Another great week!!

Maths

This week we learned about reflective symmetry. We did this in a very fun way by using dance. In pairs we decided who the performer was and who the mirror was then the mirror copied every move the performer made at exactly the same time. In our pairs wee then performed our dance to the song Everybody Dance Now.

Callum D – It was very hard but I kept trying and I was successful in the end.

Jack – I really enjoyed it and think mine and Reiss’s was the best one because we did a side bump.

Viggo – I understand reflective symmetry much better because we learned it with the dance and music.

Enterprise

We have had a very busy week making gift bags to sell at the Christmas Fayre on Saturday the 29^th. Our bags will be sold for 80p which we think is a bargain!

Writing

This week we have been learning how to stretch a sentence. We started with a basic sentence, The cat sat on the mat, here’s an example of one of our stretched sentences- Last night the fat cat called Minky sat nervously on the threadbare mat in the kitchen because she was in trouble. We started by adding adjectives to describe the nouns then we used an adverb to describe the verb. Next we used who, why, where, when and what to make the sentence more interesting.

P.E.

This week with Mr Jeffries we were learning about increasing our stamina. In outdoor P.E. with Mrs Drummond we have been learning to play rounders. We all thought it would be easy but it turned out to be quite tricky. After a couple of weeks practicing we are now able to play as a team and Mrs Drummond is very happy with our progress.

Have a great weekend!

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!

We have had a great week in P5d!

Writing

This week we worked very hard to write a poem about our favourite place in Scotland. It was a different poem to the kind we are used to because this one didn’t rhyme!  Here is an example of one of our poems. This one was written by William Knox –

My Wee Piece of Scotland

Callander

Me and my two brothers going fishing,

Having fun,

Play fighting on the grass,

Staying there for two days,

A place where I feel happy,

Callander will always be My Wee Piece of Scotland!

Maths

In maths we have been learning to make a symmetrical pattern. We found it tricky to begin with but in the end we all managed to produce a symmetrical picture, some of us with one line of symmetry and some of us with two lines of symmetry. Next week we will be learning about grid referencing.

Music

In music this week we were learning about Johannes Brahms. We listened to ‘Brahms Lullaby’ then had a discussion about how the music made us feel and what images it conjured up in our heads. We then had to close our eyes and without lifting our pencil from the paper transfer the music into a picture. Here is a picture of how relaxed we were during this activity –

Assembly

Today we had our class assembly ‘Rhythm Rocks’ where we were able to show the whole school how we use the drums in our learning. Mrs Drummond was very proud of the whole class and we all got a smelly sticker for our efforts!

Have a great weekend everyone!

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

This week we have been working particularly hard in maths and our class topic.

 In maths we have been learning to identify lines of symmetry. We were tracing different shapes and then we folded them in half to see if they were symmetrical. Some of us found this a bit tricky but we all agreed it was a fun way to learn about symmetry.

We have started our new topic A Slice of Scotland and before we focus on specific parts of Scotland and how the landscape was formed we are learning about our place in the world. Here are some facts we have learned –

Jamie – the world has seven continents

Aidan – I have learned the names of the seven continents they are North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica and Australia.

Aaron – I have learned the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland.

Meadow – I learned that the continent I live on is Europe.

David – I have learned the three countries that make up Great Britain are Wales, Scotland and England.

We are now going to learn about West Lothian and how the landscape of Scotland was formed.

Haver a great weekend!

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

Pupil of the week – Kari Nixon

Table of the week – Jamzi – Zoe, Jamie, Iona and Meadow.

Busy,busy,busy!

We have had lots of fun this week with our problem solving challenges. In maths we did a dice challenge and we had to use all four operations to complete the challenge. We had to roll three dice then write the numbers at the top of our sheet. Next we had to make as many sums as we could from the three numbers using addition, multiplication, subtraction and division. If any answer you got appeared on the number grid you shaded it and repeated the process until all your numbers were shaded.

Jamie – it was really fun because it tested my skills using the four operations. I found it tricky but I actually know a lot more than I thought I did!!

Another problem solving challenge this week was working in pairs and using only one hand each we had to tie a shoelace.

Iona – I liked this and if you wanted to tie the shoelace you had to talk a lot with your partner.

Zoe – I liked the shoelace challenge when we had to do it alone because I had to really concentrate to get my fingers to do what I wanted them to do!

We have been doing lots of times table practice and really enjoy using the loop cards. Our best time yet is 1minute 45 seconds.

Music has been really tricky the past couple of weeks but everyone has learned how to create a rhythm, write it down in the correct format and then perform their rhythm reading from their music. We used body rhythm and percussion instruments.

One more week to go !!! Have a great weekend.

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?

A great post camp week in P5d!

Pupil of the week this week goes to EVERYONE in the class as I was very proud of each and every child in the way the conducted themselves at Lowport. They are a credit to the school and their families.

We all returned to school on Monday excited to be back together again. We had a fantastic time at Lowport and would like to share some of our highlights.

Aidan – I really enjoyed the woodland adventure.

James – Canoeing was harder than I thought it would be and I was surprised how well I did.

Evie – The people in my group got to have a little bit of a water fight when we were on the canal canoeing!!

Zoe – I had a great time on the woodland adventure. There was a bit of a steep scramble up some muddy rocks and although it was a struggle I didn’t give in and I did a victory dance when I got to the top !!!

Daniel – It was really scary when we all had to get into the one canoe but it was fun as well. It was really fun when Mrs D put some music on and we all sat around in the girls room and just chatted and had fun.

Aaron – I really liked the swimming especially because Mrs Gray was in the pool as well. We were all splashing Mrs Gray and she splashed us back.

Topic/Writing

We have been continuing our topic on the Scottish Wars of Independence. This week we are learning about writing a recount. Our focus has been how to use our writing planners effectively and how to uplevel our use of time connectives. We are going to write a recount of the death of William Wallace.

Science

This week we were learning about dissolving. We carried out a few experiments with sand, salt and sugar. Here is what we found out –

James – we put some sugar into hot water and gave it a stir. The sugar dissolved. We found out that sugar takes much longer to dissolve in cold water.

Viggo – We mixed sand with hot water and the sand sank to the bottom and didn’t dissolve. I think this happened because the sand is made upof hard crystals and the sugar is made up of soft crystals.

That’s it for another week. Have a great weekend!

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

Maths

Mrs Drummond gave us a quiz this week about all about measure. We were able to demonstrate that we can identify the correct unit of measure to use when measuring different sized objects and we know how to calculate parts of a metre. We also had great fun outside with maths this week. We are learning about problem solving and went outside to do Sudoku in the playground. Calum Nicol had a great idea, he suggested that some people in the group should stand up by the flag poles looking down onto the Sudoku grids and we found that really helped!

Writing/LATC

We have been learning about the Battle of Stirling Bridge and used this as a focus for our writing this week. We were going to write a newspaper article about the battle so we had to look back at what we had learned in P4 about how to write a headline. Mrs Drummond was very pleased as we remembered some of the key elements that we had learned with Mrs Gafoor. We are beginning to understand how important it is to ‘take our learning with us’ when we go to a new class! We had great fun making headlines up about something that had happened in school this week. Almost all of us chose to write a headline about Mr Jeffries. He took Mrs Drummond’s Alan Shearer match attack card and pinned it to the wall hoping she would think it was missing. Here are some of the headlines we made up ….

P.E. Teacher pins Alan Shearer to the wall.

Class Teacher assaults P.E. Teacher!

Alan Shearer kidnapped!

We then used our headline writing skills to make a headline for or Battle of Stirling Bridge article ….

David – Wallace makes Edward think again at Stirling Bridge!

Lucy – Scots defeat English at Stirling Bridge!

Viggo – Victory to the Scots at Stirling Bridge!

Daniel – Scots trick the English at Stirling Bridge!

We are looking forward to learning more about William Wallace next week!

Science

We did the mentos eruption experiment this week. Quite a lot of the class predicted that nothing much would happen when the mentos were dropped into the cola. Ryan suggested that we make a funnel and stick a pen through it then we could put the mentos into the funnel and pull the pen out and they would all drop in properly. If the teacher does it by hand she gets covered in cola !!!! Here is what happened …..

Remember – No school until Wednesday!

Have a great holiday weekend!!

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

Maths

We have been looking back at what we have learned about how to measure things. We used different no-standard units of measure some of the things around the classroom. We used pencils, rulers, people and our hands to measure things.

LATC/Writing

We have been learning about the death of the Sheriff of Lanark this week. We used the story as a basis for writing a cartoon strip. We had to decide which part of the story to draw in each of the six frames. Then we learned about the difference between caption boxes and speech bubbles. Next we discussed with a partner which would be best to add into each of the frames. We now have a nice wall display in class showing our work!

HWB

In P.E. we have been learning about teambuilding through a variety of games and activities.

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’re back!!!!!!!
What a great start to the new school year. We have been doing lots of fun things during our ‘All About Me’ week. We are excited about the new topics we will be doing and can’t wait to start our first topic about the Scottish Wars of Independence next week. We really are enjoying our morning circle activities and look forward to including lots of singing and music in our class.
Emma – I really enjoyed making the buckets for our bucket fillers.
Jamie-Leigh – this is my first week at BPS and I have enjoyed meeting my new class and have already made lots of new friends.
Evie – I like being in P5 and like my new teacher.
David – I really enjoyed the drumming.
James – I like being with my new teacher.
Millie – I really like the morning circle.
Rebecca – I am looking forward to doing science experiments next week.
Zoe – I am looking forward to going to camp at Lowport.
That brings our first week in P5d to a close! Have a great weekend everyone!!

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

Busy, busy, busy!
Maths
This week we have been working hard to improve our division skills. We have been doing lots of different activities to help us with this.
Ava – we did an activity where we wrote down things like sixteen divided by four is four then we wrote this is the same as four times four is sixteen. This really helped me and I really understand now. I know that if I am dividing and it is hard I can work out the sum using the times table instead.
Lily – I am much better now at setting down and working out a dividing sum this way …..

Shaun B – when I was writing out the dividing sums and times tables I noticed a pattern and now the dividing sums are much easier to do.
Health and Wellbeing
We had a great time on Thursday morning when we went to the TA Hall for wrestling. Unfortunately Mrs D forgot to take the camera so we can’t show any pictures.
Emma – we had to kneel down and face our partner then we had to both hold on tight to a space ball and wrestle it off of each other. It was great fun.
Rebecca – I thought it looked really easy but when I had a go it was actually really hard to wrestle the ball off Kelsey because she was really strong and had good balance.
On Thursday afternoon we had a rugby training session. We all had a great time and learned loads. Here are some pictures of us working hard and enjoying ourselves at the same time!

Enjoy the gala weekend and remember it’s a Monday holiday. Enjoy!!!