This week we were set a Home Team Challenge. We had to design a trebuchet that could knock down a Jenga wall with the load of one marble.

We tested our trebuchets and made improvements where necessary.  Congratulations to The Sour Lemons who scored Level 3 damage by dislodging several bricks.

Here are some photos of us at work. Watch out King Edward!

From the Blog Post Box:

I looked at all the great Fact Files. I particularly liked…

…Adam’s because he had a lot of writing in it and I liked the pop up puppets.          Liam

…Charlie’s because it had so much detail. I loved the family tree.        Travis

…Drew’s because he worked really hard on it and it was handwritten. I’m not saying that nobody else worked hard – everybody did! 🙂   Sophie

…Lisa’s because it really stood out and I loved the Freedom! caption.   Ava

…Erin M’s because it was nice to see a fact file on somebody different (King Edward) .     Abby

We can’t believe it’s Friday again! What a busy week we’ve had.

In Maths we have been working hard to speed up our recall of the times tables. We use loop cards for this and time ourselves and already we are one minute faster than we were on Monday. Our place value activities this week have focussed on identifying the value of a digit within a number. We palyed a really fun game to help us learn this. Sorry we forgot to take a photo !!!

We continued our writing this week developing the setting in our story. Carter read out his story and it turns out it’s a bit of a thriller. He had the whole class on the edge of their seat! It was clear that Carter’s chioce of words to describe the setting and atmosphere worked well.

Awards –

Mr Jeffires MVP in P.E. was Teigan Ross.

Table of the week – The Minions.

Our week –

Lily – I like the loop cards game, especially timimg ourselves because we know we are getting better and better.

Jamie N- The place value game was really fun. I was a digit !

Sam – Loop cards were my favourite part of the week.

Carter – My favourite part of the week was working with Mrs McClafferty to make pictures of the Big Bang. We used differnt chalks and smudged it then we splattered paint over it to look like the Big Bang.

This a a small selection of our work.

Ray – I like that we are learning new Scottish songs. This week we are learning Billy Connelly’s song about wellies. When we learn a new song we get to add it to the music wall.

This week, in our ‘Freedom?’ topic, we decided to stand up against King Edward and fight for our freedom. We chose to fight on foot alongside William Wallace. We felt confident with him because he was a brave fighter and a strong leader.  There was a huge battle at Stirling Bridge, a lot of blood was shed but we were victorious even though the English army was four times bigger than ours! Thanks for the tip from the future, Josh – we may not have survived the battle had we chosen to fight on horseback alongside Andrew Murray!

From the Blog Post Box:

This week I was proud of…..

…myself for winning so many gem points for the table.                  Craig

…the newspaper article I wrote about the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Ava

…the work I did on place value. We were exploring numbers up to 1,000,000!                       Emma C

…my handwriting because I did more than triple the amount I needed to do. I got to Step One with my Dojo points. I was very proud of myself this week.                 Cameron

…the effective headline I wrote. It got displayed on the wall.                        Abby

Primary 5d have had a great fortnight! Last week

we went to Lowport in Linlithgow for our school camp.

We had a great time sailing, swimming and exploring the forest at Beecraigs Country Park.

Ray – I liked the woodland walk and pretending

to be an animal. I camouflaged myself using ferns

and branches.

This week we have had our Onsie Walk . Some of us wore our onsie’s to school.

Catherine – It was really fun and everyone looked so colourful.

Last week was a brilliant week because the Lowport activities were amazing. I also loved spending time with my friends.                    Emma C

Last week was a great week because we played on the Wii.                    Liam

Last week was an awesome week because we went to Lowport. Jungle bashing was good – the tunnel was the best.                      Ali

Last week was an amazing week because I loved the sailing and the teacher said I was good at it.                        Lily

Last week was a great week because I got to feed the squirrels in Princes Square Gardens. There were lots of acorns.                       Robbie

Last week was an awesome week. I loved Lowport and doing the Jungle Bashing, putting mud on our faces, crawling through an old pipe and making tree faces. AWESOME!              Sophie

Last week was a fantastic week. I loved being at Lowport, sailing, going in the woods and sleeping!                        Abigale

This week we have been on a cruise ship adventure. We made passports, designed and named our ships and then set sail. Our first port was Bible World where we took part in all sorts of interactive activities to learn more about this interesting book. We played deck games with Mr Jeffries, held an on board talent show and even had a cinema trip. We all relaxed during Mocktail Hour with our delicious drink creations!

Next stop – Lowport. We can’t wait!

We have been working hard in our Potions Lab. So far we have created a Radioactive Fizz which involved mixing baking soda with vinegar. The chemical reaction between the two produced bubbles of carbon dioxide gas – the fantastic fizz!

We added a tube of Mentos to a bottle of coke and had to jump out of the way as it erupted! The eruption was caused by carbon dioxide rushing to escape.

We can’t wait to carry out some more exciting experiments!

From the Blog Post Box:

Next week I am really looking forward to…

…canoeing at Lowport.               Adam

…the talent show.            Drew

…going to Lowport because you get to go to a disco, go sailing and swimming. It will be so, so, so, so, so fun!                   Katie

…going swimming.            Leon

…going sailing.       Scott

…seeing who I am going to share a bunk with so we can goof around!    Sophie

This week we have (once again) been very, very busy. We have taken part in many healthy activities, including Sports Day. Yesterday we were very lucky to have a fun day at Xcite.  Rather than write about it we have made a video of the activities we took part in. We used a special technique to make the video called Time Lapse. Time Lapse is when a camera is set to take photos automatically (every second in our case). The photos are then put together to make a film. We hope you enjoy it.

We also met our new teacher today!

Miss Anderson and P5a

We’ve just come back from a morning of fun at the leisure centre. We had a great time playing games together in the swimming pool. After that we headed to the park to meet up with P5a for our snack. Then we had some more fun on a bouncy castle and played football, tennis and badminton. We walked home very tired, but happy.

On Wednesday we had a curling tournament where the Curling Crystals impressed us with their outstanding performance.

We were very proud of everybody’s performance at Sports Day, particularly our winners Antonia, Flyn, Lauren C and Declan. You truly were megastars!

As well as all this we have been learning about what makes an effective advert. Tomorrow we will be working on our final part of our Home Team Challenge – creating adverts for the opening day of our conservation parks.

Log in later to find out the winning Home Team.

*UPDATE*

After reviewing a number of excellent adverts from all teams, the Happy Hippos were crowned the overall winnners of the the Design a Conservation Park Challenge. Well done Hippos – you sure looked happy about your victory!

From the Blog Post Box

I think the best thing about P5 was…

…the teamwork.     Paul

…learning about Chocolate Geology.     Callum

…learning about hills and mountains in the Slice of Scotland project.   Nathan

…having two wonderful teachers.  Lauren C

…teaching such enthusiastic, fun-loving children. Mrs Sutherland and Mrs Mackenzie

This week our conservation parks were given a pre-opening inspection. We had to make sure that, as well as providing for the needs of our animals, our guests were well looked after too. We are pleased to report that all 4 parks passed the inspection.

Two parks received special awards.

The Best Park award went to The Happy Hippos’ 4 Mountain Zoo who impressed the inspector with their well stocked gift shop and cafe.

 The runner up award went to the Jolly Jaguars’ Conservation Park with their stunning park entrance and fantastic logo design.

 From the Blog Post Box:

This week I felt confident when……

…I was participating in the Rugby Festival.       Callum

…I was teaching my wee sister, Emma, about reading and numbers.       Lauren C

…I was doing my homework. I was working on my third sub-topic and was really getting to grips with it.    Lauren K

…I was doing my Maths Assessment.          Emily

The next Home Team Challenge has begun! Our task is to design a conservation park for endangered animals.

Our 4 parks are called:

The Jolly Jaguars’ Conservation Park

Five Mountain Zoo

The Six Siblings’ Park

4 by 4

So far we have designed enclosures and created fact files. We look forward to seeing how the parks develop.

It was very useful to use our own devices as well as the class iPads to help us research the animals’ habitats, lifestyles and diets. We had to make sure we were meeting the needs of all our animals.

 Who’s raving about reading this week?

Antonia and Lauren K enjoyed sharing Roald Dahl’s autobiography during the Reading Rave. Whenever they came to a descriptive passage Lauren would read it out while Antonia drew the character or scene being described. We all thought it sounded fun so we tried it out too.

We’re going to keep an eye out for interesting descriptive passages in our homework novels this week.

Thanks girls, for finding another interesting way for us to develop our reading skills.

From the Blog Post Box

This week, I was proud of myself when…

…I helped my dad build a glass table.   Declan

…I made a new friend called Nicole.     Lauren U

…I was a Homework Hero.              Nathan

…I was able to say the stations of the 3 x table backwards. Kendal

This week the pupils in Primary 5a have been very busy.  As promised here is our second video blog. This week we have included verbal reflections on our learning in language, drama and maths. We have also included a few photographs. We hope you enjoy watching.

As always we love to get comments so if you like our video blog please let us know!

Miss Anderson and P5a

This week P5ms released their butterflies. We named each one of them as we let them fly off.

Painted Lady butterflies live for two to five weeks – we hope they enjoy every minute of it. Good luck Amy, Benjamin, Simba, Big Mac and Jake!

This week we have been learning about endangered species. Our class app, Rockford’s Rock Opera, has been teaching us that humans are responsible for many animals being endangered.  Here are some of the things we have learned:

The rhino is endangered because people hunt it for its horn. They believe it can cure diseases.   Callum

The tiger is endangered because its habitat is being destroyed.         Harry

The Chinese River Dolphin is endangered because of pollution.           Jack

African Wild Dogs are being hunted for their fur and because people are scared of them.  Isla

The Coral reefs are suffering from global warming.     Kendal

Amsterdam Albatrosses are endangered because cattle and cats were brought to their island and destroyed their nesting ground.        Lauren C

Who’s raving about reading this week?

This week, during our Reading Rave, Antonia and Ellie were reading about women’s football. They shared with us information about a player called Mia Hamm. She is from the USA and has scored more international goals than any other player, male or female. They also discovered an interesting fact that women were banned from playing football in Brazil until 1975.

Thanks girls for sharing this information with us – it certainly led to a lot of interesting discussion!

From the Blog Post Box:

I am going to help protect our planet and the creatures that live on it by…..

…recycling paper to save the animals’ habitats.    Ellie

…switching off lights when I’m not using them.     Jack

…picking up litter.   Kyra

Lastly, it was lovely to hear from Amy. Thank you for posting on our blog. We are delighted that you are settling in so well  in your new school. Did you notice that we named one of our butterflies after you?

This week we have created a short video blog. Leave a comment if you like it and we might make another vlog next Friday.

This week P5a have gone sports mad! In addition to our normal P.E. lessons we took part in the Sky Community Challenge…and won! Everyone got a medal for taking part and we all enjoyed participating in lots of different sporting activities.

Melissa’s highlight was meeting Chris Cook, a swimmer who won GOLD in the Commonwealth Games.

Laura’s highlight was playing hockey.

Jason’s highlight was playing rugby and he is looking forward to the rugby festival (Monday 10th of June).

Kieran S enjoyed playing basketball.

Here is a picture of a few of our boys taking part in the dancing workshop.

In maths this week every group got 100% correct answers when playing Education City games. We are all very proud of our scores and think that maths is FUN!

We learned more about the trial of William Wallace. We made comic strips of his trial and discovered a new app for the iPad. Here is an example of a comic strip made with this new app.

We are all hoping for sunshine this weekend 8)

We are so excited! The Fitness Crew (a mix of P5a and P5ms pupils) scored the most points today at the Sky Community Challenge. Look at our shiny new trophy.

We hope that Mr Welsh will let us display it in our trophy cabinet.

Don’t worry – it wasn’t as messy as it sounds!

P5ms participated in a great game where we had to create a food web which would support our chosen species. We played in teams and had to try and sabotage our opponents species while at the same time keeping our animal population healthy. We found several ways to cut down the population of our opponents. One team hunted for python skin to turn them into handbags while the others began a fur trade which reduced the size of the lion population. How cruel! Both teams were affected when a deadly virus swept the landscape, destroying our food sources.

The game really demonstrated to us how dangerous and exciting the circle of life can be.

Who’s raving about reading this week?

This week at our Reading Rave Kai and Kyra enjoyed reading an e-book. It had lots of interactive features which they think will really help them develop their key skills for reading.

Happy reading Kai and Kyra!

From the Blog Post Box:

Something I am going to put extra effort into next week is...

…the story I am working on with Flyn and Jay. Jack

…practising my 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Ellie

…my handwriting and presentation. Isla

What a week! We have been very busy this week and a few of us have been busy learning on our own devices!

On Wednesday we were joined by two teachers from Eastertoun Primary, who were very impressed with our use of iPads to support our learning. We learned more about the Earth and created lessons to show to the rest of the class. Here are a few photos of us at work.

In preparation for our Sky Community Games day next week, we created teams and banners. Miss Anderson and Mrs Mackenzie decided to split the classes so half P5ms joined half of P5a in our classroom. Some of us made pompoms.

Miss Anderson and P5a 🙂