We have started to explore a new area of Maths this week. We braved the February weather to take our learning outside into the playground. The markings on our play areas were perfect for helping us explore parallel and perpendicular lines. We looked for right angles too. It’s amazing how many you find when you actively go looking!
Today Tory, Kayla, Evie and Lois from Primary 6, represented our school in the Shetland Heat of the Euroquiz. We are delighted to say that they came third equal! Congratulations to them! It shows that all their hard word paid off.
Thank you to all our supporters who came to our Shared Learning event today. We hope you enjoyed our journey through Europe on this historical day! Our pupils have worked so hard in the lead up to today, especially on their STEM inventions which they presented so well in their “Dragons’ Den” style act. We had fun learning the EU anthem on the boomwhackers and were glad to share it with you. We hope you were able to spend time looking through your child’s pupil folio, looking at our climate change posters and completing our Europe quizzes. Well done – some of you scored full marks! Our displays will be in the foyer next week if you missed them. A big well done to all pupils. Your confidence when presenting to an audience always impresses us!
Apologies…no photos from today but we all enjoyed the moment!
I hope you have found your lovely Christmas card that was sent home today! This class enjoy craft work and created really striking winter tree paintings for their cards.
We also used these pictures to inspire us to do some creative writing. We went out into the nature garden to look at the winter trees and gather words, phrases and ideas for our work. Back in class, we looked at various free style poems to give us more inspiration before creating our own. The poems needed to sound as if we were having a conversation with the tree. They needed to have questions and repetition within it and they were not to rhyme. This proved harder than we thought! Some excellent pieces were created, very quickly. Here are some of my favourite lines…
Dream and dream until the sun shines through to wake you up, winter tree. (Amy)
Tall and elegant, but dead looking inside so bare and brown. (Fergus)
Will your leaves ever return? Lying dormant on the ground but in the summer you’re tall and proud. (Magnus)
Trees do you hear me? How do you feel? What do you see? Dusted with frost. (Fiona)
Oh winter tree, how do you survive the harsh, harsh cold winter? (Matthew)
Oh cold frosty tree, how do you stand so strong and proud in the strong winter breeze? (Hannah)
I’ll speak to you next year but now it’s time to sleep, sleep, sleep. (Isabel)
No reply came from the winter tree. Then I wonder… Is he alive? (Robbie)
The newly fallen snow is…hair. It’s winter, tree. (Ellie)
I don’t know how you can stand so tall and proud in this bitter wind. (Kelsi)
Are you cold? Surely you are! Will your leaves ever come back? You’re so naked. Soon your leaves will return. Just keep dreaming and dreaming. (Liam)
Oh tree so cold, bent and old. Your pine cones so spiky. Do you feel it if you bend so bold? (Kathryn)
Winter tree, your leaves have fallen. You’re covered in a cloak of snow. You are freezing in the bitter temperatures. (Bella)
How do you live outside in the cold lifeless winter, tree? You must have thick skin. (Bobby)
You dream about the summer and the flowers and the grass and how you’ll have leaves at last. (Ava)
Winter tree, how can you live like this…in the vast winter wind where your life has faded…? (Abi)
Yes, yes, yes! I can get cold on the outside but in the inside I can feel happiness. (Anders)
Do you want my jacket? Wait, no, that strong, insulating bark of yours will surely keep you warm. (Evie)
Mum said you’re dreaming of spring with your green, vibrant leaves but I can not see it! (Fearne)
Bare, chilly and frosty, you need some warmth. Dream of spring, summer, flowers and the sun. (Tory)
Your fantastic green leaves, gone but when summer comes around, you will be remade and beautiful once again. (Koll)
That’s too many questions! Let me stand here until spring! (Hayden)
Are you ever going to take off in this winter breeze? Swaying in the wind, bare and cold. (Kayla)
The full versions of our poems will be displayed in school next term. Please feel free to come and have a read in the new year!
A huge well done to our P5/6 pupils on two wonderful performances at our Carol Concert! We are very proud of you all! What super singers, instrumentalists, percussionists and performers. We hope you enjoyed your time rehearsing and on the stage. Thank you for rehearsing so well and thanks too, to parents and carers supporting at home and on the day.
As November closes and we look forward to the advent season, P5/6 have been preparing their origami tree advent calendars. Lots of cutting, folding, gluing and sticking resulted in some lovely trees being made ready for Monday.
That’s been a fast term!
What have P5/6 been up to on their final day of term? They all worked on grammar activities first thing before heading out to the multicourt for class P.E. where we scored a record number of frisbee goals! Then we all worked on our own personal learning goals before lunch so all different types of activities were going on at the same time. The afternoon saw us gather together to have a whole school photo to celebrate our 50 years and this was followed by a great JRSO assembly. Happy holidays everyone and here’s hoping this weather holds!
Today we took part in a live, national, health and well-being lesson. We watched and listened as the presenters talked to us about recognising and expressing our emotions and building our resilience by developing a growth mindset. They also touched on self care and we explored a range of methods we could use both inside and outside school. We recorded some of our thoughts on our activity sheets as we watched.
If you would like to watch it again at home…follow the link below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/growth-mindset-and-wellbeing-lesson/z4g4382
At several points during our day today, we’ve had to work well together as part of a team. Our Class P.E. session saw us teamed up to play Ultimate Frisbee. Our main focus during the game was to think about spreading ourselves out over the court, getting into good positions and calling to our team mates to pass. We’ve been building up our “team playing” skills over the first few weeks and we’re getting better!
The afternoon saw us focus on what it means to be included or excluded and the feelings associated with this. Some heartfelt stories were shared and while some of these were sad to hear, there were many more uplifting and humorous tales of inclusion, belonging and kindness being shown. We also played a class team building game where every pupil was required to contribute in order for the task to succeed. This led us on to thinking about what skills are needed during team tasks. The children worked in cooperative groups to decide upon their “Diamond Nine” skills. They demonstrated that they are developing good skills in this area!!
Today our newly appointed JRSO’s got to meet Elaine Skinley and receive their welcome packs. They have already been busy updating our JRSO board in the foyer area…so watch this space during the year for all the competitions and activities they are planning.
