Author: Mrs Scobie

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!

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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!

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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.

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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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Rannoch Clan – Multiplication and Division

Rannoch clan have been learning about the different strategies we can use when multiplying and dividing such as making arrays, repeated addition/subtraction, skip counting and making equal groups.

This week, we explored the relationship between multiplication and division.  We created arrays, using different items, to show multiplication calculations and learnt that if we swap the numbers round, we get the same answer.  We explored even further and found that we could use the same array to find division facts.  This led us to exploring fact families.  We built arrays and found all the multiplication and division facts related to them and put these into our fact family houses.

We realised that a fact family is made up of 3 numbers and that we can solve division calculations if we know the related multiplication facts.  This might help us to solve division calculations more quickly.

Rannoch Clan Writing

Writing – The Naughty Troll

 Rannoch clan were shocked this week to find that one of their learning spaces was extremely messy and Mrs Scobie showed them a picture of the school playground with lots of litter lying around in it. Mrs Scobie suggested that it might have been a cheeky troll that was up to mischief and caused the mess. We decided that we needed to catch the troll so that this didn’t happen again. In groups, we used different materials to create troll traps. Once we made our trolls traps we decided to use this for the subject of our shared story writing.  Our whole clan worked together to plan and write a story about ‘The Naughty Troll’. We made sure that we followed the correct structure of a story which we had learnt about earlier in the week. We also edited our story as we went along, changing words to make our story more interesting. We wrote a fantastic story together. We have shared it here to let you enjoy it too.

Rannoch Clan – Sway of learning

To all in Rannoch clan,
Please find attached a link to our clan sway, showing highlights of our learning in Rannoch clan from January until now. This will continue to be updated so please continue to check in from time to time.

Chefs @ Calderwood

This week Rannoch Clan worked alongside Ness and Tay to begin our new IDL learning.  First of all, we had a feel in Mrs Scobie’s big bag and described what we felt inside it, using interesting adjectives.  Inside the bag were different cooking items and we learnt what we would use them for.

In the next few weeks we are going to learn about food and develop our culinary skills to become cooking champions and the finest chefs in Calderwood.

Our first task was to complete our chef ID cards.  We watched a video and then afterwards reflected on the skills and qualities that a chef might have.  We wrote our names and drew our faces on our own ID cards.  We also wrote our favourite food and our current cooking skills.

We then wrote down 3 things that we would like to achieve and develop through our learning about food. Hopefully over the coming weeks we can get better at cooking and maybe help out at home.

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