To celebrate Bookbug Week our younger children have been having fun with Mrs Shemilt at her Bookbug Sessions. They met Bookbug, sang songs, listened to stories and received their Bookbug Explorer Bags which are for 3 year olds.
Category: Calderwood Curriculum
Play in Primary 1 our Rationale
Please see below our rationale for Play-Based learning and teaching in Primary 1.
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.
Array Cities in Ness Clan
L.I. I am learning to create arrays and use them to find multiplication facts.
Ness Clan have been getting crafty this week, creating their own Array Cities! They enjoyed using different colours and shapes to create their buildings. They had to create equal rows of windows on each building, experimenting with different shapes and sizes. They counted the rows and columns to find multiplication facts. Some of Ness clan challenged themselves to find matching division facts to create fact families. They discussed their cities with one another.
Next steps: Building up their knowledge of different multiplication facts and beginning to use quick recall to mentally make these calculations.
Clan Championships – Sports Day!
We are excited to celebrate our very first Clan Championships on 26th May 1pm-3pm.
The activities our clans will participate in are:
- Highland games (within their clan but earning points for their house community)
- Clan Races (winners per clan)
- Rest and Relaxation
- Curling
Families are invited along to the event, we would request that we limit guests to two adults per family. As we start to move out of covid restrictions, towards whole school events, we want to support our children with this, as these events are very new experience for some of them.
On this date, children should wear their usual navy joggers/shorts, outdoor trainers and on top their house community colour:
- Sika – blue
- Red – red
- Fallow – green
- Roe – yellow
It would be fantastic if families could join in and wear their family house colour too!
Below are some posters designed by our clans to share more information with you!
Parent information – Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) Resource
RHSP – A national teaching and learning resource for Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood education
This resource was developed by a partnership of Local Authorities and Health Boards, with advice from Education Scotland and Scottish Government.
Inline with current guidance, our anti-bullying policy, Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), United Nations Constitution for the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and the Curriculum for Excellence (CFE), Calderwood will be using use the national resource to support the deliver of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood education.
Our champions will teaching this resource this term with their clans. All of our champions have had training to teach the resource.
You can see the full resource at https://rshp.scot/
Content
- All content is age and stage appropriate for learners 3-18 years, organised by Curriculum for Excellence Levels, from Early Level through to Senior Phase.
- Content is up-to-date and engaging and meets the needs of learners with additional support needs, including mild to moderate learning disabilities.
- The resource is made up of a series of Activity Plans that describe how a teacher can approach an aspect of RSHP education.
- The Activity Plans are supported by PowerPoints or other resources the lesson might need.
- There is information for parents and carers, ideas about communicating between school and home, reading lists for school libraries and reading at home.
Why has the resource been developed?
- There is a need to improve the quality, relevance, consistency and coverage of RSHP education.
- We need to deliver RSHP education that helps protect children and young people from harm and supports them to understand that friendships and personal relationships should be healthy, happy and safe.
- The resource helps teachers to source material that is age and stage appropriate, so that they can focus on building relationships with learners.
- We need our RSHP education to reflect a modern and inclusive Scotland where we value and respect the human rights of everyone.
Information for Parents/Carers at each Stage
Early Level (Nursery/P1)
Learning-at-School-Early-Level-information-for-parents-and-carers
Learning-at-Home-Early-Level-information-for-parents-and-carers
Resources can be found here: https://rshp.scot/early-level/
First Level (P2-P4)
RSHP-Learning-at-Home-First-Level-information-for-parents-and-carers-1
RSHP-Learning-at-School-First-Level-information-for-parents-and-carers-1
Resources can be found here: https://rshp.scot/first-level/
Second Level (P5-P7)
Learning-at-School-Second-Level-information-for-parents-and-carers-3 (1)
Learning-at-Home-Second-Level-information-for-parents-and-carers
Resources can be found here: https://rshp.scot/second-level/
Frequently asked Questions
RHSP Resource Films
A series of short films made are all available here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/6310425
Which explore:
- Why does RSHP matter?
- Who should receive RSHP?
- What does RSHP equip children and young people to deal with?
- What is my responsibility and what support is available in local areas?
- How do we acknowledge an respond to concerns about RSHP?
- Is the new teaching resource age and stage appropriate?
- What is the role of parents and carers within RSHP?
- What do children and young people want from their RSHP?
- What practical learning do children and young people receive from RSHP education
Updated PE Dates Term 4
Please see below updated PE days for Term 4 (we are currently in Term 4).
Changes are highlighted for Orkney and Shetland Clan.
The Bike Month Challenge
Please see below a poster outlining a Sustrans Bike Month Challenge
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.
Term 4 in the Bens
Last term, to begin our celebration of British Science Week 2022, the Ben Clans created a STEM takeover for each Clan in our school! The groups created a variety of lessons to deliver to the younger clans. Tay Clan learned about the skeleton, Rannoch Clan learned all about space and our solar system, Ness created scrap robots and used a sphero to move the robot, Bluebell Clan looked at the layers of the Earth and Bramble focussed on food chains in our oceans. Mull, Shetland and Orkney developed an understanding of space, star constellations and the universe.
The experience generated a lot of discussion around earth, space and the universe, informing the direction of learning for this term.
Our cross curricular topic this term is science based and will be looking at the origins of life and the habitability of earth and other planets. We began this week by watching a short clip narrated by David Attenborough about the tree of life and then researched the evolution of a penguin, inputting our research onto Padlet. Please click here to see our research.
Alongside this, we will also began understanding the different viewpoints offered in the creation stories from different world religions. We started this week with the Christian creation story and began to understand that there are similarities with that and the creation story in Judaism. We created our own versions of the Judeo-Christian creation story using powerpoint, imovies including greenscreen and SWAY.
Literacy
We are beginning to learn about the features and structure of narrative writing. We have been exploring our reading books to develop our understanding of the orientation, complication and resolution found within this genre of text. This week, we had a go at writing a narrative based around a theme of racing. We looked at a good example and deconstructed it so we could understand how to write one ourselves. One of the Bens wrote a story called ‘The Horse Race’. It is a good example as it has a clear orientation stating who, when and where; the complication is clear and includes direct speech and accurate punctuation and the resolution explains what happens and solves the problem, bringing the story to a conclusion.
We are excited about the term ahead and look forward to sharing with you soon. Watch this space!!
The Bens 🙂
