Tag Archives: Language and Literacy

Fun with speech marks!

Thank you to all our families who donated used magazines for our grammar lesson!  It fairly cheered up learning about the correct use of speech marks!   Character images were chosen and cut out from the magazines and we had to decide on what each would be saying before adding in all the necessary punctuation marks.  There is so much to remember!  Some pupils created short conversations, making sure they took a new line for a new speaker.  Some pupils worked on sentences where the speech comes first and then showed different examples using the speech at the end of their sentence.  Others wrote inside speech bubbles and will work on punctuating this with inverted commas next week.

Great focus and careful work P4/5!
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World Book Day

Today we celebrated World Book Day in a number of ways.  Last week, we talked about the importance of listening to books, especially from a young age.  We talked about books that would appeal to younger children and how the reader has an important part to play in the enjoyment of a story.  With this in mind, each child chose a book that they would like read to a pupil in the ELC department or P1/2.  They rehearsed reading it and thought about stopping to ask questions or point out details in the illustrations.

Our class really enjoyed it and were super role models!  When the books were done, it was great to see the younger pupils rushing to get their books to read back!  We even had a little time to watch them paint.

Back in our class we played a World Book Day game where they were shown a cover, title and blurb.  Each team then had to create a believable opening sentence, thinking about recent class work done on different openers.  When all were written, we read them all out, including the real sentence.  Each group got 2 points if they correctly guessed the right sentence and a bonus 5 points if their sentence was chosen instead of the actual one!

Here are the made up sentences for the book ‘Jelly’ by Jo Cotterill.  Can you tell which is the right one?

  1.  Angelica, nicknamed Jelly, was the comedy queen of the classroom!
  2.  “Do it now, Jelly! Please!
  3. Angelica, also known as Jelly, was the class clown.
  4. ”Angelica, stop that noise,” said Mrs Brown.
  5. Angelica was shocked that her Mum had a new boyfriend and was going on a date!

At the end of the day, we shared some of our favourite books.

I really like the Wimpy Kid series. I like all the characters. Each story is new but the books link up a bit.
I really like The Call of the Wild and I have watched the movie. The book has lots of twists and turns in it!
This book is split into stories about each pet. So far, my favourite is Picasso the Horse because Molly gets rich when she finds out the horse can paint!
I like this book about animals. My Mum reads it to me. I like learning about animals like the poisonous dart frog.
We had some dressing up characters today too! We had a ballerina and Baby Yoda. 🙂
I like the Rainbow Grey series. They are good to read.
I like horses and ponies so this is the book for me!
I like this really funny book! It has good descriptions. Tom Gates writes little stories and puts them in the book.
This is about a cat that can turn spells on dogs. The spells can make them invisible and talk! Anyone who likes cats and magic would like this book.

Keep reading Draatsis!
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Monday 30th January

Our class had fun exploring the human body with the visitors from The Glasgow Science Centre today.  In the morning we were given the chance to play with different interactive exhibits relating to different parts of the body.

The girls were looking to see if they could spot when this patient needed an x-ray.
These boys learned about the different organs in our bodies and where they are.
Putting the brain back together wasn’t very easy!
Can you see which parts of their bodies were the hottest?
All the images are in the correct order! Well done!
This memory game was very competitive! We had to remember the correct sequence of flashing lights and try to repeat it.

Later on we took part in a Disgusting Digestion interactive show.

It was great fun and we learned about the journey of food throughout our bodies.

We learned how long our intestines are…up to 7 or 8 metres long!
What is going on here? Can you have a guess based on their facial expressions?

Somehow, we also managed to squeeze in a session with a local musician today!  We were treated to some dialect singing and fiddle playing by Claire White.  She planned a busy session looking at some interesting local stories and how she managed to turn these into songs for people to remember.

Then we split into groups to write our own stories and eventually turn these into songs.  Some groups chose their own local stories to develop.  These included the St Ninian’s Isle treasure, The Queen opening our school in 1969 and the Braer Disaster.  It was a lot to do in the short space of time, so we didn’t quite manage to finish this today.   Next term we are looking at local history, so we will save what we have achieved for now and build on these again at a later date.   I look forward to seeing what we can produce!

Well done Draatsis!

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Writing in the Draatsi class

Mrs Henderson and I have been given the chance to take part in an Improving Writing Course run by CYPIC – The Children’s and Young People Improvement Collaborative.  We gathered views on writing from the class at the start of the project and used a piece of written work to help us assess where our writers need most support initially.  We aim to write three times a week and our focus just now is on improving our understanding and use of punctuation.   The class write for just a short 15-20 minute slot before having time to edit and improve their work.  The pupils also help each other in this process too.  😊  Their writing jotters are filling up fast with a variety of writing topics across the curriculum!  Most recently, we have linked our writing to work going on throughout the class and school.  Some examples are…

  • Write your top tips to cope with bullying during Anti-bullying Week
  • How do you use AI in your daily life?
  • Describe the ‘den’ in our class novel
  • Persuade Santa to put you back on the good list OR employ you as his elf for this Christmas season OR keep his beard…don’t shave it off!

We contine to share the success of the class with the pupils and they are keen to see the progress they are making.  We hope to reach our target set in the new year before moving on to the next element of ‘Tools for Writing’ to be improved.

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Lest we forget…

Yesterday, the Draatsi class watched a video all about ‘The Poppy Story’ and they took notes as they watched to help them recall details for their writing today, on Remembrance Day.  Note taking is a really tricky skill but they all persevered and tried hard to just write down the main points!  Please see the photographs below of some of the completed pieces of writing.  Perhaps you’ll learn something about how the poppy became a symbol of remembrance.

We also spent time looking at John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ which was written as he looked out over the poppy fields in Ypres, Belgium.  We took his very famous poem and blacked out some of the words to create a new piece of writing by choosing words we felt were important.  It was amazing how many different versions were created using this technique!  Some are still to be completed but please see some of the finished examples below.

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We got mail!

Five pupils were delighted to come back from their Easter Holidays to find that they had received replies to the author letters they wrote for World Book Day!  Some were standard replies from very busy authors but we were still grateful!  One  was a lovely, handwritten, personalised reply.  The rest of the class are patiently waiting!  🤞

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Remembrance Day

Today, on the 11th of November, we stopped and remembered all the people who have died in wars around the world.  We also thought about those still fighting today, during our 2 minute silence.

We looked together at John McCrae’s famous poem, “In Flanders Fields.”  We copied this out very carefully in our Handwriting time and used our written work to form the background for our poppies.

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Lights, Camera, Action!

While P6 have been taking part in their Play Leader training on Monday afternoons, P5 have been busy with Mrs Douglas, planning and preparing for their own stop motion animations.

Over the past 4 weeks, Liam, Eveline, Conor and Freya have been exploring how stop motion animations are created.  They have written their own storyboards and spent time creating resources for 2 different short stories.  These stories will be shared with P1/2 when they are ready.

Today the children began filming their stories and quickly learned that it was not going to be a simple task!  It requires a lot of patience, trial and error.  The group are learning so much from each other and it has been lovely to see everyone being so supportive.

Here are some behind the scenes shots of their filming session earlier today.

 

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Christmas Cards … and Poetry

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!