Mystery is an exciting genre of writing.  Mysteries usually have clues and red herrings, a problem or an unexpected event, an investigation, culprits, suspects, detectives, twists or cliff-hangers to name just a few.  We have been writing mini mystery sagas with each of these features and we wanted to share them.  Katie said, “It was hard but fun.”  Kylie said, “Before we did the writing, we had to do some homework which helped.” Taylor thought, “Mystery is an exciting genre to write in because you can fool the reader.” Chloe said, “I really enjoyed trying to get people into the story.” 

 Read on for some of our ‘myterious’ writing!

“…but just as she was about to head to the movie theatre, some footprints caught her eye.”  Chloe

“Just then he found a newspaper on the ground marking the 100 year anniversary of a horrific fire that had happened at the very theatre he was in front of.”   Taylor

“Leila saw the dark silhouette and she was scared….”  Katie

 “Cautiously Tina crept over to where the scream was but was grabbed from behind and was dragged into a human sized burrow….”         Chloe

 “They ran as fast as they could but Tara was snatched by a silhouette…”                    Emily

 “As Jade took a drink of her tea, she heard a scream and a bang but, it had been an ordinary morning until then.”   Kylie

 “Leila looked over.  She didn’t see Isabella.  She heard an extremely nervous scream.  Leila was grabbed from behind.”        Elise

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Writing an investigation in a mystery needs some action to keep it interesting.  Writers use lots of techniques to do this like ,sentences of 3, adverb openings, powerful verbs, short sentences, unexpected noises and verbs at the start of sentences.

“Suddenly I screamed.”   Amber

“As he crouched, rolled and peered into the shed, he suddenly felt something on the back of his head.”  Craig

“Sam ran behind a boulder, went through a shelter and behind a crane.”   Haydn

“Worryingly, he chewed the loose skin on his thumb.”  Carrie

“Silently, he crept around the large steam engine.”  Shaun S

“Jumping over a high wall, Sam looked over at a house and saw a light flickering though, no-one was home.”  Emma

“Nervously, he sprinted to the sheds.”  Elise

“Cautiously, nervous Sam crept up to the huge shed.”  Katie

“Nervously shaking, Sam slid into a prickly bush, tucking his knees up to his chin.”   Chloe

“Cautiously he crept into one of the buildings.  Then he heard a thud behind him.”  Taylor

“Sam shivered.”  Aysha

“She stopped.”  Emily

“Sam stumbled down the hill.”  Aaron

“Sam crouched down.”   Dylan

“He ran towards his friend.”  Kylie

“He walked in.”  Shaun S

“Shivery air floated around.”   Chloe

This week in Primary 1 we had another visit from the Friendly Dragon.  He left us some castle books so we can keep him posted about the things we are doing to help him.  We used beans this week to help us work out different ways of making 9.  Kayla really enjoyed doing this work.  Louise also said that the stories of 9 work was fun.  Charles enjoyed painting our Jack for the wall.

We have been looking at the ‘sh’ and ‘th’ sounds this week.  We especially enjoyed being allowed to stick our toungues out for the ‘th’ sound!

Ava has had fun this week having lunch with her friends and Skye couldn’t decide on one thing to say as she has liked everything about this week!

World War II continues in P6, at least the learning about it does!

We have been finding out what evacuation meant to people during this time.  Children were sent away from cities to keep them safe from the bombing.  This sometimes meant brothers and sisters being separated and lots of children were very homesick.  We used our discussion and problem solving skills when we acted as Billeting Officers for an evacuation.  We had to match children up with new families from a village. This was much trickier than it sounds!  Erica thought it was difficult because you couldn’t always match the sisters up with the brother as some people would only take one child.

We continued as journalists this week as we continued with our newspaper reports about the outbreak of war.  We have found another use for tea leaves this week…Did you know they are great for making paper looking old?  Just what we need for our 1939 newspaper articles!

On a more serious note, Monday 27^th January is Holocaust Memorial Day and this week we used our reading time to read and discuss some diaries written by Jewish children during this time.  Chloe said, “It was upsetting to look at the diaries and hear what happened but I think it’s important that we know about it.”  Ian said that he thought “we should remember to stop history repeating itself.” 

Lots of Scottish things are also happening in school at the moment.   We are working very hard to learn our Scottish poems and in music we have been learning Tam O’Shanter.

Next week, we are going to investigate the effects of bombing during WWII and start some art work inspired by these events.  We are also going to be starting a fitness programme in PE and, we are looking forward to a visit from Mrs Ferguson so that we can show her what we have been learning about writing in the mystery genre.

Last week we started our WW2 topic and we learned about the axis and allies and why the war started.

The star writers last week were Katie, Natalie and Daryl.  Well done!

P7a are excited about the new big screen which has been installed in the great hall, Holly thinks it will definitely come in handy! This month we are starting to earn treats for the fun day in June.

Last Friday we visited James Young High School. While we were up there we finished our class novel ‘Cosmic’, we wrote about how we were feeling before and during our visit and what we are looking forward to when we start up at JYHS.

We are working hard to learn our Burns poem . Have a look at the link below to help you: http://195.188.87.10/arts/robertburns/works/the_humble_petition_of_bruar_water/

P7’s enjoyed their paired reading with their buddies this week and are pleased to be back into the routine again.

The football team starts back on Tuesday and the team are looking forward to getting their new strips.

Fact of the Week Did you know that after Germany invaded Poland on 1st September 1939, France and Britain declared war against the Germans on 3rd September 1939?