Dylan and Adam built a den out in the back playground using plastic sheeting, rugs and pegs.

For RME we went out into the playground sat in a circle and threw a can of juice to each other, when you catch the can we had to say what made us angry. We are like a can of juice when we are angry we start to rage ( bubble up) and when we open the can it bubbles everywhere but if we leave the can to settle ( or go and sit somewhere quiet) the can or ourselves will calm down.

Dylan – We built a den out of materials. We used the bean bag for the floor, it was warm.

Adam  – i enjoyed  shaking the can it was very fun

David – Throwing the can, say what made you angry.  Shouting makes me angry.

Yolie – I was angry with fizzy drink. Fizzy drink explode.

On Thursday it was Empty Classroom Day. In Class M we left our classroom empty for the WHOLE afternoon. It was such fun exploring the outdoors. We took part in lots of challenges, including making a nature picture, scavenger hunt, bug hunt, bubbles. Our favourite activity by far was the den building. After we worked as a team to build it, we all chilled out in the den, read stories to each other and ate popcorn! Some of us even pretended we were camping overnight and had a little sleep!!!!

David – I’m building a tent. I fell asleep! I took a photo of my tree. I’m looking at a spider.

Yolie – Empty classroom day is go outside. I made a den. I’m making a den with clips and popcorn.

Adam – me,jayden,yolie,david where building a den it was very fun and yolie and david made a nature picture.

Jayden – I really like Class M, it’s fun even making a tent.

Class M would also like to say a huge Well Done to David who took part in Gung-Ho at the weekend. We are all proud of him, and a bit jealous as it looked awesome fun!

On Thursday everyone took part in a sponsored fitness event with Mr Jeffries. There were different stations to move around. We had to go when the music started and stop when the music stopped. Everyone tried very hard, even Mrs McLean! Our cheeks were rosy and our hearts were beating fast which shows we put in lots of effort.

Dylan – The fitness was ok. I liked the basketball station best.

Adam – We had to do running. There was 6 stations we had to move round. My favourite was throwing the beanbags to a partner. We did it really fast for the whole time and didn’t drop it!

Yolie – I liked bouncing the ball and catching it with my hands.

David – Playing with the basketball. I was bouncing it on the floor.

Charlie -I liked doing Jumping Jacks best as it gets our whole body working out.

Class M have been practising reading aloud to Class G. We focussed on using a clear voice and having an appropriate pace. we also made sure we showed them all the pictures and tried to use an interesting voice in our reading.

Yolie – I reading a book about find the teddy bear with Logan. He liked it.

In music we chose a Summer themed tune as we having been having some nice sunny weather. We were practising keeping a beat and choosing some instruments that matched summery sounds.

Adam – I liked doing music, even though Aiden was very noisy. We are making a song about Summer.

Charlie – I followed the Summer songs rhythms by using the musical instruments. I liked the maracas it sounded like the Mexican men with sombreros.

David – I’m playing with the musical instruments. the xylophone makes a funny noise like trrrrrr….!

Dylan – We were playing Monopoly last Friday. Charlie won the game.

This week we took advantage of some nice weather to get outside and do some maths. Outside maths was great fun. We had a choice of activities on ‘challenge cards’ and we enjoyed a variety of measuring, counting and problem solving tasks.

Charlie – I had to find 20 things in the playground and count them and put them on the paper.

Dylan – I was measuring the distance from the bottle to the ball .

Adam – I had to find sticks and make a noughts and crosses shape and find small items to add up to 10.

To link in with some of the measuring we had been doing, we made some chocolate vegetable patches in baking. We had to measure the correct amount of milk to add to the chocolate mix. The finished pots looked like carrots growing out the soil.

Charlie – I made a pudding so it looked like soil and I planted small jelly carrots in it.

David – I was mixing up chocolate pudding so it looks like soil put carrots in the soil . I tasted it . It was good.

Yolie- I put 300ml of milk in the jug put chocolate in and mix it up. I ate it all up it was good.

Adam – We had make earth out of chocolate pudding, crushed Oreo’s and gummy carrots. We put it in the fridge for 5-10 mins then we ate it . I enjoyed it .

This week we reused some of our old clothes to design new clothes. It showed us that you shouldn’t always throw clothes away when you are finished with them, you can change how they look and reuse them. Hope you like our designs.

Charlie: I enjoyed baking this week. I was baking crispie cakes I put little eggs on the top to make it like a nest. I also enjoyed going to swimming this week. it’s so much fun. I managed to swim this time instead of always falling down.

Yolie:  I made crispie cakes with my P6 friends. It was fun. I made a dress out of my old clothes, I made a flower and stuck it on my dress.

This week Class M were very lucky to have a visitor come to class. Her name is Joanne and she works for the council’s

waste and recycling department. She will be visiting our class a few times to do some exciting activities with us. This week she showed us how to make our own sheets of paper out of old paper. It was very messy, but very fun! We have lots of good photos that we will hopefully be able to post next week.

Dylan – I made compost from apples, egg shells. I also made paper from recycled paper.

Joe – We were doing topic work with Mrs Dunn we were making paper. It was easy to make. I enjoyed it.

Charlie and David also enjoyed some other activities this week:

David – We were throwing bean bags with pictures of food, tins and paper on them into the right bin.

Charlie – I like swimming, it was super fun. it was the first time I had swimming lessons at school. I got a certificate for doing so well at swimming. My Mum said “I am so proud of you”.

Technology

This week we were learning about programming directions using the Beebot.

Joe – Me and Charlie were using the Beebot. We were making it turn left and right. it was good fun.

Adam – I liked practising with the Beebot because it was really fun. I programmed loads of commands to make it travel about a lot.

Learning Across the Curriculum

We turned the sensory room in to a recycling centre this week and sorted out lots of rubbish for the base. Dylan likes to use the American terms ‘trash’ and ‘garbage’.

Dylan – Our topic is recycling. We were looking at the maps of the school and finding where the bins were.

David – We were sorting out the rubbish putting it in the blue bin, green bin, black bin.

Aiden – We were learning about recycling putting plastic, paper, food into the correct bins.

Yolie – I was doing recycling. I had to sort it out to the correct buckets.

LAC

This week we have continued our recycling topic. We emptied our bin out on to the floor and sorted the rubbish in to the proper bins. We realised we are not recycling everything that we could at the moment. From now on we are going to try and recycle more. Some of us used our map skills to walk round the school and do a bin audit. We had to put coloured dots on the map every time we found a bin.

David – I recycled the paper and card. We tipped the bin on the floor.

Dylan – We walked round the school to find bins. We found some sneaky bins that we hadn’t noticed before. We had to use the map to get round the school. Maps are important.

Yolie – I put some plastic in the bin. Yoghurt plastic and a plastic bottle and plastic milk straws and plastic milk bottles.

Literacy

This week was World Book Day. Everyone in the whole school stopped whatever they were doing at 2.45 to do some reading. We read some more of our Horrid Henry Novel. We also made some cool bookmarks and gave ourselves some Horrid Henry names. Do you think they suit us?

Dizzy David, Dangerous Dylan, Gym Joe, Adventurous Amazing Parkour Adam, Clever Charlie, Mucky Mrs McNeill, Youthful Yolie, Messy Mrs McLean!

Joe – I made a cardboard bookmark because it was World Book Day. I dressed up as Harry Potter at BB’s.

Aiden – I stayed at Bankton Primary School till 1 o’clock in the afternoon. They have tokens instead of bands for the lunches.

Class M are enjoying a block of swimming at the moment. We have to walk to and from the sports centre which is very good exercise and helping us stay healthy. We are now all spending some time in the big playground at playtimes during the week. It’s great fun and it means we can play with some of our integration friends.

David- I had my face under water at swimming, we walked to swimming I liked it.

Joe – I liked having fun in the big playground, me and Jayden were playing.

Adam – I liked swimming, it was very fun. I was diving.

Yolie – Ross and Jamie is at the swimming pool for teachers. I was swimming fast.

Aiden – I liked swimming on Tuesday. It is a long time since we’ve been. I liked diving in the big pool.

Dylan – The big playground was good. I was playing with Mr Jeffries at tig.

This week we have been looking at Scottish inventors.  Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. We looked at different telephones then made our own from yoghurt pots and string. In the sensory room we got out our Bubble Machine and other lights. Great fun was had by all.

David- I was on the telephone, Yolie is on the telephone I said “Hello” .  I made it in class M, I used 2 pots and string.

Dylan – We made working telephones out of cups and string it worked. It was good fun speaking to Adam and Mrs McNeill. We were learning about Alexander Graham Bell he was 29 when he invented the telephone.

Joe – We were making cup phones with Charlie. Charlie is a new Balbardie Pupil he is nice I like him. It been a short week as we had a holiday. I had a sleep over at my friends house we played on the Xbox.

We have been continuing our learning about Scotland this week. We made a leaflet in writing letting people know about the castles, food and interesting places we can visit. Did you know that Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in Scotland and that Loch Lomond is the biggest Loch? We are having a mini Highland games today we will be playing games and learning how to do Highland dancing.

David – I was doing the numbers with Joe and Mrs Wilson it was adding sums. We made a 3D map of Scotland I painted Ben Nevis.

Yolie – I went to the Valentine Disco on Wednesday and played with the P7b girls it was good fun I danced the Hey Macarena.

Joe – I had fun at the Valentine disco I played tig with Jayden and Cameron. In maths we were using the giant hundred square with Mrs Wilson we were doing adding sums on it. It was Yolie’s birthday party on Wednesday I was having fun.

Dylan  –  I was playing a game at Valentine disco it was hide and go seek. We have been learning about Scotland, a fact about Mary Queen of Scots she got her head cut off!

This week we learned about Chinese new Year with Mrs Spence. Every year has an animal associated with it. We all looked at the year we were born to find out what animal we are. We thought about what each animal represents. Rabbits are fast and Ox are strong.

Adam – I liked trying the food. I didn’t like the seaweed. It tasted salty and weird, it didn’t have a flavour, that’s why I didn’t like it.

Dylan – I had some seaweed that tasted fishy. This is the year of the Rooster. I was born in the year of the Rooster which means it’s my lucky year and I can give luck to other people.

Yolie – I am a dog.

David – I didn’t like the food. The animals all had a race.

Joe – I tasted noodles and seaweed. They tasted good. The animals were having a race. The rat won.

Aiden – My week at Bankton has been good. I liked it. Playtime is great.

This week was Rabbie Burns birthday so we had a celebration in class with Class O. We learned some new things about Rabbie Burns and got to do some art activities and food tasting. Here are our highlights:

Joe – Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January 1759 and he died in 1796 July 21st. That means he died when he was 37. I went to the Sky Sports Academy with Armadale. We won the trophy! We did 14 sports like boxing, basketball, football and the rope of death.

David – I painted Robert Burns. I played Dobble with Dylan. I made a clay dinner.

Adam – I liked trying Irn Bru, tablet, shortbread. It was very tasty.

Dylan – I was playing Dobble with David. He showed me how to play it. The Burn’s supper was good. I got to try tablet. It was really sweet. I liked the teacakes too.

Yolie – I was drinking Irn Bru. I made haggis, neeps and tatties on the plate out of clay. It was fun.

Aiden – I liked the Burn’s supper because I ate my favourite food which is tablet!

This week some of us went Out and About to the library. We are trying to challenge ourselves to read more. We all chose a book to bring back to school so we can enjoy our independent reading time.

Joe – We were at the library and I was reading Hank Zipzer book it’s a CBBC book , it’s a good book.

Adam – I liked going to the library. I got the Simpsons comics madness.

Yolie – I like the library. You have to be quiet.

Continuing with our Scottish theme we learned about tartan this week. Some of us use our computer skills to design a tartan. Others learned how to weave.

David – I was making a mat, the paper was blue, green and orange it was a big mat.

Dylan – I was making a tartan on a website. It was white, red and blue. I also helped the adults wash the dishes this week.

Adam – I made a tartan with Mrs Spence on the laptop.

Aiden – I started at Bankton this week. I have enjoyed my first few days. I am making lots of new friends.

This week we started our new context for learning which is all about Scotland. We thought about what we already know and then talked about what things we would like to learn. Dylan is very excited as he loves all things Scottish. he want to learn new Scots words. In literacy we have been trying to read some Scots poems and figuring out what the words mean. We have been writing them down in a Scot’s dictionary. To introduce the topic we had an explore bag full of Scottish things for us to touch, taste and look at.

Here are some of our thoughts on the week:

Adam – We were eating tablet. We were wearing kilts.

Aiden – This week we have been learning about the Scots. We were drinking some Irn Bru and eating some shortbread and looking at some of the materials from Scotland too. I was trying to blow the bagpipes but they didn’t work because they were too old.

Dylan – I want to learn more about Scottish castles. I already know loads of stuff. It’s my favourite country. The bagpipe music is good.

Joe – In the BBB we did some questions about playgrounds. I said a see saw wold be good in a new playground and I said football.

David – I was reading a book, it’s called Tiddler. I’ve got tartan on.

Yolie – This week was icy in the playground. There was snow.

This term we have been working hard on our fractions in maths. As a reward for working so well Mrs Spence brought in ingredients to make pizzas. We all enjoyed it very much, especially the tasting afterwards. In another tasting activity, we cracked open a coconut and had a taste of the milk and coconut. Dylan loved the milk most everyone else was not so keen.

Adam – I liked making pizza and I hated having coconut and the coconut milk. It looked like water.

David – I’ve made pizza. I liked the red and yellow and green pepper. I like putting cheese and pepperoni on and tomato sauce.

Yolie – I decorated a pizza. I put pepperoni and put cheese in it and yellow and red pepper. It tastes yummy!

Dylan – The coconut milk was very tasty. I would like to drink it all because nobody else really liked it.

Joe – I liked making pizza. It was really good. First I did mushrooms and peppers, yellow and green. Then I put cheese on. And last I did pepperoni. The pepperoni was too spicy.

Mrs – I was very proud of everyone’s work in topic this week. Each pupil researched a tropical fish, write a factfile on it and created a 3D version for our wall display. Everyone worked hard and there was lots of good team work going on when making the fish 3D. Next time you are in school have a look at the display. It’s very colourful.

This week in class we have been learning about the Caribbean. We compared it with Scotland. Most of us said we would like to visit the Caribbean because of the weather. It’s very tropical. Here are our thoughts on our learning.

Adam – I liked making the muffins and the truffles (Thursday). I’m looking forward to tasting them today (Friday).

David – I made muffins and putting the butter, sugar and the salt and eggs and baking powder and flour in. Pineapple into the muffin cases.  I don’t want to taste them.

Dylan – I liked making truffles. I put coconut on them. I didn’t want pineapple. The music in the Caribbean is different. It’s called reggae. I prefer bagpipes.

Yolie – I painted a Caribbean island called St Lucia. In the Caribbean they grow bananas and it’s hot. Tall, palm trees.