All posts by Mrs Macdonald

P1’s Week

93 Kids Planting Seeds Illustrations & Clip Art - iStock

We have had a great first week back. It was good to see all of our friends again. Read on to find out we did.

Literacy
In literacy we shared our holiday news and wrote all about it. We are mastering our skills writing and using our sounds to help us to write tricky words. We are also making really good attempts at remembering to use joining words such as, ‘and’, ‘so’, ‘but’ and ‘because’. We have been learning that these joining words help to make our sentences longer and more interesting. We also learnt how to write an information report. We learnt that information reports need a title, two or three pieces sentences about what it is you are writing about and a sentence to finish off the report. We will be spending the next few weeks writing lots in this style of writing.

Numeracy
We have revisited counting money as this is a really important skill that we will need for the rest of our lives. We engaged in lots of fun activities including: playing interactive games on the smartboard, playing shop keepers, using activity mats to make specific amounts and playing with real coins.

IDL
We had great fun splatting paint all over this week as we learnt all about the artist named Jackson Pollock. It was messy but fun! We also learnt about the important of wildflowers. We learnt that some people mow these down or pull them out which is a shame as the wildflowers provide food and shelter for minibeasts. We would like to see more colour and flowers at Saint Nicholas and so we made seed splats.  We got to take one home and we will  throw the rest around some parts of the playground. Fingers crossed that they work! We also celebrated Earth Day by switching off our lights and discussing the importance of putting litter in the bin.

RERC
We spoke about the joy that Jesus’s twelve disciples must have felt when they learnt that he was alive. We also discussed how Jesus’s friends were very important to him and spoke about how friends make us happy and what we can do to make others happy.

Primary 1’s Week! Week beginning, 7th of March 2022.

Environment: Protect our seas and our future!" Poster by Koebque | Redbubble

We have been busy bees in Primary 1! Read on to find out what we have learnt.

Literacy

We are writing more and more as each week passes.  We write about our weekend news, practise writing sentences that our teachers dictate to us AND we have made more posters persuading people to look after the world an our seas. Our teachers are so pleased with us all.

Numeracy

We have been learning how to share, this is called division.  We have learnt that when we share equally we all have the same amount, this makes it fair. We have been sharing amongst two, three and four groups.  We have in lots of practical activities including sharing food between our class bears, using 2, 3 and 4 hoops to share cubes, pencils, pasta pieces.  These activities have been fun and really helped us to understand the concept of sharing.

Topic – Under the Sea

We have learnt about the biggest sea creature of all, the whale! We knew that they were big but didn’t realise that the blue whale was bigger than our classrooms! We also thought it was cool to learn that whales use a little hole on their head, (this is called a blowhole) to spurt out water to help them to breathe.

RERC

We listened to the Bible story, ‘The Widow’s Mite’. We learnt that the woman had only 2 coins but she gave them both in love for God. God wants us to give everything we have to him. We can do this by being kind and loving, giving money to charity, praying and singing to God, going to church.  Our teachers are very proud of how we show kindness each day to each other in class.

 

 

 

 

Primary 1’s Week. Week beginning, 28th of February.

Public Domain Clip Art Reading Is Fun - ClipArt Best

Read on to find out all about our super week!

Literacy

We learnt how to create a new style of writing this week called persuasive writing.  We learnt that there are certain words that can be used when we are trying to persuade someone to do something or NOT do something, eg ; PLEASE, DO, REMEMBER, STOP, NO and DON’T.  We used some of these words to design posters reminding everyone of the school rules. To make our posters look nice and to make the writing stand out we made our writing BIG and BOLD.

We also participated in lots of fun activities to celebrate ‘Book Week’.  We made bookmarks, dressed up as our favourite book characters, wrote book reviews and created a front cover and title based on the mystery book that our teachers read to us.  We decorated our classroom doors too in homage of our favourite books.  We have had such a lot of fun!

Numeracy

We focussed on halves and quarters this week. We learnt that finding half of an amount means to have two equal groups.  We also learnt that we can use our double facts to help us.  For example, 4+4=8, so half of 8 =4.

R.E

We learnt all about Shrove Tuesday and this day’s traditions.  We learnt that this day is the last day before Lent and a day which can feast on pancakes. On this day we had delicious pancakes,  Some had syrup, some had jam.  We also go messy, (this was great) when we made mud pancakes.

We also learnt all about Ash Wednesday which is the start of Lent.  Lent is the time before Easter. We learnt that on Ash Wednesday we are called to go to Church to get our ashes .On this day grown-ups should fast and think about the things that they can do to show Jesus how much they love him. We spoke about what extra things we can do during Lent and changed our classroom altar cloth to purple as purple signifies the start of Lent.

Topic

We drew sea horses for our display in class and spoke more about how we can look after the seas.  We learnt that we all have a special job to do to look after our world, just as God wants us too and by taking our litter home with us when we go to the beach is a super start.

Primary One’s Fabulous Fortnight.

Wardley CE Primary School: Welcome to Year 2

We have had a great couple of weeks at school and learnt lots!

Literacy

We have been learning how to write and recognise more of the capital letters. We know that these have an important job to do and appear in our names, the names of places, months and days of the week AND at the beginning of a sentence. We have started a new weekly job, ‘Our News’ and are doing really well writing about our weekend. We have also been using our imaginations to write stories titled, ‘The Talking Cat’ and ‘The Sad Fish’. Our teachers are so proud of our efforts!

In our reading books we have been noticing more and more that some sentences end not with a full stop but with an exclamation mark or a question mark. When we see these we are learning to make our voices change. Our teachers have told us that this is called reading with expression. We think that this is clever!

Numeracy

We have been learning how to interpret bar charts and pictograms and have practised counting objects using tally marks. We have also been using rekenreks, numicon and cubes to find ways to make 10. We love using the bits and pieces in our classes to help us.

R.E

We have been learning that God wants us to use our gifts and talents to help others and that Sunday is a special day, a day to relax, go to Church and spend special time with our families.

Topic

We have been learning all about road safety with the help of Ziggy. We have learnt that there are special rules that we need to remember when we cross the road. We must, STOP, LOOK and LISTEN. We have also moved on to a new topic that we will be learning about over the next few weeks, ‘Under the Sea’. We will be learning all about lots of sea creatures, their habitats and what we can do look after our seas.

Primary 1’s Week – Week beginning, 7th of February.

Social, Emotional & Mental Health (SEMH) | Contemporary Issues in Teaching  and Learning

 

Another great week was had in P1!  What did we get up to?

Literacy

Our Word Boost story this week was, ‘Grumpy Cat’, written by Britta Teckentrupp.  Mrs Mac is sure this story is about her cat, Murphy as he can be very grumpy! We enjoyed listening to this  and learning new words and their meanings, Our teachers have told us that when we learn new things we are exercising our brains, cool!

We also learnt how to form capital letters and learnt when to use them in our writing.  Our writing has really come on, our teachers are very proud of us.  We had another go at writing an imaginative story titled. The Sore Paw’.  Our teachers said that they are so good we are all going to be authors when we grow up!

Numeracy

We have been doing lots of oral number this week. We counted forwards and backwards, counted in 2s, 5s and 10s and practised our doubles facts to 20.  We also learnt how to sort out things and how to interpret bar graphs and pictograms.

HWB

We did a lot of things this week connected to looking after our mental health.  We listened to one of the Winnie the Pooh stories and learnt that Eeyore is often sad but his friends are still good friends to him and look after him.  We learnt that getting a good sleep, eating healthy foods and exercising are good ways to helping us to keep the blues away.

Topic

We looked at Scottish inventions this week.  We were amazed to learn that lots of really important things that we use every day were made by Scottish people! We were so inspired that we worked in groups to make our own inventions using junk that we had.  What fun we had working together, problem solving and listening to one another’s ideas as we made our inventions.

Have a lovely long weekend everyone!

Love, P1.

Primary 1’s Week, Week Beginning 17th of January

 

 

It has bin a richt guid week!, (it has been a really good week).  We have had such good fun this week and especially with our new topic, ‘Scotland’.  Read on to find out what else we have been up to.

Literacy

As well as revising lots of sounds previously taught, we learnt two new sounds this week, ‘ng’ and ‘wh’.  Both of these sounds appear in lots of words, (as we found out).Now that we have a bank of sounds in our heads we are writing more and more each day and using our knowledge of these to help us to sound out words when we are reading too.  We are becoming more confident at writing independently and giving writing a go.  Our teacher are VERY proud of us all.

Numeracy

We have have had a great time learning about ‘time’ this week.  We have learnt that time never stops, (unless the batteries run out in your clock/watch)  and that being able to tell the time is a really important skill that we will use for the rest of our lives.  We have been practising how to tell the time for o’clock and half past times and are becoming really good.  We have also been practising our number bonds and learning strategies on how to find a missing number, e.g. : 2 plus what makes 5 ?

Health and Wellbeing

We learnt how to skip this week in P.E.  It was easier for some of us than others.  Skipping is really good as it helps with balance, jumping and coordination and it is fun! We also recapped the importance of looking after our teeth and were given a cool toothbrush and toothpaste to take home.

Topic

We started a new topic this week, ‘Scotland’. We looked at how our country looks from space and located Broxburn on the map.  We are learning a Scottish poem, ‘Traffic Lichts’ and drew Edinburgh Castle too.  We were amazed to find out that it was built on a volcano and even more relieved to find out that it is extinct, phew!

IDL

We are really enjoying learning Spanish and think it is super that we can chat in Spanish to our teachers in the morning  as we say, ‘good morning’, ‘hello’, ‘please ‘, and ‘thank you’ .  We are also really good at knowing the Spanish words for lots of colours and can even count to 20 in this language.  Wow!

Thank you for reading our blog, have a nice weekend.

Primary 1.

Primary 1’s Fantastic Fortnight!

 

Primary 1 have had a fantastic fortnight!

What have we been up to ?

Literacy

We have learnt four new sounds, qu, ai, oa and th and engaged in lots of fun activities to help us with our learning. We coloured in queens, looked at quills, and made lovely thistles. We also played with trains and looked at boats.  We also  practised reading our common words.  Our teachers are so proud of how well we are doing with these as lots of them are tricky! We are now understanding that if we want to become good at something we have to practise.

We are writing lots and lots at the moment! One of our favourite jobs  was writing a letter to Santa Claus! Our teachers have told us that we will all definitely be on the ‘Nice List’, phew !  We also wrote a little passage about Winter time.  We have decided that although Winter is a cold season it is beautiful and especially when God sprinkles frost all over.

Numeracy

We did lots of oral number counting in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s.  We have also been looking at different ways to make numbers, for example 2+2 = 4, 4+0=4.  We have also been learning that there are different words and phrases that also mean ‘add’.  These include, ‘plus’, ‘more than’ and ‘how many altogether’?

R.E

We celebrated the Patron Saint of our school, Saint Nicholas on Monday the 6th.  We learnt a song, ‘Jolly Old St Nicholas’ and participated in Mass which was led by P6.  We are proud that our school is named after such a kind Saint.  We too will always try our best to be kind like St Nicholas.

Health and Wellbeing

We are continuing to check in each morning using our check in pebbles and pegs.  We do this as it lets our teachers know how we are feeling. We have spoken a lot this week about what is means to feel included and how to be kind to others.  We listened to a story, ‘Kindness is my Superpower’ .  This story was great as it helped us to remember that kindness is important.

Finally…

We have all been filmed this week doing our little job for the Nativity and the clips are being edited. The link will be sent out next week, hooray !

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

P1 teachers.

It’s beginning to look at lot like Christmas in P1!

 

We have had such an exciting week that we cannot wait to share it with you all!

Our classrooms are looking all Christmassy! We have Christmas trees, decorations and lots of beautiful sparkly and colourful lights.  We also have a new addition to each of our classes, little elves !We arrived to school on Wednesday to find letters and our little elves in our classes.  The letters asked us to name the elves so we put on our thinking caps and voted.  The most popular name in P1a was Cookie.  In P1b the little elf was named Snowy and in P1c the elf’s name is Fred.  Our new friends are kindness elves and have been sent to us because they heard that all of the boys and girls in Primary 1 are soooo kind.  We are so excited to have these little elves in our classes and can’t wait to spread kindness and happiness with them.

Talking about Christmas we have been so busy working on our Nativity.  It is coming along nicely and will be ready in the next few weeks to share with you all.

Literacy

In literacy we learnt three more sounds this week, ‘sh’, ‘ch’ and ‘x’. We learnt how to recognise, say and read and write words with each of these sounds.  We also listened to a story about a fox and rewrote it.  Our writing is getting better and better each week  as we are becoming more confident writing words all by ourselves!  We are enjoying reading too.  We use our pointer fingers to point to each word when we read it.  We really enjoy reading little ditties and all about Kipper and Floppy.

Numeracy

In numeracy we have continued working with coins, counting amounts and playing with real coins.  We know that it is really important to learn about money as we will use money to pay for things when we are older.  We have also learnt a new song about subitising.  We thought that this was a funny word!  It means to be able to recognise amounts really quickly, for example if we hold up one of our hands we know that we are showing a 5.  We don’t need to count !

Topic

We made lovely little owl pictures based on the story that we read last week, ‘Owl Babies’.  We also learn more about foxes as these too are nocturnal animals.  Mrs Mac spotted one just the other night there in her street!

Thanks for reading!

Primary 1.

Primary I’s Week. Week beginning, 22nd of November 2021.

It has been a great week for us all in Primary 1.

What have we learnt ?

Literacy

We learnt three new sounds this week, oo, j and y.      We had lots fun engaging in play activities including : playing with yo-yos, playing in the cafe ordering food and looking at jam. We also have been practising reading our balloon words and had fun being little book detectives seeing if we could spot some of these words in our library books. We also listened to the story, ‘Owl Babies’ and rewrote this  story in our own words. We all did such a good job that we gave our teachers a dilemma when choosing a ‘Star Writer’ from each class. Our teachers are super impressed at how well we are all doing using our sounds to help us to write!

Numeracy

We have been learning how to identify and count coin collections.  We have also been learning how to count forwards and backwards in 2s and 10s which was useful to us when we had lots of 2ps to count.

Nocturnal Animals/Light and Dark.

The ‘Owl Babies’ story was a nice little introduction to us learning about nocturnal animals.  Over the next few weeks we will be finding out more about these animals and learning about the sun, moon and stars.  We will also be learning how to keep safe when it is dark outside.

Nativity

We have been practising our lines and songs for the Nativity.  We are learning lots of new skills whilst we do this including: talking to an audience, projecting our little voices and acting. We can’t wait to dress up in our costumes to retell the story of Christmas.  Watch this space!

 

Primary 1’s Week – Week 9.

 

 

Last week was very exciting ! What did we do ?

Literacy

We learnt two new sounds this week, f and b.  We had lots fun engaging in play activities including : making fans, fish, making flower soup, having a bear picnic and designing bags.  We are looking forward to learning 3 sounds next week as we are doing so well!

Numeracy

We learnt all about symmetry this week. We used mirrors on shapes that had been cut in half and thought it was cool that the mirror showed the other half of the picture. We also played a super game online which helped us to match the other halves of pictures.

Dinosaurs

We had a super surprise this week! We received a package from Professor Alexander.  In the package was an egg and dinosaurs to play with! We do not know what is in the egg yet but we under strict instructions to look after it. We will be spending the next few weeks learning all about dinosaurs which we are so excited about!

R.E

We have been learning that the month of October is a special month as we pray especially hard to Our Lady.  We have been learning her special prayer, the Hail Mary.  To honour her we made paper flowers which we have displayed on our altar

 

Primary 1’s Week. Week 8

 

It has been a busy and fun week in Primary 1.  What have we been doing ?

Literacy

E and ck were the two sounds that we learnt this week.  We found it really cool that two letters can appear in words but only make one sound ! We continued to use our sounds to read and write words and are doing well.  We especially enjoy our writing lesson each Thursday. This week we spoke about the beauty of Autumn and drew a lovely Autumn picture in our jotters.  Our illustrations are really coming along.  We are trying hard to add details to our pictures and choose sensible colours to colour in.

Numeracy

We have been learning to use our pencil to count groups of objects on a page.  If we remember to do this we will never lose our place when counting and always count each object.  We also continued with the formations of numbers 1-10.  Our teachers are really proud of us all. We also learnt the names of 2d shapes and used these to make super shape pictures.

Autumn

We have had lots of Autumnal fun this week .  We learnt all about hedgehogs and made our own.  We learnt a new word, ‘nocturnal’.  We know that if we we ever see a hedgehog during the day it could mean that the little hedgehog needs help, hopefully we won’t ever see one.

Note from our teachers: Thank you to you all for your support over the last few weeks.  The children have settled in well and deserve a well earned break. Have a lovely October week and we will see you all on Tuesday, 19th of October.

Bye for now!

Primary 1.

Primary 1’s Week – Week 7.

The weeks are zooming by! What have we been doing ?

Literacy

We learnt two more sounds this week, k and o.  We learnt that k and c are best friends because they have a lot in common, they make the same sound! We liked these new sounds as it meant that we were able to read more words including: mop, not, mop and kit.  We go over these sounds each day so that we do not forget them.  We have also been using our sounds to have a go at writing words.  We have to stretch the words and say them slowly to help us to  remember each sound that we need to write down.  This can be quite tricky but we know that with lots of work we will soon be amazing.

Numeracy

We have been looking at the order of numbers 1-10 and learning to count forwards and backwards from any number, eg : 4,5,6,7.  We find this funny as we are so used to counting from the number 1, however we know that this skill will help us when we start to do adding and take away sounds. We have continued working on patterns and have had lots of fun still using counters, crayons, pasta shapes to make some.

Health and Wellbeing

We have spent time this week learning about the ‘Zones of Regulation’  which is a big phrase to learn.  It means how we deal with our feelings. The Zones of Regulation will help us to  recognise that if we are ever in a situation that is making us lose control of our emotions there are lots of things that we can do to  help manage our feelings to help ourselves get back to a healthier feeling.  We have learnt that each feeling can be given a colour:

St Nicolas and St Mary CE Primary School - Zones of Regulation

Religious Education

We made beautiful crosses which we have displayed beside our altars in class.  We have been learning how to pray and some of the prayers that we say each day at St Nicholas.  We know that praying is special.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1 and Primary 1 teachers.

Primary One’s Week – Week 6.

It has been a short week but a very busy and enjoyable one !

What have we been up to?

Literacy

We went over all of the sounds that we have been taught so far.  These include: s,a,t,p,i,n,m and c.  We used these sounds to read AND write words.    Our teachers are  very proud of us.

Numeracy

We looked at patterns and how they are everywhere! Our socks, dinner dishes, school tie  are good examples of patterns,  We made our own patterns using colours, size and shapes.  This was good fun.

Health and Wellbeing

We have continued to ‘check in’ each day in all of the classes.  We enjoy placing our name pegs and stones beside the emotion baskets as it lets our teachers know how we are feeling.

Religious Education

We learnt all that God gave us 5 senses to help us to make sense of the world.  We went on a senses walk around our playground which helped us with our daily mile.  We used our senses of sight and hearing to spot the beautiful leaves that are lying in our playground just now and listened to the crunch sound that was made as we stood on them.

We are in the middle of making autumnal pictures.  We will share pictures of these once they are finished.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1 and Primary 1 teachers.

Primary 1’s Week. Week 5

Five quick weeks since we started school,

we have learnt lots, our brains are getting full.

New routines, sounds and numbers,

it really has been fun,

Oh it’s great to be a Saint Nicholas Primary 1!

 

Our teachers are so proud of us all! We have learnt lots these past few weeks, made new friends and had lots and lots of fun! What have we learnt this week?

Literacy

Our sounds this week were i and n. These have been super sounds to learn and helped us to make new words to help with our blending. We looked at the words, ‘is’, ‘it’, ‘cat’, ‘pat’ ‘at’ and ‘mat’.  We are finding it really cool how the sounds that we have learnt can now be pieced together to make real words!

Numeracy

We recapped numbers 0-10.  We practised the formation of them, where they are placed on a number line and we looked at their values.  We also explored pattern.  We learnt that patterns are everywhere! Patterns can be found on plates, cups, clothes, doors and lots more places.  We had lots of fun making our own patterns too.

Health and Wellbeing

We learnt how important it is to keep nasty bugs away.  We did a little experiment where one person covered their hands in glitter  and then touched lots of things in our class.  We couldn’t believe it when we noticed that the glitter had also gone all over everything that had been touched.  Our teachers told us that this what happens with germs hat we have on our hands if we don’t keep them clean. We are very good at remembering to wash our hands but it was fun being reminded about how important it is to wash our hands to keep us healthy and safe.

Religious Education

We learnt all that God gave us special people in our lives who help us each day.  We are thankful for all of those people for looking after us and keeping us safe.

Finally… (Word from our teachers)

Have a lovely September weekend everyone! We will see the boys and girls for more learning and fun on Wednesday, 22nd of September.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1 and Primary 1 teachers.

 

Primary 1’s Week ! Week 4

What have we been learning this week in Primary one ?

 

Literacy

We learnt two all about two  more sounds this week, t and p. We learnt that these are gentle sounds. We also learnt how to write these sounds. We also did some blending. We took the sounds that we have been taught and linked them to make little words.  How exciting!

Numeracy

We looked at numbers, 6 , 7 and 8  this week.  We played lots of games ordering these numbers and practised the correct way of writing these.

Health and Wellbeing

We learnt all about teeth and the importance of looking after them.  We know that if we want to keep the tooth fairy happy we must brush our teeth twice a day and make sure that we clean all of them and not just the ones that we see at the front of our mouths. We had fun cleaning teeth and cutting sticking health and unhealthy food choices on our grids.

Religious Education

We learnt all about Mary this week.  It was her birthday on Wednesday. We learnt that God chose Mary to have a special baby, Jesus.  We will learn lots more about Mary this year.

Finally…

Our teachers were very happy to talk to our mummies, daddies and carers after school on  Monday. A big thank you to those of you who managed to tune in to the virtual meeting.

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1.

Primary 1’s Week ! Week 3

We can hardly believe that we have been at school for three weeks already! Time is speeding by and we are having so much fun. Read on to see what what we have been up to.

Literacy

We learnt two new sounds this week, s and a. We learnt how to write these sounds through play using string, spaghetti and slime!

Numeracy

We learnt how to write numbers 3, 4 and 5. We have been using loose parts to help us with our counting and had lots of fun exploring pattern.

Health and Wellbeing

We listened to the story, ‘The Colour Monster’. We learnt that the little colour monster is having a hard time, as his feelings are all jumbled up. He is red, green, yellow, blue and black, all at the same time. It’s making him very confused and he doesn’t know why. Luckily, the little colour monster he gets help and learns to make sense of his mixed-up emotions. We spoke about things that make us feel happy, sad, excited and confused and learnt that it is ok to feel lots of different emotions.

Religious Education

We continued talking about what makes us special and started special pictures of ourselves that our teachers are going to hang up in the corridor. We will take pictures of these for you all to see once we are finished.

Finally…

We are learning through play. We have lots of areas set up including: a writing area, a storybook corner, a loose parts area, a construction area, tuff trays, a home corner and a craft area. It really is fun being at school!

Bye for now everyone!
Primary 1.

 

 

 

Fun in Primary 1 ! Week 2.

It has been a super week for us all in Primary 1 and very exciting as we started our phonics learning and our numeracy program. What have we been up to this week?

Literacy

This week we learnt how to read and write sounds m, and c  We did this using a variety of methods including tracing the letters in sand, shaving foam and hair gel.  We made monsters for sound m , cool cats for the letter c and slippery snakes for the letter s.  We had lots of opportunity to play whilst reinforcing these sounds and had lots of fun! The construction area and the dressing up areas seem to be firm favourites!

Numeracy

For numeracy we learnt how to write the numbers 0, 1 and 2.  We learnt that there is a number zoo that will help us to form these. So far we have met Greedy Zero, Penguin One and Ticklish Two.  The number  0 is a gorilla named Greedy Zero as his tummy is the shape of a zero. The number 1 is named after ‘Penguin One’ as this penguin just loves sliding around in the snow which makes a dirty mark on her tummy in the shape of a one and Ticklish Two is a beautiful swan who looks just like the number 2.

Religious Education

We learnt that when God made us he made us unique and it is this uniqueness that makes us special.  We learnt about our teacher’s families and some of us spoke about our families and our talents.

Health and Well being

We learnt that everyone at St Nicholas has a trusted adult, someone who when can go to if we ever need help or a chat if we ever feel worried.  We also spoke about the trusted adults that we  have in our families that we go to when we need help: mummies, daddies, grannies and grandads etc..    We have chosen our trusted adult for school and know that St Nicholas is a big family where we all look out for each other.

We also made a start on our class charter.  Our charters are based on the United Nations Rights of the Child.  We learnt that at St Nicholas we ALL have the right to feel safe and listened to.

It has been a wonderful week indeed! Enjoy a well deserved rest at the weekend.

Primary 1 teachers.

 

 

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Welcome to Primary 1! Week 1

Ta dah! We would like to introduce  our lovely Primary 1 children to you all.

Primary 1a

Primary 1b

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Primary 1c

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It has been a great first week.  We have spent the time learning new routines, getting to know one another and learning and having lots of fun through play.  The primary 1 teachers are all really looking forward to the year ahead.  Dear families, please check this blog each Friday for a weekly post to see what we have been doing.

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

Mrs Macdonald P1a, Miss Doolan P1b and Mrs Koziel P1c.

 

First week back in P5!

Our first week back at school has been so enjoyable, the good weather helped and it was great to be back and seeing one another again.

What did we do?

We learnt how to spell words using the phonemes, se and ce.  We learnt that when these letters when grouped together sometimes make the ‘s’ sound.  We practised the spelling of these words using a variety of methods including: rainbow writing, fancy writing, bubble writing.  We also made word searches.  We also learnt how to use personal pronouns effectively and the difference that these make to our writing.

Numeracy – We moved on to percentages. We learnt that percentages are out of 100.  We learnt how to convert percentages to fractions and decimals and are have just started learning how to find percentages of amounts.

Health and Wellbeing– We spoke about all of the strategies that we can use to build up resilience.  We also spent a lot of time outdoors this week due to the weather being kind and played team games and walked our daily mile.

R.E – We learnt that God has given us talents that he wants us to use well.  We spoke about our talents, (we REALLY are a talented bunch) and advise you all to look out for us all as we are stars in the making, ha!

Topic – We started our sustainability project, ‘Life Below Water’. We learnt that on 25th the September 2015, the United Nations agreed to 17 Global Goals to end extreme poverty and improve our world by 2030. One of these goals is to improve things for life under water. The goals are;

  • By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas.
  • By 2025, marine pollution will be reduced.
  • Enforce laws which stop illegal fishing, overfishing, and other destructive fishing practices.
  • Minimise and address the impact of ocean pollution.

We will work hard over the next few weeks to learn what we can do to help with these goals.  One thing that we can instantly do is to take our litter home with us or bin it each time we visit the beach.  Earth Day, (which we celebrated this week) was a reminder to us all that we only have one earth and we need to cherish it and look after it for us and the creatures and animals that live on it too.

Primary 5’s Week.

P5 have had a great week and worked well.  What did we get up to?

Literacy – In literacy our spelling this week focussed on ci, cy and ce words. We learnt that these letters when grouped together sometimes make the ‘s’ sound.  We practised the spelling of these words using a variety of methods including: rainbow writing, fancy writing, bubble writing, and we also made word searches. We also recapped how writers use similes and metaphors to create effective imagery.  We were astounded to learn that every day expressions that we use are in fact, metaphors and silmiles!

Our writing focus this week was functional writing.  We looked at information reports and deconstructed them paying close attention to the key features.

Numeracy – We consolidated our learning with fractions recapping how to add, subtract, find equivalent fractions and simplify.  We moved on to area and perimeter this week too and know how to find the area and perimeters of shapes, a useful skill to know  for when we get our own houses and need to buy materials for the garden etc…

Health and Wellbeing– We spoke about all of the strategies, including: staying connected, exercising, talking, mindfulness, deep breathing that we can use when we are faced with challenges and difficulties.  We know that a problem shared is a problem halved.

R.E – Lent continued to be our focus this week. We enjoyed the community Mass and are really looking forward to the day that we can go to Church again as a school.  As part of our Lenten journey we looked at the Stations of the Cross and were once again reminded of the sacrifice and suffering that Jesus went through on that journey.

 

RRS – We looked at Article 29 which says that children have the right to an education system that nurtures their talents and skills.  We had a very thought provoking discussion about about how lucky we feel to be in a school that promotes talents and offers such a wide range of after school clubs.

Topic – We used our research skills to find out about the captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith.  We learnt that:

Edward Smith was 62 years old when he sailed on the Titanic  – HI

He was born on the 27th of January, 1850 – DD

He died on 15th of April 1912 when the ship sank – BP

It is said that his last words were, ‘Well done boys, we have done our duty’. – JZ

Finally….

We created beautiful Spring art work in the style of Pablo Picasso. We drew butterflies, daffodils and tulips and carved up the images drawing a series of straight lines in all directions.  We then used the different tones of colours to bring each segment of the picture to life.   We are so proud of them as they look wonderful and have brightened up the room!

Primary 5’s Week

Pin on Homes

 

P5 have worked well again this week.  What did we get up to?

Literacy – In literacy our spelling this week focussed on ci words. We learnt that sometimes, ‘ci’ makes the ‘si’ sound. We also learnt about suffixes and learnt some rules for adding suffixes to the ends of words.  We focussed on imaginative writing and are in the process of planning and writing a story.  Watch this space!

Numeracy –  We recapped the layout and practised dividing 3 and 4 digit numbers using the short division method.  We also looked at equivalent fractions and learnt that to find equivalent fractions, what you do to the top number you must do to the bottom.

Spanish – We learnt how to talk about the weather this week and pets.  We played a variety of games and sang to help us with this.  It was so nice to be able to say ‘Hace calor’ for one of the days this week instead of ‘Hace frio!’

R.E – Lent continued to be our focus this week. We all have a picture of a stained glass window in our house and every time we do something kind we colour in a part of the window.  By the time Lent finishes we hope to have each part filled in.

Topic – We learnt how the Titanic was constructed and about the materials that were used.  It was really interesting to see where the first and second class passengers slept and the grandeur of the ship.  What a beauty!

Primary 5’s Week!

 

Free Titanic Cliparts, Download Free Clip Art, Free Clip Art on Clipart  Library

P5 have worked well again this week.  Here is an overview of it!

Literacy – In literacy our spelling this week focussed on sion words.  We also learnt about prefixes and how they can change the meaning of words.  We hadn’t realised that there were so many pre prefixes and that they all mean something!  For our writing we moved on to procedural writing and learnt how to write detailed sets of instructions on revolting recipes.  Some of the recipes were sooooo disgusting that they made the teachers feel sick whilst reading them.

Numeracy –  We recapped the rules for adding and dividing by 10/100/1000 and worked on finding fractions of whole amounts.

Health and Wellbeing – We learnt how important mindfulness is for our health and wellbeing and how crucial it is to take time out to relax.  We used some relaxation techniques including meditation, doodling, listening to peaceful music and deep breathing. It was really enjoyable.

R.E – Lent was our focus this week with us thinking about what we can all do during this important time to prepare for Easter.

Topic – Exciting news! Our new topic for the next few weeks will be on ‘The Titanic’.  We were over the moon when we learnt through the use of picture clues what our learning is going to be. We are looking forward to sharing our learning with you all and working through each of the tasks that we suggested to our teachers as specified on the KWL grid that we constructed as a stage. Some ideas included: learning songs about the Titanic, constructing models of the Titanic, learning about the survivors and much, much more.  Super job Primary 5!

Primary 5’s Week

Image result for chinese new year

P5 have worked well again this week.  Here is an overview of it!

Literacy – In literacy we learnt the rule for adding ‘tion’ to words that end in e, you drop the e! We practise our weekly word using a variety of methods including: rainbow writing and bubble writing and we also looked for hidden words within words. We also participated in spelling challenges on Sumdog. We also recapped when to use ‘where’ ‘were’ and ‘we’re’.

Numeracy – We looked at electronic timetables and learnt how to read these which will be an invaluable skill for us throughout life.  We also built upon our previous knowledge of multiplication and practised solving calculations using the standard written method.

Health and Wellbeing – We spent this week focussing upon food from other cultures.  We really enjoyed learning about the delicacies from other countries.  We also spent time revisiting food hygiene.

R.E – We learnt about the importance of forgiveness through the Old Testament Bible story. ‘Joseph and his Brothers’.  Joseph forgave his brothers despite their poor treatment of him.  We used this Bible story to reflect on times when we have shown or needed to show forgiveness. .

Topic – We continued with our topic, ‘Body Systems with focus this week being the digestive system.   The digestive system consists of the parts of the body that work together to turn food and liquids into the building blocks and fuel that the body needs. It is so interesting!

Chinese New Year– To round off the week we celebrated Chinese New Year and familiarised ourselves with some of the customs surrounding this important event. A very ‘Happy New Year’ to you all!

We learnt that it is the year of the Ox! Those born in the year of the Ox are said to be reliable, strong and sometimes stubborn! Do you know anyone who has these traits? If so, they fit the Ox personality according to the Chinese Zodiac.

 

 

 

Primary 5’s Week!

Image result for great work clipart

P5 have worked well again this week.  Here is an overview of it!

Literacy – In literacy we learnt other spelling rules for making words plural and practised our sets of words using a variety of methods including:  rainbow writing and bubble writing and we also looked for hidden words within words which, is a great strategy for helping us to remember some of the trickier words.  We continued to hone our skills in persuasive writing and researched different persuasive skills that writers use. We also recapped the different uses of the homophones ‘their’ and ‘there’.

Numeracy – We learnt how to calculate durations of time and continued with multiplication.  and used our knowledge of the number talks strategy, ‘partial products’ to help us to solve more multiplication calculations.

Health and Wellbeing – We spent this week focussing upon tasks for mental health.  We know how important it is to look after our mental health and had some great discussions throughout the week sharing strategies for keeping ourselves healthy.

R.E – We learnt about Saint Teresa, a lady who could inspire us all! We learnt about her life and how she dedicated herself to the poor.

Topic – We continued with our topic, ‘Body Systems with the main focus being on the respiratory system.  We made a set of lungs and learnt where they they are in the body and of the importance of looking after them.

STEM – To round off the week we were given another super STEM activity to work on, ‘The Catapult Challenge’.  Through making one we learnt what potential and kinetic energies are and learnt all about the projectile of an object.

 

Primary 5’s Round up.

Another a busy week in P5!   Lots of engagement across the class with super work being produced!

Literacy – In literacy we were learning how to make words plural, how to write contractions and we learnt some persuasive techniques that can be used in our writing. We created awesome adverts for a product of our choice using a variety of methods including IMovie and and Sway. We used some persuasive techniques that advertisers use to engage the consumer and had lots of fun whilst creating these.

Numeracy – We moved on to the written formal method for multiplication and learn how to read and convert 24 hour times. We used our fantastic knowledge of different number talks strategies to complete a solve a variety of different calculations.

Health and Wellbeing – We spent this week focussing upon our talents and it goes without saying, P5 are definitely a talented bunch!  Some of us are very sporty, others are musical, some of us are entertainers and lots of us are very creative!

R.E – For R.E we focussed upon a really important quality, ‘Kindness’.  We shared ideas on what we can do to spread kindness and took time out of one of our afternoons to do a random act of kindness for our parents and teachers.

Free Pictures Of Kids Working Together, Download Free Clip Art, Free Clip  Art on Clipart LibraryTopic – We continued with our topic, ‘Body Systems’.  It is fascinating to learn that parts of your body are linked and won’t work properly unless other parts are healthy! We are focussing on the respiratory system now and will continue with this next week.

STEM – To round off the week we were given a STEM activity to work on which involved making bubbles. STEM activities are great because they make you look at the world in a different way and they involved us using maths, science and technology skills.  And there we have it, another great week in  P5!

Primary 5’s roundup!

Free Pictures Of Kids Working Together, Download Free Clip Art, Free Clip  Art on Clipart Library

 

It has been a busy week in P5! We were given lots of work to complete and learnt lots of new things via a mixture of live lessons and recorded lessons and have worked really well! A big round of applause to P5 for engaging well and working hard.

Literacy – In literacy we were given new sets of words to learn and practised these using a variety of methods.  We learnt about the correct using of the homophones, ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’ and all about inference in reading.

Numeracy – We completed lots of multiplication sums using the grid method and used our knowledge of Number Talks strategies to solve even more calculations!

Health and Wellbeing – We spent our week focussing upon our goals and past achievements.  We set new goals for ourselves and planned the steps we need to take to achieve this.

R.E – We researched some of Jesus’ miracles and wrote about them. Favourites included: Jesus turning water into wine and the five loaves and two fishes miracles.

Topic – We moved on to a new topic, ‘Body Systems’ and have made start learning about the circulatory system and more specifically, the heart.  We made sways, PowerPoints and fact files about the heart and drew and labelled it.

Other curricular areas – We followed step by step instructions on how to draw a winter village, the work produced was excellent! We did some yoga, (very good for mindfulness) and learnt about the great Scottish designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.  We presented our learning in a variety of ways and impressed our teachers no end.  WELL DONE P5!  Mrs Kilpatrick and I are proud, keep it up!

 

Primary 5’s Week.

Hello everyone! We hope that you are all well and are keeping safe.  We are still working hard in our classes and doing all we can also to keep safe including : lots of hand washing, sticking to our own seats, remembering the one way system and going to break and lunch at different times.  Easy peasy!

What have we been up to?

Some of us are almost finished reading our chapter books.  We read every day in class, sometimes with our groups and with the teacher, sometimes on our own and occasionally in pairs.  We have learnt lots of new vocabulary which we hope will enrich our overall skills in literacy.  We are continuing to work hard to learn how to spell new words and use the strategies taught in class to help us remember some of the more challenging words.

In maths we have been introduced to some cool songs which are fun and will help us to retain the multiplication facts.  The 8 times table song to the tune of ‘Rolling in the Deep’ by Adele is a particular favourite! Our teachers wish that these songs had been around when they were learning their tables.

In science we have been learning about the ‘Water Cycle’ and how condensation and evaporation works.  We sometimes take water for granted and we shouldn’t as a lot of work goes into ensuring that the water poured from our tap is safe to drink.  We also started a new topic which will run over a few weeks, ‘Natural Disasters and Mining in West Lothian’.  We are really looking forward to learning more about mining, as it is such an important part of our history.

In P.E and HWB we completed more fitness circuits this week ad spoke about worries and emotions.  We completed our health and wellbeing check in onlne too.

It was P5’s turn to host Mass on zoom this week. We prepared the reading, prayers of the faithful and the repsonsorial psalm.  We enjoyed Mass as it gave us a chance to reflect on our week and give thanks to God.  A lovely time of our week.

All in all it has been a good week!

Enjoy the weekend.

Mrs Mac and Mrs Kilpatrick.

Primary 5’s Week

It has been a short but productive week for P5.  Lots of learning has taken place including:

Spelling! We have been learning to spell common words but those ones which are especially tricky including the words ‘Edinburgh’ and ‘beautiful’.  We have been learning useful strategies to help us to spell these words. We use mnemonics and look for words inside the word.  We love to be challenged with our weekly words!

We have been revising how to calculate addition sums using the formal written method.  Although we are great at using our number talks strategies for solving calculations we need to know how to do these too in the written way.

We have spent a lot of time outdoors completing the daily mile, working through fitness stations during P.E and enjoying the last of the September sun when listening to our class novels.   P5b are particularly enjoying listening to’ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. Roald Dahl has certainly captured our imaginations.

Our letter writing skills have improved immensely too. We wrote a thank you letter to a member of our family thanking them for something nice that they had done.  Our teachers were really impressed at how well we did.

It has been a very busy week!

Have a nice weekend everyone, P5 with Mrs Macdonald and Mrs Kilpatrick.

 

P5’s Week

P5 have worked well this week.  We have:

HWB

Spent time outside completing fitness tasks with Mr Muldoon and our teachers.  We also did the BLEEP test! Our faces were very red after this activity !  We also checked in each day with our teachers.  We also took full advantage of the nice weather when we did a scavenger hunt around the playground.  It was a scavenger hunt with a twist though, we had to  use our 5 senses to find lots of things that smelt, things that felt smooth to the touch and lots of other things.  It was really enjoyable.

Literacy

In Literacy we wrote another letter, this time to complain.  We all had various compaints, littering, the states of local parks, people speeding in their cars, dog fouling etc… Don’t mess with the P5s as they certainly know how to put their point across! We also celebrated Roald Dahl day this week as we learnt more about the great  man himself and made up a factfile on him.

Numeracy

We continued to practise our number talk strategies including: partitioning, compensation and making tens.  We also were very active in our learning playing games to reinforce our knowledge of place value. In addition to this we also revisited how to solve calculations using the formal written method.

RERC

During R.E we learnt about Our Lady of Sorrows. We learnt that there were 7 times in Our Lady’s life when she felt great sadness.

P5’s Week!

Aren’t the weeks flying by ? This is what we did this week.

LITERACY

In literacy we moved on to another set of words and used lots of different approaches to learn how to spell these.  We used the reflective reader task, ‘Picture It’ to draw a character using the description that was provided.  This was a very worthwhile task to do as it taught us that skilled writers use adjectives, similes and metaphors  to write about characters.  We are going to write our own character descriptions and get a friend in class to read them and draw the picture using our descriptions.  We have also been practising our letter writing skills and wrote to the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. We hope that she writes back, watch this space.

NUMERACY

We practised our multiplication facts.  We are really beginning to understand how important these are to our understanding in fractions and division.  We also continued to practise reading and writing 5 and 6 digit numbers and have become really skilled at reading and writing these with ease.

HWB

We managed to get outside in the lovely fresh air to do P.E.  We also completed the ‘Daily Mile’, which we love ! We spoke about being resilient and know who is on our team should we ever need help.

IDL

We continued to be mini engineers  finishing off our stop/go signs.  The designs were all fantastic and lots of thought had gone in to fulfilling the design brief.  A big well done to P5 for being so creative!

 

P5’s Wonderful Week

Another busy week for the P5’s! Lots of learning and fun was had!

Literacy

We learnt more spelling patterns and practised these in class.  We also used our digital learning skills to create a word seatch, this was fun!

We continued to use the roles in literacy circles to help us with our comprehension skills and did lots of reading in class.  We are making a big effort to read as much as we can.

Numeracy

We focussed on the compensation skill in ‘Number Talks’ and made posters explaining how this strategy works. We have moved on to reading and writing 6 digit numbers.  We have also practised our multiplication facts with our number partner.

HWB

We spoke about our one trusted adult and checked in on a daily basis with our teachers. We know that we are cared for and respected and can talk to our trusted adults at any time.

Topic

We got our hands dirty (not really! ) to become mini engineers and  designed a a STOP/GO sign.  We were given a design brief and then left to it and encouraged to be as creative as we wanted.  We really enjoyed this task as it made us think and none of them looked the same.  We are looking forward to doing more STEM challenges as in the bext few weeks.

RERC

During R.E we learnt that Jesus has many roles : Priest, Prophet and King. We spoke about occasions and stories from the Bible which show these roles and spoke about the importance of leading our lives in his example.

P5’s Super Week!

It has been a great week in Primary 5 ! What have we been learning ?

In Literacy we have learnt new spelling words and used a variety of different ways to practise including : rainbow writing, bubble writing and other handed writing.  We especially like to use our other hand to write and practise our words, it is fun.

We were introduced to Literacy Circles and all of the different roles within this.  We have been ‘Word Wizards’, ‘Character Cops’, ‘Pirate Predictors’ and’Illustrious Illustrators’.  We have learnt that these roles will help us  to further extend our comprehension skills and deepen our knowledge about texts.

Talking about texts, we are reading,’Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.  It has been fantastic so far but all if this talk of chocolate makes our mouths water !

In numeracy we have been working with 5 digit  numbers and learning their values depending on their place.  We have also been recapping the ‘Making Tens’ strategy during number talks.  We all agree that this strategy is a good one to use.

We have started our new topic, ‘Engineering’.  We have learnt about some famous Scottish engineers and are looking forward to making our own inventions in the coming weeks.

Last but not least, we made some beautiful stained glass windows that will be used to decorate our church for our First Holy Communions. God bless all of the P5 children who will be celebrating this Sacrament tomorrow.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Mrs Macdonald and Mrs Kilpatrick.

P5’s Week!

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P5 seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed the first week of our famous ‘Fitness Fortnight’.  Lots of fun activities were planned to get the kids active and others were to do with healthy eating.   Judging by the feedback given on Teams, the P5s had a great week.

Some of the activities that we planned included:

‘Scavenger Hunt’ – The children had to run  around the house and garden in the fastest time possible looking for household items and time each other.

‘P.E Mathopoly’ – This involved the children playing a monopoly style game with exercises and challenges scattered around rhe board.

‘Flexibilty Challenge’.

‘Mouldy Bread Science Experiment’, designed to remind the children of the importance of hand washing. The children had to handle bread with dirty hands and handle bread with clean hands and were asked to seal the slices in separate bags and we will look at the each slice again next week.

Make a healthy fruit kebab. The pictures sent in of these had ours mouths watering!

Design a healthy menu.

Write an acrostic poem on healthy eating.

Create a fitness circuit.

Design a banner for Sports Day.

To top off our fantastic week we participated in our ‘vIirtual Sports Day’.  Lots of fun activities were planned, 15 in total! Again, the children seemed to really enjoy this, well done everyone who took part. We can’t wait to see which house groups wins with the most points. Watch this space, all will be revealed !

Thanks for working hard, P5!

Mrs Mac and Mrs Kilpatrick.

 

 

Primary 5’s Week.

Another busy week for Primary 5  learning at home. We continue to be very impressed with the commitment and motivation shown by lots of the children, a very well done to you all !

What have P5 been up to ?

In Literacy more words were issued and trhe children learnt how to spell these in a variety of ways.  Similes and metaphors were revisited and the children used these this week in their recounts.

In Numeracy, the children worked on finding amounts of fractions, used their problem solving skills and chance and probability to work out solutions .  They also continued honing their number talks skills.

The children learnt about another significant figure from the past,  Florence Nighingale. We thought that this was apt considering the great work currently being done by the NHS.

In Health and Wellbeing the children were issued daily challenges from Mr Muldoon, our P.E teahcer.  We also encouraged the children to get lots of fresh air and take breaks away from the screen. We are so lucky to live nearby green spaces!

We have to say though, (judging by the children’s reactions) that Thursday was the best day of the week as the boys and girls spent their time doing Titanic themed activities including : making models of Titanic, producing a menu fit for a first class passenger, drawing Titanic step by step, calculating how mant life boats Titanic should have had, taking a virtual tour of Titanic Belfast, making ice lollies and flaoured ice cubes and sourcing and calcuating a cruise for 2. We planned the day like this as we should have all been going to Belfast to visit the Titanic Museum, but the Corona virus put paid to this.  However, the P5s didn’t  allow this virus to dampen their  spirits and a fun day was had by all with lots of fantastic work produced.

A very well done P5 !

Mrs Mac and Mrs Kilpatrick.

Primary 5’s Week

Hello Everyone!

P5 have had another good week working hard at home and posting work for  us to see. Mrs Kilpatrick and I continue to be very proud at how well you are all doing , thank you for working hard!

In literacy the children have worked hard on their new set of spelling words, writing them in all different ways including, bubble writing, rainbow writing and  used them to make a pairs game and also a wordsearch.  They have continued to practise their listening skills using David Walliam’s daily stories and learnt how the meanings of words can be changed by adding a prefix.

Lots of super stories were written this week using  the story starters that we provided.  What great imaginations P5 have ! It was nice to see that lots of the children used exciting vocabulary and some similes, very well done !

In numeracy P5 consolidated their skills on a few different concepts, including: time, money, rounding and fractions. More ‘Number Talks’ were tackled and lots of calculations solved using a number of different strategies including: chunking, friendly numbers, compensation and partitioning.

In R.E the children were encouraged to pray especially hard to Mary.  They were also asked to choose their favourite Saint and make a Powerpoint or Sway presentation. Saints Andrew and Patrick are very popular!

P5 learnt about more famous people including: Joseph Lister.  Following on from learning all about him they conducted our own science experiment using water, soap and pepper.  This experiment was useful as it reminded the children of the importance of handwashing to keep those germs away. The children also conducted a food science experiment by making soda bread.  Having looked at the pictures we can see that there are a few chefs in the making as they looked delicious!

P5 have also used skills learnt in STEM to make their own musical instrument.  Lots of cool and noisy instruments were made and some boys and girls even attached a sound file to their work so that we could listen to them, fantastic!

All in all it has been a productive week!

Here is what some of  the lovely P5’s  have said about their learning this week:

‘I have enjoyed the Brainteasers’.

‘I have enjoyed my chanter lesson and listening to David Waliams’.

‘I have enjoyed doing activities like making an instrument and doing art, it’s my favourite thing to do’.

‘I like doing the maths because it was sometimes hard and sometimes easy and it gave me a challenge’.

Here are some examples of their work.

Primary 5’s week !

We might be at home but that doesn’t mean that we have not been working hard as we adapt home schooling.  We are very proud of the boys and girls and how well they are engaging in the online tasks.  A big thank you to your mums and dads too for supporting you with this.

What have we been up to ?

Well, lots of us start our mornings with Joe Wicks.  His exercises certainly keep us on our toes.  We also waken our brains up with a daily brainteaser.  Who can solve this one ?

What travels around the world but always stays in one spot?

In Literacy we are reading our class novels and logging in to hear David Walliams read a daily story.  We are continuing to leant new spelling words, this week we have learnt how to spell ier words.  We are also honing our writing skills by keeping diairies and writing letters to family members who we can’t see at the moment.

In Numeracy and Maths we have continued to practise our times tables using Sum Dog and Top Marks and revised telling the time in one minute intervals, recapping rounding numbers and recapping permiter and area.

We have made rainbows to hang up in our windows as a thank you to all of the keyworker who are working hard for us and logged on to Art hub and drawn Spring animals. We also watched a clip on how to create lots of animals by drawing round our handprints, this was particularly fun!

On Wednesday we had a science lesson on light and dark and drew pictures with light and shadow.  We learnt that light travels in a straight line until it hits an object, fascinating !

In R.E we have  celebrated Jesus rising from the dead and have practised the art of being thankful. We made a handprint care and wrote down 5 things that we are grateful for.  Times may be strange just now but we are still lucky for the lovely families that we have, the food in our bellies and the roofs over our heads.

Here are some examples of our work!

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

All of us in P5.

P5’s Hard working week!

This week in p5 we have been very busy learning lots of different things.

In literacy we have been learning how to spell iregular words. We have also been learning the genre of writing a diary inspired by Anne Frank. Anne was a Jewish girl but she was born in Germany. She moved to the Netherlands during the war. She was held captive by the Nazis.

In numeracy we have been going over measurement( perimeter, area, width and length ). We made measurment posters and continue to practise our times stables and the 24 hour clock time and am/pm.

In R.E we have started to learn about Lent and Jesus’s hard time in the desert. We have prepared a Lenten calendar with lots of fun activites on the countdown to Easter. On Easter Sunday we remember how Jesus rose from the dead.

In P.E we have finished with our gymnastics routines and for no  we have been playing some really great fun ball games. We hope to move on to a new active topic in the near future.

Well done Primary 5 !

Written by Catherine and Gerard.

Primary 5’s Wonderful Week

This week was have been working hard in lots of areas of the curriculum.

In literacy we have been learning about metaphors as these will help us with our writing.  ‘Life is a rollercoaster’ is one of our favourite metaphors.  It turns out we know lots of metaphors but just didn’t realise. We have also been learning how to spell irregular words.  Our spelling has improved because we practise and the words are much harder now.

In numeracy we have been learning lots about measure.  We have learnt how to calculate perimeter  which will be useful in later life if we ever need to measure the garden for a fence.  We also been pracitising the mutiplication facts as always.

We went to the Ash Wednesday service and were given ashes.  We spoke about Lent and are going to try to give up something, pray more and give to charities.  We have a SCIAF box on our altar which we are hoping to fill. Each £1 that is raised will be doubled by the government.

Our entries for the engineering competition were completed this week and sent away.  Fingers crossed for us !We finished our gymnastics routines in P.E and we have enjoyed  gymnastics because it has been great for our bones.

We have also been learning about  a group of artist s known as the ‘Glasgow Boys’.  The Glasgow Boys’ were a group of around 20 artists who liked to paint outdoors and paint real people.  Their artworks were very popular.  In the next few weeks we will recreate one of their works.

Primary 5’s Week

Image result for children clipart

 

It has been a short week in primary 5. However we have still worked hard.

We have been working on a five hundred words competition and have had lots of fun typing and making stories as we love using our technology.Here are the rules of the competition,if you do more than five hundred words the machine will not except your story,you don’t have to have excactly five hundred words you can have under five hundred words.

We have also been making routines in our P.E sessions and it is good fun working with your friends and using your gymnastics  skills to entertain your class.

We have been recapping our spelling words from last week s since it has been a short week and our spelling words are ture words..

 

In maths we have been practicing our 8 and 9 times tables counting forwards and backwards.

We have also been making some anti-littering posters to try and get some people to stop dropping litter in our school,Broxburn and Uphall.

It has been an amazing week for primary 5.

Primary 5’s Weekly Roundup.

 

Image result for handball clipart

This week has been a very good week for primary 5.  This is what we have been up to:

We have spent a lot of time outdoors as we were involved in a litter pick ,  and filled THREE BIN BAGS of litter.  It was disgusting but we have made it look a lot nicer.  P5b had a turn at making dens using sticks and tarpaulins which was great fun. Thank you to Danielle from Kids Go Wild for leading us with this.

On Thursday we walked up to Broxburn Academy for a handball tournament.  Our teachers were particularly impressed with our good behaviour walking up and down and whilst we were there. It was great fun and we saw some of our friends from other school which was nice.

Primary 5’s Weekly Roundup

Image result for andy warhol pop art examplesPrimary 5 have had a busy week working hard and learning lots. 

What have we been up to ?

We learnt how to do CPR earlier in the week.  A big thank you to Dr Strachan and the nurses who came along from St John’s Hospital to show us what to do.  We also learnt how to put someone in the recovery position.  These are great skills to learn, hopefully we will never need to use them.

In literacy we have been recapping adjectives, speech marks and we now know that every time a new character speaks you have to take a new line.

In numeracy we have learnt how convert am and pm times using the 24 hour format.  This will be useful to us in later life as it will help us to be able to read bus and train timetables.

To mark Christian Unity week we worked together to compose a prayer based on the theme of kindness.  We then wrote this prayer on a flower that we made and used the flowers to make a spiritual bouquet.  Father Jeremy is going to put this on the altar.

We have also learnt about the parts of the body which make up the digestive system.  It is so interesting!

We have also been looking at Andy Warhol’s art and are in the process of making own versions.  Watch this space for pics !

Primary 5’s Fantastic Fortnight.

We have hit the ground running and have had a fantastic start to 2020.

What have we been up to ?

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In literacy we have learnt new spelling rules, focussed on characterisation (which will help us with our stories) and read read read!  We have practised our times tables as we know that these help us with our division and fractions and also honed our skills in telling the time using analogue and digital clocks.

In science we have learnt about the respiratory system and are currently learning about the nervous system. It has been fascinating to learn how the brain works and a reminder to us all to look after it. We have also entered an engineering competition, (more details to follow)  and Skyped a mechanical engineer, Jenny Roberts who told us about her work.  She was so inspring to listen to and has been involved in creating fantastic inventions.  She told us to have confidence in our designs for the engineering competition. Brilliant, we will Jenny !

 

 

 

Primary 5’s Week.

                 We have  had another busy week with our learning. What have we done ?

We have been practising our skills in writing letters.  This is a skill which will help us even after we leave school as we will need to write letter alongside our job applications.  We will continue to hone our skills and improve in what we already know and what we can do.

We are reading lots too as we know that by practising our skills we will learn new vocabulary and increase our knowledge.  We hope to visit the library next week to choose a book!

In numeracy we have been working with money and are continuing to do calculations which help us to work out change. This is another skillk which will help us long after we leave school.

We have also been very busy practising for our assembly.  We are looking forward to seeing our families on the 15th of November as we share our learning about looking after the planet.

Primary 5’s Wonderful Week !

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It has been a short week but still a busy one in Primary 5.

In literacy we have been writing, writing writing ! We wrote great newspaper articles again and are really enjoying being journalists!

In numeracy we did ‘Number Talks’ and place value games as well as practising our times tables with our ‘Perfect Partners’.

In P.E we worked together in our basketball teams and played matches.  We used the skills that we have been taught including how to pivot, dribble, shoot, pass and score.  We are really enjoying our P.E sessions.

We had a quick litter pick around our school playground.  We didn’t have lots of litter we are pleased to report!

P5 have been asked to organise a coffee morning in aid of Macmillan.  We are really looking forward to working together to organise this next week. Watch this space for more details !

 

Primary 5’s Weekly Round Up

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Primary 5 have had another busy week.  What have we up to ?

In Literacy we have used Literacy Circles again and learnt how to be an Illustrious Illustrator and practised the other roles too including Word Wizard , Character Cop and Summariser Sergeant.  We are reading a lot more in general and are enjoying this.  We have practised our spelling words using lots of active spelling cards.  Some of our favourites include: ‘Other Handed’, ‘Rap your Words’, ‘Buzzing Bees’, ‘Colourful Words’ and ‘Upper and Lower’.  These activities are fun to complete and help us with the spelling of our words.

We have been learning the skills of what it takes to be a journalist in our writing this week.  We were given scenarios and wrote headlines for them.  Catherine’s headline, ‘St Nics Steal Sports Award’. Super use of alliteration here !

In Number  Talks we have recapped strategies to help us to solve more complex calculations.  We are very good at explaining our methods and really enjoy this.  We have also learnt how to identify 6 digit numbers and know that their value changes depending on their place.

In our Sports Ed topic, Basketball we have been working in groups to research a famous basketball team.  Once we have completed our research we ill make posters/Sway presentations to share our findings.

In R.E we learnt all about St Therese of Liseux and watched a clip of her relics arriving in Edinburgh.  What have we learnt ?

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‘She was born in France’ – Lucas C.

‘She died at the age of 24’  -Liam.

‘She died of tuberculosis’ – Gerard.

‘She had four sisters’ – Natan.

‘She is also known as Little Flower’ – Catherine.

‘She became a nun when she was 15’ – Leonard.

‘Her last words were, ‘Oh God I love you’. – Hamza.

‘She cried a lot as a child and struggled’ – Brooke.

‘She did lots of good deeds every day and prayed hard’ – Oliver.

Lots of hard work and learning going on in P5, we are definitely ready for our long weekend.

Primary 5’s Weekly Update

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This week has been exciting because we have learnt so much !

In Literacy we have been learning new sounds with the phonme ck and ch.  We spent time practising these words using rainbow writing, bubble writing, back writing and then we sorted these words into their categories. We are becoming more familiar with some of the roles in Literacy Circles including Pirate Predictor, Summariser Sergeant, Word Wizard and Character Cop.  ‘This is better that just reading a book because it is more fun and you can do different jobs’, Flynn, P5a.

In Numeracy we have been continuing with place value and rounding numbers up and down. We have found some great games on Top Marks too to help with this.

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In art we have started learnming about Claude Monet.  This is what we have learnt so far :

‘Claude Monet is French.’ – Baillie

‘He was born in Paris in 184o.’ – Erica

‘He has a famous painting called ‘ The Impression Sunrise.’ – Matthew

‘He liked to paint the same scene over and over again in different seasons.’ – Catherine

‘He liked to paint outdoors.’ – Anna

‘He died at age 86.’ – Cameron

‘He was one of the founders of Impressionism.’ – Thomas

Primary 4b’s Week.

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It has been a great week in P4b, jam packed full of learning and fun ! We particularly enjoyed our trip to Duncarron Fort.

Here are some of the things that we did this week.

Catherine – On Tuesday we went on a trip to a mediaval village.

Gerard – On Wednesday we practised hymns for our Stations of the Cross Service.

Gaby – I learned about the weapons that would have been used long ago.  I enjoyed having a shot of the axe (YIKES !).

Shay – I enjoyed learning about Mary’s Meals.  A man called Magnus started it off.

Liam – We learnt that Jesus travelled to Jerusalem on a donkey with his disciples.

Brooke – I learnt that salt was used a lot in a long time and it cost a lot of money.

Holly – When Mary Queen of Scots was alive you had to take your spoon and cutting  knife with you when you went to dinner.

Lucas L – We visited our Church for Stations of the Cross.  There are 14 altogether.

Olivia – We visited the Shrine next to our Church and it was peaceful.

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We also made a wee something for all of our lovely mums. Have a good day on Sunday !

 

 

Primary 4b’s Week.

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We have had another great week in P4b.  We have been learning how to spell words that need a prefix and working on the proper use of exclamation marks.  We have been learning that it is more effective in writing to use one exclamation mark and not lots !!!!!!!!! (ha!).

In numeracy, we have moved onto telling the time in one minute segments and are still practising our times tables as we know important these are.

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We are just loving our topic, ‘Mary, Queen of Scots’ so much. She led a very interesting life.  This is what we have learnt so far :

Liam – She was born in 1542.

Cameron  – She was born in Linlthgow Palace.

Natan – When she was 6 days she became Queen of Scotland.

Catherine – She married three times.

Lily – She moved to France when she little because her mum did not want her to marry Price Edward.

Hamza – Her cousin Queen Elizabeth the First was jealous of her.

Alicia – She was a Catholic.

Lucas L – She was imprisoned for 18 years.

Shay – The axe fell on her head three times.

Oliver – She watched her friend, David Rizzio being murdered.

Freyja  – Her mum was Mary of Guise.

Leonard – Henry the 8th the King of England wanted his son to marry Mary Queen of Scots.

Holly – Her first husband was the Dauphin of France.

Mya – Her second husband was Lord Darnley.

Gerard – Her third husband was the Earl of Bothwell.

Wojciech – She was beheaded.

Gaby – She did not have a good life.

Olivia – Her mum was born in 1515.

Lucas C – Her mum died in 1560.

Haroon – When she died one of her dogs was found hidinhg under her dress.

 

P4b’s Week.

This week seems to have gone in a flash ! What have we been up to ?

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In literacy we have been talking about how important reading is.  We are making a real effort to read more books for enjoyment and not just the reading book that we are given at school.   We also been learning about prefixes and our sound of the week has been ph.

In maths we have been practising telling times on analogue and digital clocks.  We have also spoken about area and are continuing to practise our times tables.

We drew some daffodils this week and used wax crayons and watercolour to colour them in.  We are proud of these are we all made a beautiful job and put in a lot of effort.  In digital learning some of us manged to finish recording our books for the P1s and we have also used the laptops and ipads to play maths games on.

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And for the exciting part ! In our music lesson earlier today we were taught how to read music using two notes , ‘so’ and ‘mi’ .  This was challenging to begin with but we got there in the end.  We are great at using our growth mindset in P4b.  We certainly don’t give up when there is a challenge.  Have a nice weekend everyone !

What have we enjoyed the most this week ?

Catherine – ‘I have enjoyed completing all of the maths games on the computer’.

Shay – ‘I have enjoyed balancing in P.E’.

Gerard – ‘I have enjoyed completing more time activities’.

Liam – ‘I have enjoyed recording ‘Mr Big’ for the wee ones’.

Freyja – ‘I have enjoyed reading because my book is exciting’.

Alicia – ‘I have enjoyed doing the deliberate mistake task.  This is when we read a story and have to find the silly words and highlight them’.

 

 

 

 

P4b’s Wonderful Week!

It may have been a short week but we have managed to pack a lot of learning in.  What have we been up to ?

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Well firstly, we welcomed a new friend to our class, Natan.  We are delighted to have another friend in P4b, welcome to Saint Nicholas Natan.Related image

In maths we have spent more time on how to tell the time using all of the numbers on the clock.  We are becoming really good at this.  We have also been practising counting up and back in 7s.  Quite challenging for some of us but we know that we will become experts soon enough.

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In literacy, we have been learning how prefixes can change the meaning of a word.  We have also revised nouns, adjectives, verbs and alliteration.   We have also been reading more texts for inference and have enjoyed listening to Mrs Macdonald reading our class novel, ‘The Witches’ by Roald Dahl. It is sooooo funny !

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In P.E with Mr Muldoon and Mrs Smith, we have been perfecting our gymnastic skills which has been fun too.  As part of our digital learning, we worked together in groups and used the Ipads to record us reading a story for the P1s.  We will finish it next week and then use a QR app to make a code which we will then stick inside the book so that the P1s can scan it and hear us read !

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Sadly, our topic, ‘Famous Scots’ has come to an end. However, we are excited to start our new topic next week although we do not know what it is yet , it is a surprise !

What have we enjoyed the most this week ?

 

Haroon – I have enjoyed P.E  because it has been fun in gymnastics and learning how to balance.

Oliver – I have enjoyed learning about time.  I find it cool how every number represents five minutes.

Lucas C – I have liked designing my famous Scots poster because it is fun learning about the different famous Scots.

Ethan – I have liked reading ‘Kipper’s Balloon’.

Natan  – I have enjoyed learning about the time and have had fun in my new school.

P4b’s Fantastic Fortnight !

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We have been very these last two weeks!

In literacy we have continued to brush up on our grammar skills.  We have become very competent at identifying adverbs, verbs, nouns, adjectives and homophones.  We also had fun with alliteration. In reading we have been making good progress with our chapter books.  Some of us are reading a book that has been written by Chris Hoy, ‘Flying Fergus’. Chris Hoy is actually one of the famous Scots that we have learnt about , however, we did not know that he had written a book !  We have also read lots of texts and completed reading comprehensions which have focussed on inference which some of us have found challenging, however, we know that these will become easier the more we practise.

In numeracy, we have moved on from fractions and are now learning how to tell the time using all of the numbers on the clock.  We have used lots of interactive games to help us with this.  Our favourite one is called, ‘Beat the Clock’.  You have to read the time sentence and press the buzzer to stop the big hand and make sure that it is in the correct place.  It is great fun !

Our topic, ‘Famous Scots’ has almost come to an end which is a shame because we have really enjoyed it.  We are in the middle of making a HUGE poster which will showcase our learning.  We will post pictures as soon as we have finished them.

Wednesday was very exciting because Archbishop Cushley visited us.  He gave us a special blessing and spoke to us about our First Communion.  It was lovely to meet him.  As part of our learning, we have also studied the life of Saint Margaret.  She was a special queen and led by example.

The last few Fridays have also been fun as Mrs Curle from NYCOS has been in to teach us about rhythms and beats in music.  We have learnt some great songs including: ‘I Like Coffee’  ‘Starlight’ and ‘Lemonade’ and now know one beat in music is called ‘TA’ and two beats are called ‘TE TE’.

What have we enjoyed the most ?

‘I have enjoyed learning about what all the numbers mean on a clock’ – Freyja.

‘I have liked doing my times tables in maths this week’ – Holly.

‘I have enjoyed making my poster  because it has been really interesting researching people’. – Cameron.

‘I have enjoyed learning using the computers’ – Lucas L.

 

 

 

P4b’s fantastic week !

 

We have had another great week.  Some of our highlights include, working with fractions, learning the ed ending for our spelling and sharing our presentations on ‘Famous Scots’.  Our presentations included some very famous Scots l about James Watt, John Logie Baird, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles Rennie Mackintosh Muriel Johnston, Rob Roy, Rabbie Burns, Andy Murray, Gordon Ramsay, Steven Naismith, Scott Brown and Alexander Graham Bell.

We are all feeling very proud of ourselves as our presentations were really good and lots of technology was used to help us to make them.  Gerard used Sway, Freyja used Glow and lots of us made a powerpoint.

We also got some irn bru and shortbread to celebrate Robert Burns Day. It has been a really enjoyable week.

Primary 4b’s Week so far !

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We have been very busy this in P4b. We have moved on to a new topic, ‘Famous Scottish People’ and have learnt that there have been many Scots who invented lots of cool things including :

the telephone  – Oliver

the television – Shay

the wheel – Cameron

steam engines – Holly

penicillin – Catherine

We have set a couple of challenges for next week.  Firstly we have to “make a powerpoint about a famous Scot” and “learn how to say a Scottish poem”, Lucas C.  We are up for the challenge!  We will tell you all next week how we get on.

In literacy we made a wordsearch with our spelling words all hidden, we have also been working hard on our grammar.  In numeracy we have been learning about fractions, practising our times tables and exploring through tartan.

“It has been an amazing week”, Olivia.

Twelve Disciples

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In P4, in preparation for our assembly we learnt all about the 1twelve disciples.  In no particular order, they were : Peter, Andrew, James, John , Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, (son of Alphaeus), Thaddeus, Simon and Judas.  However, we learnt that Judas betrayed Jesus so he was replaced by Mattheus.

We learnt that these men followed Jesus and continued his good work here on Earth.  We too are being followers of Jesus and following their good example by : praying for others, helping one another, reading the Bible and by looking after our world.

P2′ Visit to Purves’s Puppet Theatre

As part of our learning about ‘Toys, Now and Then’ P2 had a very enjoyable trip to Purves Puppet Theatre earlier on today.  It was great seeing puppets in action.  We got to see how the puppeteers moved the puppets using black gloves and clever lighting ! It was so cleverly done that it was impossible to see the puppeteers behind the stage.

Here are some pictures of us !

Visitors in P2.

 

As part of primary 2’s topic, ‘Toys, Now and Then’ we have had some visitors who came into our classes to talk to us about the toys that they had when they were a child.

Who has visited ?

Our first visitor was Mrs Macdonald.  She showed the children a doll that she was given when she was just two years old ! The children learnt that the doll is one of her most prized possessions.  She has some memories of playing with it and dressing it and washing it in the bath.  Santa gave her the doll.

We also welcomed Mrs Davies from our school office. She brought in her clockwork toy teddy bear to show us.  She has taken very good care it as we learnt that it is over 50 years old.  She has even kept the box! She thinks that her mum and dad gave her this.

Matthew’s mummy came and showed us the silver cross pram and doll that she played with when she was a little girl.  We were most impressed with how new it looked.  She must have looked after it very well.

Finally, Mrs Hesketh who is one of our Pupil Support Workers, came in with three toys from the past.  She showed us her ‘Dressy Bessie’, a doll named Peter and her mummy’s doll , which we found out is 70 years old and made out of china.

What did we enjoy ?

Isabella – I liked having a shot of Matthews mummy’s doll.

Leo – I liked finding that Matthew’s mummy’s doll had eyes that opened.

Eleanor – I liked holding Peter the doll.

Damian – I liked holding Dressy Bessie because it has lots of things on the dress.

Lucia – I liked Dressy Bessie because you could learn how to do laces and buttons.

Lovisa – I liked Mrs Macdonald’s doll because it was soft.

Patryk – I liked to hear that Mrs Macdonald’s doll had it’s own bath.

Andrew – I liked Mrs Davies’ bear because their was a magnet on it’s paw to open the pages of the book.

Haziq – I liked Mrs Davies’ bear because you could wind it up.

Thank you to our special visitors for helping us with our topic.

 

Scottish Maths Week in P2.

Primary 2 have been working hard this week and especially so since it is ‘Scottish Maths Week’.  We have been investigating how whole numbers are constructed by playing lots of place value games. We have also been exploring how groups of items can be shared equally, and learning how to half whole shapes.

Here are some pictures of us hard at work.

 

Celebrating ‘Roald Dahl Day’ in P2.

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We had lots of fun today as part of ‘Roald Dahl Day’.  This special day falls on the 13th of September each year as that is the date that he was born.  During this day, schools up and down the country celebrate his life and his wonderful books.  So, what did we do ?

As part of the celebrations we heard the excellent story, ‘The Enormous Crocodile’.  We all enjoyed the story so much, (giving it a rating of 5 out of 5) that we wrote book reviews, drew our favourite part of the story and retold the story in our own words.

Keilidh drew and painted the Enormous Crocodile which we used on our frieze, (this is in the main corridor).

As well as looking at this book, we also spoke about some of Roald Dahl’s other famous books including, ‘The Twits’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, and ‘The BFG’.  Thank you to Leo for bringing in his box set of books for us to look at.  In the afternoon we joined the rest of the school to watch a theatre company perform ‘Matilda’.  As Roald Dahl himself used to say, ‘It has been a whoopsy-splunker day’.  This translated means, ‘It has been a fantastic day’.

Some book reviews.

Our frieze so far …

Toys, Now and Then – Primary 2.

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Our topic in Primary 2 is called ‘Toys, Now and Then’. We are really enjoying learning all about toys from the past. It is exciting to see just how much some toys have changed:

What have we learnt so far ?

Lucas –  ‘Toy cars used to be made from wood and tin. Now they are made from plastic’.

Chloe – ‘The first kites were made in China’.

Isabella A -‘Only rich children had toys a long time ago’.

Joshua – ‘The man who used to make Lego used to make toys out of wood’.

Lovisa – ‘The man who made wooden toys didn’t make bricks.  He made buses, trucks and ducks.

Thomas – ‘The factory that makes Lego has a massive Lego brick in front of it.

James H – ‘The Lego factory is in Denmark’.

Budding Artists in P2 !

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Primary 2 will be learning all about lots of famous artists over the course of the year and will make their own representations of the chosen artist’s work.  Our first artist of the month is Piet Mondrian.

What did we learn today ?

Tyler – ‘His dad was a painter and then he grew up to be painter’.

Patryk – ‘His job was a teacher’.

Lennox – ‘After he taught his children at school he went back home and painted.

Andrew – ‘He was born on the 7th of March’.

Dermott – To start with he didn’t paint what we did today, he painted fields and things’.

Shahzaib – ‘When he first started painting he painted houses’.

Sofia – ‘He decided to make different pictures’.

Ava – ‘He started to paint squares and rectangles’.

Justyna – ‘They were red, yellow, white, black and blue’.

Thomas – ‘He used five colours altogether’.

Piper – ‘He never mixed the colours in his paintings, he only used those colours.’

Chloe – ‘He was very famous’.

(Pictures of our art work to follow soon).

A Historic Day – P2.

Director believes bridge could restore Scotland's world-class reputationToday the boys and girls in P2 were super excited to be given the opportunity to watch the official opening of the Queensferry Crossing. We saw the Queen cutting a ribbon and  we also saw the Red Arrows flying over the bridge. How cool !

What did we learnt today ?

Lovisa – It took 6 years to build the bridge.

Joshua – 15,000 thousand people worked on the bridge.

Lucas – I learnt that the bridge is called the Queensferry Crossing.

Haziq – We saw three bridges on the TV.

Sofia- A new bridge was built because the other one is getting old.

 

 

 

Fitness Fortnight – Fencing and Zumba !

Today , the P1s were veeeeeeeery busy as part of  ‘Fitness Fortnight’  In the morning, the boys and girls learnt all about fencing.  It was so much fun! We learnt that long ago everyone was taught how to fight using swords as there were no police officers to keep us safe from harm so when people fought they used to do so using swords ! We were shown lots of different kinds of swords that were used long ago including a knight’s sword, a pirate’s sword and a long sword.  We even got to have a shot of holding them.  They were might heavy !

We also got a shot at sparring with the practise swords.  We learnt how to stand properly, how to hold the sword in safe mode and how to keep ourselves safe whilst wearing the protective equipment.  A special thanks to Gordon from ‘Fencing is Fun’

In the afternoon, we welcomed Nina from ‘Zumba Kids Nina’.  She showed us some cool moves and we danced the afternoon away with a dance off and other dances.  It was fantastico! Thankyou to Nina for coming along to help us. Dancing certainly keeps you fit !

Hooray for the Galaday!

Our last winning float ! First Prize !

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We are really looking forward to entering a float for Broxburn ‘s Galaday,  ( Saturday, 26th of August) . This year’s theme is ‘Gaming/Board Games’. Having put a few options to the vote in each class we have a clear winner , ( all will be revealed very soon !).

We are looking for :

Emulsion paint of any colour.

If you can help with this please contact the office and ask for Mrs Macdonald/ Mrs Evans. Alternatively, Mrs Swinney, Mrs Skeldon or Mrs Neilson should be contacted.  These ladies have very kindly volunteered to be the parent representatives on our school’s ‘Galaday Committee.

As always, we will be needing children to sit on the float and lots of walkers to accompany our float. Your child will receive a letter in the next day with more details. If you wish your child to be involved in any way, please return the slip before the cut off date.

Fitness Fortnight – Day 3 !

  1. Smoothie Tasting !

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Today we spent time learning more about fruits, why it is important to eat them and what they do to help keep our bodies healthy.  We then got to try two different smoothies that were made from strawberries and bananas and mangoes and passion fruits.  We got a mixed reaction.  Some of the boys and girls loved them, some didn’t.  One thing that we did all agree on was how important it is to eat healthily.

What did we think about the smoothies ?

Isla – ‘I liked the smell’.

Max C – ‘I really liked the mango and passion fruit one’.

Matthew P – ‘I liked both of them but I didn’t like the smell’.

Brooke – ‘I liked the strawberry one’.

Joshua – ‘I liked the smell and the taste’.

James H  – ‘I didn’t like the smell or the taste of them’.

Shahzaib – ‘The orange one was delicious’.

Haziq – ‘The mango and passion fruit was sweet’.

Thomas – ‘They were scrumptious’.

Cheers everyone !

Fitness Fortnight – Day 2.

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Today we did judo, walked our daily mile and tried lots of different fruits including, pineapple, watermelon, oranges, blueberries and raspberries. They looked delicious ! We also listened to the story, ‘Keep Running Gingerbread Man’.  We particularly enjoyed this as this story was a twist on the original fairytale and helped us to learn about the importance of a healthy lifestyle.

 

Run, run as fast as you can !

What a lovely surprise we got this this morning ! Another letter from our friendly dragon and a clue for the next fairtale that he wanted us to read.  What did he leave us ? Well, he left us a little gingerbread men so we listened to the fairtyale ‘The Gingerbread Man’ .  We then decorated our own little gingerbread men with sweeties and icing, (we can’t wait to eat them) and retold the stories in our castle books.

Fairyland in Primary 1.

Once upon a time …

The boys and girls have been super busy these past few weeks ! Well, we have turned our classrooms into Fairyland !  You may ask yourself why ? What has been going on ?  Well, sit back and we will tell you.

First of all we returned one day from lunch to a trail of glitter, a burnt out letter and a ‘D- Mail’ box.  Upon investigation, we soon realised that we had been visited by a Friendly Dragon.  He left us a letter telling us how sad he felt and left us with a challenge.  He asked us to rebuild Fairyland, (as the real Fairyland has disappeared leaving our favourite fairytale characters with nowhere to go) and read lots and lots of fairytales.  As you can imagine, we said ‘YES’ straight away. And so, we have been spending time making beanstalks, a giant castle, making little castles in groups, reading fairytales including: ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ‘The Three Little Pigs’, ‘The Princess and the Pea’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood, ‘Chicken Licken’,  and ‘The Ugly Duckling’.  We have rewritten these stories in our special castle books and cannot wait to see if the dragon returns with more letters for us.

 


Eco Team aka Park Designers.

Today, some of our Eco Team met with Christine Lee from Sutcliffe Play as a new park is going to be built in the Badger’s Brook area of Broxburn. She gave us free reign to design what we think the park should look like.   As you can imagine, this was very exciting, after all, it is not every day that you get to do this.

To do this, we worked  in groups to choose themes for the park.  Popular themes included, animals, the zoo and nature.  We drew a plan of the park and then used our imaginations to draw what we think the park should look like. Our designs are fantastic !  Christine will now take these away and will choose the best parts from each in her final design. We will keep you all posted as to what the park will look like when we see the final plan.

 

 

P1’s Adventures at Edinburgh Castle.

P1 had a fantastic time at Edinburgh Castle earlier on today . We saw lots of the things that we have been learning all about  including , the ‘Crown Jewels’ , ‘Mons Meg’  and the ‘One o’ clock Gun.  We also looked at ‘The Great Hall’ , the ‘Castle Jail’, ( this was a favourite) and spent some quiet time in ‘St Margaret’s Chapel’.  Special thanks to our lovely helpers who came along today. We hope that you all had as much fun as we did!

P1 and P7 ‘s library visit.

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Today we had a wee wander  over to Broxburn Library with some of our P7 buddies. For some of us, it was our first visit to the library since it moved from the Main Street.  We all agreed that the new library is lovely !

What did we do ?

We met one of the lovely librarians who read us a story called ‘  Wee Granny and the Ceilidh’ by Elizabeth Walker. This was chosen specially for us as the librarian had heard that we had been learing about Scotland.   After the story, the librarian spoke to us about library and what we can do whilst we were there.  We didn’t realise that we can visit any library with our card and even pop along on a Saturday between 10.00 and 12.00 for fun craft activities.

It was a very enjoyable visit !  Special thanks to Diane for having us over .

 

Heilan Coos in Primary 1.

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‘Huey McCoo’ painted by Stephen Brown.

What do you think ?

As part of our Scotland topic , we have been learning all about the Scottish artist, Stephen Brown. He is famous for painting the McCoos and other Scottish animals including Scottie dogs and stags.  We like his colourful paintings so much that we gave it a go ourselves and used oil pastels to recreate a highland cow.

What do you think ?

 

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Scottish Words in P1.

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Did ye ken that we’ve bin learning loads eh guid Scottish words ?  We have been braw bairns wi oor learnin’.

(Did you know that we have all  been learning lots of good Scottish words ? We have been good children doing good learning).

Here are some of the words that we have learnt: 

Chloe – ‘aye’ –  (yes).

Oona  –  ‘ moose’  –  (mouse).

Roman – ‘heid’ –  (head).

Max C – ‘hoose’  –   (house).

Ben  – ‘lugs’  – (ears).

Matthew P – ‘bahookie’ – (bottom).

Lucia – ‘sit doon’ – (sit down).

Isla – ‘crabbit’- (grumpy).

Daniel – ‘hauns’ – (hands).

Karol – ‘wheessht’ – (be quiet).

Hugh – John  – ‘laddie’ – (boy).

Chinese New Year in Primary 1.

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Today we learnt all about the Chinese New Year as tomorrow it will be the first day of celebrations.  We learnt all about some of the customs and traditions that are celebrated and made some lanterns, dragon masks , and animal masks.  We also tasted some Chinese food and were very pleased to go home with some Chinese sweeties that Megan kindly brought in for us all.

What did we learn ?

We learnt that there are lots of preparations before the actual day!

This year is the ‘Year of the Rooster’.

Houses are cleaned from top to bottom.

Houses are decorated with garlands and lanterns.

Red is the colour that is used all around the house to help to scare off the dragon.

Lanterns are lit in houses and in streets to help to scare away the monster that appeared that first new year.

Families come together to eat a big feast.

Boys and girls look forward to receiving a red envelope hidden under their pillow (it has money in it !).

Fireworks light up the sky.

P1b and Scotland.

P1b are really enjoying their topic , ‘Scotland and Edinburgh’.  The boys ands girls have learnt lots of exciting things and been very busy making tartan, flags, painting thistles and writing stories about Nessie. We are really looking forward to our Burn’s Supper on Wednesday !

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What have we learnt so far ?

Chloe  – ‘Inverness is nearly at the top of Scotland’.

Piper – ‘Edinburgh used to be called ‘Auld Reekie’.

Sofia – ‘Edinburgh was stinky in the old days’.

Thomas – ‘People in Edinburgh used to throw rubbish out of the window’.

Keilidh – ‘Trousers are called troosers’.

Andrew – ‘The Loch Ness Monster lives in a loch near Inverness’.

Matthew – ‘The flag is called St Andrew’s Cross’.

Max – ‘A thistle is a kind of flower’.

Alfie – ‘A thistle has jaggy bits’.

Isla – ‘Don’t touch thistles because they spike you’.

Shahazaib  – ‘Tartan is a Scottish pattern’.

Jamie – Leigh – ‘You can get different colours of tartans’.

Eleanor -‘The Scottish word for girl is lassie’.

 

 

Primary 1 at the Scottish Owl Centre.

We had a fantastic time today at the Scottish Owl Centre at Polkemmet Park.  We went there as part of our topic on ‘Nocturnal Animals’  There were so many different owls to see we could not believe it ! What did we do ?

First of all, we met two special owls, Alba and Lily.  Alba was a Barn Owl and Lily was a Little Owl.  We played a game called ‘Hoot’s for Dinner ?’  We had to choose food items from a bucket including worms, baby birds and mice and then had to decide which owl which eat which food.  We really enjoyed this game and did very well using our prior knowledge remembering that Barn Owls eat mice and little birds and Little Owls eat insects.

After this game we then explored the centre seeing lots of different species of owls including : Great Horned Owls, Tawny Owls, Eagle Owls, more Barn Owls, Little Owls and Snowy Owls and lots, lots more.  Some were sleeping when we were there so we had to be careful not to wake them.

We then went into the big barn where we met two more owls, a Tawny Owl and an Eagle Owl.  We learnt that Tawny owls are the only owls that make the twit -twoo sound.  It was great to see it fly around the barn and swooping silently.  The second owl , the Eagle Owl was much larger than the Tawny Owl.  We were told that it was 22 years old and very friendly. It was lovely too !  We did really well all day listening and learning new things.  Thank you to our lovely helpers for coming along today to help us.

What have we have learnt today ?

If an owl has orange eyes that means that it awake during the day – James H.

There are 279 different owls in the world – Alfie.

There are over 100 owls in the owl centre – Joshua.

The Tawny Owl is the owl that says Twit -Twoo – Chloe.

The boy Snowy Owl was white and the girl one was Black and White – Matthew P.

When an owl has black eyes it means it is nocturnal – Isabella P.

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Super writing in P1b !

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We have been working really hard these last few weeks learning to write, recognise and blend our sounds together.  Our hard work is paying off ! We love writing, especially on a Wednesday when we use our imaginations to write a story.  On Wednesday we wrote a story about a naughty dog.  We used Floppy the dog as inspiration for this as he has been naughty in some of the story books that we have read recently. Here are a some examples of our work.

Cool Creatures in Primary 1 !

Today we welcomed Chelsea from ‘Party Animal Encounters’ who came along to Primary 1 with some very cool creatures indeed !

What did we see ?

a tarantula – Matthew and Max

a racoon – Max

a bunny – Karol

a lizard – Isla and Oona

a snake – Mikolaj

a tortoise – Matthew P

a mouse – Olivia

a chinchilla – Ava

What did we learn ?

We learnt that some animals are nocturnal whilst others are diurnal.  We also learnt what the animals like to eat.   We had a fantastic time looking at each of the animals.  We even got to touch and hold some of these.  We were very brave.  Some of us had a rat on our shoulders ]!   We got to each animal one at a time.  Some of the nocturnal ones were quite sleepy, the racoon started to snore  but the diurnal animals were happy to be held and have a look around the class.  This afternoon has been so good ! A huge thank you to ‘Party Animals Encounters’ for coming along to our school.

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P1’s ‘Star Pupils of the Week’ and ‘Dojo Champions’.

Primary 1 have had such a busy week, and have worked so hard! We have been learning to add numbers (we know the number gets bigger); we have been learning lots more sounds; we have been reading new books (and blending sounds to read words); we have been learning about owls (we had a visit from the Owl Man!!); we have been learning about where light comes from; we have had a special P1 Mass; we watched the P3 assembly; and lots more!

 

This week, as usual, it was very hard to choose our stars of the week! However, we had 3 children who have been working so hard all year and have been so kind to others! So we’d like to say a huge congratulations to Alfie, Julia and Emma.

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This week’s Dojo champions are Tyler, Dorota and Andrew.

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Well done everyone and I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Primary 1’s Thursday’s Facts !

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Today we learnt all about owls.

We learnt that :

Matthew R – ‘We have learnt that a great horned owl has funny ears’.

Daniel – ‘An owl eats mice’.

Chloe- ‘Some owls eat insects’.

Ava – ‘A barn owl has a love heart shaped face that is white’.

Roman – ‘ They are birds of prey’

Well done everyone for super listening !

Primary 1’s ‘Star Pupils of the Week’ and ‘Dojo Champions’.

Here we have our three ‘Star Pupils’ for this week.  Well done to you all for making your teachers proud!

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Here are this week’s Dojo Champions.  Well done to you all for having the most points.  We are very proud of you all too !

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Have a lovely holiday everyone! You all deserve it for working so hard. See you all on Tuesday, 25th of October.

Primary 1 teachers.

Thursday’s Facts in Primary.

Today we learnt all about hedgehogs.

What did we learn ?

‘When they are babies they are called hoglets’, – Piper.

‘When they are scared they curl up into a ball’, – Daniel.

‘You can make a wee house for them to live in so cats don’t eat them and

you can use sticks or a box’, – Sofia.

‘They have 7000 spines’, – Leo.’

‘They can eat dog food’, – Tyler.

‘They can eat cat food too’, – Jie-Rui.

‘When they are born they have no spines’, – Dermott.

We really enjoyed learning all about hedgehogs today, so much so that we made hedgehogs to put on our Autumn display.  After the holidays we are planning  on making a ‘Hedhehog Hotel’ in our infant playground in the hope that it will attract hedgehogs to our playground. Watch this space !

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P1 and the Triceratop

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Today we learnt all about the ‘Triceratops’

What did we learn ?

‘They had three horns on their head’. – Isla.

‘It had a short tail’. – Chloe.

‘It had round teeth’. – Matthew.

‘It ate plants’. – Daniel.

‘It used the three horns to protect itself’. -Megan.

‘It had a crest on it’s shoulders’. – Lovisa.

‘It had flat teeth’. – Haziq.

‘It had a long tail’. – James H.

‘They had horns to protect themselves’. – Arran.

‘They walked very slowly’.  – Joshua.

‘They had four legs’; – Leo

‘They were very heavy’ – Toby.