This term we have been developing our imaginative writing skills and writing fantastic stories – Alien Adventures in Scotland. We have focused on our use of interesting vocabulary, worked hard to vary our sentence openers and have learned how to use direct speech effectively.

This week 9 of our wonderful adventures were converted into animations using the Animate It app. We worked in our animation crews to recreate the stories using words, pictures and props.

We look forward to Monday’s Cinema Experience when we will all sit down to enjoy our hard work. Bet there won’t be a dry eye in the classroom as we watch our aliens soar off to their home planets!

Congratulations to Murray for being November’s MVP and well done to Lauryn who was our Pupil of the Week.

Article 29

Education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

Thank you to all who made today’s Talent Show such a success – the fantastic acts, the hilarious judges, Casey and Kiera for counting and verifying the votes and of course – our ever enthusiastic audience.

Enjoy the memories.

Article 29

Education should develop our

personalities and talents to the

full.

We wrapped up term 2 of P5 watching our Loch Ness Animations and performing our rap with 5d at the church service.

Only two more sleeps until Santa brings us some lovely things to unwrap!

So wrap up warm and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

From the Blog Post Box:

A present I would like to give this year is…

…medicine to cure cancer.                      Gemma M

…help for the greyhounds.                     Madeleine

…a big party for my Grandpa James because he is very ill.                      Lexis

…food for the homeless.             Louise

…hugs for my family.        Cameron B

…clean water to those who have to live with dirty water.                        Annie

…a cuddle. Sometimes all somebody needs to make them feel better is a cuddle.               Scott

It has been animation crazy in 5m this week as we explored the ‘Animate it’ app and let our imaginations run wild. We discovered lots of interesting features and shared hints and tips as we created animations on a subject of our choice. Once we were familiar with the app we felt confident to tackle our big project – The Loch Ness Adventures!

Ten very special stories were selected and their authors chose an animation crew to help convert them into animations. We carefully planned our backgrounds for each scene, the characters and props we would need and any text that would be necessary to tell the story. Then we got to work designing, creating, filming and editing.

We’re having great fun and are looking forward to the premiere on Monday. Wonder if any of us will be up for an Oscar?

Special thanks to Ben whose origami Nessies were in great demand!

From the Blog Post Box:

This week I enjoyed…

…planning my animation. I can’t wait to start filming!                    Louisa

…singing in the choir for my mum and at the Partnership Centre. I’m looking forward to completing the Loch Ness Animation.         Madeleine

…PE in the new gym hall. I’m looking forward to completing our animation and I can’t wait until Xmas!!                               Roan

… Health and Wellbeing. When the teacher asked the girls if they had an X-box or a football nobody laughed. When she asked the boys if they had a doll people started laughing. We did some drama to help us think about this.                            Louise

…planning and making our Loch Ness Animations.                     Geo

We’ve had an exciting week in P5m with our Party on Tuesday and our Christmas Dinner on Wednesday. We’re all looking forward to the Panto tomorrow. Being the hard workers that we are, we still managed to find time amongst all the celebrations to complete our Loch Ness Adventures. We have been working on them for the past three weeks and now have to wait, with bated breath, to find out which stories are to be turned into animations.

It will be a difficult choice because we have all been working so hard on developing our Writing Skills!

From the Blog Post Box:

In Writing I find it helpful when…

…we plan our work the day before so that we can think about it at night. Ella

…I get left alone to do my plan and ideas. I like to have only a little bit of help. Jane

…I use my plan and the Core Writing Skills checklist. Casey

…I get immediate feedback because I can improve my story there and then. Gemma B

…I gather millions of ideas on my plan. Olivia

…I plan my story in a group with the Planning Professors. Connor

… I have written feed-forward. It helps me improve my next story with my teacher’s help. I also like it when we discuss our work with our Writing Buddy because they can share their opinion as well. Lucy

This week we have been learning about the three different types of rock using – you guessed it – chocolate!

The layers of our Caramel Wafer reminded us of sedimentary rocks. Sedimentary rocks are formed from sediments that have settled at the bottom of a lake, sea or ocean, and have been compressed over millions of years. The sediment comes from eroded rocks carried there by rivers or ice, and from the skeletons of sea creatures.

The holes inside our Crunchie reminded us of the gas bubbles that form when lava cools quickly, creating igneous rock.

We held a Curly Wurly in our hand as we learned about the different types of rock. The heat and pressure totally changed the shape of our chocolate. Metamorphic rocks are created by the heat and pressure from tectonic plates sliding together.

We’ve learned so much during our Chocolate Geology lessons and cleaning up after them is always so much fun!

We have been finding out how the landscape of Scotland was formed thousands and thousands of years ago.

We used Oreo cookies to help us understand how the tectonic plates (which make up Earth’s crust) push together to form mountains. Sometimes the plates pull apart and molten magma seeps through. When this cools and hardens it forms a mountain.

We also learned how the glens were formed by large rivers of ice called glaciers. We made a glacier out of porridge and drew lines of chocolate sauce across it so that we could study how the glacier moved. We noticed that our porridge glacier travelled more quickly in the middle. The sides slowed it down. We worked out that a real glacier would be eroding the rocks at the sides, carving U-shaped glens into the landscape.

Did you know that Loch Ness was formed by a melting glacier?

Wonder what Nessie thinks of that!

From the Blog Post Box

I think the Loch Ness Monster is…

…real because I have seen the monster when I was at Loch Ness and I have seen pictures and videos of it.              Clara

…real because sharks and crocodiles have survived so why couldn’t a dinosaur? (I think Nessie is a dino.)                     Cameron B

…not real because I’m sure it is just a myth.              Casey

…real because there is a dinosaur called elasmosaurus which lives in the sea and looks like the Loch Ness Monster. Google up a picture of elasmosaurus to see!                                  Ben

…not real because all of the photos of it have been fake.             Scott

…oh I’m just not sure!!!                           Sarah

The Legend of the Christmas Spiders

Once upon a time in Germany a woman was cleaning up for Christmas. There were spiders where the lady was sweeping and they whooshed away into the attic until she stopped cleaning.

When the house was silent the spiders went down to see the Christmas tree. They danced around the tree and it was covered in webs. When Santa saw the webs on the tree he magically turned them into silver and gold.

That was the start of tinsel and the Christmas spider!

Why don’t you buy a Christmas spider to hang on your tree?

Legend retold by Connor Davis

We used this little story as the inspiration for our Christmas Enterprise project and have made beautiful spiders to hang on your tree. We have also made some Robert the Bruce spiders based on a very famous Scottish legend. Make sure you come along to the Christmas Fayre, Saturday 29^th November, 10:00 -12:00 to catch your spider!

A big thank you to Gemma B whose Bake Sale in 5m raised £38.05 for Children in Need. Thanks also to Olivia, Annie, Clara and Ella whose Beauty Salon raised £8.00.

It’s great to see all these great business minds being put to such good use!

Did you know that Geology is the study of Earth and what it is made of? Sounds quite a tricky subject for a P5 class doesn’t it? Don’t worry, we’ve got a secret weapon to help us – chocolate! This week we examined the inside of a crème egg and discovered that it was a bit like the inside of Earth with a crust, a mantle and a core. Much tastier though!!

From the Blog Post Box:

This week I learned…

…to do 20 keepie-uppies.                              Geo

…how to make chocolate crispies and what ingredients you need. You use cornflakes and melted chocolate and mix it all together.                             Louisa

…how to do a handspring in gymnastics.                                              Madeleine

…why we put tinsel on a Christmas tree.                                Declan

…to be good at football and to chip a ball up.                     Connor

…why the two minute silence is really important.                               Gemma B

…about Earth. It is made up of three main parts – the crust, the mantle and the core.      Ben

…how to train my rabbit. I am training her to come to me when called and to go on my lap. It is already advanced! I am also learning to do huge dividing sums. It is tricky but I’m thoroughly enjoying it!                       Lucy

Our ‘Freedom?’ topic ended in victory at the Battle of Bannockburn. Robert the Bruce rewarded us handsomely and we all became very rich noblemen with plenty of land. Mrs Mackenzie says she’s going to miss having Duffy Stewart, Haggis Kirk, Hunter, Gregory McClory and all the other nobles in our class!

From the Blog Post Box

I thought this term was………….  because……..

very good –   because I made lots of new friends and settled in really quickly. Casey

brilliant –    because I enjoyed every minute of it. Sarah

fantastic –    because I loved the topics and I really liked the Island Activity. Madeleine

a challenge –  because Mrs Mackenzie gave us a huge sum in the hundred millions. It was pretty hard!! I think it is fun that we are speaking French in the mornings when we order our lunches. I had a great time! Lucy

awesome –   because I learned a lot in the Solids, Liquids and Gases topic. It was fun! Roan

amazing –  because we got to build a trebuchet. Andrew

totally epic – because I have two of the best teachers. Ella

This week we took part in our first Home Team Challenge. We had to design a trebuchet which would knock down a Jenga wall with the load of one marble.

Working in our Home Teams, we had to create a design plan and make a list of resources that we would need. Then, having gathered our equipment, we began to build. It was exciting work with most teams visiting the Test Desk several times to try out our models. We made adaptations to improve the performance of our trebuchets.

Finally it was time to judge the performance of our models. We put rules in place to make sure each trebuchet was tested under the same conditions.

It was a nerve racking experience but eventually the testing was complete. The winning trebuchets were created by the Mini Minions and Candy Chips. Both trebuchets scored Level 2 damage under test conditions. This meant that they were powerful enough to alter the shape of the Jenga wall.

Can you see the tension in our faces?

From the Blog Post Box

It’s not long to go now. A week today we will all be having fun at Low Port. There are so many things to look forward to!

I’m excited about Low Port because I’m looking forward to…

…the swimming and the disco.                   Ellie

…everything, especially the swimming.                  Sarah

…the swimming and the canoeing.                          Connor

…sleeping in the same room as Ben.                        Cameron B

…the Jungle Bashing!                     Isla

…exploring, sleeping over, the disco and everything!                       Kiera B

…everything! I can’t wait to get there!                   Andrew

It’s been a hectic time for the time travelling nobles of P5m. We’ve spent time in prison for refusing to accept the English king as our overlord, our new king has been imprisoned and we’re exhausted from fighting alongside William Wallace in the Battle of Stirling Bridge. It was quite a relief to travel back to 2014 to practise our writing skills!

This week we have been developing our note-taking skills and learning to write a newspaper article. We are enjoying using our historical knowledge to create all different types of writing: letters, comic strips, newspaper articles – we wonder what will be next?

From the Blog Post Box

This week I enjoyed…

…science because we got to make our own experiments.                                               Roan

…the ‘Freedom?’ topic. It is amazing!                     Gemma B

…everything! I enjoyed art because we were learning about Picasso and I like his style. I also liked maths because I beat my score. I liked Health and Wellbeing because we had to act out water safety dramas. Lots of fun!                                Lucy

…today because I made a new friend called Louisa.                          Freya

…going to golf. I really enjoyed the driving at golf.                           Cameron M

This week we have been learning about comic strips. We explored a variety of comics and picked out the main features. Then it was time to have a go ourselves!

First we read a short story about how William Wallace became an outlaw. Then we had to decide how to divide the story into six frames. After that, through the use of pictures, speech bubbles, thought bubbles, captions and sound effects, we had to recreate the story. It was quite tricky but we were very proud of our completed comic strips!

From the Blog Post Box

This week I was proud of…

…my maths because I have definitely learned a lot more about big numbers like 45,904. I know how to use a comma to help me know where the thousands are.                        Olivia

…myself because I think I did a good Stay Away From the Edge poster.                   Jane

…my mum because she is doing so well in her job.                            Madeleine

…the Yellow Table because they worked so hard to win Table of the Week.                           Gemma B

…Andrew for being the best friend ever!                                Ramsay

…myself because I am working hard for the stickers for my chart. I’m almost on Step 2! Lexis

What a week we’ve had in P5m! (A week in our class runs from Wednesday to Tuesday – look out for Blog updates on a Wednesday afternoon.) We have already learned so much in our Science project and we all loved watching the explosive reaction when we added Mentos to a bottle of Diet Coke. We have also travelled back in time over 700 years to one of the bloodiest times in Scottish history. Transformed into Scottish noblemen, we know we will have many dangerous but exciting adventures ahead of us.

From the Blog Post Box:

This week I learned…

…how to find 10 more in Maths.                                Louisa

…to join th and ch in Handwriting.           Ella

…how to play the djembe drum and the doum-doum drum in Music – AWESOME!           Jessie

…how to draw a portrait of myself in Art.             Geo

…in our Science lesson that atoms are squashed together in a solid, they move altogether in a liquid and in a gas they float about. I’ve learned so much this week that I think my brain will explode!               Louise

We’ve had a lovely start to Primary 5 getting to know our new teachers, Mrs Mackenzie and Mrs McClafferty, as well as hearing from some old teachers. Mrs Gray has popped in a couple of times to see how we are getting on and was very impressed that we remembered to use her new name. We also had a lovely surprise from Miss Burns who sent us a little snow-globe from Italy. We have decided to give it a special shake anytime that somebody in the class has something to celebrate!

From the Blog Post Box:

In Primary 5 I am looking forward to…

…going to Lowport and doing our Solids, Liquids and Gases topic.       Scott

…all the topics, Lowport, making new friends and getting to know my new teachers. It’s a new year and I would like it to be the best year!  Lucy

…the science topics.          Declan

…the run up to Christmas, the Victorians topic as well as the other topics and finally having such great teachers!       Kiera H

…the What a Wonderful World topic because I love animals and nature!      Isla

…everything!!!        Ben