Curriculum Areas

This week we wrote letters to The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, we chose a world problem and we tried to encourage her to help solve these problems.

We created a Christmas Quiz for other children in the class.

We created snow catcher art work.

In P.E. we did a sports quiz – it was tricky!

In Numeracy we were working on budgets. We had to plan a party with a specific budget.

Opportunities for personal achievement

This week Iga was our star of the week for excellent WW2 homework.

We took part in a Sumdog competition.

Ethos and Life of the School

We have been working on our Christmas Concert – we have chosen our hosts and been practising hard.

We have made our St Nics Come Dancing videos for the live final!! We can’t wait.

Interdisciplinary Learning

We brought in our WW2 homework and shared out learning.

We presented our learning and gave one another feedback.

We are looking forward to our last week!

Outdoor Learning

We have been working on our team work by playing rounders. We are improving all the time!

We did a skills competition with Ross from Active Schools. We had to do things like dribble, jump, step ups. We hope we win!

We have been continuing to do our Daily Mile. We are trying to improve our time.

Maths and Numeracy

We have been learning about decimals. We have been adding them and subtracting. We also had to work out missing number calculations.

Literacy

We wrote an imaginative story. We were given a door as a stimulus and you had to write a story about what was behind it. It allowed us to be very creative.

We wrote another story about a girl in a jar. We were working on character development.

World War 2

We began our world WW2 topic. We learned about the Blitz, Blackout and evacuation. We also learned about the battle of Britain. We also learned about Pearl Harbour.

We are looking forward to another busy week next week.

Space Week

We learned that the Earth has been changing – it’s patterns. We found out these interesting facts:

• 80% of the Great Barrier Reef has been bleached and lost its colour
• Some squirrels fly
• Plankton Blooms provide 50% of the worlds oxygen
• We lose 260 billion tonnes of ice every year
• Flamingos are not born pink it’s a chemical in algae that turn them pink.
• Forest elephants fight if there are more than one male to prove their dominance.

We made videos about everything we learned!

Numeracy

We designed our dream house using area and perimeter.

We also started using our SumDog accounts to practise our numeracy skills.

Outdoors

We were outdoors lots. We loved doing our daily mile and playing rounders!

Creativity

We created inventions to present to the Dragon’s in Dragons den. We are using our creativity, skills for work, business and public speaking. We can’t wait to do our pitches for our products!

Maths Week

We took part in lots of maths challenges this week as art of Maths Week Scotland 2020. We did John Swinney’s challenge every day.

Outdoor Learning

We took lots of our learning outdoors. We made up our own games, took part in challenges and created outdoor art work by creating patterns with natural objects.

Digital Learning

We had a visit from Miss Gibson to teach us even more digital skills. We used Scratch to make animations, OneNote to answer questions and Photoshop to edit pictures.

Literacy

We wrote letters to Miss Morgan – we are missing her lots! We wrote to tell her all about our favourite bits in P6 and how we are getting on in P7. We also wrote our own Macavity poems we used the original poem and adapted it to make it our own.

Maths and Numeracy

We learned doubling and halving strategy in number talks. We did lots of practice on this. We also worked on a lot of multiplication strategies.

RERC

We learned about the four evangelists – Mark, Luke, Matthew and John. We had to answer questions all about them to see what we remembered from our learning last week. We also had to find stories and quotes in the bible.

Spanish

We made our own Spanish videos having conversations in Spanish.

Drama

We began writing scripts for our news reports interviewing one of the characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We are looking forward to using the green screen next time.

Outdoor Learning

We did lots of outdoor challenges this week. One was about climate change – the people on the inside were earth and the people on the outside were greenhouse gasses we had to use beanbags to throw back and forth to represent this. In our house tables we went on the wall and had to work as a team to get in order of our names etc. It was really hard not to fall off!

This week we’ve been learning…

Literacy

We did a story about the Curse of Cogston House – it was a horror story. We started by creating our own plans. We had to use similes and metaphors. We had to use lots of adjectives. We had to describe all of our senses. We had to create a scary setting.

RERC

We learned about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We learned what they did for other people. Matthew started off as a tax collector and made the first Gospel. Mark crossed the sea to tell others about Jesus. John was very young when he became an apostle.

Maths and Numeracy

We had to think of 4 different strategies to answer subtraction calculations. We played an online game – it was a clock that had letters on it and we had to use clues to solve the problem.

Outdoor Challenges

We made a portrait of ourselves or another person using twigs and leaves. We made dens for a little toy – the toy had to fit inside and be protected. We made a number square with chalk and sticks (3×3) and all of the numbers had to add to 15. We made the alphabet out of things we found outdoors.

We all had a lovely week!

This week primary 7 have been very busy engaging with school camp and  fitness fortnight activities. Here are some of the activities we have had fun doing!

Making Dens:

Creating Posters to help us to eat healthy:

Putting on as many layers as we can and making rafts:

This week Primary 7 have been very busy learning and working at home! We had an extra special day on Tuesday as we had a video call with some students from both St Margaret’s Academy and Broxburn Academy. As the primary 7’s are unable to attend their transitions as usual, we were lucky enough to ask the high school students some questions via video call and have our queries answered very well. This opportunity helped a lot with worries about going to high school without being able to attend more transition dates and we are hoping to get more chances like this in the coming weeks.

The first week back to school in May has been marked by tremendous weather, exciting STEM experiments and an interview with an astronaut. Although we have continued to face challenges and missing our loved ones, Primary 7 have made an amazing effort to remain upbeat and positive throughout their online learning – a massive well done is in order!

Throughout the week Primary 7 have been working on their literacy, numeracy and engaging with lots of online quizzes! We have also been revising our Spanish.

On Wednesday, Primary 7 created their own volcano using water and food dye – we have some mixed results but it was extremely fun!

On Thursday we were lucky enough to be invited to listen to European Space Agency astronaut and former International Space Station crew member, Tim Peake. Following on from the recent cancellation of DataFest20, which included STEM events, we were able to listen to an interactive event with Tim – where the winners of the STEM Challenge asked him some very interesting questions about his expedition.

Tim also showed us some amazing photographs that he took from space and explained the details of his expedition.

We hope that everyone has had a lovely week and managed to enjoy some of the sunshine! Take care and stay safe everyone!

From, Miss Fraser & Mrs Bell

Primary 7 went on a retreat to Dunfermline to learn about St Margaret. We visited St Margaret’s cave where she went to pray and spend time with God. We also got to hold a relic of St Margaret (although this was a 3D print) of her shoulder bone which was very interesting. We also had mass in St Margarets church and a tour, the church was decorated with stations of the cross, a statue of St Margaret with a child, Joseph and stain glass windows of St Margaret.

In our WW2 topic we have begun to draw St Pauls Cathedral as it was bombed during the war. Although St Pauls Cathedral was hit by 500 pound bombs twice it did not fall down. We have also been learning about the Blitz (Blitzkreigg) which meant ‘lightning war’. Robbie and Molly brought in some special artefacts from WW2 including photographs of their family in uniform, badges, ration cards, identity cards and a plaque about the Victoria Cross.

Miss Norman also visited from St Margaret’s Academy, she taught us easier methods to use for subtraction sums we found this very useful.

Another group of P7’s went to St Margaret’s Academy as part of their transition program. First of all we went to the science department where Dr MacCallister showed us how to use the Bunsen Burner’s we also conducted an experiment to find out the best insulator by putting boiling water into a copper can and checked the temperature every 30 seconds to find the best insulator. We also went swimming and played the game to find as many ‘sinkers’ as we could for our team to win the game!

For Halloween on Thursday we took part in a maths challenge to find the mystery putrid pumpkin poisoner who turned to be Bailey Butternut! We have also been practicing for our presentations which take place on Monday and Beth’s dad Andy Weir will be coming to watch us. Harris read us a spooky story called The Curse of Cogston house we are excited to find out what happens at the end. We also typed up our learners statements for parents evening explaining what we have learned so far as well as what we have achieved. At the end of the day we had some Halloween fun by eating sweets and doing some just dance!

20 students from primary 7 had the chance to take part in a transition day to St Margaret’s Academy. First of all we went to science the teacher was called Dr McAllister, she explained the names and uses of the scientific equipment for example Bunsen burner, beaker, test tube, boiling tube, measuring tube, tripod stand, heat proof mat and thermometer. We conducted an experiment to find out which material – cotton wool, felt and bubble wrap – provided the most insulation. We found that the cotton wool provided the most insulation. We also went swimming, first of all we did a swimming assessment then played some games and did handstands etc.

Miss Norman came into our class on Thursday from St Margaret’s maths department to do a maths starter challenge with us. We had a certain amount of numbers to either subtract, add, multiply or divide to make the numbers from 1-24. However, we did not find out the answer to 22!

We started our World War 2 project by creating a wall display. We drew and cut out silhouettes of bombs, paratroopers, planes and zeppelins.

We also created some autumn tree art we had to draw lines and used yellow,orange and red paint to paint the background. We added glitter and painted on the tree with black paint we think they look very effective!

This week was very exciting for some primary 7 pupils who were the first to visit St Margaret’s Academy for a transition day. We were lucky enough to visit the science department and use the bunsen burners to conduct an experiment by using a copper can, pouring hot water in it half way and putting different materials around the copper can to investigate how well the materials insulated the water. We also learned about the different equipment used in science and how to illustrate scientific diagrams. We found that the cotton wool was the best material for insulating the water. We were also lucky enough to go swimming in the pool. We did lengths of the pool and were set challenges to do tricks and flips. This was very fun!

On Wednesday we had a circle time and shared our emotions about moving to high-school, problems within the classroom and any worries that we had. We learned that everyone has different problems that we might not know about so to be kind to everyone and include them. It also helped to clear our minds and get things off our chest.

In maths we learned different strategies for multiplication including the grid and formal method. We found that different people found different strategies easier to use highlighting differentiation in our learning journey. We also started a Daily 10 Maths Challenge on multiplication – we have under 7 seconds to answer each question and anyone with 10/10 gets a house point!

We are looking forward to visiting St Margarets for our first transition day next Wednesday.

On Thursday we created some poems on a magical garden. We had to include similes and metaphors, for example the river was a ribbon of moonlight and we also drew our moonlit gardens using oil pastels. We also created magazine articles on different topics such as dogs, football, the future and swimming. We also created simile and metaphor posters to show our understanding of this figurative language.

In maths we created tessellation posters, we drew lots of different shapes to create a pattern leaving no gaps. In PE we toke part in a pre-tennis tournament in preparation for our end of topic tournament.

This week Primary 7B have been developing their knowledge of political parties in the UK and the 2017 General Election. They have used evidence selectively to research current, social, political and economic issues. They can describe what a manifesto is and its purpose.
We are looking forward to tomorrows Election Day in Primary 7 where we will all be given the opportunity to cast our votes.

Primary 7 spent a very wet and windy morning at the Broxburn Cluster Football Festival.

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.

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 .

Primary 7 have really enjoyed designing and building these bridges as part of our STEM topic this term.

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.

We have just been notified that the open evening for parents of P7 children wishing to attend St Margaret’s Academy is on Thursday the 12th of January.  It starts at 6.30pm with a welcome presentation, followed by a tour round the school where parents will have a chance to sample some St Margaret’s learning experiences.  A poster will follow with more information, but in the meantime, please put this date in your diaries.

Many thanks.

Our biggest highlight of the week has been our school trip to Livingston Football Stadium. We got to sample lots of delicious foods and people told us how to get a job when we are older. Our favourites were the white chocolate made with popping candy and spices and The Larder cooking school with all of the bread, brownies and pasta. We also liked the man who made fruit and veg origami. There was Bob from Herriot Watt. He blew bubbles that landed on us and didn’t pop. We had a great time here and it is an experience that we will remember.
We have done a think outside the box Thursday which is when we get a riddle and the first person to figure it out wins. It is good for a first thing in the morning thing because it gets your brain to work. We enjoyed this very much because it makes a good competition.
On Wednesday we had P.E and we were doing a bleep test. The whole class did very well and lots of us lost our breath. We also played a game called illuminator which is when we have to pick up cones when the teacher says to. For some of us we had two sessions of physical education because 4 boys also went to a cross country. Michael came 2nd, Logan came 3rd, Eoin came 17th and Aiden came 21st.
We have been reading a book called Nemesis by Catherine McPhail. We wrote what we thought would happen next in the story. Everybody had brilliant predictions of what they thought might happen. We are looking forward to finding out what might happen next in the story.
This week we did big maths beat that for the first time in primary 7 everyone had quite high scores.
We are looking forward to another jam packed week next week.
Ailee, Michael, Caitlin

Prisoner of War
By Caitlin Healy

Caged within the encircling wire
Heart mind and soul afire
Afire with longing for things of home
The glorious heaths once more to roam

Thoughts come springing from far away
Of loved ones kiss, of children’s play
Visions of comrades sharing the fight
Clothed in khaki a strange garb for a knight

Yet each one a crusader against power and lust
Till evil is humbled to the dust
Then free once more to roam

Through flowered fields to an English home
All heartbreak and sorrow past
Living in peace
Perfect at last

Soldiers Farewell
By Aimee Turner
I’ve saddled up, and dropped me hooch,
I’m going to take the gap,
My tour of Duty’s over mates,
And I won’t be coming back

I’m done with digging shell scrapes,
And laying out barbed wire,
I’m sick of setting claymore mines,
And coming under fire.

So no more fire support base,
And no more foot patrols,
And no more eating ration packs,
And sleepin’ in muddy holes.

I’ve fired my last machine gun,
And ambushed my last track,
I’m sick of all the army brass,
And I sure ain’t coming back.

I’ll hand my byonet to the clerk,
He ain’t seen one before,
And clean my rifle one more time,
And return it to the store.

Wartime Poem
Found by Michael Beagley

Looking Around
The battle scene was harsh
Bodies lay scattered on the ground
With the nauseating scent of blood
Surrounding me
I can hardly see
For smoke blinds my eyes
And as I look around, my heart sinks
And fills with sorrow
I want this battle to end
Noises of gunfire hurt my eardrums
Piercing and killing lives
The images of falling
Scar me for life
This is the place of death
And I try hard to keep hope.