We are so excited to launch this years Calderwood Careers! This is an opportunity for P4 -P7 to apply for a lunch time job around our school. If you would like to apply for a position, please complete the application form by Monday 13th November. This can be completed at home or school. Remember to be confident and share all the amazing skills you have!
Aberdeen Clan have had a very busy start to Term 2!
As Calderwood Rainforest Rangers, we have enjoyed starting to learn more about rainforests and the different species of plants and animals that live in this unique habitat. We were amazed to learn that rainforests are home to more than half of the world’s species of plants and animals – despite only covering around 6% of the Earth’s surface! We read “The Great Kapok Tree” by Lynne Cherry which encouraged a lot of discussion around the importance of protecting our environment. We also created our own flappy fact files to share our knowledge of the different layers in the rainforest.
In Maths, we created right angle eaters and went on an angle hunt in the classroom. Our hungry eaters discovered lots of 90 degree angles and we found that we were even able to create right angle shapes with our bodies!
Our narrative focus for writing has allowed us to begin to explore different types of figurative language which can be included in our writing to make it more entertaining. We had a lot of fun discussing ideas for our own Haunted House stories and we look forward to writing more stories set in the rainforest.
Mrs De Leun from the National Youth Choir of Scotland has continued her visits to help us learn about rhythm, pitch and music notation. We have loved having the opportunity to sing in class and get involved in the fun games which have helped to support our learning.
Last week, we had so much fun celebrating Halloween! We dressed up for our party where we were able to dance and play games with our friends from Dundee and Stirling – we all agreed it was spooktacular!
Dundee Clan have got off to a great start in term 2. We began our learning about the rainforest through reading the book ‘The Great Kapock Tree’ by Lynne Cherry. We loved listening to this and had so many questions and wonders that we want to explore further. So far, we have learnt about the 7 continents in the world, where rainforests are in the world, why they are so warm and wet and what animals live there through exploring habitats. We were surprised to learn that there is more than one rainforest in the world and that people live in the rainforest! We look forward to learning more.
We have really enjoyed our visits from Mrs De Luen from NYCOS – The National Youth Choir of Scotland. We have learnt about keeping the beat in music, rhythm in music using notation and words to support us, and the pitch in music identifying high and low sounds as well as being introduced to notation. We played lots of games to support our learning and particularly loved having the parachute out.
We are learning about a new genre of writing – narrative writing (story writing). We are confident with the purpose, structure and language features of this genre and have had a go at creating a scary story – The Haunted House, together as a clan. We loved learning about onomatopoeia words and how these types of words can add excitement and interest to our story writing. We are looking forward to creating narrative texts based in the rainforest.
On Wednesday 1st November, we attended the West Lothian Sportshall Athletics Competition at Craigswood Sports Centre. We took part in a number of different track and field events, competing against other Primary 7’s in the authority. The Bens put in a tremendous effort and showed resilience and sportsmanship! 
For all parents and children of Dundee Clan,
Please click on the TEAMS guide below to access a PDF file of how to access and use TEAMS at home. The guide explains how to log-in, how to access files and how to access class notebook. I hope you all find this useful.
Term 1
We have had an extremely busy and exciting term 1 in Dundee Clan. Please click on the links to access all the sways which show our learning and hard-work for the term. These can also be found in TEAMS in the relevant folders.
Calderwood Can Explorers: https://sway.office.com/FlL3Pa94r8njCymc?ref=Link
Calderwood Communicates: https://sway.office.com/ahKrI0qWNH2GW9SK?ref=Link
Calderwood Counts: https://sway.office.com/f6fvZSk9mDTIEmHF?ref=Link
Calderwood Cares: https://sway.office.com/06aSfHkt0KTYWg0w?ref=Link
Calderwood Clan Explorers
Throughout the first term we have been exploring our namesake clan ‘Dundee’. We completed some research to find out where Dundee is located in Scotland and what important landmarks can be found there. We explored the Tay Bridge, the RRS Discovery ship, the V & A museum and Broughty Castle. We completed research through reading and researching online. We presented our findings to the rest of our clan.
In Maths, we discussed the rules of 1-line of symmetry. We practised this skill by using pictures of different landmarks from Dundee and drawing the other half of the picture to make sure it was symmetrical. We loved this. We realised a lot of buildings are symmetrical and discussed how this skill is used in architecture in the world of work.
We have been learning how to identify the location of a landmark on a map by using grid references.
Finally, we created a cityscape of Dundee. We explored warm and cool colours, discussing how these make us feel and how they are seen in a sunset. We created our sunset pictures using watercolours discussing how to blend the colours together. We explored how much water is needed to get the colour just right. After our pictures dried, we cut out our chosen Dundee landmark from black sugar paper to make our cityscape, These are displayed in our cabin and look beautiful.
Please click on the link to look at our Calderwood Clan Explorer Sway.
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https://sway.office.com/FlL3Pa94r8njCymcref
Dundee Clan began their writing journey by exploring description writing.
We completed our first piece of writing, describing our favourite animal. We remembered to use the describing bubble to support us which reminds us to describe size, colour, texture, position, number, shape and what our animal does.
We explored the structure of description writing and learnt the names and purpose of the different sections in a description text. We have come up with hand signals to represent each section which will help us remind us about the order in which to build our descriptive pieces of writing.
Finally, we explored the language features of a description text, looking closely at the nouns, adjectives and pronouns, recording them in a grid that we can refer to later when writing our own descriptions.
We will continue to explore this genre of writing further by writing description texts and exploring descriptive passages in our reading lessons.
