Primary 4 have been extremely busy over the last few weeks. Here’s a quick snapshot of what we’ve been up to.
We made bookmarks, Christmas cards and Christmas Snow Globes for the Christmas Fayre. Then, on Tuesday, as part of our maths, we created a budget sheet to work out how much profit (or a loss) we had made. Firstly, we added up how much money we received for the Snow Globes (small, medium and large), the Christmas cards and the bookmarks. This gave us our ‘Gross Profit’. Next, we had to take off our deductions. These were for items such as the ‘float’ and the costs for all of the materials. Finally, we took this away and we were left with our ‘Net Profit’. This came to £55.00. The hard part now is for us to agree on what we will do with our profit! We really enjoyed the whole process of making the items and then creating a budget sheet as it was a real life situation. We were glad that we spent some time with the Sterling Family as they taught us how to create a budget sheet and how to work out a profit – except, this time, we had real objects to calculate the cost of and real money to work with!
We have been learning Chinese with Miss Hao and have been investigating different provinces in China and their customs. We have also been comparing China with Scotland and looking at some similarities and some differences.
苏格兰 Sūgélán (Scotland)
We have been also been learning how to speak some Chinese. We had to listen to and learn different sounds. These sounds are called ‘TONES’ and they change the sound of the letter. There are four TONES.
In the FIRST TONE, the symbol is a flat, straight line. The sound is long, like singing a note: ā ō ē ī ū ǖ
In the SECOND TONE, the symbol is a straight line going up. Your voice starts low and goes up at the end: á ó é í ú ǘ
Then in the THIRD TONE the symbol goes down and then up. You have to try to make your voice go as low as it can, then bounce up: ă ǒ ě ǐ ǔ ǚ
Finally, in the FOURTH TONE, the symbol is a straight line going down. You start the word with your voice as high as you can make it and then you drop your voice down: à ò è ì ù ǜ
It has been interesting and we are really enjoying learning our new language. Mr Hunter has also been trying to join in too!
We have also been looking at Chinese words. Did you know Chinese words were originally characters? Over time, and with each new Chinese dynasty, these characters (pictures) have gradually changed until they are longer recognisable as characters but are now words. However, if you look very, very closely, you can make out the faint traces of a picture in some words.
