Literacy

In term 3, we finished reading The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf and we really enjoyed it. We completed book reviews to share our opinions on the story and rate the book overall. We started our non-fiction text, Natural Disasters: Quakes, Floods and Other Disasters. We took on the role of news reporters and created our own news broadcasts. We learned all about how natural disasters occur and improved our labelling skills by drawing and labelling diagrams. We also considered the advantages and disadvantages of living in countries where natural disasters typically happen.

In writing, we focused on procedural, explanation and persuasive writing. Our chairs went on strike, and we had to write a persuasive letter to them to convince them to come back! We created instructions for our favourite game, as well as on how to treat a snakebite! Before the holiday, we wrote some Easter rhyming couplets where we focused on uplevelling our writing by including imagery. We learned all about personification, onomatopoeia, metaphors, alliteration and similes which allows us to make our writing more interesting!

We celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite book characters. We worked hard as a class to create our own story which we shared with the rest of the school at our assembly. We designed book covers which we were able to take home and we completed an ‘I open a book…’ activity which we really enjoyed.

This term our class novel is Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun and we have really enjoyed making predictions so far and creating visualisers of the main characters to help us create a mental image of them. We will be looking at some different types of poetry too. Our focus in writing is discursive and response this term and we have already produced two fantastic pieces of writing that Miss McKinstry was very impressed with!

‘I am looking forward to starting our new text Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun in term 4.’ – Jacob

‘I liked creating our news reports because they were really fun to do.’ -Haylie

‘I like doing silly spelling because it’s really fun and it was something new to do.’ – Teejay

‘I enjoyed the day the chairs quit because it was nice thinking about different reasons for the chairs to come and it was quite comfortable working on the floor!’ – Lewis

‘I really enjoyed World Book Day because we got to dress up as our favourite book characters.’ – Arfa

Numeracy

In term 3, we covered fractions, decimals and percentages, time, money, BIDMAS, expressions and equations, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction word problems.

We used our Plickr cards to consolidate our knowledge of the information we learned. We played lots of mental maths games which allowed us to develop our mental maths, for example around the world, stand up sit down and hit the button.

We are looking forward to doing more outdoor learning in maths this term as we explore measurement, 3D and 2D shape and data analysis. We will be consolidating our knowledge of the four operations, fractions, decimals and percentages, time, money and ratio this term too so we are going to be super busy!

‘I liked learning about fractions, decimals and percentages. I liked it when we made our own pancakes after creating our own perfect pancakes sheet with different toppings.’ – Harrison H

‘I liked making the watermelon fractions posters after we cut up a watermelon and made different fractions with it.’ – Cairo

‘We learned about the link between time, distance and speed. We measured the distance around the gym hall, then we used the stopwatch feature on the iPads to time our friends running around the hall. We then used the formula for speed to work out what speed each person was running at!’ – Ethan

‘We learned about digital money. We labelled a debit card and discussed the features. We learned about the advantages and disadvantages of using digital money and how bank cards work in the real world.’ – Ariana

‘I liked learning about BIDMAS because I now know the correct order to complete sums that have brackets or indices in them.’ – Leland

Health and Wellbeing

In Health and Wellbeing this term, we were learning about being active, responsible and respectful. We focused on working as part of a team and how to be respectful when working with others. We also learned about how to be safe on the internet and around drugs and alcohol.

We looked at the relationship between food, exercise and energy. We looked at the traffic light system on food labels and learned how to make healthy food choices. We considered different activities that require low-energy levels vs high-energy levels.

We worked in teams to create board games, developing good communication, turn-taking and teamwork skills. We also learned about compromising during our lessons. We learned about discrimination and the impact of this on people.

We had a visit from a police officer who was talking to us about how to stay safe on the internet. We learned all about online safety and responsibility last term and we now know how to behave online.

Our Primary 6’s had a workshop all about positive mental health. We discussed different types of emotions and what we can do to help ourselves in stressful or anxious situations.

We had lots of fun at our Spring Fun Day organised by the P6/7’s. We enjoyed lots of different activities that kept us fit and active, as well as some activities which allowed us to relax and enjoy some mindful time.

This term, we are learning about the importance of being included. We will be learning more about the important relationships in our life and the importance of eating together. We will also be considering our transition to high school.

PE 

We learned how to play badminton. We played relay games and learned to balance and strike the shuttlecock using a racket.  We loved badminton! We are looking forward to taking part in Athletics.  

I liked when the police officer came into our class. I learned about being safe online and that you should never add someone online you don’t know in real life.’ – Ellie-Mae

‘I learned how dangerous drugs and alcohol can be when they are not used responsibly, and I learned how to keep myself safe.’ – Harrison F

Topic

In term 3, we learned about Scottish Artists in January. We learned about some Scottish painters and musicians. We carried out our own research on Scottish artists and then created a fact-file on Lewis Capaldi. We created our own Highland Coo art, inspired by Steven Brown’s famous work.

We also started our New York, New York topic this term where we compared New York to Glasgow. We carried out extensive research on a social or cultural issue in New York and Glasgow and compared them. We created a Google Slides with our information which we then presented to the class as a solo talk. We demonstrated fantastic listening skills and support to our peers and showed confidence and great communication skills when presenting – Miss McKinstry was so proud of our hard work and words of encouragement towards each other! We worked in groups to create amazing structures of the New York skyline from tinfoil. We had to overcome design challenges and work hard in our groups to brainstorm ideas. We created half and half artwork of the New York and Glasgow skylines. We used photographs from the internet as inspiration and then drew and painted our own art. We also developed our line and sketching skills through Empire State Building artwork. We explored maps and developed our knowledge of the eight compass points through quickfire search games. We welcomed our families along to our open session where we completed a STEM challenge to create the Empire State Building with dry spaghetti and different types of sweets. We developed resilience through this as there were many challenges to overcome!

This term we are learning all about Climate Change and we are so excited to start the topic and learn what we can do to help protect our environment.

‘I enjoyed comparing New York to Glasgow to see the differences and similarities. I wasn’t too surprised that New York is a lot more modern than Scotland because the USA is a newer country. I enjoyed doing my solo talk too because it was fun creating my own Google Slides and finding out interesting facts about New York and Scotland.’ – Kaiyah

‘I am looking forward to learning about Climate Change because I want to know how I can help protect animals and the environment from the effects of climate change. I think I’ll be able to spread more awareness if I have more knowledge.’ – Oly

Expressive Arts

Our fantastic class assembly took place in term 3. We worked extremely hard to rehearse our drama, music, and dance skills. We put so much effort into our assembly and we were very proud to show off our knowledge and the skills we learned through our Titanic topic.

We created beautiful pomegranate art inspired by our reading book The Boy at the Back of the Class. We explored different materials to add colour to our pomegranate art for example oil pastels, paint, and colour pencils.

This term, we are learning about African dance and music culture, inspired by our class novel. We will be learning about key features in African music and dance, how African dance and music are celebrated and comparing them with traditional Scottish dance and music.

‘I liked doing the Scotland and New York landscape art because it was really relaxing and it was based on our topic.’ – Sophie D

‘I liked doing our pomegranate art because it was inspired by our reading book. I decided to use pencils because I thought my work would be neater with pencils than paint.’ – Elijah

French 

We learned how to count to 100 in French. We counted in tens and we made spiral snakes to help us learn the French vocabulary e.g. trente, cinquante etc.  We learned how to ask what is the weather like; 

Quel temp fait-il?  

We learned how to answer with different types of weather, here is the link to our favourite French weather song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co6vfUxeRLg 

Lastly, we learned the names of family members in French. 

Science 

In science we learned about electricity. We created static electricity by rubbing a balloon against our jumpers or hair and it stuck to the wall.  We built simple circuits using batteries, wires, lightbulbs and buzzers and then used our knowledge to create electrical games. 

Welcome everyone to our new class blog.  We are delighted to share our learning from term 2 and some of the learning we will be doing in term3.

Literacy

In term 2, we started reading The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf and we really enjoyed it. We are continuing with this book in term 3, before we start a non-fiction text. Through our daily literacy lessons in term 2, we have covered inference, summarising, paraphrasing, metalinguistics and visualisation, among other strategies!

In writing, we focused on narrative writing. We also learnt about poetry and started to look at recount writing. For narrative writing, we created interesting Halloween and Christmas stories, and we also created a story about what we do if we could go back in time! For poetry, we created acrostic poems for Bonfire Night and calligram poems for Christmas all about Christmas trees. We wrote a recount on the Christmas Show and when we came back to school, we wrote a recount about our favourite moments from our Christmas Break. We have been working extremely hard to use imagery in our writing to up-level our writing and make it as detailed and as interesting as we can.

On Halloween, we had a whole school reading river to celebrate being a Gold Reading School which we loved.

We love having the opportunity to read for pleasure during the school day. We also participated in a December Reading Challenge where we were able to come to school in our cosy clothes or pyjamas, do some cosy reading in front of a fire (on YouTube!) and read upside on our chairs!

We loved participating in activities during Scottish Book Week too! We read in an unusual place, read a book called ‘Neeps and Tatties’ which is written in Scots and then made information posters about what makes Scotland unique. We then presented our posters at assembly for the whole school to see. We also had a visit from a fantastic author, Stuart Reid. There was a whole school assembly where Stuart talked a lot about his books, but we were incredibly lucky because we got to experience a creative writing workshop with Stuart! He gave us lots of tips on how to make our writing more interesting and Miss McKinstry is so proud of how hard we have worked to take on board Stuart’s advice!

‘I have enjoyed reading TBATBOTC so far because it is an interesting book with ups and downs in it. I was excited to start reading it again in term 3.’ – Jacob

‘I liked doing narratives in writing this term because I like to use my imagination. I also liked doing poetry because I learnt how to use similes in my writing more.’ – Haylie

‘In the December reading challenge, we got to read a book on our chair but upside down and we put a cosy fire on the smartboard. I liked this because it was relaxing.’ – Charley

‘I liked the cosy pyjama day because it was really warm, and it felt really good.’ – Arfa

‘I learnt how to use alliteration in my poetry in term 2.’ – Harrison H

In term 2, we continued to work on our handwriting.  We learned how to join our letters and to label diagrams correctly.  

“I like the animal noises to start our handwriting and to finish it.  It is very funny,” – Lewis.  

“I like copying out the poems to improve my presentation,” – Haylie. 

We will continue to work on our handwriting this term, by trying to increase our writing speed.  

Numeracy

In term 2, we covered place value, estimation and rounding, time, negative numbers, the written method of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and maths in the real world.

We continued to develop our mental strategies that we can use when completing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division questions. We were consolidating our knowledge of strategies like compensating, partitioning, counting on/number lines and friendly numbers.

We started to use a new resource in class called Plickr cards. We love when Miss McKinstry creates a quiz for us, and we can test our knowledge. We think its great that the Plickr cards log our score so we can track our progress and see how much we have learnt!

We used the Chromebooks in maths to create our own task sheets for our peers which helped us to consolidate our learning as we had to apply our knowledge in a different way. We also used the Chromebooks to research different jobs through My World of Work where we were able to see the different jobs that require a maths qualification or that use maths day-to-day.

‘I liked learning about maths in the real world on the Chromebooks because I learnt that some jobs use maths that I didn’t realise.’ – Sophie A

‘I liked when we were learning about time, and we got small clocks out and had to draw on the time that Miss McKinstry said.’ – Iona

‘I like our number talks sessions when we learn different mental strategies. I like doing it on a whiteboard and writing down my strategies for the question because it helps me understand more.’ – Kaiyah.

In numeracy with Mrs Marnie, we learned about parallel, perpendicular, and diagonal lines.  We identified these different lines in the outside world. We also learned about the properties of different types of shapes. In fractions work, we learned to covert mixed number fractions to improper fractions. Lastly, we learned about different types of triangles and we found out a new type of triangle – scalene.  

Health and Wellbeing

For outdoor P.E. in term 2, we continued with team games and started to learn about fitness. We played games like dodgeball which helped us learn about spatial awareness, good sportsmanship and how to effectively communicate in a team, while also developing our hand-eye coordination and balance. We also participated in races which helped us monitor our fitness levels and further develop our team-work skills.

We had a visit from the Fire Service in November where we learnt all about firework safety for Bonfire Night. We learnt how to be safe around fireworks and sparklers, found out how far away we must stand from sparklers and fireworks and even got a homework task from the firefighters!

For Anti-Bullying Week, we learnt all about cyber-bullying and being safe online. We were able to tell Miss McKinstry so much about how to be safe online, she was very impressed. We know about the dangers of being online, how to keep ourselves safe and who to tell if we think we or someone we know is in danger. We created eye-catching anti-bullying posters with our knowledge about cyber-bullying.

We had the opportunity to attend a Guide Dogs assembly which was arranged by Miss May and P3/4. It was so interesting to hear all about the work guide dogs do and how they support their owner. We asked fabulous questions and learnt so much. We now know that we should not pay attention to guide dogs when they are on duty as this can be very dangerous for the owner.

‘I enjoyed learning about cyber-bullying and making the poster because drawing really calms me down and I think bullying is an important thing we should learn about.’ – Ross

‘I learnt a lot from the fire service assembly.’ – Akillez

Topic

In term 2, we finished our Titanic topic. We loved learning about the ship itself, the people on board and the tragic incident that happened. We worked in groups to make a wall display for our classroom with all the main events from the time. We made a fantastic display for our wall which Miss McKinstry was so proud of.

We had a moral debate about the first-, second- and third-class passengers who were on board the ship and whether or not we thought it was fair that there was an order to get off the boat when it started to sink. We had great ideas and opinions and we shared them with our peers in a respectful way. Through our topic we looked at buoyancy which is an object’s tendency to float in in liquid. For our topic, we were looking at ship’s and their ability to float in water. We then used our knowledge to determine how the Titanic sank after hitting the iceberg. We made our own mini ships with Play-doh and tested them in a bucket of water. We then added marbles to them to see how many marbles our Play-doh ships could hold. The winning boat held 8 marbles before sinking to the bottom! We have now started our Scotland topic which is on Scottish Artists and we can’t wait to find out more about them and make some of our own art work!

‘I liked learning about the Titanic because it was really fascinating. It was interesting how all the passengers were treated differently depending on how much money they had.’ – Cairo

‘I liked what we did with the Titanic timeline. We had titanic information into our jotter in the correct order and then we worked in groups to make a large titanic timeline for our topic wall.’ – Tyshawny

‘I liked making a play-doh boat and looking at what objects are buoyant and not.’ – Leland

Expressive Arts

For Expressive Arts in term 2, we had our final skills-based workshop. We had a music workshop with Mrs Kennedy where we explored music and emotions. We gained so much knowledge from these lessons and developed skills for learning, work and life.

We made some beautiful Christmas art in term 2. We made Christmas Wreath art work which we made using oil pastels. We also made Winter Wonderland Windows which were inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’. We developed our use of line, sketching and shading in our art lessons.

We participated in social dancing practice to help us learn our dance for the Christmas party. We worked hard to learn the routine and we were fabulous on the day of our party and had lots of fun with our peers!

We performed in our fantastic Christmas show performance, ‘A Night at the Movies’. We had acting, singing and dancing in our show and we all had such an important part to play in bringing the show together. We put in a lot of effort to make the show the best it could be and our teachers were extremely proud of us. We loved showing off our expressive arts skills to the families and friends of Neilsland.

‘I liked doing the Winter Wonderland Windows because it was nice and relaxing and I liked using paint.’ – Harrison F

‘I liked the Christmas Show because it helped me develop my confidence on stage.’ – Ellie-Mae

‘I liked the Christmas Show because I discovered a talent of drama and my auntie said that if I keep it up, I might be able to perform at pantomimes.’ – Lewis

Science 

In term 2, we learned about bio-diversity in Science. We looked at different leaves and the patterns on them and we used a key to identify various types of leaves. Near to Christmas, we collected sticks, and we made Christmas stars.  This also helped use with our tying skills. Some of us created a massive star.

Our new Science topic in term 3 is electricity.  So far, we have learned about the dangers of electricity in our houses by identified dangers in each room and what we need to do to reduce them.  We will be learning about how different types of electricity are made in the next few weeks.  

 

John Muir 

We started work on the John Muir award. We have built dens and we had great fun tying the tarpaulin with string to create a waterproof ‘hide-out.’ 

“We pretended to have a tea party in our den,” – Ariana. 

“We visited our neighbour’s den,” – Arfa. 

Also, as part of the John Muir award, we made bird feeders and picture frames out of sticks. We also learned about ‘Common Puffer Mushrooms.’  We measured the size of trees using pencils.  This term, we will continue to work on the John Muir award and hopefully all of us will achieve this. 

 

Welcome

It has been a busy first term with a lot going on.  In term 1, we settled into our new classroom, and we were delighted that parents/carers came along to see it at our open morning. 

Each morning, we start the day by carrying out our ‘Emotional Check-In,’ where we place our name on the emotion we are feeling and if we wish to have a chat to our teacher.   

French 

In French we have been revising simple greetings like ‘Bonjour and Cava’ and we are now working on our numbers to 100.  

Science 

In term 1, we were learning about Biodiversity, and we were investigating the different leaf types in the school ground.  We will be finishing off this topic and moving onto to find out about electricity. 

Literacy

In term 1, we read The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo. We carried out some hot seating in the role of Bertie then we wrote a diary entry as Bertie. We found out the meaning of tricky, unfamiliar words using our metalinguistic strategies. We developed our visualisation skills by using evidence from the text to help us create a mental image of the characters.

During the month of October, we aimed to complete 10 minutes of reading for pleasure every day for Drop Everything And Read (DEAR time).

This term, we are reading The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf. We went to StarBOOKS Cafe to taste test our new book and make some predictions. We have completed a visualiser on one of the main characters in the book so far.

For writing in term 1 we created haiku and sensory poems for Autumn and Halloween. We did narrative writing where we created a story with a Halloween party that goes wrong! We have been developing our ability to use Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation (VCOP) in our writing. We created diary entries and did letter writing. On Roald Dahl Day, we created a whole-class recipe using our instructional writing skills.

‘I found visualisation of Bertie fun because I got to imagine what I thought Bertie would look like’ – Lewis

‘I liked the hot seating because it was really fun and I liked the way the people replied to the questions’ – Oly

‘I like playing our roll a spelling word game in the morning because it helps me with my spelling’ – Akillez

‘I really like reading because it calms me down and puts me in a better mood. I like using the different reading strategies in class and I enjoy doing narrative writing’ Charley

‘I like narrative writing because we get to create our own stories’ Ethan

‘I like letter writing because it teaches me how to send a letter the correct way with no mistakes’ – Tyshawny

Numeracy

In term 1, we were learning about multiplication and completed times table challenge sheets. We looked at addition and subtraction and learned about different strategies that can help us. We also did division. We looked at estimation and rounding and created our own estimation washing lines. We have been rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. This term we will be rounding decimal fractions. We became teachers for the day and made our own task sheets to test a partner on their division knowledge!

Throughout September, we completed different maths challenges at home and in the classroom! We looked for different shapes around our house, we timed ourselves to see how many jumping jacks we could do in 1, 3 and 5 minutes, we had a paper chain competition in class and we looked for examples of maths in the real world through newspapers!

Mrs Marnie taught us  about fractions. We were learning to order fractions, identify different types of fractions and convert mixed number fractions to improper fractions and vice versa.  In term 2, we are looking forward to building our knowledge in 2D and 3D shapes, measurement and money.

‘I really like when we use the textbooks because it’s fun and I can sit in my maths seat’ – Harrison F

‘Maths is fun because I can practise my times tables and I can go up to the 15 times table’ – Sophie D

‘I enjoyed using the washing lines in maths because it helped my brain estimate numbers more easily’ – Iona

‘I like maths in general. What I like about maths is the number talks because I like doing mental maths’ – Elijah

Health and Wellbeing

For outdoor P.E, we did team building games during term 1 where we played reaction games and games that helped us develop our non-verbal communication skills. We are looking forward to more in term 2! In indoor PE were focused on gymnastics in term 1 and we explored working as part of a team to create a balance.  This term we are working on improving our fitness and we will be challenging ourselves with running, steps-ups and a lot more. 

We had a visit from the Dogs Trust who taught us how to act around dogs safely to keep them and us safe.

Through our classroom HWB lessons, we have created a Regulation Station. We created the station so we have somewhere to go in the class if you’re feeling sad or anxious which can help you become happy and calm again.

We learned about peer pressure in HWB too. Peer pressure is when your friend is trying to force you to do something, but you don’t want to. We learned different ways we can stand up for ourselves and our friends or family members.

We had Chef Robert from Kids Kitchen in our school teaching us how to cook safely and how to cut safely so you don’t hurt yourself or have an accident. We cut fruits and vegetables for fruit salads, soups and pasta. We also got a cookbook at the end to teach us more recipes at home, we got quizzed to see what we had learned and we got a class pencil which is really good for the environment because we can plant it in soil and it will grow!

‘I like health and wellbeing because it gives you more information about different things that affect your life. This term I would like to learn about the safety of cigarettes and drug use and the different body parts and about babies’ – Ellie-Mae

‘I liked the Dogs Trust visit because I learned about how to keep myself safe around dogs and when they come near me’ – Haylie

‘I enjoyed the lessons with Chef Robert because it helped us learn how to cut and cook and make lots of stuff. We can also help our adults if they are stuck with something because we have learned how to do it.’ – Jacob

‘I enjoy outdoor P.E because we have played different games we have never played before and it gives you fresh air which is good when we are indoors all the time.’ – Harrison H

Topic

In term 1 we started the Titanic topic. We have learned about the number of passengers on board and how many survived.  We learned about what the ship looked like inside and outside and that the richest person in the world was onboard and he sacrificed his life to save others.

Ariana – ‘The youngest passenger on board was only two months old.’

‘The captain tried to get as many ladies off the ship as possible, so that they were there for their children.’ – Haylie

Expressive Arts

This term we have been doing skills based workshops. In our art workshop, Mrs White showed us how to use dots instead of painting strokes to create artwork.  We transferred this knowledge to create Titanic pictures.  In drama, we reenacted out the Last Bear story through freeze frames.