitement for this! The pupils have been working in teams to create a map of the school grounds and set various challenges for the rest of us to complete along the way.
Today was the day we’ve all been waiting for – TIME TO HUNT!
When a team map was selected it was that group that took charge of the rest of the class, they were tasked to guide and instruct us for the whole circuit. I was a very proud teacher today – it was a delight to see how well they worked together and how much their confidence has grown this year. Most of the class were able to confidently stand up and guide us throughout their whole map challenge – some even stopping to do head counts along the way to ensure we didn’t lose anybody. Maybe we have some future teachers in our group?
Here are some pictures of our day outside – I apologise if I missed some groups, I sometimes get caught up in the excitement myself and forget to take pictures!
We ended the day with an egg hunt!
Advent Kindness and Wellbeing calendar
For advent we have been focussing on daily acts of well-being and kindness. To date we have focused on:
1. Including others in our playground games.
2. Give somebody a meaningful compliment (not your normal friends).
3. Christmas themed PE activities.
4. Listen to some songs in class time.
5. Write thank you notes to key members of our staff team.
6. pack your own bag for school.
7. Make somebody smile.
8. Share some jokes or funny stories.
To name but a few. It’s been good to have an extra focus for advent, we can quickly get caught up in the December buzz and the chance to take time to show we can be kind or do something for ourselves has been very welcomed by all.
Additional Lanuages
We have been learning how to say Merry Christmas in different languages:
We had fun trying to guess how you’d pronounce the phrase before listening carefully to the correct pronunciation and practicing together. We then split into table partners to write Merry Christmas in Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish and Welsh.
What went well?
This term we have introduced a new activity to our Friday afternoons. We have been completing this activity at the end of the day and it is proving to be a super way to end the week on a positive.
We’ve noticed that it’s not always easy to identify something positive about yourself. In order to try and encourage this positive attitude we are trying to identify some positives that have happened to/ for us throughout the week. There were some initial hesitations but as the term is progressing we are finding it easier each time. We are realising that even in these uncertain times there are lots of positives and we have many things to be thankful for and ending the school week with a ‘high five’ is always nice!
Well done P4/5!