A few weeks ago Primary 6 revised their prior learning about probability. They then learned a handy formula to calculate probability as a fraction and applied their new knowledge to mathematical word problems. Our formula was :-
Probability = Number of desired outcomes
___________________________
Number of possible outcomes
We answered some tricky questions on probability in our homework last week:- Can anyone work this problem out now?
Last week we started a new Class Dojo series based on how to deal with difficult situations and mindfulness. We also watched some special BBC Newsround clips of the author and poet Micheal Rosen talking about how he dealt with sadness in his life and discussed ways we might attempt to deal with difficult emotions. Next week we will link our breathing and calmness to our prayers.
Primary 6 are really enjoying their novel study ‘The Runaways’ by Ruth Thomas. Today we studied the ambitious vocabulary used throughout the novel. The children are demonstrating an excellent understanding of the author’s craft.
This afternoon we have enjoyed creating our own mental maths games using our Fidget Spinners. We especially enjoyed the estimating time competition at the end of the afternoon. 
In Primary 2 we’ve been learning all about the life of a caterpillar and the process of its transformation into a butterfly. Today, we transferred the chrysalides into the special butterfly nets. We are very excited for them turning into butterflies. We are looking forward to learning even more!
into the special butterfly nets. We are very excited for them turning into butterflies. We are looking forward to learning even more!
Kyle – We have learned about it’s life cycle.
Lara- It is called a life cycle because it goes on and on.
Martyna – First, the butterfly lays some eggs.
Mya – Then, a little caterpillar comes out of the egg.
Flynn – Then, it eats and eats and eats.
Freyja – The caterpillar makes a J.
Luca – After that we know it is going to form a chrisyllis.
Lucas Cook – The chrisyllis gets hard.
Tavia – It gets hard to protect itself.
Umaima – Then it breaks out of the chrisyllis and turns into a butterfly.
Lucia – I liked seeing them in their chrisyllis.
Matthew – I liked learning all the facts about caterpillars.
Catherine – I liked when we did the information booklets.
Anna – I liked when the caterpillars arrived.
Santiago – I liked watching them grow.
Niamh – I liked learning about and seeing the caterpillar food.
This week we have been busy with our Oliver rehearsals which are already looking fantastic. Thursday’s maths was revising fractions, using RUCSAC to solve word problems and we also had a go at some maths challenges. We have also been learning about the health issues associated with smoking and the benefits of not smoking. We have learnt about Las Meninas, a famous painting by Diego Velazquez and we did our own modern versions of the painting. Check them out!
This morning Primary 5 were using our school environment to look for angles. We also tried to form a perfect circle using a compass.
We were able to find acute, obtuse and right angles and experienced using a protractor to try and measure them accurately.
Primary 3 were keen to take advantage of the sunny weather and take their maths learning outdoors! We have been learning to add and subtract 2 digit numbers using different strategies. These include empty number lines and using the 100 square to find the correct path. Outside, we were chalking empty number lines on the path, we were making 100 squares and we were using string to make empty number lines for us to jump through. By doing this, we got some fresh air and sunshine whilst learning! Here are some photographs of us in action.
On Monday a surprise package arrived in the post. We were not sure what it was but we got a big surprise when we opened the box because inside was a tub with five, tiny adorable caterpillars.
We created a lovely new habitat for them and named it Caterpillar Corner. We are responsible to make sure that they are safe and cared for. That night was going to be chilly so we decided to wrap the tub with a cloth to keep the caterpillars warm until we returned the following morning.
We have to be considerate classmates and make sure that it is not too noisy as they are very delicate creatures.
If we take good care of them they will transform into Painted Lady Butterflies. At the moment they are very hungry and are enjoying the nutritious food in their tub. We hope to see them create a chrysalis very soon.
As we observe the life cycle of a butterfly in our classroom we will continue to develop our knowledge and skills relating to our STEM work.
We have had a class vote and have named our caterpillars:
Lloyd, Bananas, Bebe, Mimi and Cerys.
We shall update you with any changes as they occur.
Everyone in Primary 5 has now given a presentation to the class on a topic of their choice. The children selected a diverse range of subjects to share with their friends and we had the opportunity to learn many interesting and amazing new facts.
The children were able to peer assess each other so that everyone has a target to improve their performance for the next presentation.
Well done to everyone and thank you for your hard work.
As part of our Keeping Healthy topic, Primary 3 are lucky to have 5 weeks of Fun Start Fitness with James Pegg. Each week we will learn about how to keep our mind and body healthy and then will participate in fun activities which will keep us fit. We know the importance of encouraging each other!
Primary 2 have been enjoying the lovely weather. We took our learning outside as part of our ‘Living Things’ topic. We went on a minibeast adventure and searched for any living things. We used our skills in technology to take pictures using the iPad. We even learned how to zoom in and out.
We are looking forward to learning even more this week!
Primary 6 looked at single point perspective in order to up-level their landscape art work. We were pleased with the results!
Today primary 6 have been learning how to find the area of a triangle. We saw how the L X B formula worked for rectangles and then how it applied to parallelograms. Finally, we saw how the formula could be adapted for triangles. We calculated some areas and even made some problems up for our friends to work out too…well done P6!
This week we have also been working on our novel study. The novel is “The Runaways” by Ruth Thomas. We have been using our literacy ‘sleuthing’ skills to make predictions about what might happen and will also be creating a character study for each of the main characters.
We have started a new topic on Europe. At the moment we are learning facts about the continent and making fact files to use later when we choose our own country to study in depth.
Another successful curriculum cafe today. Our cafes – facilitated by parents – provide an opportunity for parents to talk about their child’s learning and see some of their latest and best work. Comments from today’s cafe include:
“Children can talk openly about their work. Better than parents’ night.”
“Really good idea to hold these sessions. I find my daughter actually talks to me about what she finds difficult without moaning as she would at home. Basically, she’s willing to talk in a more mature manner. Great to see her work at school.”
“Nice to chat with my child in an informal manner over a cuppa and see school progress.”
“I like spending time with my mum looking at school work together”.
This week primary 6 have been looking at ratio and proportion in maths. We used what we knew about simplifying fractions to help us reach the simplest ratio too. In number talks we broke down large numbers into easily divisible chunks to make mental division easier. In art we looked at pattern and created some optical illusions, some of which are shown below. In language we have been learning how to use clues in texts and film to write predictions about storylines. We hope that this will help us to create clues in our own writing to ‘draw the reader in’ to our stories!
Today, Second level children (P5-P7) enjoyed a visit from David Goutcher, who writes spy novels for children. David spoke about his life and previous careers as a policeman, secret agent and games developer. The novels we looked at were very interactive – with layers of technology
embedded within them – and the boys and girls were engrossed. P5 children said:
“I was shocked when he told us that he was an agent, and all the things that he had done like going undercover and trying out lots of different gadgets.” Hollie
“The visit made me think more about how technology is developing and all the things we can do with it – how things can come alive”. Owen
“I thought that all the technology used in the book was really interesting because you can see a lot more than just looking at a book.” Dominik
You are warmly invited to another of our curriculum cafes on Friday 5th of May (drop in from 10.45am until 12 noon). The purpose of this cafe is to encourage children to talk with parents – in an informal way over tea and a biscuit – about their school work. This gives our children the opportunity to talk about their learning and achievements so that they can be challenged, motivated and supported. Research shows that children being able to talk about their learning – and identify their next steps – is one of the biggest factors in educational success. This week Primary 6 have been learning about the probability of an event occurring. We looked at the formula used to calculate probability and linked this to the fractions and decimals work that we have recently completed in maths. Did you know that if you ask 35 random people what day and month their birthday is on, you have an 80 percent chance of two people having their birthday on the same day?
In language we learned about non- chronological reports and completed peer assessments using the success criteria to guide us. We were excellent at grouping our facts and using descriptive language and our next steps are to use causal language more confidently in our report writing.
Hi everyone,
Another fantastic day with abseiling, 3G swings, den building and the leap of faith. All children are having a blast and are looking forward to their last night with a choice of a movie or disco. We’re back tomorrow and will be in touch tomorrow morning – through the school office – with details of our estimated arrival time back at St Nicholas. Pictures of children not featured here to follow…
See you all tomorrow.
Primary 5 have been learning all about Volcanoes as part of our Natural Disaster topic. We designed our own volcanoes to help us carry out our experiment.
Eve- “It was fun and I liked the explosions.”
Owen- “Destruction!”
Jack- “I really liked making the volcanoes.”
Ava- “Me, Taylor and Niamh had great fun making the volcanoes.”
Charlotte- “It was a nice and fun experience.”
Filip- “It was fantastic to see the explosions.”
Anna- “I had so much fun watching the volcanoes explode.”
Hi everyone,
Just to let you know that our P7s have settled well into life at camp. We’re getting plenty of fresh air, exercise and sleep. They are all having fun and enjoying meeting new friends. As usual, they are a credit to their parents, their teachers and their school. We’re very busy here with activities timetabled constantly with very little down time – from first thing in the morning until last thing at night – but we’ll try and give you another update tomorrow.
Bye for now!
Thank you to the boys and girls of St Nicholas for showcasing their talent with us today. What a wonderful way to end the term! Have a lovely Easter everyone and see you all back bright eyed and bushy tailed on Tuesday the 18th of April!
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.
P6 have also been busy auditioning for Oliver and rehearsing the songs. We are so excited about our production!
P3 have had a fantastic day at Dynamic Earth! We really enjoyed the tour, showdome and workshop and we learned lots of interesting new facts about our planet. Big thanks to all our adult helpers who came along too!
This week, primary 6 have been revising the properties of a variety of 3D shapes. We tried to make as many as possible using the building sticks. We then counted the vertices, faces and edges. The dodecahedron has an awful lot! We also learned a catchy song about the properties of different triangles… ask a primary 6 pupil to sing it to you tomorrow!
Primary 7 spent a very wet and windy morning at the Broxburn Cluster Football Festival.
Primary 7 Cake and Candy. Friday 24th March 2017 in P7 area from 9-10am. Any donations would be gratefully received. Proceeds going to our Lenten Fund. Many thanks for your continued support.
See the latest press coverage of Archbishop Leo Cushley’s recent visit to P4. The article appeared in the Catholic Observer 17.3.17
On Friday, P3a enjoyed a class party as they had earned a whopping 6000 class Dojo points! They enjoyed some party games, music, dancing and tasty treats!
Well done P3!
This week we started learning about orienteering. We have learned how to use a compass and understanding scale on maps.
In Literacy we have revised how to use full stops and commas and designed an activity for our buddies on capital letters.
In Spanish we are designing a healthy lunch meal to learn the names of different foods. We also learned how to say ‘it’s healthy’ (es sano) and ‘it’s not healthy’ (no es sano).
We have done some Helping hands artwork because Lent isn’t just about giving up things, it’s also about helping others.
Finally, congratulations to the St Nicholas dance club girls that performed at Deans Community High School. Everyone was very impressed with your choreography!
Here’s a picture of the girls dancing for the school and a picture of our mad hair styles!
This week Primary 2 have been very busy! We were lucky enough to visit the library for a talk about Malawi, have a talk about Mrs Renshaw’s trip to Malawi and began to sort all of the items for our Malawi Appeal.
Primary 2 want to share what they have learned:
Lara – the water in lake Malawi is dirty and if you swam in it it could make you ill.
Liam – Moni means hello in Chichewa.
Flynn – Bambo means father in Chichewa.
Catherine – Mayi means mother in Chichewa.
Leon – The weather is boiling hot!
Mya – There is a big mountain.
Thomas – People live until they are around 55 in Malawi.
Safaa – The ladies wear a Chitenji which is a nice dress.
Lucas Curran – The people are poor but they are very happy.
Lucia – The school in Malawi doesn’t have much stuff but they will get some stuff from our Malawi Wee Bag Appeal.
Michael – Malawi is a land locked country.
Oliver – Malawi is known as the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’.
Santiago – Zikomo means thank you.
Martyna – They don’t have walls in their schools.
Adam – The stars in Malawi are really bright.
Freyja – It took Mrs Renshaw 2 days to climb the mountain in Malawi.
Matthew – There is over 17 million people living in Malawi.
We have had lots of fun learning all about Malawi!
Well done to P3b on their amazing climate zone presentations. Here are some pictures of us presenting!
Primary 7 would like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who came along to support this event. We really enjoyed sharing our learning with you.
Special thanks to NEIL GORMAN from PIGGY PRINT who made our banner for us and MICHELLE SUTHERLAND from WLDAS for all her help. Thanks also to RAB SNEDDON who came along from NHS SCOTLAND.
P3 have had lots of fun taking part in the book week activities this week! It has been great learning about one another’s favourite books. Here we are dressed as our favourite characters! 📚 
Continue reading Book day dress up in P3!
****Video will follow soon!!! (Problems uploading)
Primary 6a worked really hard to produce their “Stickman” puppet show to perform to the younger classes during book week. Every child had a part to play in this show whether it was narration, puppet mastery, lights or ICT. Primaries 1, 2 and 3 thoroughly enjoyed the show. Excellent work Primary 6, a great example of creative, independent work!
Primary 6b will be completing and performing their performance very soon. We are very excited to see it!
What a great variety of outfits today, Primary 4. I have been taking notes to give me ideas for next year.
Primary 7 had a fantastic day at the Forth Replacement Crossing learning lots about the Rail bridge, The Road bridge and the new Queensferry Crossing. They also took part in an engineering challenge where they built a giant tetrahedron bridge. 
This week we have continued with data handling in Maths. This time we carried out surveys to find out what people’s favourite holiday was and we did this in Spanish! In maths we also did a carousel where we go into groups and do some activities. This week we focused on Venn Diagrams and decimals.
In Language we have practised using a wide range of openers and played a game to practise this.
We have had a really busy week with our lent activities and celebrating Book week too! Well done Grace for winning the ‘Book Worm Competition’, Finlay for winning the Easter bonnet competition and also Sophie Reid for winning the costume competition. It was so hard to choose a winner!
Today we took part in a few activities for book week: we dressed up , played a fun game of Cluedo, decorated our door as if it was a book and also went to an assembly to announce the winners. Yesterday we got to come to school in our onesies and Miss Mckeown came into our classroom and read us Harry Potter!
Finally, thank you very much for your donations and your effort with the costumes, activities, etc!
Primary 1 have been having a great Book Week so far.
We have been reading lots of books in class, with our teacher, with our friends, with nursery children and with our primary 7 buddies. We also took some of our favourite books outside to read in the sunshine today.
We’ve had lots of fun book related activities, including painting and other art activities related to some of our favourite stories.
We have been decorating our door like a book too – we are trying to win a ‘Dress Your Door’ competition against the rest of the school (of course, ours are by far the best!).
We helped write the first chapter of a ‘School Story’ – the rest of the school will continue and finish the story.
We have also been doing lots of fab writing related to and inspired by some of our favourite books.
We’ve also been bringing in some fab photos of our ‘extreme reading’ for the competition – the winner will be announced on Friday.
There’s still lots more to come, including a school carousel (where we will hear some stories from other teachers in the school, and finally, we are really looking forward to dressing up as our favourite book character on Friday.
Primary 4 have made good use of the fact that the library is now located in the Strathbrock. They enjoyed visiting the library today for a chat about The Rainforest.
On Tuesday they had a very important visitor, Archbishop Cushley. The children made him a lovely prayer book and also had a sweet treat for him to enjoy after Lent.
Yesterday, Primary 6 received a visitor from Edinburgh University who is studying Biomedical Sciences. Ms Johnstone came in to ask us some questions about our experience at the zoo. We also got the opportunity to put her in the “hot seat” and ask questions about studying science at university such as what subjects we would need to study at high school and what lectures are like! It was really interesting!
This week Primary 6 have been working in handling data in a variety of ways. We used, bar graphs, pictograms, line graphs, pie charts, Venn diagrams and ,Carroll Diagrams to record data that we had obtained from class mates and other sources. We realised that the way you display information can be misleading.
Primary 5 will be preparing presentations on a topic of their choice to share with their classmates. To help them improve in their presentation skills they will be peer assessed and given tips to move forward. We are looking for presenters to engage with their audience, speak clearly, have good body language and be confident in their subject choice.
Our first group of presenters provided us with fascinating facts on Taekwondo, Doug the Pug, Dance and Scotland. After reading their feedback each presenter was able to identify a next step for their development.
Thank you to everyone who attended our assembly. We were so excited to share our wonderful work and learning with you. For anyone who missed it here are a few videos of us in action!
Today, Primaries 4 to 7 enjoyed a fantastic visit from the travelling art gallery. The exhibits were all about work and routine which made us think about our own routines in a new way. We loved the people-sized sculptures dressed in bright prints and the ‘workers’ happiness’ graphs. Thank you once again to the travelling gallery for giving us the opportunity to think differently about things!
The Spanish phrase of the week is
– ¿Qué hora es? – What time is it?
– Son las (dos) – It’s two o’clock
– Es la una – It’s one o’clock
Hasta luego 🙂
In Maths we have continued to practise our number with lots concrete-visual-abstract games and activities.
As part of our P6 Eco responsibilities we have carried out a litter pick and recorded everything. Then, we used the data to make graphs in Excel and interpreted our results. We will continue to encourage everyone to pick up their rubbish, be eco-friendly and we will do more litter picks and see if the litter decreases!
Primary 6 have also been working collaboratively to practise using connectives and some children have even made up their own connectives questions to test a friend. We also worked collaborately with our P2 buddies helping them to adjectives to describe a character.
In Spanish we have been learning how to tell the time (o’clock)
– ¿Qué hora es? – What time is it?
– Son las (dos) – It’s two o’clock
– Es la una – It’s one o’clock
On Friday we had our Number talks assessment on multiplying decimals and we also made a prayer chain with links for people that need God’s help. Also thank you so much for your lent donations on Friday!
We also learned many things about Fair trade by watching the P2 assembly. Well done to all the P2s for their hard work!
On Wednesday we went to Broxburn and we took a survey of different vehicles we saw around us. Most people drove cars around and only two people were on their bikes. Now we are going to talk about how many different vehicles we saw. We saw over 100 cars and only 9 lorries, 6 buses, 20 vans, 7 motercycles, 2 bicycles, 1 emergency vehicles, 5 taxis and no farm vehicles. We are going to study our results and think of ways to minimise traffic around our school and make sure the public are slowing down near schools.
We have seen people wearing headphones while crossing the road twice! At Broxburn Primary school they have double yellow lines, which is good. We also seen a slowdown sign made by children at the entry of JHM dance!
Remember Stop Look Listen Think !!!!
It is our responsibility to minimise litter in our playground. Please support us by not dropping any litter boys and girls. Let’s take care of our school! We managed to collected 8 black bags yesterday!!!
Hello, the JRSO’s have been on a traffic survey around Broxburn and we tally marked every Car, Lorrie, Bus, Van, Motorcycle, Bicycle, Emergency Vehicle, Farm Vehicles and Other .We calculated the traffic. We would also thank everyone for not parking on the yellow zig zag lines. Here the traffic results. We are going to be studying these and finding ways of minimising traffic around our school.
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 .
We had great fun learning all about ‘Shrove Tuesday’. We also got the chance to taste some delicious pancakes. Yum yum!
It was pancakes galore in St Nicholas today as we remembered the reason we eat these delicious sweet treats on Shrove Tuesday. Fr Jeremy and Daniel were here to speak about the importance of preparing well for Lent and we are looking forward to seeing them for our Ash Wednesday Mass tomorrow.
Miss O’Neill spoke with us about the importance of helping others during Lent. She also mentioned our Lenten appeal timetable and some of the good causes we will be supporting in Guatemala. Our Lenten Appeal Calendar of Events is below for information:
At part of our family learning to promote Health and Well being in school, at home and in our local community, Primary 7 would like to invite all parents to a Tobacco Awareness Workshop on Wednesday 8th March from 2.30pm – 3pm.
Pop in for a tea/coffee and let us share our learning with you.
The Justice and Peace group are continuing to work hard with Miss O’Neill to develop as they tackle how we address issues of social justice, equity, global citizenship and international learning both across our school and in the wider community. They have put together a calendar of events for our Lenten appeal which starts on Monday of next week. The children of the Justice and Peace group have come up with innovative and fun ideas to raise a lot of money for very worthy causes. Please click below for more information:
The children in Primary 5 really enjoyed there day yesterday reenacting the launch and maiden voyage of the Titanic.
“I liked being dressed up and acting out the different parts. “- Lilli
“I loved being the fireman. “- Danielius
“I liked dressing up as a lady on board the Titanic.”- Sarah
“I enjoyed designing a 3rd class plate.”- Filip
” I enjoyed the acting”. – Charlotte
“I enjoyed designing the 2nd class plates.” – Dominik
This week in Maths we have been learning about the order of operations in calculations – BODMAS and BIDMAS. We practised this with our usual carousel of activities using concrete & visual resources, ICT games, etc. We have done our daily number talks too!
In GLP we have been looking at the emotional changes during puberty and we have discussed how we can develop positive attitudes to our own feelings and other people’s feelings.
In Spanish we have been learning about Carnival in the Canary Islands, which is taking place right now. We learned a carnival song and we are also making posters to promote the event.
We also designed an activity for our P2 buddies to practise WOW words. Our buddies worked really hard and are learning so much! Another one of our P6 responsibilities within the school is to keep our school grounds litter free. We have been learning some interesting facts about litter and we will soon carry our our litter audit for the school.
Primary 7 have really enjoyed designing and building these bridges as part of our STEM topic this term.
This week’s Spanish phrase is ‘No entiendo’ which means I don’t understand.
You can listen to the pronunciation in the link below
http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/no%20entiendo
On Thursday we learned about an ancient calculating tool- The abacus. We built on our place value knowledge and learned how to solve sums using the abacus.
We also wrote a letter to thank the Zoo’s Education Officer for the lovely trip. We learned so many things about lots of different animals and the Cycle of Life.
As part of GLP we have talked about growing healthy, both physically and mentally. We have shared different ways in which we take care of our bodies and we discussed our life milestones with our families.
The highlight of our Friday was our fitness measuring activity (understanding & ordering decimals, using different tools for measuring). We went outside and measured our reaction time, long jump, height, etc.
Today Primary 5 were learning all about seed germination. We discussed the necessary conditions that a seed requires to grow and what would happen if any of these key elements were missing.
We then prepared the pots with soil ready to make a cosy wee bed for our tomato seed to grow in. We learned some new vocabulary too:
We are quite excited about the prospect of growing our own tomatoes and enjoying them on a sandwich. Some pupils who don’t even like tomatoes said they would give them a taste if we are successful in growing a crop. We will keep you updated with the process.
Primary 4 enjoyed visiting the Science Centre on Wednesday. It was an action packed day with lots to see and do, including a trip to the IMax Cinema for a special movie all about looking after our planet and natural habitats. Here is a snap shot of some of the things we got up to!
Our ECO reps spoke to the whole school at a Pupil Voice Assembly last Thursday, when they shared their stage’s plan for ECO activities for the rest of the year. In their role as young leaders of our school, P7 pupils approved these plans and they also spoke about the additional leadership roles they will take forward to support and lead the school. Copies of these action plans are attached below:
primary-7-young-leaders-ellie-emma-michael
If parents or friends of St Nicholas want to get involved or support these plans in any way, please get in touch.
A great day was had by all at the zoo for all of Primary 6 today. We saw pelicans, flamingos, a panda, rhinos, chimpanzees, penguins, monkeys and even a fox roaming around! Did you know that the male Gentoo penguin tries to find the best pebble possible to impress the female penguin? We all learned so much and the sun even shone for a while!
Ten Primary 7 girls had a lovely day today at a Women in Data Science Afternoon Tea at The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh. This event gave them the opportunity to hear about Data Science research across the world.
Primary 6 are very excited to be going to the zoo today. We’re learning about life cycles and also getting to see the pandas!
Primary 3a were rewarded with an extra long playtime today as they have reached the massive milestone of 5000 class points!
They loved having the playground all to themselves!
Well done boys and girls!
‘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 ?
Primary 3 have been learning about how they can save energy in the classroom. They decided to show their learning and pass on their energy saving tips by making this video. Enjoy!
Today we were lucky enough to have a zoo employee in to teach us about Scottish wildlife and habitats. We had to solve clues to work out which species lived where in Scotland. We got to hold a badger’s skull and a fox pelt and thought about ways in which the animals had developed in order to survive in their environments. We really enjoyed learning this!
Primary 5 used lots of different materials and their imagination to build fabulous Titanic models as part of their STEM homework.
On Friday morning the ships docked in our classrooms ready for the sink or swim challenge. We tested the ships to find out how buoyant they were with much success.
Well done Primary 5 ! Your ship building skills are awesome ! Continue reading Primary 5 STEM – Testing Titanic
Well done to all the Primary 4 children for working so hard on their times tables this week. We know how tricky they can be but you are doing well.
We also checked each others spelling. Working with our buddies to ask and check our words. Not forgetting our “silly sentences”. Ask your children about those!!
Grace and Zak were extra busy last week-end, they wrote stories at home and brought them in to share with the class. Well done both of you, great to see your enthusiasm for your writing
.
This week in Maths we have been learning about division and divisibility rules. We made posters to show number talks strategies for division and had lots of fun making these “Figure Me Out” posters too. Can you guess who this one belongs to?
Primary 6 also presented their RERC Power Points on the 7 sacraments and reflected about what makes a good oral presentation (body language, voice, using the visuals effectively, etc.)
In Spanish we have talked and written about our favourite/least favourite school subjects and learned to how to say why we like them or not. E.g. Me gusta la educación física porque es divertida (I like P.E because it’s fun).
Our Language focus this week was ‘Vocabulary’ so we have been using the Thesaurus to upgrade our writing with WOW words. We have also continued painting our Picasso-inspired portraits.
Our Language Ambassadors Alex and Adrian have been teaching the numbers to every class in the school with some very fun games. Outstanding pronunciation and great confidence. MUY BIEN!!!
On Friday we had an Assembly in which pupils from St Margaret’s Academy told us how they are helping to build schools in Malawi. St Nicholas will also be contributing by filling bags with supplies and raising money to buy chairs for the school.
Busy week and lots of hard work from everyone in P6b.
Buen fin de semana!
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).
During our Scottish topic we have been learning some Scottish country dancing. Today we learned The Grand Old Duke of York. The children all had a fantastic time learning this dance with their friends from the other P1 classes.
Here we all are in action!!
This week Primary 6 have been revising division and the divisibility rules. We have become really good at these. Our Number Talks have certainly been paying off as we have lots of division strategies to use now!
In language we have completed the 5 dojo countdown for spelling and written a biography of our feature author, Jeremy Strong. He was a headmaster once and he’s hilarious!
We looked at landscape painting and perspective in art and were delighted with the results! In addition we created presentations about staying safe online- we really know our stuff now.
Primary 2 have been enjoying learning all about 2D and 3D shapes. We went on a shape hunt in the playground, played heads up, looked at the lines of symmetry using mirrors and lots of other fun activities!
P3 had a very exciting afternoon doing some research for their new ‘Climate Zones’ topic. They presented their research on a huge class graffiti wall 😀
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.
We have been very busy in Maths this week. We have finished with our angles topic and started focusing on division. We have learned to solve division sums using number talks strategies and using the standard written method.
We have applied our knowledge of paragraphs and practised using more ambitious connectives to create flow in our writing.
We have learned the names of different subjects in Spanish and we are hoping to start using this as part of our 1+2 routines.
We discovered the amazing work of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso and learned a little bit about his life too. We have made our own cubist portraits inspired by his art!
Primary 1a have had such a busy week this week!
We have been learning all about Scotland, by looking at stories, videos and pictures.
Here are some of the things we have learned:
Inverness is near the top – Daniella
Tartan is a kind of pattern – Daniella
‘Heid’ means head – Dermott
Edinburgh Castle is in Edinburgh – Dermott
Our ‘lugs’ are our ears – Lucas
Inverness is in Scotland – Lucas
‘Bahookie’ is your bum – Lennox
The Scottish slower is the Thistle – Matthew
Sometimes the thistle is blue – Matthew
The thistle is green and purple – Olivia
The Scottish flag is blue and white – Toby
Loch Ness is near Inverness – Ava
The flag has stripes that look like an X – Daniel
Nessie is in Loch Ness – Hugh John
Edinburgh used to be called Auld Reekie – Daniella
In Edinburgh people used to poop in a bucket and throw it out of the window. They shouted ‘Gar De Lui’ – Olivia
Edinburgh used to be very smoky because they used a fire to cook and keep warm – Daniella
Edinburgh Castle is on top of an extinct volcano- Matthew
The volcano doesn’t have any red in it – Hugh John
It doesn’t have any lava – Daniella
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This week we have written some amazing descriptions of our Hamish McHaggis (who is helping us to find out more about Scotland). We all remembered to use capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, and we are even learning to use adjectives to describe something (ie he has a shiny red nose).
***
Today we were learning all about Charles Rennie Mackintosh. We learned that he lived in Glasgow, and he was an artist. We made our own pictures based on his. We decided that for it to be similar, we had to have a pink flower, some stripes, and some small squares.
Don’t they look amazing?
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Also today, we had a very special visitor, who came to sing some songs with us. She brought lots of fun props to help us with some of the songs!
I’m sure the children will all be exhausted after such a busy week!!
Today, Karen from the National Youth Choir of Scotland, (NYCOS) came to our classes and worked with us helping us to learn new songs designed to help us to keep a steady beat and feel a steady beat. It was great ! We particularly enjoyed the song ‘Tiptoe Tiptoe’.
St Margaret’s Academy Cluster Transition – Thursday 2nd February 2017
Primary 7 will spend the morning at St Margaret’s Academy on the above date. We will also be eating lunch there so could all pupils please bring a packed lunch that day. If you would like a packed lunch from our school, please order by the end of this week.
Broxburn Academy Transition Google Expedition Event – Thursday 2nd February 2017
Primary 7 will spend the afternoon at Broxburn Academy and will take part in a Google Expedition Event on the above date.
Today in Primary 1, we had great fun learning all about Robert Burns. We learned that he was a super clever man, who lived in Scotland. We learned that he wrote lots and lots of poems. We listened to some of his poems. We also learned about the traditional Burns Supper, which includes Haggis, Neeps and Tatties.
We listened to some Scottish songs (and learned about bagpipes). We then learned to sing some Scottish songs, including Donald Where’s Yer Troosers?’, ‘Ye Cannae Shove Yer Granny Aff The Bus’ and ‘Ali Bali Bee’.
We then learned some Scottish words:
Troosers – James H
Wheisht – Roman
Braw – Andrew
Ston up – Max & Megan
Doon – Lucia & Julia D
Aye – Joshua
Heid – Justyna
Lugs – Toby
We then had our own Burns Supper. We had some oatcakes and cheese and some shortbread.
We then went to the hall to practice some Scottish dancing.
Here are some of the things we have learned:
‘Today is Robert Burns Day’ – Toby
Robert Burns wrote hundreds of poems – Olivia
Robert Burns was very very special – Matthew P
It is Robert Burns’ birthday today – Daniella and Sophia
It is Robert Burns day on 25th January – Piper
Robert Burns wrote lots of letters – Lucas
Hope you enjoy the rest of your Burns Day!
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 !
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 6 has had a lot of fun this week!
On Thursday we watched a live interview with author and illustrator Chris Riddell who gave us some advice on how to doodle with confidence.
In Maths we have been learning about angles and we have also reinforced number concepts by using concrete and visual materials a lot. We have challenged ourselves by doing some tricky problem solving in Maths too!
In Language we revised when to use paragraphs- and also understanding the main idea of each paragraph.
In Spanish we learned about the objects of the classroom (lapiz, mesa, lista…) and classroom instructions (Mira, escucha, formad una fila…).
Finally, a special mention for Piotr and Grace, who have been Language Ambassadors for the school this week. You did a great job teaching the colours to all the pupils of St Nicks. Well done!
P4a enjoyed a Movie Afternoon, with popcorn, on Thursday. This was a reward for achieving 3000 Dojo points as a class. Well done everyone.
Primary 3 have been enjoying learning about ‘Freezing and Melting’ and the changing state of water. We had a great time trying to find the quickest method to melt an ice cube, although our hands got a bit chilly and wet! We tried blowing on it, rubbing it in our hands and trying to break it up with a pencil. We found that putting it by the heater and running it under warm water melted the ice cube the fastest. We then used magnifying glasses to look really closely at ice and saw lots of shapes and bubbles inside.
As part of their science topic, Primary 4 were treated to a talk by Mrs Swinney and Mrs Purves on the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. The children were able to ask lots of questions about the heart and lungs. They also got the chance to look at a model heart, listen to their heartbeat with a stethescope and check their pulse with a monitor. The children are enjoying their journey in discovering more and more about the major organs of the human body.
The cold wintery weather that we have had this week has inspired the boys and girls in P1b to make a Winter collage and have a go at writing all about Winter. We used our knowledge of phonics and remembered our good finger spaces in our writing. Here are some examples of our work.
Primary 4 have started to learn about the major organs in the human body. So far they have been learning about the brain. They have looked at the three main parts – the Cerebellum, the Cerebrum and the Medulla. Please chat to your child about what they have learned.
They liked the following video, and were encouraged to ‘have a go’ at making their own rap!
This week Primary 5 have been developing their skills in using visual elements to create fantastic drawings of the Titanic.
This week we have been busy learning about so many things!
In Language, we have learned about when to use different tenses (past, present and future.
We have continued learning about time (telling time on digital and analogue clocks, duration of activities) and we are definitely becoming more confident.
We have done a lot of Number Discussions this week. In Number talks we have focused on the strategy of breaking numbers into smaller factors (multiplication) and we also made posters to show all the strategies we can come up with to solve a given sum.
In RERC we have been learning about the 7 Sacraments and we are making a Power Point to show our learning.
In Spanish we focused on improving our spelling and reading. We have also done some revision of the days of the week, months, weather and seasons. We have also learned how to say “can I go to the toilet” in Spanish with this song
Finally, we organised a short assembly in which we found out who the winners of the JRSO competition were.
Well done to the Junior Road Safety Officers for Organising everything and well done to the two winners of the competition. Summer (P4a) and Adrian (P6b) your mascots were fantastic!!
Please hand your Junior Road Safety Competition entry by tomorrow morning at the very latest!!!! Ben, Ollie, Hana, Grace
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