Category: Bramble

Bramble clan are well under way with their new IDL ‘Cultivating Calderwood’.

We have been learning about the water cycle through reading and decided to create our own water cycle in a bag.  We added our predictions of what we might see happen on to a post-it note and then discussed what was happening and learnt about the process of the Water Cycle.

Next, we have been looking at recycling and what reduce, reuse, recycle means.  We did some note-taking in our reading lessons and then created posters about what we had learnt about these 3 areas.  We are more aware of what we do already and what we might do to look after our planet by recycling.  We have chosen to create art from items that need recycled as part of our home learning grid.

We planted sunflowers and have positioned them in our area on the windowsill.  We are going to plot their growth on a labelled line graph.  After day 13, we have seen a lot of growth and are very excited to see these each day, especially after the weekend.  One of our pupils has planted an orange seed he brought in from home to see if it will grow.  We planted 2 in different conditions – 1 in soil with water and sunlight and 1 with water and sunlight only.  So far none of them have grown.  We will continue to monitor this.

We planted some seeds at the end of last term, in our school garden and discussed what a plant needs to grow.  We applied this knowledge to explore what a sunflower needs to grow and what the life cycle of a sunflower might look like.  We drew the life cycle of a sunflower, showing each stage of its life and what it will look like.  These are displayed on our IDL learning wall in our corridor.

Art

We explored different art methods in different clans with Mrs Scobie, Miss Ali or Miss Quinn.  With Miss Quinn, we looked at 1 point perspective art looking out of a greenhouse towards a house.  With Mrs Scobie we looked at 1-point perspective looking into a greenhouse.  With Miss Ali, we used watercolours to draw flowers.  We were very pleased with our results.  These are displayed in our area.

Finally, we have been exploring the different parts of a flower.  We have learnt the names of each part, their purpose and what they look like.  To look at these and identify these in real life, we dissected a tulip.  We then placed each of the parts on a flower lab mat, stating the length and purpose of each.  We enjoyed this exploration and even extracted pollen from the stamen.  We were fascinated to find out that a flower has both male and female parts.

We have been extremely busy and are so excited to learn more!

Bramble Clan had a fantastic trip to the Glasgow Science centre in Term 3 alongside Bluebell and Thistle.  There was much excitement on the bus and we loved all the hands on activites.  The I-max Cinema experience was incredible, taking us on a 3D experience on a real space station.

Please take a look at the bottom of this sway to see us in action on our trip.

Engineering

LI:

Go to this Sway

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.