This week we all enjoyed performing Scots Wha’ Hae at our Celebrating Success assembly. We made shields and some of us made swords. Five of us won awards.

We have started a new set of class novels – we are reading Shakespeare stories that have been adapted for children. So far we have read King Lear and are currently reading Richard III.

Next week we are going to learn more about William Wallace. We are also going to be able to read all the Young Writer entries from our class – fingers crossed one us wins!

Miss Anderson and P5a 🙂

 P5ms have been investigating the scientific theories on how life on Earth began. Did you know these fascinating facts?

• The entire universe used to be squeezed together so tightly that it could fit on a pinhead.     Amy

• Then there was a BIG BANG!  Antonia

• Earth was a ball of lava. No life could survive the poisonous gases in the atmosphere.  Lauren K

 • Earth cooled down and water formed in the craters.   Jack

• The first living things were single cell creatures that formed in the tidal pools.   Adam

• These cells produced oxygen which helped create more complex creatures.   Kendal

• Natural Selection decided how the plants and animals would develop.  Finlay

Who’s raving about reading this week?

This week Chloe and Kyra used our Reading Rave to find out more about our new caterpillars. They read about the life cycle of a butterfly as it develops from an egg to a caterpillar, then from a chrysalis to a butterfly. We are looking forward to observing our caterpillars through the different stages and investigating what we need to do to care for them as they grow and develop. Thanks girls!

From the Blog Post Box:

 We are so proud of Jay, Emily, Chloe and Kyra for achieving their Celebrating Success certificates. Well done!

Somebody else I am proud of this week…..

 …is William for working hard on his positive behaviour.    Adam

…is Adam for having a good attitude.    Isla

 …is Declan for shaving one minute off his Beat the Clock record.   Kyra

…is Kendal because she had stage fright but got up and performed anyway.  Ellie

 Finally, we would like to say “Goodbye” to Amy and wish her well in her new school. Keep in touch Amy, we will miss you!

Our sea-monkeys hatched! We have 7 sea-monkey hatchlings. They are each only 1mm long. We look forward to seeing them grow. We love watching them play with one another. It looks like they’re playing tig!

We have created a log book to record our observations.

Many of us are so fascinated by our new pets that we’re saving up to buy our own!

We’ll keep you informed on their progress.

P5ms

 Who’s raving about reading this week?

This week Amy and Lauren were reading an Art Attack book. They carefully followed the instructions to make a beautiful photo frame.

Well done girls.

From the Blog Post Box:

Something interesting I learned this week was….

…that the whole universe used to fit on a pin head!          Lauren U

…that Matt Cardle used to have cancer. I found this out as I carried out personal research for my project.       Lauren C

… that the Earth was created from a Big Bang.                Declan

Last week we learned more about different time periods and what Earth looked like during these times. The Earth has changed dramatically since the Paleozoic era (about 300 million years ago). Here are a few pictures to show these differences.

We all hope that the P7s are enjoying Belgium!

Miss Anderson and P5a

This week we started our ‘What a Wonderful World’ project.

We shared our thoughts on how life began on Earth:

Life travelled to Earth on a meteor.           Amy

Life began in the sea and some of the creatures learned to crawl onto land.     Nathan

Life started on Mars but travelled to Earth.     Lauren U

Life on Earth is all part of somebody’s dream.  Paul

Each of us also discovered a new species. We are looking forward to seeing how they survive in the Circle of Life.

We prepared our aquarium for our sea monkeys and are keeping our fingers crossed that the eggs will hatch.

Who’s raving about reading this week?

Flyn has chosen a book about plant eating dinosaurs to study for his Reading Journal home learning tasks this term. He chose, along with Callum, to record some interesting facts from his book during our Reading Rave. We were interested to hear about the different ways the plant eating dinosaurs defended themselves from the meat eaters.

Thanks for sharing boys!

From the Blog Post Box:

Something I did well this week was…

…predict what would happen next in Rockford’s Rock Opera.        Kyra

…learn my 5 x table off by heart. Lauren U

…building up my multiplication skills.   Declan

…getting stuck into my project book.        Amy

This week we took part in an art lesson with Mrs Clark. We looked at a cross-section of fruit and vegetables and then used chalk and crayon to create an effect.

The whole school took part in the third Big Balbardie Blether, which was on the topic of Home Learning. Most of us had a good time and came up with lots of great comments.

Earlier in the week six pupils from Primary 5a delivered a lesson to parents! At the AAL evening Lewis, Melissa, Andrew, Caitlin, Jason and Nathan taught a group of parents about extinction. Everyone who took part had a great time!

Have a nice weekend,

Miss Anderson and P5a

This week our Home Teams presented their pitches to the Dragons.

There were four great inventions:

The Do-It Bathroom – a luxury bathroom equipped with drinks machine, music at the click of your fingers and lots more!

The Comfy Collar – a clever collar designed to keep your pet warm in winter and cool in summer.

The Cutlery Plate – a plate with built in cutlery, including a pizza slicer.

The Egg Bed – a snug place for your eggs to rest safely.

In the end it was the Balbardie Stars who, having persuaded the Dragons to invest the most in their Comfy Collar, walked away with £800!

The Happy Hippos came up smiling too, with the Dragons from their team being commended for excellent business sense.

Who’s raving about reading this week?

This week Lauren C and Isla used our Reading Rave to read books about Flanimals.  They designed their own Flanimals which they will use to present a puppet show! It is great to see you using what you are reading to help you in other areas of the Curriculum. 🙂

From the Blog Post Box:

This term I have enjoyed….

“…learning about Victorian Inventions.”                   Declan

“…using the iPads.”          Antonia

“…Miss Clark being here.”                   Ellie

“…our Victorian assembly.”                  Jack

This week P5a have been learning how to create animations. We started off by participating in a Glow Meet with Bruce Husband (an OOGLIE animator). This was great fun and Miss Anderson downloaded an animation app for our iPads. Using our new app, and iMovie, we were able to create stop motion animations with music and sound effects. Click here and here for a few examples.We used this learning later in the week when we worked with P2lg pupils to create stories on the iPads.

It has also been profile week and we have all written a choose story for our profile jotters. We have all used possessive apostrophes in our writing this week.

Most of the class think that this week has flown by. Alex thinks this is because of all the snow.

We also had our last Club Golf session. We have really enjoyed Club Golf and we think that Mr Welsh has too…

This week in P5a we have been debating whether or not humans deserve to survive, based on our learning in topic. The pupils debating that humans do not deserve to survive won! Although we all would prefer it if humans do not become extinct…

Click here and here for a few examples of our debating skills.

We have had a fantastic time this morning – look at us all dressed up for Red Nose Day. Miss Anderson and P5a

This week we have been practising hard for our assembly.  We have prepared our costumes and props and are looking forward to presenting it next Friday.  We hope you enjoy it!

We have been creating symmetrical patterns in maths – next week they are going to become even more complicated!

It has been a week full of achievement for P5ms.  Emily and Ellie have  reached Level 6 in gymnastics, Isla and Lauren K have  achieved new belts in Judo and Amy completed her Copper Music medal.  We are so proud of all of them.  If you would like to find out more about these accomplishments, more information can be found on the Achievement Wall.

Who’s raving about reading this week?

This week Jack, Paul, Ellie and Antonia were enjoying finding out more about The Victorians during our Reading Rave.  They were reading different non-fiction books and taking notes on the new information that they found.  Paul found out that anaesthetic was first introduced in Victorian hospitals.  Ellie discovered that The FA Cup was won by a non-league club in 1901 called Tottenham Hotspur!  Thanks for sharing these interesting facts with us.

From the Blog Post Box:

I can improve my part in our assembly by…

… learning my lines.   Callum

…not fidgeting!      Amy

… speaking louder and with more confidence.   Isla

This week we have been learning more about animals and extinction. Did you know that the Passenger Pigeon was the most common species of bird in the world? Unfortunately people liked to hunt these birds and their numbers very quickly dropped. The last bird of this species died on September 1st, 1914 (her name was Martha). This species is the only species that we know the exact date and time it became extinct (1pm to be precise).

On Wednesday we had an important visit from Education Scotland and the Scottish Government. They came to observe how we are using iPads (and other ICT equipment) to support our learning. During this visit we learned about Ospreys in Scotland. In 1916 ospreys were extinct in Scotland. Since then there have been laws passed to protect ospreys, and to try and encourage them to return to Scotland. We were very pleased to learn that humans can use positive actions to promote conservation and to prevent extinction.

There are a few webcams that show nesting sites of Scottish Osprey – although the ospreys will not be back until the end of April.

Miss Anderson, Miss Walker and P5a 😀

This week we were learning about rich and poor Victorian Houses with Miss Clark.  We enjoyed an interactive CD ROM which helped us to see what Queen Victoria’s house looked like.  We also watched a video that showed us what a workhouse looked like.  People went to the workhouse when they were really poor and had nowhere else to live.

This week Mrs MacKenzie also handed out our Victorian Class Talk Projects.  We have to research important Victorian inventions using iPads, computers and books.  We are looking forward to sharing what we have learned.

We have also started to bring clothes and props into school to use in our Assembly about rich and poor Victorian children.  We can’t wait to show our Assembly to our families and the whole school.

Who’s raving about reading this week?

Flyn and Adam were enjoying reading a book about Dinosaurs.  They were able to tell us some fascinating facts about Velocisaurus and Velociraptors.  Flyn also wrote his own story about dinosaurs.  Well done boys!

From the Blog Post Box

The area I’ve made the biggest improvement in this week is…

“…Judo as I have learned to flip someone over my shoulder correctly.”               Lauren K

“…getting up early.”           Kai

“…learning more about the Victorians.”              Lauren U

“… I got better at Maths this week.”         William

This week we started learning more about 3D shape with Mrs Sutherland.  We found out that a vertex is another word for a corner of a 3D shape.  We’re looking forward to learning more about this next week. 

 We are enjoying our Victorian Project and we have all been given parts to play in our School Assembly in March.  We also learned about Dr Barnardo this week and the work he did for Victorian children.  We made signs for one of his children’s homes. 

This week we wrote a biography about one of our friends.  We had to interview other people in our class in order to find out all the important information that we needed.  We really enjoyed writing our biographies.

Who’s raving about reading this week?

Harry, Jay and Paul worked really well together when reading a play called “The Kidnappers” during our Reading Rave.  I wonder if more people will join them next week? Well done boys.

From The Blog Post Box

Something I accomplished this week was…

“…getting a gold medal in Judo.”                 Isla

“…reaching Step 5 and getting better at joining my letters in handwriting.”         Harry

“…getting a faster time during our ‘Beat the Clock’ test.”    Kendal

“…using  the rollercoaster technique to help me with my handwriting.” Paul

Out of school hours, I (Lewis Gemmell) have been writing a story about a boy, who woke up shrunk. I would like to be an author when I am older. I am hoping to publish this story later and Miss Anderson and I have been editing it together. I am very thankful for Miss Anderson’s help. I have 19 pages and Miss Anderson reckons about 7000 words. It took me about a month to do and I think I am nearing an end.

Here is a little bit of the story from chapter 1. I hope that you enjoy it.

Hope that you enjoyed reading it.

Lewis.

This term P5a will be learning about living things and extinction through Rockford’s Rock Opera. Rockford is a dog who gets lost in Battersea Park before meeting a strange creature called a Cocklbur Ick. They mysteriously end up on a leaf boat, with no idea where they are sailing to. We watched the first chapter on one of our class iPads, but you can find the read along audio book here.

We have a new teacher joining us this week. Miss Walker will be teaching, alongside Miss Anderson, for the rest of January and the whole of February. We think she will have a fantastic time teaching us 🙂

Have a good weekend 🙂

Miss Anderson, Miss Walker and P5a

This week we have been learning about Caribbean music. There are African and European influences in Caribbean music. The reason for this is that many people from Africa were brought to the Caribbean to be slaves on the sugar plantations. Don’t worry though – the UK abolished slavery in the Caribbean in 1833. We liked all the styles of Caribbean music. Here are a few of our own compositions.

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

This term we are reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane as our class novel. Edward Tulane is a china rabbit. We think that he is a bit rude and selfish, but are hopeful that he will not always be this way.

We have also been reading with our buddies in P2lg.

Miss Anderson and P5a

😀

This week we received a wonderful surprise – five iPads were delivered to our class. We’ve already used them but look forward to using them more as we learn across the curriculum.

Another teacher joined our class this week. Miss Clark will be working with us until the end of March. We call our teachers the 3 Musketeers! Together we will make a great team.

We are proud of our 3 finalists for the Burns Competition: Lauren Kirk, Kendal Bryce and Amy Coakley.

It was lovely to have Mr Welsh and Miss Henderson visit our Reading Rave. We enjoyed it and hope they did too!

Who’s raving about reading this week?

This week Callum and Nathan shared their favourite articles from the newspaper with us. Thank you, boys!

From the Blog Post Box:

Something I’m looking forward to is…..

…our class assembly.  Chloe

…learning more about the Victorians.    Declan

…using the iPads.  Nathan

This week we started our new topic – Victorians. We made a timeline from the creation of the world until present time. This helped us understand exactly when the Victorian era took place.

We had a new teacher this week. His name is Mr Jeffries. He will teach us Health and Wellbeing and PE. We think Mr Jeffries is going to be a fun teacher with lots of creative ideas.

This week we introduced The Reading Rave. The Reading Rave will be held every Thursday from 9:15-9:45. We can do all types of reading activities during this time: eBooks, comics, play scripts, non-fiction, craft instructions etc… Some of us might practise for our Burns Competition during this time.

On Friday we had our Big Balbardie Blether. Our Blether teacher read his/her favourite book to us. We discussed lots of ideas about how to improve reading at Balbardie. We are all very excited to try them out.

From the Blog Post Box:

This week something I did well was…..

….participating fully in all activities.           Lauren C

…subtracting Hundreds, Tens and Units with exchanging.             Lauren U

…producing an interesting piece of writing about things I am good at.     Amy

…mentally subtracting multiples and near multiples of 10.             Emily