P5a

A great week!

What a busy week we’ve had as we all settled back into our normal routines.

This week we’ve been learning about possessives…….tricky! We are all confident using the apostrophe to show when something belongs to someone but it’s a little trickier when we are looking at collective nouns however this time next week we’ll be more confident with this as well.

We have used Queen Victoria as a focus for writing a biography. We have all impressed Mrs D very much with the standard of work we have produced as we are more aware of transferring skills into different contexts. We wrote in chronological order and used the notes we had taken about Queen Victoria’s life to make sure we had included only factual information. This also allowed us to discuss the difference between fact and opinion and we will be learning more about this as the term goes on.

In maths we have been revising what we already know about telling the time. We have discussed the different skills that we already have that will help us to build on what we already know. The majority of the class said they did not feel confident in this are however by the end of our first lesson those same people said they already felt better about developing their skills in this area. We have been revising – o’clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past. We know that the minutes in an hour can be counted in individual minutes or in 5, 10, 15, 20 etc. Mrs D is very impressed with the work we have been doing using the four operations especially decomposition and addition with carrying.

I would just like to say I am delighted to be back. Have a great weekend folks!

This week we have shown Mrs D that we can remember what we have been learning! We had a big strip of paper on our desks and we were given time to record some of the skills we have picked up along the way in P5 so far. Here are some pictures …..

We will continue over the next two terms to develop our ability to demonstrate the skills we have learned and record them in this way.

Have a great weekend!

Pupil of the week – Caitlin

Table of the week – Buzzers

This week we have been concentrating on verbs and adverbs. Lots of us have found adverbs very tricky! We did a fun activity where we had to all write a verb on the board and then we had to go around the class and each person had to choose a verb from the board and give an adverb to go with it. We all found this really useful and everyone now feels more confident.

We are planning a three stage imaginative story about an alien who visits Scotland. When we write up our story we will apply what we have learned about verbs and adverbs, nouns and adjectives. We will also use rely on what we have been learning about the Scottish landscape and climate to make our story more detailed and interesting.

In maths we have been learning about vertical multiplication. We have discussed what we have already learned about addition and subtraction that might help us with vertical multiplying. We revisited these concepts before starting the multiplication and it helped lots us to make connections about carrying and decomposition. This links with the work we are doing on metacognition and intelligence.

Chocolate geology!!!

We used an egg to show what the inside of the earth is like. The egg was hard boiled then cut in half. The yolk represented the core, the white represented the mantle and the egg shell represented the earth’s crust.

We cut into a crunchie and the inside reminded us of igneous rocks then we cut a slice from a caramel wafer and that represented sedimentary rocks with all its layers. Finally we placed a curly wurly into a sandwich bag and sat on it. After about quarter of an hour the heat and pressure from our bodies had changed the shape of the curly wurly and this represented metamorphic rocks which are rocks that are changed by heat and pressure. Here are some pictures –

Have a great weekend!

Pupil of the week – Lennox

Mr Jeffries MVP – Jack

Literacy

This week we have been building on what we already know about using speech marks. We were able to punctuate a passage that had the speech marks missing and we are going to apply what we know in our writing next week. We have also been playing a fun game that helps us to quickly recall whether a given word is an adjective, noun, verb or adverb.

Maths

We had good fun learning about multiplying by 10,100 and 1000. We also had a brief introduction to the decimal point and we will be learning much more about through the context of money later on in the year. We finished our work with angles and directions by going out into the playground with a compass and exploring how to use it.

LATC

We have been exploring the landscape of Scotland this week. We know about the weather in different parts of our country and the features of the landscape in different parts of Scotland. We have been learning to use the key on a map to identify the different features.

RME

We have been learning about Christmas traditions. We understand that both religious and non-religious people celebrate Christmas. We learned about Advent and know how Advent is celebrated religiously and non-religiously, the latter being with fun advent calendars that are full of chocolate!

Have a great weekend!

Blog 6/11/15

LATC

This week we have been learning about our place in the world. We have been learning about the countries that make up Great Britain and the major cities that belong to England and Scotland. We now understand that Blackpool, Manchester and Newcastle are not in Scotland!

MATHS

In maths this week we have been learning about positional language, angles and directions. We know that 90 degrees is a quarter turn, 180 degrees is a half turn and 360 degrees is a full turn. We have been learning to turn clockwise and anti-clockwise in degrees. We have had great fun learning about the positions of a compass including the tricky NE, NW, SE and SW points.

Writing

We have been writing a spooky story this week. We have to use descriptive words and phrases and try to build suspense. Rowan wrote a particularly good story which showed she understands how to build suspense.

Here’s an excerpt –       ‘……..she tried to break free but it was too late, it already had put metal chains on her. Suzie’s throat was sore from screaming. The beast dragged her into a cave……..’    We are all excited to hear the full story when it is finished.

We also wrote poems about our favourite place in Scotland here’s an example –

Linlithgow

Eating delicious food in the car

Watching the lovely loch

Climbing steep hills

Feeding cute ducks

A place where I feel happy and calm

Linlithgow will always be my wee piece of Scotland

By Eva

P.E.

On Tuesday we went to the handball festival at the sports centre. It was a great morning and we all had a fabulous time. Lots of us were able to identify the skills that we learned with Mr Jeffries that helped us when we were playing handball. Here are some pictures –

Have a great weekend!!!

What a great week in P5a!

In maths we have been working with subtraction and addition inverse. We were all quite surprised that you can make an adding sum from a takeaway sum. Some of us find adding easier than taking away so that’s a new strategy we can use to help in our numeracy and maths work. Here’s an example –

19-3=16 is the same as 16+3=19 …easy peasy!

Our writing this week has been to stretch sentences on our own without the help of Mrs Drummond. We are definitely finding that using sentence stretchers helps a lot and we are all very confident when using this approach.

LATC

We built our trebuchets this week! We built a jenga wall to test our trebuchet’s once they were finished. Here are some pictures-

We had a good discussion about how the trebuchets could have been improved as some of them didn’t quite fire far enough to hit the Jenga wall.

Have a great holiday week !!!!!

Another busy week!

COMPREHENSION

We have been doing lots of work on asking and answering questions. We are learning to use a variety of different types of questions in class to develop higher order thinking. We are using blooms questions to help with this. We have also been looking at comprehension to aid our understanding of the texts we read. We have been using the SRA resource to help us with this. We are becoming very independent in using this resource. We understand the importance of listening to questions and identifying what is actually being asked. This is a skill that we need to develop as we use it in every area of our learning.

WRITING

In writing this week we have been developing our ability to stretch sentences. We all had great fun and were very successful with this. We took a basic sentence and stretched it by adding adjectives, adverbs, who, why, where, when and what.

Lennox – I learned how to use a verb and an adverb in my sentences

Ciaran – using the sentence stretchers makes building sentences easy

Ty – it was fun using the sentence stretchers

LATC

LATC has been great fun this week as we have all designed a Trebuchet and included instructions for building it. We had to label our design parts with the resources we would need to construct the trebuchet. Next week we will use the designs in a Home Team challenge ……watch this space!

MATHS

Last week we learned about different angles and we were able to link that with this week’s learning about triangles –

Scott – there are three different types of triangle; equilateral, scalene and isosceles

Sophie – the three sides of an equilateral triangle are all the same length

Ciaran – the inside angles are all the same in an equilateral triangle

Tom – the scalene triangle has one right angle

MUSIC

In music this week we were learning to represent a piece of music as a drawing. We used Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as a context for learning. We listened to one of the seasons and had to identify (through discussion) what the season was then we drew a picture to represent the season which was spring.

Have a great weekend………this time next week !!!!!!!!

Short week!

We have been developing our self-assessment skills this week. We used our writing piece about the battle of Stirling Bridge for this. We will do more practice on this skill over the coming weeks/months as it’s very important that we are able to identify where we have been successful and where we could do more to enhance our work.

Continuing with the work we are doing to develop our learning mindset and thinking skills Mrs D posed the question, “Was Einstein born smart?” After much discussion we agreed that we don’t think he was. From this we are beginning to understand that the way we think of ourselves as learners can help us to learn better and reach our potential. Mrs D also set us a practical challenge to solve. We had to work with a partner to tie a shoe lace using only our left hand. This was very tricky at times. Here are some pictures and comments…..

Scott – teamwork was important

Lennox – we needed to give each other clear instructions

Ciaran – it was a fun way to learn about working in a team

Eva – you had to be able to listen carefully and work together

Have a great weekend!

Camp Photos!!!!

This week we have been learning to write a newspaper article. We have learned about making catchy, bold headlines and how to compose a full newspaper article. We used the Battle of Stirling Bridge as a stimulus for our writing. Here are some of the headlines we made up –

Lennox- MUDDY MAYHEM!

Rowan – THE KILLING KING

Eva – THE DEATH TRAP

Kate – IN FOR THE KILL

Abbie – THE BIG BRIDGE BATTLE

Yasmin – WALLACE WINS!

Cole – SCOTLAND RULE

Sam – SURPRISE ATTACK!

In maths we have been working on our problem solving skills. We have been learning to think logically as well as thinking ‘outside the box’. Here is a question we found tricky ….can you work it out?

Q. A family has two parents and three daughters. Each daughter has four brothers. How many are in the family all together?

In science we were learning about chemical reactions. We carried out an experiment to with bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, food colouring and water. We put everything except the vinegar into a glass and when we added the vinegar it caused a chemical reaction and the mixture frothed up and right over the side of the class! Great fun!

Another week has flown by….have a great weekend!

Phew, what a great week!

We had a ball at camp and have returned safe and sound. The pupils really did do our school proud. Unfortunately our camera is still at Lowport with p5b so we will put a full post on next week including photos and comments from the children.

Yesterday we had our first full drumming lesson. Pupils will not only be learning about the origins of African music and the Djembe drums but will also use the drums to enhance their learning across the curriculum……watch this space!

Have a great weekend!

Writing

This week we have been finding out about William Wallace. We made a comic strip showing the story of him killing the Sheriff of Lanark. We looked at different examples of comic strips and identified the features that we would need to use in our comic strips.

Cole – we had to use text boxes to show what was happening.

Jennie – we used speech bubbles when characters were talking.

Sophie – we had to show the story in the order that it happened.

Maths

In maths we have been learning about the relationship between fractions and decimals…

Tom – 25cm = ¼= 0.25

Sam – I understand bits of a metre better.

Eva – I can turn centimetres into millimetres and millimetres into centimetres.

Scott – 25cm is ¼ of a metre.

P.E

Lucie T – we were playing games where we had to learn to work as part of a team.

Ty – Mr Jeffries makes the games fun and it helps us to learn.

Science

In science this week we were learning about dissolving.

Alanna – we were finding out what will dissolve in water and what won’t.

Noah – when we mixed water and sand the sand didn’t dissolve because it was like a solid.

Abbie – sugar, sugar cubes and coffee all dissolved in water.

That’s all for now folks! Have a great weekend 🙂

What a great week!!!!

We have been working hard in P5a this week. We have been learning about letter writing. We used the death of Alexander 111 as a context for this task. We have all adopted Scottish names which we will use as we travel through the various contexts for learning over the coming weeks.

In maths we have been using loop cards to sharpen our recall of multiplication facts. Mrs Drummond will time us each time we do this and our aim is eventually to answer all the questions within one minute! We have also been learning about measure using millimetres and centimetres. Some of us found it tricky to measure using parts of a centimetre, eg. 2.7cm, but we got there in the end!

In science this week we have learned lots. Here is some of what we now know …..

Rowan – there are three types of matter they are solids, liquids and gasses.

Eva – a solid is when atoms are tightly packed together and they can’t move so the stay in that shape.

Scott – the atoms that make up liquids are not as tightly packed together as solids and that means they can move around.

Sophie – gas atoms are able to move around and can fill up any space.

We did the cola and mentos challenge. When the mentos mixed with the cola a chemical reaction took place. It was amazing. Here is a picture….

In P.E. this week we focussed on smart running.

Ty – we did games that helped us to work on our speed. It was really good.

That’s all for now folks, have a great weekend!!!!!

This has been another busy week in P5d.

We have been learning to calculate and represent a fraction as a percentage. We were all quite confident about this task as we had already touched on this earlier in the term when Mrs Drummond took a ‘backwards’ approach to teaching fractions, percentages and decimals. We all agree it has helped!

We have also been learning how to interpret information displayed on a graph or table. The tricky part of this was reading the question properly and being able to use a key.  Mrs Drummond agrees that we are all very good at this now!

We have been looking back on the different things we have learned in language over the year. We were then given a passage to up-level. Mrs Drummond asked us to impress her by using personification, similes, adjectives, adverbs, connectives and interesting words. We were all successful!

On Thursday we recorded information about the lifecycle of the plants that we have been growing in class. We had to sequence the process the plants have gone through and state why we think our plants did or did not grow well. We also had to discuss the plants we experimented with. Some had no water, some had no light and some were deprived of both. Growing the plants and experimenting this way really helped us to understand about photosynthesis because when we just talked about it we found it difficult to understand.

This week we had our Golden Club event in school and those of us who attended had a fantastic time!

This time next week …….

We have been learning about evolution and adaptation in P5d. We have finished creating our new species and designing habitats for them to live in. Here is some of our work …

Kari  – I created a new species called a Catara. It lives in the Rainforest.

Meg – My species is called a Hufflepuffbabbit. It lives in the forrest.

We have also been learning about food chains and the inter dependency of humans, animals and plants for survival.

Christopher – a food chain or food web will always begin with a green plant

Polina – the lion is at the top of the food chain because it does not get hunted by another animal

Ryan – if one animal becomes extinct it affects the whole food chain

James – plants are the only producers

Daniel – a consumer is something that eats other plants and/or animals

Evie – a human is a consumer.

There goes another very interesting week! Two weeks to go…..

This has been a busy week in P5d.

We had the second of our rugby taster sessions and were invited along to the sports centre to learn how to play short tennis. Here are some of our comments and pictures….

Aaron – in our P.E. lessons with Mr Jeffries we have learned about quick reflexes and we had to use quick reflexes at the short tennis. We also had to use what we have learned about balance and agility to help us.

Viggo – I could see that the things I have learned with Mr Jeffries helped me to play short tennis.

LATC

We have been learning about evolution, different species and habitats this week. We are creating a new species and building a habitat for it then we will take all this information and create a fact file about our new species. Pictures will follow over the next couple of weeks.

We are also watching caterpillars develop into butterflies. Our caterpillars are now at the chrysalis stage and will be transferred to their butterfly home on Monday to complete the change into a butterfly.

James – We have watched the caterpillars shed their exoskeletons …..it was very interesting to watch.

To help us with our next writing piece we have been learning about personification –

Aidan – The old boat crawled across the waves.

Emma – The sun glared down on me.

Daniel – The black car screamed along the road.

Brooke – The waves ate the boat.

Have a great weekend……5 weeks to go !!!

This week we took a back to front approach to maths. On Thursday we looked at the ‘bigger picture’ and how one thing relates to another. We did this with angles, degrees, fractions, decimals and percentages. The reason we did this was to know a bit about inter-relatedness of these concepts before we visit each one discretely. What a great morning we had! Here are some of our comments …

Zoe – I now know there are four angles obtuse, right angle, reflex and acute.

Emma – I now know that two quarters is the same as 50%

Jamie – I learned that one quarter is the same as 25% and as a decimal this is 0.25

We had a rugby taster session this week and were glad that it went ahead even though it was raining. We live in Scotland so we know that much of what we do in life will be done in the rain!! Here are some of our comments….

Polina – I really enjoyed the sharks and fishes game.

James – we had to run around dodging people and we are all getting very good at this.

Ryan – the tag rugby game was a really fun way to learn about dodging people when running around. Next time we will be using a rugby ball instead of the tags.

In our topic we are continuing to learn about the various creation stories. This week we learned about one version of the Chinese creation story.

Iona – The Christian and Chinese creation stories are similar because they both began with the creation of light.

We have been reminding ourselves this week about how we learn and that a positive attitude will help us to achieve success both in and out of the classroom. We know that being on time, coming prepared for school with pencils, pe kit etc is a very small part of preparing ourselves to learn. We are adopting a ‘can do’ attitude and already we can see results!

Have a good weekend!

What a great week!

We had a lovely time on Monday sharing our stories about the holidays. We don’t often have the chance to share our news in-depth and we all really enjoyed it.

The great weather meant that we could take our learning outdoors and we all agree it really does feel good to work outside.

Zoe – It was so much more fun doing our anagrams challenge outside.

Valerija – I liked it when Mrs Drummond read the story to us as we sat in the sunshine.

LATC

We have begun our new topic for the term. We will be learning all about our wonderful world. Our topic begins with the two theories of how the world began – The Creation Story and the Big Bang Theory. Already we have some very challenging questions for the teacher !!!

David – I really like learning about the Creation Story and can’t wait to learn about the Big Bang theory.

Evie – I learned that in the Creation Story God created the world in 7 days.

Jamie – I like finding out about both theories and I know that the Big Bang theory is a scientific theory.

Have a great weekend !

This week we have learned lots about Florence Nightingale and how she has made conditions in hospitals much better for us in the present day. We used the BBC Victorians website to find out some information then we took the quiz and we answered all the questions correctly and got a gold award certificate! We wrote a story about a night on the ward with Florence.

In maths we have been multiplying by100 and 1000 and after the lesson last week about multiplying by 10 and 20 we picked this up quite quickly! We continue to work on two and three step problem solving and are becoming much better at identifying which of the four operations we need to apply to solve the problem.

We began our class talks this week. We have had some wonderful presentations. It has been super to see just how talented we all are. We have to listen when someone is presenting and record whether they are well prepared, giving eye contact, what has impressed us and anything we think could be improved upon.

Using the drums some of us accompanied P4m with a song in their assembly. Once again the talent in P5d is shining through!!!

I would just like to thank all of you at home who helped your kids with their presentations …..I know sometimes it can feel like the homework is for you not them!!! I really do appreciate your support!

This time next week…..