What we’ve been up to…

Maths

In our number work we have been practising adding 10 to a number and are finding this a little bit easier this week! We understand that the tens column changes when we add ten and have been playing lots of different games to help us learn this!

In practical maths we have been making bar graphs and are able to read information from these. We know how important it is for our graphs to have choices, a title and numbers at the side. We have also been learning about how to use tally marks to record information.

Literacy

This week in literacy we have been reading for information. We have used fact books about World War 1 to write our new learning and have also been answering questions in our phonic detective stories.

We have practised tall letters in our handwriting this week.

Learning across the Curriculum

We are LOVING our new context for learning this term and are learning lots of new information about animals in world war one and the war itself! The war started in 1914 and ended in 1918. We learned that Sergeant Stubby won lots of medals for all his help in the war. He wagged his tail if the enemy was near to warn the soldiers that they were near. He also barked if there was someone hurt on the battlefield so the other soldiers knew to come and help. Sergeant Stubby also saved lots of soldier’s lives by barking when he smelled gas – this meant that the soldiers knew to put on their gas masks. Sergeant Stubby died in 1926.

Active Learning

We are super excited about trying new stations over the next few weeks in the class. We are going to have lots of different activities and games out to help us with our learning and can’t wait to get started.

Something for parents to note is that reading books will now be needed EVERY DAY for reading practice so please send these in with your child.

Thank you for all your help with our learning!!

Primary 2b.

This week, in writing, we wrote a World War 2 poem. Our learning intention was to write a rhyming poem. For our plan we had to record relevant words that rhyme. E.g : Soldiers dying , bullets flying, trenches filled with mud, soldiers covered in Blood. We learned more about features of a poem such as capital letters at the beginning of each line and commas at the end of each line except the last in the verse etc.

This week we also did some art work. We used chalk to create flames on black card then used another piece of card to make a silhouette of a building, plane or something else to do with the blitz. We also considered perspective and how close the objects are in relation to each other.

Pupil of the week- Abby
Class dojo winner- Josh
Article 28- Right to an Education

This week we have been learning more about World War 2. We have been learning about the main events during World War 2 and have been organising these in chronological order to create a timeline of the war. We are going to learn about some of these events in more detail by researching them in a small group. We are working with children from P7b to research a main event and we are going to create a powerpoint to present to the rest of the class. We need to share our knowledge with them and create an activity for them to do.

In writing we used our knowledge of the main events leading up to the outbreak of War to write a newspaper article. We had to include the main features of a newspaper report including headline, caption, orientation and reorientation (beginning and ending). In reading this week we were discussing the difference between fact and opinion and how they can be used to persuade the reader. We had to use opinions in our writing to persuade our audience to support their country and the decisions the Government made.

We had a memorial service on Wednesday led by the choir who did a fantastic job. We re-drafted our Remembrance poems to put on display to remind people to think about those who have died at war. Also, we have created battlefield pictures. We were learning how to use line and shade to create texture.

In buddy this time week we helped our buddies to decorate their tea light holders to sell at the Christmas Fayre.

Class Awards:

Pupil of the Week: Taylor

Class Dojo: Scott

Right to an Education: Article 28

Pupil of the week – Lennox

Mr Jeffries MVP – Jack

Literacy

This week we have been building on what we already know about using speech marks. We were able to punctuate a passage that had the speech marks missing and we are going to apply what we know in our writing next week. We have also been playing a fun game that helps us to quickly recall whether a given word is an adjective, noun, verb or adverb.

Maths

We had good fun learning about multiplying by 10,100 and 1000. We also had a brief introduction to the decimal point and we will be learning much more about through the context of money later on in the year. We finished our work with angles and directions by going out into the playground with a compass and exploring how to use it.

LATC

We have been exploring the landscape of Scotland this week. We know about the weather in different parts of our country and the features of the landscape in different parts of Scotland. We have been learning to use the key on a map to identify the different features.

RME

We have been learning about Christmas traditions. We understand that both religious and non-religious people celebrate Christmas. We learned about Advent and know how Advent is celebrated religiously and non-religiously, the latter being with fun advent calendars that are full of chocolate!

Have a great weekend!

We looked to Star Wars to help us with our Maths this week. We used different strategies to solve problems and all the correct answers revealed Princess Leia and Chewbacca. We found fractions and percentages of quantities, and even answered our mental maths question in less than three seconds.  We are going to need these skills next week as we are going shopping in Diagon Alley with Harry, Hermione and Ron!

Harry Potter set us a task in writing this week to write an imaginary story set in Hogwarts which featured a mythical creature created by us.  After we had done this we were then told we have to design our creature in 3 d from our descriptions in our Writing, and then we are going to sculpt them out of clay in Art! We can’t wait to continue this next week.  Talking of Harry – at Hogwarts School of Science this week we learned about heating and cooling materials.  We are sure Professor Snape will be very impressed!

Have a great week everyone!

On Tuesday we went a trip to Bathgate Academy to start our transition process. We went to start to get to know the school a bit better and begin to learn our way around. When we arrived we asked questions to find out information. As a result, we were told what we can do if we get bullied, what sports activities are available, why the corridors operate a one way system and how many periods are in a day. Afterwards we got a run around the playground and chatted to some 1st year students! Next we split into groups to complete a treasure hunt activity. We were given areas of the school to go to and questions to answer. For example, we had to go to the school hall to find out the school motto. We had a 6th year guide to show us where to go. The first group back that answered the most amount of questions won a pen as a prize.

Today we took part in a Big Balbardie Blether to discuss our thoughts on Golden Time and the Golden Club. For Golden Time, we discussed the possibility of signing up to selected activities in different classes. For instance, there could be board games in one class and arts and crafts in another. Some of us like the idea of mixing with other children and having more options while others would prefer to stay in our own class. The results will be collated and feedback to us soon.

Have a good weekend,
P7b

Class dojo winner- Ray

Article 28- Right to an Education

This week in P1c we have been learning our nativity songs for the end of term. But they are top secret so we won’t say anything more!
This week we have learnt ‘d’ and ‘g’. We made dogs and goats!
We have also been thinking about the things we have learnt since we started school and the things we are can do better now.
We also had our first Big Balbardie Blether of the year when all the children are mixed together to discuss something important in the life of our school. This term we talked about Golden Time and what we like to do. We also talked about other things that could happen. We look forward to hearing what all the other groups around the school thought!
Evie – knowing my letters
Isla – doing my work, especially the ‘f’ sound
Daniel – doing jigsaws
Elise – painting
Grace – blending my sounds to make words
Harris – everything!
Ava – letters and numbers
Jess – making new friends
Emma – learning my letters and numbers
Liam – painting
Ryan – knowing my numbers
Dionne – doing my sounds
Maddison – colouring in
Marley – playing on the ipad
Nina – blending my letters to make words
Skye – learning my words
Alex – colouring in
Noah – doing my numbers
Keira – knowing my numbers and letters
Esther – working in groups
Alysheeeya – doing my numbers
Sarah – being kind and friendly
This week’s dojo winner were: Dionne, Harris, Grave, Jess, Daniel and Alex