Mrs Scobie

Calderwood Choir

Our Calderwood Choir have had a fantastic year so far, performing at various events. They performed at various Christmas events such as the Nativity, Christmas Craft Fair and the switch on of the Calderwood Christmas lights. In Term 3, we performed a set of Scottish songs for the poetry recital and for our Calderwood Connects. The choir’s performance of ‘Caledonia’ was just beautiful and some emotional tears were shed from some audience members who were so moved by the rendition of this song.

The children have been requesting songs to sing at rehearsals and have enjoyed having a go at their favourites. The choir have now decided on the songs they wish to learn and perform and we will be working on these throughout the rest of Term 4, getting them performance ready for end of term events.

The choir continue to display commitment, dedication and motivation during rehearsals and performances and have developed their confidence to sing in front of our community. The children give it their all and the joy in singing is palpable.

We can’t wait to perform for you again this term.

In the meantime, have a look on twitter to hear some snippets of our performances.

Bramble Clan -Term 3

Multiplication circles

We all had a think about our learning in numeracy and felt that we needed to work on our times tables a bit more as knowing these will help us in many other areas of Numeracy and Maths. We made a times tables booklet which includes all our times tables from 2-12. We worked on a challenge, called multiplication circles, to find patterns in our times tables. We connected numbers from each of the times table, creating a shape/pattern in the circle such as pentagons and stars. We also could see that some of the times tables created the same shape/pattern so this helped us to understand relationships between different times tables. Primary 5 learnt this 1^st and then taught the primary 4’s how to do this task. We were fascinated at the results.

Planting

We have been learning about how seeds become plants and wanted to have a go at this ourselves. This week we were able to go outside and plant a variety of seeds with Bluebell and Thistle. We all planted our seeds in a pot and have placed them in our school garden. We hope that over the Easter holidays these will grow. Our nursery children are going to help to water them while we are not in school. We enjoyed learning about planting and how a seed grows and have lots of questions about which we will explore in the new term.

Engineering

We have been learning about the engineering process through IDL lessons. We discussed different inventions and how they have affected our lives. We also looked at the history of different Scottish inventions and what problems these solved. This then led us on to thinking about what we might invent ourselves. We thought about a problem locally, internationally or globally and came up with a solution to solve the problem by creating our own invention. We drew a labelled diagram of our invention and wrote a persuasive letter to an engineer, asking them to invent it, giving reasons why this should be invented. We loved being creative and designing our own inventions. Look in our class notebooks in TEAMS to find out what we designed.

Reading – Note-taking

We have been learning to take notes on a text. We have been recording key words and phrases from different texts into different note-taking formats – some of us like to use mind maps and some like to put our notes into sections. Some of us also like to add pictures to our notes. This helps us to remember all the information.

Through note-taking we have been taking notes on different processes such as how an earthquake happens, how sound travels and how a seed becomes a plant. We have found these topics very interesting and have built our vocabulary and knowledge through our note-taking lessons.

We have also used these notes to help plan and write explanation texts in writing. We have really enjoyed learning about the different processes and writing about them.

School trip

There was a buzz of excitement around the P4/5 corridor as we went on our 1st Calderwood School trip to the Glasgow Science Centre. We watched a movie about a space station in the I-Max cinema. We loved wearing our 3D glasses and were trying to touch all the images. It was fascinating! We also loved all the hands-on activities to touch and explore, especially the wonky house! A ggreat time was had by all.

We have had yet another busy and exciting term! Well done Bramble Clan.

Learning about Scotland in Bramble Clan

This term our learning has been focussed on Scotland.

In writing, we have been learning how to write Haiku poems. After learning and practising the rules, we decided to write Haiku poems based on a Scottish theme. We created a tartan design as a background to our poems, taking care to follow the line patterns and shapes commonly found on tartan. These are displayed on our clan area wall and we hope to share them with you when you come to visit us next week when we share our learning.

In reading, we have listened to and read lots of Scottish stories and texts and have been understanding and reciting Scottish Poems for our poetry competition. We have learnt a variety of Scottish words such as dreich, bairn and fankle. We gathered a list of words together and matched them up to the correct meaning. Some of the scots words have made us really laugh like bahookie, crabbit and keek.

In P.E, we have been working together with Bluebell clan to learn Scottish country dances. We used skills in resilience, tolerance, co-ordination and stamina to support us in learning these dances. We have learnt the Canadian Barn dance, Gay Gordons, St Bernards Waltz and the Flying Scotsman. We have enjoyed this learning and have realised it is fun but exhausting too!

In outdoor P.E, we have been learning to play traditional outdoor games such as rock, paper, scissors, hoop and Peevers. We are learning to play games that need as little resources as possible that we can play together at school or home and we are using our creativity skills to come up with new rules and games. We have loved learning and playing these games together and have shown great sportsmanship, teamwork and creativity.

We have been learning about the life of Mary, Queen of Scots and have been investigating all the key moments in her life. We learned about where and when she was born, about James V, how she became Queen at a very young age and about her life in France. We worked with Bluebell and thistle to learn about her early life. We have used our researching skills to find out more using devices and books we have borrowed from a local library. We have been creating a timeline of all the important events in Mary’s life and have chosen different ways to share what we have found out. We have chosen to draw pictures, build models, write birth/death announcements and created drama freeze frames with added captions which we have then collated and added to our timeline displayed in class. We are enjoying the freedom of choice in sharing our learning in different ways and seeing our work added to the timeline as we learn more about Mary’s life.

Bramble at Christmas

Bramble clan have been exploring Christmas traditions in Spain and comparing them to Scottish traditions. We found out where Spain is in the world, the colours of the Spanish flag, the food they eat at Christmas, the decorations they display at Christmas, what epiphany is, the important dates in December and Christmas Spanish Vocabulary. We learnt to sing a Spanish song called Feliz Navidad and sang it at the Christmas around the world assembly.

We were learning how to write a persuasive text. We learnt about the structure, the language features such as sensing verbs and time sequence words and boastful language such as out of this world and first-class. We decided to create our own toy for Christmas. We worked in groups with each of us taking on a different roles- creative director, team leader and resource manager. We then had to plan and write a persuasive text on our toy and then create a persuasive advert. This could be a poster, video or song. We really enjoyed this task.

“It was really really fun to do” – Isla S

“My favourite part was making the models” – Isla I

We had a fab time in December celebrating Christmas with our Clan Christmas lunch and party. Fun was had by all.

Merry Christmas to all from Bramble Clan and Mrs Scobie

Assembly and Narrative Writing in Bramble

Bramble clan have been very busy, preparing for our first Bramble clan assembly at Calderwood. We have all worked together, as a fantastic team, to create our assembly. We all took on different jobs and roles to prepare for this and then brought it all together, to showcase our learning about the Brain, and practised really hard. We had invites to make, props to make, costumes to organise, the script to write, words to practise, displays to make and songs to learn and sing, with actions. We have loved using the stage in the arena and have really enjoyed acting and performing. We have had a fantastic time working on our assembly together and have enjoyed sharing our learning with you all.

We have been exploring traditional tales, fables, myths and legends in our IDL lessons and have learnt what these are and what the main features are. In writing, we delved deeper and looked at the traditional tale of The Little Mermaid. We found that the original story of The Little Mermaid is very different from the one we already know. Together, as a clan, we retold the story using our own words, making sure we used the correct structure – orientation, complication and resolution. Our challenge, was to use this story as a basis for our own. We could use the story and change the characters or setting to make it different from the original. Instead of the Little Mermaid, some of us changed the character to an Arctic Fox, a curious turtle or a dragon. We kept some parts of the story the same and changed others. We created 24 different stories from the one tale!

We worked hard on our stories, focussing on a different section each week. We wrote each section and then re-read it, and edited parts of it. We enjoyed editing our stories- scoring out parts or adding in parts, showing- and feeling what it is like to be an author.

In IDL lessons, we learnt more about the book-making process and researched the different roles involved in this process. We found out that there are many different roles involved in the process such as the author, illustrator, designer, editor and publisher. After researching this we moved on to making our own books. We took the story we had been creating in our writing lessons and designed what we would like our book of this to be like and what materials we would like to use to make it.

We have been busy creating our own books to include our own creative story that we have been writing. It was very exciting to transform our work from a piece of writing in our jotter to our own book that we can read to others. We are super proud of our work.#

Bramble Clan Learning

Literacy

In reading and writing, we have been looking at the different building blocks that make up a story. We have looked at the structure of a story, making sure we know all the names of the different sections and what should be included within each of these. We even came up with our own actions to remind us what to include. We looked at this further in our reading books and, after reading, we used the story mountain to show the plot of the story.

This week, we have been looking at the setting of a story. After reading, we either drew or built the setting from our story, giving evidence from the text to back up our ideas. We really enjoyed using Kapla, the building blocks and lego to build our settings.

Numeracy

In numeracy, we have been learning different strategies to support us when adding and subtracting. We have been learning about the ‘round and adjust’ strategy and found this was an efficient way to add numbers if one of the numbers is close to a multiple of 10. Some of us realised this might be a strategy that gets us to the answer quicker than if we used a different one. We will continue to explore selecting the most efficient strategy in order to answer a calculation quickly.

We have also explored addition and subtraction word problems. We used the method RUCSAC to support us in solving problems.

R-Read

U-underline the words

C-circle the numbers

S-select the correct operation

A-answer the question

C-check the answer.

We worked in partners to solve the word problems. Some us decided to act out the word problems which helped us to fully understand how to solve them. We will continue to develop this in our learning.

IDL

In IDL, we have been learning about Myths and Legends. We have been working across the clans and visiting other clan rooms and champions to develop our relationships with each other. We have been able to work with others in our area and get to know each other better. In each clan room we have been exploring what a fable, myth or a legend is and then listening to different stories from our champions. We enjoyed listening to the story of the Kelpies this week and enjoyed building a scene from the story and including information about the origin of the story. We have realised that stories change over time and are very different from the original!

Bramble Clan Term 1 Learning Sway

Here is the link to Bramble Clan’s Term 1 learning sway, showcasing all the learning from this term. It has also been posted on TEAMS.

Bramble Clan – IDL and Maths through stories

The Brain

In Bramble clan, we have been learning all about our Fantastic Elastic Brain. Through this IDL we have been learning what the names of the parts of the brain are, what each part can do and help us to do and how we can use our brains to help us problem-solve. We have thought about our own unique brains and what makes our brain fantastic.

Matchstick puzzles

We have been exploring matchstick puzzles in problem-solving. Through this learning we have been exploring what parts of the brain we have been using and how they are helping us to complete the puzzles. We are aware that our hippocampus will store our memories and so each time we try to complete the puzzle and we get it wrong, our hippocampus remembers this and we can try something new next time. Our Amygdala is in charge of our emotions and we have realised it can be frustrating and uncomfortable when we struggle to complete a puzzle but when we manage to complete it, it makes us feel good and proud. Our pre-frontal cortex helps us make plans and decisions and we are able to think through what is expected in the puzzle and what we might do to solve it. We realised we were developing our resilience and perseverance while completing these puzzles too.

What is a neuron?

We have learnt that our brain is filled with lots of neurons but what do they look like? We explored our nervous system to learn how our nervous system works and what part neurons play in this. We then looked more closely at what a neuron is and what it looks like. We then were given lots of craft materials to create our own version of a neuron. We could use any materials we wish. We really enjoyed this and have displayed our neuron creations out in our Bramble clan area.

3D shape – Maths through stories

We have been exploring the names of 3D shapes and their properties. First of all, we listened to the story, ‘Samantha’s Search’. Samantha the fairy was on a search for 3D shapes in the environment. She found lots of different 3D shapes and explored lots of real-life objects that are in fact 3D shapes. One of us realised why the sun was called a sphere in a text he had read saying “oh, that’s why the sun is called a sphere because that is its shape!”

After listening to the story, we were set a group challenge. In our groups, we had to research 3D shapes and find out their names and properties. We had to create a Power-point, sway or poster, detailing what we found out – the name of the shape and its properties. Our group also had to create 3D shapes out of cocktail sticks and small marshmallows. We created triangular prisms, cubes and pyramids. Some of us even combined 2 shapes to create larger, more interesting shapes. Mrs Scobie asked everyone if they thought their brains had grown a bit more today and we all agreed that they had. We had learnt more knowledge and were using our fantastic brains to create the shapes and learn more about them whilst using technology to present our information.

We had a great time doing this task and may have sneakily eaten a few marshmallows along the way!

Description Writing

In Bramble Clan, we were given the challenge to write a description text about our favourite animal. Through this piece of writing, we had to show what we knew already about how to write a description text.

To start, we listened to a description of an animal and had to guess what it might be and explain our reasons why. Next, we listened to the description again and tried to draw what we thought it looked like. We had to listen hard to the words in the description to support us with this. We compared our drawings and discussed what words helped us to draw the animal and how some sentences could have given us a bit more information or detail.

We then embarked on our challenge of writing a description about our favourite animal. We had to include what it was, what it looked like, what it did and why it was our favourite animal.

We enjoyed writing about this. We will continue to learn about writing a description text to develop our understanding and writing skills further.

Our Clan is a Family – Bramble

Our Clan is a Family

Over the last 2 weeks, Bramble Clan have been learning more about each other and have welcomed new children into our clan family. Together we read ‘Our Class is a family’ and discussed that, during school days, we work and play together as a family.

One of our favourite activities was creating our class portraits. First of all, we designed our own set of sunglasses and inside the sunglasses we wrote and drew about what we did in our Summer holidays. Next, we followed a step by step guide on how to draw our self-portrait. We had to look closely at the details of our faces to make sure we drew our portraits as close to real-life as possible. Finally, we designed and created a t-shirt to go with our portraits. In our t-shirt we drew and wrote all about ourselves including our favourite hobbies, family, favourite place in the world, favourite subject in school and 3 words to describe ourselves. We have displayed our ‘family’ portraits in our clan room. During our clan chat we were able to share our portraits with each other and learn more about each other.

We have discussed what we wanted to include in our clan room and have included a calm area with lovely, soft cushions and calming items to help us relax. We have also begun to develop our library area with a selection of books and some magazines to explore and we will continue to develop this area to support us in our literacy learning. We have enjoyed using these areas during DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time.

We discussed our daily routines and jobs for in school and in our clan room. We know that our clan family need to work together to make sure our day runs smoothly and that we all take responsibility for the different jobs that need to be done for the day. We have been working together as a great team already!

Our final task, this week, was to look at developing and designing our clan charter. We looked at a list of children’s rights and decided on those that are most important to us in the classroom. Through this learning, we have decided on a list of rules and expectations to make sure that we respect these rights for ourselves and each other and have designed our clan charter which will be displayed in our Clan room.

It has been a fantastic two weeks and we have settled well into our new clan family.

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