We have had a busy first term in Primary Seven.  Here are some of our highlights:

‘I liked recapping 2D and 3D shapes.’- Lucy

‘I liked writing the ending to the crime story.’- Callum D

‘I liked doing all the CSI activities.’- Valerija

‘I liked learning the days of the week in French.’- Meadow

‘I enjoyed all the writing.  I liked the CSI writing most of all because you can write what you want.’- Christopher

‘I enjoyed doing the pop art.’ Polina

‘I liked drawing the suspects using tone and shade.’- Meadow

‘I enjoyed using shade and tone to draw images of the lungs and heart.’- Lucy

‘I liked creating the perspective art.’- Jamie

‘I liked writing the newspaper article on the crime about the stolen laptop.’- Kari

‘I liked doing the auditions in drama for our P7 panto.’- Meadow

‘I enjoyed writing the explanation text on how the lungs work.’- Millie

‘I was exciting finding out our roles for the panto.’- Kari

Class dojo- Christopher

Pupil of the Week- Lucy

Table of the Week- MI6

This week some of the things we did are:

We auditioned for our p7 panto (Jack and the Beanstalk)

In art we used our knowledge of shape and perspective to create 3D pictures.

In P.E we played extreme tunnel tig, we did an obstacle course, elimination tig and body part balances.

In maths the Decahedrons were practicing adding and taking away mentally. The Pentagons and Hexagons also worked on adding mentally.

With Mrs Waddell we shared our paintings of heaven and hell and measured angles.

In writing we wrote an explanation text about the lungs and how we breathe.

Blog by Casey and Roan

Have a good weekend!

It has been a short week at school this week; nevertheless it has been a busy one!

This week we completed art work where we drew the outline of our side profile onto coloured paper then cut it out to make a silhouette.  We then wrote three facts about ourselves and stuck them underneath our silhouette so that others can guess who is who by reading the facts and looking at the shape of our faces.

Yesterday we revised our learning so far about 2D and 3D shapes.  We learned the different names for different triangles (equilateral, scalene, isosceles and right angle.)  We also looked at the art technique called perspective.  This is where objects look smaller when they are further away.  To create perspective art, you have to include a vanishing point and ensure that all corners meet at that exact point.  We transferred our learning about quadrilaterals and triangles by incorporating them into our art work.  Our 2D shapes now look 3D as a result of the vanishing point.  They will look really effective on display in our class.

As part of our CSI context for learning, we examined finger prints.  We learned that there are three main types of fingerprints- loops, arches and whorls.  Approximately 60% of people have loops, 35% have whorls and 5% have arches.

‘I discovered that I had a plain whorl.’ – David.

We looked at our own finger prints and next week will be lifting our prints.  We will also compare the finger prints found at the crime scene in school and compare them with our 6 suspects.

Have a lovely weekend,

P7b

Dojo Winners- David and Millie

RRS- Article 28- Right to an education

In P.E this week we played ‘Castles’.  To play this game, we split into two teams and each team has two ‘castles’ made from hula hoops.  The aim of the game is to use a ball to knock down the opposing teams castles.  There is a two minute time limit and the team who knocks down the most castles wins.

For writing this week we wrote an imaginative crime story.  We had to choose from a selection of characters, settings and crimes and create a story with a beginning, middle and end.  We also had to begin our story with an interesting opener.  E.g. in the middle of action, a flashback, with a question or speech.  This helped to grab the reader’s attention straight away.  Miss Bollen was very impressed with our stories.

This week we also learned about the ‘crime’ that took place at Balbardie.  It turns out that MrsDunbar’s laptop has been stolen.  The suspects are; Mrs Meek, Mrs Hay, Mrs Madden, Jim the Janny, Mrs Haddifon and Mr Cunningham.  We explored the crime scene and found fingerprints, footprints, a scrunched up note, fabric and hair samples.  We will complete investigations over the coming weeks to find the guilty suspect.

Enjoy the long weekend,

P7b

RRS- Article 28- Right to an Education

Pupil of the week- David

Class dojo winner- Viggo

Table of week- Mysterious 6

In writing this week we continued to write in the style of a biography.  We used our imagination to create a biography about our future selves.  This links in with our future aspirations context for learning as we wrote about things we had achieved in our lives.

On Wednesday a maths teacher from Bathgate Academy came into our class to carry out some place value and addition activities.  One activity we completed was an addition puzzle that joined together to form a hexagon.  We had the option of choosing mild, spicy or hot addition sums that meant we could challenge ourselves appropriately.

For Golden Time this week we chose from different activities in the P6 and P7 classes.  The options included; baking, games from home, free art, hama beads, outside games, ipads and Wii.  We all had great fun and are looking forward to trying different activities.

Class Dojo Winner- Meadow Friel

Table Winners- Mysterious Six

Pupil of the Week- Viggo Savage

RRS- Article 28- Right to an Education

It has been a busy first full week in Primary 7.   Here are some of the things we learned/enjoyed this week in class:

For writing this week, we completed a biography about a person who inspires us.  First of all, we researched facts about our idol and then took notes on a planning template.  We then used our notes to form a biography in our own words.  We learned that features of a biography includes;  written in 3rd person, past tense, chronological order, headings and key events and dates.

In art, we chose inspirational quotes to encourage other pupils.  We turned this into pop art.  We looked at the colour wheel and chose contrasting colours for our backgrounds to make our quotes stand out.  Here is an example of one of the quotes we used:

‘success comes in cans, not in cannots.’

In maths we learned about different properties of 3D shapes.  We learned how to identify the number of faces, edges and vertices on 3D shapes.  Today we learned a special rule- to calculate the number of edges, you can add the number of faces and vertices then subtract two.  We also learned some new shape names such as octahedrons and  tetrahedrons.  We also learned the definition of a prism.

P7b

Rights Respecting Schools- (Article 28) Right to an Education

Most of us are happy to be back at school.  We have had a good week in Primary 7.  Here are some of the things we got up to:

‘Spending time with our P1 buddies.’ – Aidan

‘I liked writing a piece about our adventures in the summer holidays.’ – Brooke

‘I loved making our Get to Know You game for our buddy.’- William

‘I liked our art work where we outlined a self-portrait with personal facts.’- Iona

‘I liked making a figure me out poster.  This is a poster with maths questions that someone has to figure out.  E.g. My age is 5 x 2.’- Callum

‘I enjoyed making different 3D shapes with lolly pop sticks.’- Meadow

‘I liked the different 3D shape maths stations.’- Aaron

We are looking forward to our months ahead in P7

Have a nice weekend,

P7b

We have had a very busy week this week. On Monday we began filming our French videos where we retold the story of Cinderella in French. Firstly, we had to translate the story into English and then we split into groups to take a section of the story each. In our groups we split up the lines and practised our French pronunciation. We retold the story of Cinderella using puppets and we filmed our reenactments and have sent them to Bathgate Academy as part of our transition project.

On Tuesday we had great fun in the sun at Sports Day. We went down with our P1 buddies who were fantastic. Cameron and Rachael were the overall winners. Cameron also collected the house cup for Bruce as they were this years winners!

Next week most of us are off to Bathgate Academy for our transition week. We are all a bit nervous but we are looking forward to it. Wish us luck!

See you when we get back!

On Monday we had a tobacco workshop where we learned about the risks of smoking.

Here are some facts we learned:

• there are over 4000 chemicals in one cigarette.
• cigarettes are addictive.
• One of the main substances inside a cigarette is tar- the same tar found on the road!
• Smoking turns your lungs black and can cause lung cancer.
• If you smoke, your lungs will get filled with tar.
• If you buy a 20 pack of cigarettes every day, it would cost approximately £2920.
• If you get a lung infection, it can feel like you are drowning as your lungs are filled with phlegm.
• If a woman smokes when she is pregnant, it can damage the baby.
• Second hand smoking is called passive smoking and can be very dangerous.

Our job for next our next workshop is to give up something we enjoy for one week and to research harmful chemicals found in a cigarette.

This week we have been learning about the EU referendum.  This is a vote which will take place on the 23^rd of June 2016 to decide whether Britain stays part of Europe.  We have been researching the pros and cons on being in the EU and have made posters to display this information.  For writing we also wrote debate speeches to persuade others to vote a certain way.

Here are some advantages of being in the EU:

• Britain is stronger together- if there is a future war, we will have support from other EU counties.
• We have good trade links and are able to easily buy and sell products from other EU countries. If we left, businesses would have to pay tax to do this.
• We share police information with other EU countries that can make Britain safer.

Here are some disadvantages:

• Britain pays 118 billion pounds annually to be part of the EU.
• We don’t have full control over our own laws/legislation.
• Currently we are not able to secure our own trade links.

From P7b

Article 28- Right to an Educations

Article 24- Right to health care and information to help you stay well

Article 12- Right to have an opinion and be listened to.

P7 took a 3 hour trip to Oban with no wifi for 4 days but no wifi was worth it. P7 done 6 activities, we were split into four different groups and there was a lot of teamwork involved and the activities were coasteering, climbing and abseiling, canoeing and bush craft and gorge walking  and archery p.s gorge walking was super duper cold.

We just started looking at the Scottish election and we learned about all the different parties. SNP won in our constituency. We also learned about manifestos and we read the manifestos of Scotland’s main political parties. we wrote our own manifestos detailing the changes we would like to make in Scotland.

We have also been learning about debating and have held some class debates on interesting issues. Next week we are going to be learning about the EU referendum and write a speech to read during our class debate.

In writing we have been learning how to edit and re-draft our writing. We had a challenge to write a mini-saga. We had to write a short story with a beginning, middle and end. We then had to use our editing skills to cut our story down to only fifty words. The story still had to make sense and we had to check our spelling and grammar. We found it quite challenging.

See you next week!

Jamie and Sam

On Wednesay we had a visitor called Jenny who visited P7 to discuss our transition to high school.  During this, we recorded how we can celebrate leaving primary school and what we are excited about.  We also talked about our worries regarding high school and suggested solutions to solve/deal with these issues.  Lastly we rated ourself on a scale of 0-10  to show how confident  we feel about changing schools and we will refer back to this in our next session

We have started to prepare for our class assembly which will take place on the 20th of May.  We shared our ideas and have begun to rewrite a famous song in our own words.  Practises will continue next week.

This week we learned that democracy means ‘ruled by the people’.  Therefore, everyone has a say and the prime minister cannot become a dictator.  We had a look at how the Scottish election system works and identified the main parties.  We also learned that a manifesto is a set of promises that a candidate promises to carry out if they win an election.

Today at Oban we were in two groups. Groups 1&2 went on a gorge walk up and down some waterfalls wearing wetsuits and then went on to do some archery. We had targets with balloons stuck onto them to shoot at.

Groups 3&4 were canoeing on a loch and went and did some bushcraft . When they were there they created some shelters and built up some fires to toast marshmallows.

We are having loads of fun and cant wait for tomorrow’s activities.

By Ava B & Nadia

On Wednesday 20th April P7a and P7b received visit from members of the Ancre Somme Association. They shared information and artefacts relating to the First World War. We discussed local regiments during the war and some of our local heroes whose names you can find on local war memorials.

They showed us video clips of different uniforms throughout World War 1 and how and why they developed. Jamie and Travis dressed up as soldiers from the First World War. They were able to feel how uncomfortable and heavy the uniforms were.

We watched video clips about the different weapons used in World War 1 including different rifles and machine guns. They video compared the weapons used by the German and British forces. We also looked at the how the gas masks also developed to protect the soldiers. Originally they had to use a cloth and dip it in a bucket of urine and use that to cover their face to protect from the poisonous gas. Yuck!

We really enjoyed the visit and handling some of the artefacts.

Hope you enjoy them…

Derri’s Delightful Blog

This week my blog is about Loch Ness.

1. Loch Ness is the second biggest loch by surface area and the largest by volume. 

2. Part of the loch is 812ft deep. 

3. There is one island on the called loch cherry island at fort August.

4.The Loch Ness monsters nick name is Nessie.

5.Loch ness is 22.5 miles long and 1 mile wide.

Freya’s Blog Party

This week is going to be about dinosaurs 

1 Some dinosaurs coudlden see in colour.

2 No human has ever seen a dinosaur.

3 Dinosaurs bones are called fossils.

4 Some dinosaurs used camouflage.

5 No dinosaurs had long fur.

Jamie’s Football Facts

Jay’s Dino Facts

I’m not around this week but I look forward to sharing more facts with you next week.

Dyllan’s Mega Blog

No blog from me this week but look forward to sharing more facts with you next week.

Paige’s Awesome Blog

My blog this  week  is about  Mr Berginis.

Mr Berginis  likes to run.

His  favourite food is pizza.

He supports Hearts football team.

He likes his family the best.

Sometimes he like to sing on the karaoke.

I think  he is awesome

James’ Radical Blog

This week my blog is about The Pod.

1.There are 8 members in The Pod.

2.We go up stairs after lunch.

3.We have  been learning about emotions.

4.After we do some learning we have choose.

5.We have a behaviour chart.

Greig’s Amazing Info

This week my blog is going to be places to eat in Bathgate.

1. A very famous place McDonalds.

2. Gregg’s bakery i love a pizza out Greggs.

3. Kelly’s sweet shop they sell sandwiches.

4. The James young   Pub.

5. The sports centre cafe.

I hope you are hungry for more next week!

Article 13 – Children have the right to find out things and share what they know

This week we have been learning about perimeter. The perimeter is the distance around a shape and to calculate the perimeter of a 2D shape, you have to measure all the lengths and add them together. We challenged ourselves by finding the perimeter of shapes with missing lengths. Therefore, we had to use the lengths already given to find the missing length before calculating the perimeter. We learned some strategies to quickly find the perimeter of regular polygons. For example, to find the perimeter of a pentagon, times the length by 5. After the Easter break we are going to explore the concept of area.

In art we looked at the work of Dali. His work is ‘surrealist’. This means that his work is unusual. He created images of two things that you wouldn’t expect together e.g. dinner utensils on a beach or an elephant transforming into an instrument. We then created our own surrealist pieces in the style of Dali. Our work will look fantastic on display.

In drama we have been learning slapstick. This is violence without pain. In other words, it looks like you may be hitting someone but it’s fake. Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chapman were famous for their slapstick performances. We have worked in teams of 5/6 to create our own story lines containing slapstick. We will perform our scenarios in front of the P6’s next term.

Have a lovely and safe Easter Holiday,
P7b