Good Morning everyone,

Please have a look at our learning grid for this week. We would really appreciate if you could please send a couple of pictures of your child’s work and a short message saying which activity was the most interesting.

Have a lovely week. Keep safe.

Mrs Alexander and Mrs Koziel

P2 Home Learning- Week 8

Primary 6 have been very busy this week with our online learning.

Numeracy – Angles.  The pupils have been learning about Angles and how to recognise a Right, Obtuse and an Acute angle.  They have also looked at estimating angles and calculating angles on a straight line.  To add some real life context, they had a task to look at jobs that use angles, such as, architects, engineers, doctors and athletes and write about a day in the working life of that person using angles in their work.  Well done P6!

Literacy – Recount Writing.  The children really do enjoy writing and this week they learned about Recount writing – retelling or recounting an event or experience in a factual or imaginative way.  We watched a video of author Michael Rosen talking about this style of writing then the children were asked to do their own using a famous Battle from their Scottish Wars of Independence topic and writing about the final day of that war in the eyes of a soldier.  Some excellent writing with lots of historical fact and chronological order.  Well done, Primary 6!!

Scottish Wars of Independence Topic – Primary 6 researched uniform and weapons of a soldier in the 1300s and compared this to a solider of today.  They also learned about the Battle of Bannockburn and the Declaration of Arbroath.

Music – Flower of Scotland.  The children were learning about the meaning of our national song and how this is linked to both the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and our national flower, the thistle.  The pupils were asked to read about this with support through website links.  They were also asked to learn the song and some talented P6s provided videos of this at the end of their learning.  Well done!

Health & Wellbeing – Challenge Your Mindset.  The children were learning about fixed and growth mindsets and we used the storybook, The Dot, to think about the character’s journey from a fixed to a growth mindset.  The pupils also had the task of looking at photos of themselves as babies and thinking about how much they have achieved since then.  Some created some lovely narratives about this journey.

Well done Primary 6! We are very proud of your dedication to completing your tasks and thank you to our supportive parents too.

Primary 1 have had another busy week working hard from home. Here is what we have been up to:

In numeracy we have been revising our knowledge of subtraction and learning how a number line can help us with this. We completed 2 Sumdog challenges and made posters to show our learning.

In writing we have been learning to write a recount of a story we have heard. We know that it is important to listen carefully and check our writing to make sure the events are in the right order.

In reading we have been learning to read non-fiction passages for information. We used the information to answer questions about what we had read. Lot’s of us also managed to complete our phonics challenge on Sumdog where we were learning about the sound ‘ing’.

This week we also started a brand new exciting topic all about dinosaurs! We learned when they lived, what they ate and the names (which are tricky for us to spell) of lots of different kinds of dinosaur!

Well done Primary one, another super week!

Miss McKeown & Mrs Gardiner

Primary 1 have had another busy week working their way through home learning packs! Here is what we have been up to..

• We have been writing personal stories about our favourite foods using our senses to help us. We all have our own writing targets in our jotters and have been working really hard to achieve these, even though writing is really tricky for lots of us!
• In maths we have been learning about position, movement and direction. We have watched videos, played games and have been selecting and working through some of the activities in our position and movement grid.
• We have been exercising to keep us healthy!
• We have learned about the importance of prayer and were introduced to the Hail Mary as we are entering the month of our lady.

We know that learning from home is not easy and is a big adjustment for everyone but we are really proud of all our children. If they’d like us to see some of their work you can still send us this via the school email. Most importantly keep safe, enjoy some family time and have a lovely relaxing long weekend.

Miss McKeown and Mrs Gardiner

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.

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.

                 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.

In the last two weeks in gym we have been learning how to play proper basketball matches (very competitive!). We had eight teams playing against each other, this really helped us understand the rules of the game a lot better.

In maths we have been working with money and calculating the change we should get from different types of money tasks. We have also been making Number Talk posters showing all of the addition strategies that we can use.

We have been getting prepared for our assembly too but we can’t tell you too much about it at the moment, all we can say is we’re practising a lot! We are very excited for the big day! Have a lovely weekend everyone.

(written by Niamh and Kyle)

Another busy day in the nursery.  Today we had great fun outdoors getting the garden ready for the winter months. The planters were tidied up and to our surprise our potato planter still had lots of potatoes hidden in the soil.  The children were estimating how many potatoes there might be. The amount we harvest were phenomenal. Lots of counting, sorting, measuring and weighing went on.  One child asked ‘what are we going to use these potatoes for’. This sparked off discussions about different types of potatoes and ideas of what we could do.  It was decided we are going to roast them with butter and use the herbs we are growing in the garden.  We also had great fun measuring our sunflowers growing in the garden.  ‘This is bigger’, ‘I can’t reach’. Mathematical language and problem solving skills are developing. Quality group discussions went on among the children. The children all worked collaboratively. What a great day we had.

Our Health Committee organising our after school clubs. Some super leadership skills!

Do you remember learning how to count? Do you have to even think about what 5 take away 2 is? The answer is probably no to both these questions. Most of us can’t remember a time when we didn’t know our numbers up to twenty; when we didn’t somehow automatically know that 5 take away 2 was 3. And this is why we might find it hard to understand that learning to count for our children, is really quite complex.
In Week 6 of Families Connect we tried to bring this home to our parents by playing a little game where we no longer had numbers, just the alphabet. So 1,2,3… became A, B, C and there was no cheating and trying to translate back to numbers! In the game, we started off easy counting from A to Z, from G to M. Then we tried counting backwards from Z to A or even K to C…and it got a bit tricky. By the time we came to counting in B’s and E’s (akin to counting in 2’s and 5’s) we were really toiling and the final straw was doing sums: F plus M equals…., B plus G equals….?? Give up was the response from most parents!
When our children begin to count this is exactly how tricky it can be for them. And this response of ‘give up’ can be a common one. So, it is important for us to remember this, to be patient and support them as much as we can to just keep on trying. And critically, don’t think that your children are ‘just not good at maths’ as all they need is a bit more practice.
The best way to do this is simply by counting together as much as possible, and to make it fun. There are loads of opportunities in everyday life to include some counting and for you to help reinforce your children’s learning. In the group, we discussed counting toys, counting steps, counting plates at dinnertime and even counting socks, because apparently some children are already trained to put away the washing! We also played a counting game where we counted different objects in and out of a gift box, trying to win all the objects from the other player. Simple games like this are a great way to give your children a good maths start. The only downside….you might need to refresh yourself on the messages from Week 1 of Families Connect when we looked at managing feelings, because it seems like most children do NOT like losing games!

Our Friday music sessions with NYCoS are coming to an end next week. We have been enjoying learning about beat, rhythm and musical notation over the past few months. Today we worked in groups to create and perform our own music!

Tavia – ‘We’ve been learning to write our own music.’

Leon – ‘We were in groups to do this and my group used the shakers.’

Zofia – ‘We were playing altogether like a band.’

Baillie – ‘We had to sing the musical notes so, mi and la.’

Michael – ‘We had 4 beat spots and we had the choice to use ta, te-te and rests.’

Santiago – ‘We finished with the song ‘There’s Someone Living on a High, High Hill’ which is one of our favourites!’

In topic this week we have been learning about the mystery of Lord Darnley’s murder. Some people believe his wife, Mary Queen of Scots, was guilty but to this day we still don’t know for sure. It really is a mystery!

In class, we looked at the evidence, re-enacted the trial and put forward our own opinions of who we believe was guilty. We took a vote:

Mary, Queen of Scots – 1 vote

Queen Elizabeth I – 3 votes

James, Earl of Bothwell – 17 votes

James, 1st Earl of Moray (her half-brother) – 1 vote

Someone else – 4 votes

We are really looking forward to our trip next week to Duncarron Medieval Village where we will learn more about what life was like in these times!

We have had another busy week in P4a. In Maths  we have been doing fractions – halves, quarters and tenths. We learned more about what ‘numerator’ and ‘denominator’ mean.

In Literacy we were doing presentations about famous Scottish people. Miss Doolan says she is very impressed by all of our presenting skills! Our topic work in class this week included learning about Charles Rennie Mackintosh. We then drew our own ‘Mackintosh Roses’.

In gym we were doing volleyball and gymnastics with Mr Muldoon. In gymnastics we were doing jumps from benches eg. pencil jumps, tuck jumps and star jumps.

Our music lesson was fun. We were learning more about beat and rhythms.

Finally for Robert Burns Day we recited our Scottish poems then we got Irn Bru, short bread and cake (because it was also Raqab’s birthday!)

This week we have been busy.

In maths we learnt how to do number patterns/sequences and practised division with remainders and without.

Our topic is Famous Scots. We learned that Scottish clans often have their own tartans so we made our own!

In gym we are doing gymnastics so we were doing jumps over a bench this week.

For spelling we were revising the qu sound and we remembered that q to have a u beside it. Our tasks included unscrambling qu words and making a wordsearch for someone else to do.

On Friday we have music with NYCoS. We did singing games and practiced keeping a steady beat along with rhymes.

Our latest school newsletter is now available to download from our school website:

https://stnicholasprimary.westlothian.org.uk/article/15624/School-Newsletters