P3/2 are really enjoying the Roman Families topic and are excited about their trip to Callander house which will be in a few weeks. This week we have been looking at life in a Roman school and we have been thinking about all the differences between our school and a Roman school. Everyone has found it fascinating that only rich children got to go to school and that their school uniform did not inclde ties but Togas! Our class discussion surrounding the length of time Roman children had to go to school was very interesting. Roman children had to go to school 7 days a week and most of us thought that this was terrible! We made Venn diagrams to show the differences and similarities between Our School and a Roman school. The main difference was of course technology and we decided that pupils in a Roman school would not have had the opportunity to watch a new part of the school building being built as we are at Balbardie which is very exciting! We look forward to showing off all the information we have learned at our open morning on Friday 28th February between 11 am and 12 noon.
P4b
We had a short but fun week.
We started our new topic of around the world in 80 days.
We are going to study this through the eBook written by Michael Palin. It should be great fun as long as the internet doesn’t go down again! We started our journey in London, Pall Mall. We discovered that Pall Mall was actually a game played in the 17th century; it was a cross between croquet and golf. We made rules up for the game and some of us had a chance to play this in the corridor outside the classroom. The rest of us will get a chance later on. From London we went through France and then into Switzerland. We found that the Swiss alps are here and one of the mountains is called the Matterhorn. The Matterhorn is shaped like a square based pyramid and ‘Banner’ clouds form at the top. We made our own Matterhorn from ‘nets’. Mr Jeffries has climbed the mountains around the Matterhorn and was able to recognise the mountains from the features of the Matterhorn.
We have also started to learn to ‘Be cool in school’ and to recognise the three responses that we can give to any situation.
Enjoy your weekend.
Musical Fun
This term, with Mrs Innes, we have completed a range of musical activities. We would like to share some of our learning with you!
Lauren- ‘we learn songs. One of them is called the Monkey Puzzle Tree.’
Mia- ‘We sing a song called the ‘Hairy Scary Castle!’
Isabella- ‘We play musical instruments to learn to keep the beat. We play xylophones, African drums, claves and glockinspeils.’
Amy- ‘I like the song Hairy Joe.’
Emma- ‘We learned a ghost dance.’
Ailah- ‘We use ribbons to dance.’
Mia- ‘We also play tambourines and wood blocks.’
James- We play instruments when singing the songs.’
P2G
First of all an apology for the lack of blog last week.We had a slight technical hitch (Mrs Haddifon pressed the wrong button!). Anyway we have had another jam-packed week in 2g with lots of exciting learning happening! Not only is there building work happening outside, our classroom has become a building site too, with the construction of Bathgate’s latest place of interest – Balbardie Castle. We are learning all about castles in our new topic and can’t wait to play in the one we are building in the class. Apologies for the amount of grey paint on uniforms (we did wear aprons!), but we had a great time being creative.
Every Monday our magic cauldron gives us new spelling words to practise for the week and leaves us task cards with different games to carry out.
Mrs Innes has reported that we are doing well with Mr Skellybones and we are looking forward to performing it for you all.
Everyone met their targets this week and got the chance to buy from our class toy shop if they had saved up enough.
P2e
We have had a very busy 2 weeks in school. Our new topic is Castles and we have decided to build our own castle in the classroom. We have started painting the castle walls. Next week we wilbe making more things for the castle.
This week we finsihed our Detective Granny stories. Evedry story has a beginning, middle and end. Miss Elliot thinks our work is so wonderful that Miss Henderson is going to come to read our stories!
We have been practsing our Mister Skellybones performacne and we now know all our songs, dances and words! Sam thinks practising the show is really fun. Karys really likes her lines for the show and has worked hard to learn them all!
We have also been working hard to acheive our class target. This week we have been trying to line up in a 4S line. Our line should be still, silent, straight and smiling. We are now very good at lining up.
Awards:
Table of the Week: Whizz Kids (again!!)
Class Dojo: Ben
Here are some extracts from our writing about Detective Granny:
Karys: Detective Granny was chasing the robber when she saw a crocodile. She got her rope and lasooed the crocodile. She pulled the crocodile closer and it ate the robber. Detective Granny got her money back and bought a cat.
Leia: Detective Granny shot the criminal’s car. The tyre was smashed. Now she could sneak in the boot. She did and got the money.
P3/2 have been very busy!
Even though it has been a short week the children have been learning lots!
Below are some of their comments about what they have learned this week:
“I learned more about the Romans; that they ate dormice” (Ava).
“I learned hard sums in Maths” (Daniel).
“We made mosaics and learned lots about them” (Zoe).
“Spelling – to help me learn words better – ‘knife’ (silent k words)” (Ciaran).
“Learning a Chinese New Year dragon dance to scare away the evil spirits” (Francesca).
“Get better in P.E.” (James).
“We learned about Roman houses, like a villa” (Skye).
P5d
A short blog this week!
We have been learning about Twitter this week and how to tweet about our learning. We now know what a hashtag is and how to use it.
Sasha B – after a hashtag all the words go together just like a long row of letters.
Eve H – a hashtag is used to group comments together.
We used thinking cards this week as part of our big start activities. Table 1’s card said this – You find an invisibility cloak, where would you go? What would you want to see or do?
There was lots of good discussion with everyone in the group taking part (we really do know what a good discussion looks like now) and Eve had this to say – I would put the cloak on and go into all the shops and steal all the cigarettes. Then I would burn them so that people couldn’t smoke anymore.
In our topic we have been comparing our school day with a Victorian childs school day.
Becky H – children were not allowed to speak until the teacher spoke to them and if they were asked a question and got it wrong they had to wear the dunce’s hat and stand in the corner. We are allowed to talk quietly in class and if we answer a question wrong the teacher or someone at our table will help us to get the right answer.
Mhairi Hinton – in the Victorian times children sat in rows but we get to sit in groups. I like sitting with my friends.
Lewis M – we have jotters, laptops and I -pads to help with our learning but the Victorian children only had a slate. They had to spit on it and wipe it with their sleeve to clean it.
Jamie W – girls would learn how to cook and sew and boys would learn woodwork and maths. In our class everyone learns the same things.
Oh and there were 8 contractions in last weeks blog!!
Have a good weekend!
Two weeks in our p7b rainforest
What have we been learning?
Fraser – I have enjoyed our rainforest topic, learning about the four different layers which are the emergent, canopy, understory and forest floor.
Rabeea – Last week I enjoyed doing drama with Mrs Innes because we were learning about slapstick. We had to form groups and we have to perform a scene and my group is Zenaib, Mrs Innes, Sophie L and myself.
Callum – I enjoyed doing the literature circle because I am enjoying reading Lord Loss by Darren Shan. It is very gory and a bit violent at times.
Jane – I’ve enjoyed literature circles also as I have really enjoyed the book so far. It has caught my attention but is also a bit confusing. My book is Lord Loss by Darren Shan too.
Alexander – I have also enjoyed literature circles. My book is called Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror. It is good but quite disturbing because it has creepy things like living dolls and evil bench ends.
Taylor – Last week I enjoyed art as we were creating leaves. We recreated leaves we had taken photos of at the Botanic Gardens. We’re using them to decorate our classroom.
Sam – I enjoyed doing our Creatures of The River task. We had to research and create a profile on an animal which lives in the Amazon river. I worked with Fraser and we learned about the electric eel and that it can generate up to 600 volts!
Sophie M – I enjoyed the river research task too. My animal was the bull shark and one of the facts was that they can live for 16 years and they are the most dangerous sharks in the world! My partner was Taylor.
Christopher A – I enjoyed the research activity and Tom and I researched the Caiman crocodile. We learned that the female can lay up to 40 eggs at a time.
Louise – On the Amazon Challenge, I managed to complete one of the River Rewards and it was to score over 70 on the Twinoo app. Twinoo tests your mental maths and your colour blending both at the same time!
Who has impressed?
Rabeea – Louise has impressed by getting 71 on Twinoo!
Fraser – Sam has impressed me by doing some really good research on the electric eel. He was an excellent partner.
Dean – Josh has impressed me by drawing a brilliant yellow headed tortoise. He had lots of detail in it.
Luke – Christopher S has impressed me by drawing our dwarf cichlids during our research task. They had lots of detail and were exactly like the ones in the picture.
Declan – Callum has impressed me by doing his research on piranhas and drawing a detailed picture of a red bellied piranha.
Christopher A – I’m impressed with my table this week because even though we didn’t win we kept on going and tried our best. We didn’t give up on each other.
Rebecca – The Anacondas table impressed me by getting table of the week. They have been kind to each other this week.
Mr Berginis – I’m impressed with how realistic our classroom rainforest feels and the quality of work we have up on display already. Well done everybody!
Class 1 Search for the Loch Ness Monster!
Art and Design
Class 1 have been very busy creating Scotland themed art work. We made a Loch Ness Monster collage and are in the process of making Loch Ness Monster clay models. 
Our home learning task was to write about our favourite things to do in Scotland. We enjoyed discussing this in class and have been busy creating art work based on our favourite thing to do. We selected our own materials and thought about the techniques that we would like to use.
We have been learning to respond to the work of artists by discussing our thoughts and feelings. We looked at lots of different paintings by Scottish artists. Our favourite painting was Sore Finger by Vicky Mount.
David:
I see: A girl sitting on the wall. Curtains and a dog. She has got a plaster on her finger. She has shoes on.
I think: She was falling down. She is feeling disappointed because she was going to the hospital. I think she lost the ball.
I feel: I love the painting.
Lewis
I see: I can see her finger cut. A plaster on her finger and she is wearing a kilt.
I think: I think she has a sore finger. That made her very sad because she cut her finger. She eats Scottish food. I think she needs a cuddle. I think I will give a cuddle for her.
I feel: I feel happy because I like the painting. I like to copy the little girl’s face.
We would like to know what your think of the painting.
http://www.minigallery.co.uk/Vicky_Mount/art50773/
Learning Across the Curriculum
As you know, class 1 have been learning about Scotland. This week we have been learning about the Loch Ness Monster.
We went on an underwater adventure, in search of the Loch Ness Monster! We had to put on our wet suits, and then swim through the dark murky water. Look what we found!
‘I go swimming to find the monster’. Yolie
‘I had fun swimming and finding the Loch Ness Monster. I think the Loch Ness Monster is pretend’. Jayden
‘I think the Loch Ness Monster is real’. Cameron
Something I know now that I didn’t know on Monday….
The Post Blog this week was to write about, ‘Something that I know now that I didn’t know on Monday.’ Here are some of our responses.
Writing skillls – we were learning how to use speech marks in our writing and used a sandwich as an analogy!
I now know where to put speech marks. Cameron
I now know that speech marks are like the bread in a sandwich! Emma C
I now know that closing speech marks come after the punctuation. , ? ! Charlie, Scott and Ali
I now know an easy way to use speech marks. Ava
Handwriting
I now know how to join ‘d and e’. Ross and Lily.
Maths
I now know an easy way to do missing number sums. Mirren
I now know how to do missing number sums. Katie
Drama
I now know that in drama, you need Confidence, Cooperation, Communication, Concentration and Coordination. Eva
LAC
I now know that teachers would cane you if you were late! Erin H
I now know that Victorian toys were fun. Megan
I now know that Queen Victoria was the Empress of India. Drew and Taylor
I now know that chimney children go to clean the chimneys with a chimney sweep but the chimney child will do all the hard work. Emma B
I now know that the chimney children could die from all the soot and smoke. Craig
I now know that if you didn’t clean the chimneys in the Victorian days all the soot would go into the rooms. Abby
Finally……and perhaps most importantly…….
I now know that Monday and Tuesday are holidays! Sophie
Hope you all enjoy the long weekend!
I’m looking forward to our Victorian tea party!
Mrs McClafferty
Tomb Raiders
We are busy learning about the Egyptians. So far we have learned …
There were crocodiles in the Nile so it is best to use papyrus reed boats.
They went hippo hunting.
They were very good farmers and hunters.
We have been using our non-fiction reading skills to look up information.
We have learned to write in hieroglyphs and also count like an Egyptian. Numbers up to 9 were single strokes.
They had to either dry their food or eat it quickly because they did not have fridges.
Next week all about the Gods!
🙂
Love is in the air…….
The children in cushion club decorated Valentines day pink cakes this week to take home for their families. They enjoyed choosing the decoration to put on the cakes, including red paper hearts. They each choose different decorations and shared the sprinkles, sugar balls and sugar hearts so that everyone had enough.
And the finished cakes! Good enough to eat!
P3W’s busy week!
So far this week….
Rowan – I enjoyed learning to take notes in writing.
Jennie – I enjoyed making our fact files on Ancient Egyptian Gods. My fact file was on Isis.
Megan – I enjoyed Maths this week and I also enjoyed doing Hundreds, Tens and Units sums.
Ty – I have enjoyed learning in Maths because I have been doing Tens and Units sums.
Liam – I enjoyed learning facts about Ancient Egyptian Gods and mine was Bes! He was the protector of families and children.
Noah – I enjoyed learning facts about Ancient Egyptian Gods and mine was Anubis. He was god of death.
P3W have been really impressing me this week! We have been learning lots of new things and a few people who have really impressed me this week are:
– Rhia with her Tens and Unit sums
– Cole when laying out his Maths sums
– Jennie with her note-taking skills
– Yasmin with her Safety Poster
– Ross with his fact finding skills
Raffle Prize winner: Sam
Dojo winner: Jennie
Trip to Botanics
Last week we went to visit the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. We enjoyed sharing our knowledge from last term with the guide as we went round the greenhouses . In the gardens, we enjoyed spotting the Snow Drops that have started to grow.
The girls are ready! Todd catching lunch. Watching our step
Say Botanics! Experiment time!
Our Week in P1l
Thank you to everyone who commented on last weeks blog, it was great to read everyone’s comments.
This week has been a mix of Katie Morag, Internet Safety and Building Safety. The week started with a safety talk about the building works which began this week. Steven from the building company came and told us all about the possible dangers and what we have to watch out for during the building works. Mr Welsh does not need to worry because straight after the talk lots of people came back to class and had the new gym hall built before we knew it and followed all the safety advice along the way.
Tuesday was Safer Internet Day and we learned 4 top tips to keep us safe when we are using things connected to the internet. We watched a film which helped us remember the tips and made puppets to help reinforce the message of not giving away any personal information.
This afternoon we had great fun ending our Katie Morag topic with a Grannie Island Ceilidh with singing, dancing and a story.
P5d
This week we have been developing our knowledge of right angles and we can now identify a right angle in a shape. We used right angles that we had made to help us.
Lewis McCallum
We’ve also been busy learning about contractions. Did you notice the contraction in the last sentence?
We did a fun activity where we had two words on a piece of paper and we folded the paper to make the contraction. We’re going to try to use our new skill in our writing next week. Here’s hoping we do well. Here’s an example –
step 1 
step 2
In topic this week we turned our classroom into a Victorian classroom. The desks were all set out separately and we had to sit on our own and we weren’t allowed to speak unless we were spoken to by the teacher. We had to stand and wait to be told to sit down when we entered the classroom and we had to stand up and say all the times tables out loud as a whole class. If someone gave a wrong answer they had to stand in the corner with the dunce’s hat on. It’ll be a while before we all do that again!
Here we are lined up for class.
Saying our tables!
Handwriting
It’s been such a hard week with all the Victorian rules we had to stick to so we’re all glad it’s a holiday weekend!
Spot the contraction – how many contractions are there in our blog this week?
Broons Aroon P4g!
This week in p4g we have been looking at the Broons and have made comic strips of our own family! We had to include speech bubbles, sound bubbles, thought bubbles and connectives to link the boxes.
We have also made a book about ourselves, here is a list of what is inside: house floor plan, family tree, factfile of ourself, house for sale and character cow and a family comic.
This week for our review jotter we were writing about how we cooperate in school. We co-operate by sharing, taking turns, being kind, listening to others, offering a friend a shoulder to cry on, not leaving anyone out and always taking part in a group challenge.
Our popcorn tub is nearly full wooooohoooooo! We have been working hard to be kind and show respect, let others share their ideas and keeping the classroom tidy.
We have started a new class novel called ‘Gansta Granny’ by David Walliams. It is very exciting and awesome.
During language sessions this week we were learning to be a ‘Discussion Duck’ where we had to work in partners to create 5 different OPEN-ended questions on the ‘Hodgeheg’ then ask other partners to answer our questions.
For dance this week we learned the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’. It involved 6 people in each reel and you need to be very energetic!
For Science we watched a video all about the human skeleton and we had to take note and remember as many facts as we could to label the bones of the skeleton. We learned that the human body has 206 bones, a baby is born with 300 bones then they join together, the longest bone in the body is called the femur and the largest bone is the pelvis.
Our ICT challenge this week was to begin making a powerpoint presentation on our favourite celebrities. Miss Goff showed us how to add slides, photographs and text. She even showed us how to add animations to make our powerpoint more interesting! We will present our presentations in the next few weeks.
This week’s Special Person is Isla because:
- She is a really good friend.
- She has a great smile.
- She is my bestest friend ever as she is always kind to me (Ben)
- She is super listener.
- She is helpful to everyone.
- She shows good behaviour and good manners.
- She is forever confident.
- She is very close to her friends and shows them respect.
- She is very funny!
- She is really good at making up playground games.
- She is a cheeky monkey (Isla totally agrees and thinks her parents will agree too!).
- She shows good co-operation.
- She has a great sense of humour.
- She has a very caring nature.
- She always tries her best (Miss Goff agrees!)
- She is good at taking part in everything.
Question of the Week – Who is your favourite celebrity and why?
See you next week!
Cameron B and Kiera H
Baking Breid
The children and adults in class 1 are enjoying their Scotland topic. We have been learning about Scottish food. Last week we made Shortbread. This week we made bread.
‘Some people call it bread and some people call it breid.’ Cameron
We found the breid recipe in Maw Broon’s cookbook which Cameron brought in for class 1 to borrow. It was very exciting to see the dough rise before we put it in the oven. Everyone in class 1 liked smelling the bread when it came out of the oven. We enjoyed tasting it and took some home for our parents to try.
David made some delicious tablet with mum at home. David thinks tablet is very tasty. He brought in his tablet recipe to show us (Miss Barrie is going to photocopy David’s recipe and try it at home this weekend).
P1l Built the Ark
Hello Everyone
Hooray! Today was our assembly and we were brilliant. Everyone was amazing at remembering their lines, actions, songs, music and movements, it was great. We would like to share with you what we liked best and some pictures from this morning.
Alfie – I really liked being a dove and singing the Rainbow Song.
Emily and Liam – We were good at making the rain noise.
Jay – My favourite songs were Who Built the Ark and the Rainbow Song.
Callum – Being Noah was good and l liked everything.
Maisey – It was good to see my mum.
Megan – When we first did it l felt nervous but when l saw Mum l was happy.
Enci – I loved all of it, especially holding the rainbow and when Jacob walked with the rain.
Suvi – I liked being a narrator because l had lots of things to say.
Lucas – My favourite songs were Rain, Rain Go Away and the Rainbow Song.
Alex – It was great to get my certificate and Mummy see me.
Well done to everyone, you were brilliant and Mrs Spence, Miss Fisher and l are very proud of you.
P4b
This week we wrote our newspaper reports about the loch Ness monster and also looked at Aberdeen. Aberdeen has a famous amusement park called ‘Cordona’ and we got to design a ride for it. We had to describe what the ride was.
We also did freeze frame in drama, Mrs Ghafoor took pictures and we are going to use these for creating our own personal comic strips.
Here are some of our thoughts:
David: We learned about Aberdeen and it’s amusement park.
Zoe: The Pentagons have a maths challenge; to have the fastest times table recall. (If you get an answer within 3 seconds you know your times tables!)
Iona: We’ve had fun with our Coordinates grid. We play connect 4 but have to write the coordinates before we can put the counters down.
Evie: French club is doing great as we are learning lots of new French words.
William: We made posters for ‘Day for Change 2014’ which told about Angita and the cyclone. We all made sure we helped by bringing in our £1.
Enjoy your weekend.
