Today is Autism Awareness Day and p7b have been learning all about autism. We also dressed in blue to show our support for our fellow pupils who have autism.

What is Autism?

Callum: “Autism is a disorder which affects people with things like concentration, their senses, their eating habits and their communication.”

Isla: “It also affects their emotions and they sometimes can’t show their feelings. They don’t like change because they like to have a routine because it stops the world feeling out of sync.”

What have we learned about autism?

Nicky: “I’ve learned that there’s different types of autism and some are severe and some not.”

Taylor: “It mostly affects boys, boys are four times more likely than girls to have autism.”

Abbie: “I’ve learned that some autistic children like to be on their own and play rather than be in a group.”

Christopher A: “I’ve learned that every person with autism deals with it differently and has different ways of improving their confidence.”

Rebecca: “67 million people across the world are affected by autism.”

Sam: “I was interested to learn that everybody has a little bit of autism in them, just some are affected more than other.”

Fraser: “Scripting is when someone with autism repeats a phrase or word over and over to make them feel better.”

Sophie L: “Stimming is when someone with autism taps or fidgets repeatedly to make them feel more comfortable or in control.”

It is believed that all of us have a little bit of autism in us. We thought about this and would like to share:

Rabeea: “I need to have routines like having the same pencil with me and I take it everywhere I go.”

Sophie M: “My little bit of autism is OCD where I need certain things in certain places and if they aren’t there then it feels weird.”

Luke: “I don’t like anyone cutting up my food for me, it makes me feel like the food is bad and won’t taste nice.”

Callum: “My bit of autism is if anyone eats with the same fork or spoon as me I won’t use that fork or spoon again.”

Louise: “My bit of autism is getting distracted and losing concentration other very weird little things.”

Zenaib: “My little bit is that I need to have everything organised otherwise it feels weird and I feel worried.”

Alexander: “My little bit is repetitive behaviour. I like to repeatedly drum on the table or tap my foot otherwise I feel strange.”

Dean: “Mine is if food is touching other foods on a plate then I won’t eat them, they all need to be separate.”

Isla: “Mine is I have certain times when I do certain things in the morning otherwise it feels weird.”

Declan W: “I fiddle a lot and find it hard to sit still without listening to something otherwise I get grumpy and crabbit.”

Alistair: “Mine is personification of objects. If I choose something to eat (like with lunch trays) I feel the other choice will be sad for not getting picked.”

Jane: “My bit of autism is when I need to have everything super organised such as my room must be tidy and everything in its own place with my clothes set out for the next day.”

First of all thank you to everyone who came along to Skellybones!  We really enjoyed all our rehearsals and our performance. A huge thank you to Mrs Innes for all her hard work and creativity – we can’t wait for our next show!

In between rehearsals this week we found some time for writing using our describing words.  We got a visit from a mystery bear, and we had to ask him questions to find out which story he came from.  We put on our story detective hats and found out he came from Goldilocks and the three bears.  He helped us write about him.  In fact he liked us so much he is going to stay a while and help us get even better at writing.  He doesn’t like being called Baby Bear all the time though,  so next week we are going to have a naming challenge.  Ava Wood even said we could get him clothes and take turns to take him home – so you never know you might be getting a visitor some time soon….

Another success in reading saw the Foxes move up a level – they have been working very hard so a massive WELL DONE!! to them.

We completed our entries for the Highland Games Art Competition as well this week.  The theme was ‘My Scotland now’, and we all came up with great ideas from Stirling Castle to Katie Morag to Football.  Oh and talking of Stirling Castle, that’s our next stop.  We are all really excited about our trip there on Thursday and are going to try hard not to get locked in the Dungeons! Please remember we will need a packed lunch for that day, and also a waterproof jacket  might come in handy – just in case…….

And finally our Pupil of the Week is Olivia Briody – congratulations to you!!

Happy Mother’s Day to all our mummies!

Earlier in the week we had a visit from Mrs White.  She showed us all different types of bandages, what they’re all used for, and how to use them.  This was very exciting and different people got to role-play being hurt.  This was great fun, although we hope that we don’t encounter too many real life injuries!

We also learned about the eye.  It’s got lots of different parts and we’re looking forward to learning some more about the other senses.

We’ve had a fun arty afternoon on Tuesday.  We explored how to create still life pictures of flowers using different media.

On Wednesday, in the week we learned about weddings, in the lead up to Kiara’s mum and dad’s wedding.  We are looking forward to Kiara showing us all some photos of the special day next week 🙂

On Thursday we enjoyed our visit to the library.  The librarian read us a funny book all about a girl who didn’t look after her teeth.  We all take time to brush ours carefully so that they stay beautiful and white!

We had fun making mother’s day cards and presents.  We hope that all of the mummies have a nice day on Sunday 🙂

Almost Easter!

Class Talks –

It’s been a busy week as we began our class talks about Victorian inventions. We discussed what our success criteria would be then we each had a recording sheet to make notes on how well prepared people were or if they made good eye contact with their audience and spoke clearly.

Chloe – Rays talk was about Coca Cola and I didn’t know that each day the Coca Cola trucks around the world travel more than 1,000,000 miles.

Joe – Coca Cola wanted a Christmas ad that would grab people’s imagination and they put Santa in red and white (the Coca Cola colours) and he’s been in red and white ever since.

Sasha B – Eve did a really good talk about the camera being invented. I never knew it could take 3 days for a picture to be taken and developed in the Victorian times and the cameras were much bigger than they are now. Eve brought in a Box Brownie.

Topic –

This week we have been busy putting the finishing touches to our assembly about the Victorians. We were all very excited to perform in front of the whole school and our family and friends who made it along.

Sasha B – I found it really hard to play the recorder along to one of the songs but I managed in the end.

Jamie W – I had good fun and I think that Sam did really well and I liked his part.

Sam D – I was the posh butler and I was really nervous during the first assembly but it was easier in the second one. I had lots of fun.

Sophie W – I was really nervous at first but when I saw my mum I was not so nervous.

Jordan R – I thought Ray did really well as the curator.

We are all extremely tired after such a busy week and Mrs Drummond says we all deserve a well earned rest.

Have a great weekend!

We enjoyed making our Mothers Day cards this week. We can’t wait to give them to our mums on Sunday!

We entered the WLC Scotland Now art competition. We made a list of possible places to draw then had a vote. The winning vote was Urquart castle at Loch Ness. We even added the Loch Ness Monster to our drawings. We had to all the detail of the lake, mountains and castle and blend and shade when colouring. Miss Goff was really proud of everyone’s entries and found it really difficult to choose the top three! The three that was chosen was Ella, Isla and Sarah, Well Done!

Our next stop around the world was Japan. We really enjoyed working in both Miss Goff and Mrs Ghafoor’s class to learn about Japan. We did some fun activities including Japanese fans, origami helmet, painting Japanese calligraphy and designing our own kimono. We are really looking forward to our next country…America! We can’t wait to act out a Broadway musical!!!

This week’s Special Person is Ramsay because:

• He is caring
• He is nice to others
• He is great person to talk to
• He is strong and stands up for himself
• He is awesome and a cool dude
• He is energetic and full of fun!
• He is very hard working
• He is really funny!
• He is kind and gives good cuddles!
• He is a cheeky monkey (Ramsay agrees)
• He is epic
• He is good at cheering people up!
• He works hard to improve his behaviour
• He is good at solving problems
• He is never unhappy
• He is fun to play with and we couldn’t imagine the class without him!

Question of the week: What is your favourite object in the world and why?

Have a lovely weekend

Jane

WINDYKNOWE 1 BALBARDIE 5

On Wednesday 25^th of March Balbardie PS played Windyknowe PS. The squad line up was:Tom in goals,  Daniel D and Daniel M in defence, Dean as sweeper, Sophie and Declan out wide and Logan as striker. Starting on the bench were Ewan ,Ben and Luke. 

About 5 minutes into the game Balbardie took the lead with Sophie scoring a fantastic goal making it 1-0. Then Windyknowe scored their first goal making it 1-1. Just after that we all worked as a team passing the ball about and not giving up and that led to Declan scoring our second goal making it 2-1. At half time we were so happy that we were winning 2-1 so that gave us a boost for the second half. It was our kick off and we scored just seconds after it by Logan making the score3-1. Twenty minutes left to full time Balbardie won a corner, Declan took the corner it was a fantastic ball into the box and then Logan headed the ball into the back of the net and so it was 4-1. Logan went for a dribble in the last 5 minutes making it an amazing 5-1 to Balbardie. It was the first time we have beaten Windyknowe for  four years.

Player quotes:

Declan: “I am so proud of the team for working as a team sticking together and passing the ball around and that led to us winning.”

Captain’scomment:

Sophie M: “I’m so happy that everyone worked as a team and not giving up when it was 1-1 and everyone was motivating each other (I’m sure the new strips gave us luck as well!).

Match report by Sophie McMillan and Declan Sneddon.

Christopher A: “Deforestation is when companies cut down rainforest trees. One reason they do this is to get the timber from the trees and they sell it for other companies to make furniture and paper products.”

Sam: “This week we wrote discursive essays on deforestation and a discursive essay is when you first of all explain what it is you are talking about and then you go on to give the arguments for and against and then you finish off with your own opinion. I think deforestation shouldn’t be allowed because we are making animals which haven’t even been discovered extinct. Also, people that are cutting down trees which may have a plant on it which cures cancer or another disease””

Alistair: “I think deforestation should stop but it is important to note that the local people are being paid to do it and will lose their jobs if the deforestation stops.”

Alexander: “I sort of enjoyed the video we watched about deforestation. It was about a person who needed a Kitkat and he opened up the packet and it was orang-utan fingers instead. The purpose of the video was to persuade people to stop buying Nestle products because they were using palm oil which involves cutting down lots of rainforest trees.”

Jane: “I am against deforestation because they are killing animals we haven’t even discovered yet. “

Louise: I enjoyed sports elective this week, musical theatre. I enjoyed auditioning for the parts and also seeing other people do their auditions for the other parts.”

Rebecca: “I also enjoyed musical theatre. I enjoyed doing the auditions and watching Christopher and Callum performing their Har-De-Har Hut scene.”

Rabeea: “This week I enjoyed learning about the cardiovascualr system with Mr Jeffries. It was fun and we made up our own movies about the heart. We could make it any genre of movie we wanted, for example action, romance or comedy.”

Tom: “I enjoyed going to sports elective.I enjoyed watching Sam get revenge on Ewan at badminton when playing King/Queen of the Court.”

Who has impressed?

Luke: “The ten members of this week’s football team impressed me by beating Windyknowe 5-1!”

Isla: “P5d impressed with their Victorian assembly. I thought the idea was excellent and the dialogue was well acted. Christopher Allan’s American woman accent impressed me at musical theatre too.”

Fraser: “Sam has impressed by doing epicly at badminton when he was playing King/Queen of the Court. His fourhand grip was great.”

Amber: “The football team have impressed me by winning against Windyknowe for the first time in four years!”

Christopher A: “Callum has impressed me this week because when we were doing musical theatre he managed to learn most of his lines off by heart!”

 Tom: “Fraser impressed me by playing excellently at badminton by keeping the shuttle going and he earned the new nickname PRINCESS FRASER!”

Rebecca: “Everyone at musical theatre impressed me by doing so well in the auditions.”

Louise: “In musical theatre, the whole group has impressed me with their auditions and Christopher and Callum really impressed with their acting and learning the script.”

Rabeea: “Abbie has impressed me during swimming sports elective as she was the only one who managed to do the float challenge without falling off.”

Primary 3W thought it would be a great way to finish off our Ancient Egyptian topic by performing a Drama and recording our performance. We will try and post this on our blog next week!

Sophie – First, we wrote our script and thought of 3 scenes. These were:

Scene 1: Tutankhamun’s life

Scene 2: Mummification

Scene 3: The weighing of the heart ceremony in the afterlife

Eva – We printed out our script and everyone got a part and their own script. I am Narrator 3.

Ty – In Scene 1 I am Narrator 4. My script says:

“King Tutankhamun was only 19 years old when he died.”

Noah – I am in Scene 2 and I am Worker 1. I have to pull out the brain from the mummy’s nose! Ewwww.

Jennie – In Scene 3 I am the God Osiris. He is the God of the dead and afterlife. I get to welcome Tutankhamun into the afterlife.

Caitlin – I am in Scene 1 and Narrator 2 and my script says:“Tutankhamun was only 9 years old when he became pharaoh. As he got older he gained more responsibilities. He even got married!”

Rory – Tutankhamun’s nickname was King Tut.

Sam – In Scene 3 I play the God Ammut. Ammut eats up people if their heart is heavier than the feather because it means that you have sinned in your life.

We have all been practising our lines very hard and are even taking these home to learn for the final performance next week. We have been working on costumes and prop ideas and it is all very exciting. I hope you all learn your lines and I know you will do great!

-Miss Wilson 🙂

Hello Everyone

Today has been a very tasty day with a visit this morning over to the Sports Relief Bake Sale. Everyone enjoyed a tasty treat and we helped raise money for people who didn’t have the same things as us.

Because of the horrible weather yesterday we didn’t get to do our Sports Relief Mile but we did go up to the gym hall and ran round it 10 times which was hard work and a lot of us were tired afterwards.  Mrs Leamy did take some pictures but because we were running so fast they came out all blurry – sorry.

This week we have been practising our painting skills.  On Tuesday in our Superheroes topic work we were looking at real-life superheroes and how some people can do amazing jobs helping people all the time.  We spoke about the emergency services and how we get in touch with them and lots of people spoke about their family being their superheroes.  Then we got painting and used very thin brushes to paint pictures of people from the police, fire fighters and paramedics.  Mrs Leamy was very impressed with how well we painted with the little brushes. We practised our skills again on Thursday when we drew and painted pictures of people from the Wizard of Oz linking into this years float theme.

On Thursday we had a new challenge developing our listening skills, we were listening for instructions. We all had a picture and then Mrs Leamy read out an instruction and we had to follow it.  We all did very well and listened carefully.

Next Thursday we will be at the library for our final visit.