Literacy

This week we have been developing character profiles. We are using our climate topic as a stimulus. We had to decide a name for our characters and then give them a profile. We had to decide on likes and dislikes, hair colour, eye colour, profession, family and what age we would be. Next week we will be using this information to begin writing about our characters journey to the Arctic.

Maths

This week we have been focussing on numeracy skills. We have lots of fun activities that we can do to help us develop our numeracy skills.

Jason – I like Harry Potter maths because it helps me to remember my times tables

Campbell- I like the game we play on the smart board. You have to race the clock to get your times table right I think it’s fun.

James- I like the loop cards game that we play it helps my times tables.

Kiara- I like playing nine snap.

Megan- We made our own times tables and cut out the answers and we have to jumble them up then match them all together again.

Hannah- I like the whiteboard challenge game.

Connor- I like the times table bingo.

LATC

We have been learning about the climate in the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Euan- the Arctic is slightly warmer than the Antarctic.

Suvi- Plants find it difficult to grow in the Arctic and Antarctic because it is so cold.

Sophia- it is too cold for people to live in the Antarctic

HWB

This week we took part in a sponsored circuit activity in school to raise money for school funds. We all had a great time and hopefully we will find out soon just how much we have raised.

Have a good weekend…..7 weeks until summer!!

This was a super short week but we still managed lots!

In maths, we have been playing lots of different games to help us remember our times table facts. We have also been learning to tell the time. We went outside and had time telling races.

In literacy, we have been learning about persuasive writing. We wrote letters asking for an extra 5 minutes at playtime. We had to hook the reader and then give good reasons for asking for an extra 5 minutes.

In topic, we have been learning about the different types of farms and took notes on poultry and dairy farms. This was quite hard because we were not writing in sentences.

We also learned about planting seeds and how plants grow. On Tuesday we then planted our own seeds. We got the choice of planting two different types of radish or lettuce. Some of them had already germinated by Friday! We have to look after them, making sure they get enough light, heat and water just like a real farmer would.

It’s been a funny in and out week this week.
We enjoyed a bank holiday Monday and a surprise election Thursday.

In Maths we started looking at how to find the area of regular and irregular shaped by counting squares and working out how many rows and columns. With Mrs Mackenzie we are learning about fractions.

In our learning across the curriculum we made rain gauges. We are going to collect data about the rainfall across the gardens of Bathgate as part of our topic on weather.
We learnt how to hold a cricket bat and hit the ball, whilst still protecting our stumps. It’s harder than it looks!

Lots of people had really fun days out on Thursday and enjoyed the lovely weather.

In STEM at Golden Time we investigated what happens when we pick up jelly with chopsticks. It became much trickier when olive oil was poured onto the jelly because the friction was decreased between the chopsticks and the jelly cubes!

We are enjoying practicing our song for celebrating success on the 16th May – we hope you will be able to join us!
Table of the week – with 360 points

Article 28 – the right to an education

Following on from our first PATPAL session, the children have created a numeracy strategy booklet. This contains different strategies which can be used when adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. We have uploaded the document to the blog so that you can use the strategy booklet at home when you are supporting your children.

numeracy booklet

We hope you find this booklet useful. There will be a second PATPAL session for P5-7 on Friday 2nd June. A letter and questionnaire will be sent out shortly and we would welcome your feedback.

Thanks for all your support,

P5-7 Team

What a fantastic group of pupils – we had great fun yesterday afternoon!

Tuesday lunch time rehearsals will involve those in Scene 5 – Eva, Rebecca, Iona, Rowan, Evie, Casey and Emma. Thursday lunch time – Eva, Rebecca, Jennie, Rowan, Noah, Zoe, Meadow, Lennox and Scott.
Thursday after school we will continue with the acting and dancing in scene 7.

We will have two Friday afternoon rehearsals – Friday 2nd and 9th of June until 3.00p.m. – children should bring a packed lunch.

Dress rehearsal – Thursday 22nd June until 6.00p.m.
Performance – Friday 23rd June 1.00p.m.

Another diary date – the after show party will take place on Tuesday 27th June 3.30 – 5.00p.m.!
A huge thank you to parents and pupils for supporting ‘The Jungle Book’.

Mrs Innes

This week we enjoyed our class trip to Stirling castle.

When we arrived we met a knight who lived in the 1500s. He was our guide for the morning and he took us on a tour of the castle. We looked at the gate where the portcullis used to be and we also spotted the arrow loops in the walls. We found out how the soldiers defended the castle, they would fire arrows at you, close the drawbridge, they would drop boulders on your head and pour hot sand down your armour to burn your skin. Very gruesome!

Luckily we survived and got into the castle where we saw the Chapel and the Great Hall. The Great Hall was where the King and Queen would entertain people at wonderful banquets.

We learned about some of the jobs people did at the castle. The worst one was the Gong Farmer who had to clean the toilets! They weren’t like our toilets, they were just a hole in the ground with a bit of wood over it. It was a very smelly job!

We then got to hold some of the knight’s Chain Mail armour. It was very heavy! Ehan, Ava, Alysheeya and Joseph all got dressed up in royal clothes. We found out that purple is a royal colour and if you wore it and you weren’t a member of the Royal family you were sent to the dungeons!

Our guide brought out the different weapons that were used, some of these were bows and arrows, swords and shields and axes.

Then it was time for some lunch, we sat in the beautiful gardens as it was such a nice day.

In the afternoon we had some free time to explore the vaults where we dressed up, played instruments and enjoyed the jester’s room. We also got to see the Queen’s bedchambers and her throne room. This is where you would go to see the Queen if you had a complaint and wanted her to fix it.

Soon it was time for the bus! We had a busy and exciting day and some of us even fell asleep on the bus home!

Some interesting facts we learned:

Keira: They only ate with spoons and knives – no forks.

Sara – The spoon was made from animals horns and horns are made from hair.

Grace Q – Not all moats have water – the ones that don’t have water are called dry moats.

Evie – Golf and football was banned in the 1500’s.

Well done to this week’s Dojo winers – Alex, Dionne, Ehan, Fearne and Tiana.

This week we started our new topic about farming. We learnt about different types of farms and what was grown/raised on them. There are two main types of farms: Arable and Livestock and we had to sort out the farms into categories based on what was on them.

We also learnt how plants grow from a seed and next week we will be planting our own seeds to grow. We will have to look after them so that they don’t die!

In literacy, we were learning about speech marks and also how to write a recount. We wrote about our Easter holidays. Some of us wrote about a day and some of us wrote about all the holidays, but, we all had to write it in order using sequence words like first, next then and finally. We also had to write a letter to the council because we did not want our holidays cancelled. We used sequence words in this as well giving reasons why we should have the holidays.

In maths, we are learning our timetables. We started with revising the 2, 5 & 10 times tables and have played lots of games to remember the facts. We are also learning how to tell the time.

Enjoy your long weekend!

We have been very busy in P1a this week….

We planted beans. Holly

We planted our sunflowers. Carley

We learned about the Lifecycle of a bean. River

We learned about flowers and how they grow. Ada

We did pointillism in art. Jude

We learned about long and short in measure. Aaron

We watched a speeded clip show a bean plant growing. Alex

We started our ‘My Diary of a Bean Plant’. Jack

We learned about the lifecycle of a sunflower. Amber

We learned about area and found the area of shapes by counting squares. Olivia S

We learned that the biggest is at the top and the smallest is at the bottom. Max

We learned ‘y’ in phonics. James and Oliver

We were learning the sound, ‘wh’ in phonics. Carley

We learned what photosynthesis is. Ada

We are enjoying watching are plants beginning to grow!

Here we are planting our beans.