Learning in Mull, Shetland & Orkney
Reminders
Playground
Weather permitting children will have the opportunity to play on the grass at break and lunch times. If they wish to play on the grass or in the Adventure Zone, they should bring a change of shoes to wear. My advice is to wear their normal school shoes or P.E day shoes to school and have a pair of old wellies/ trainers/ change of socks that they can keep in school for the days they would like to play on the grass. The reason for changing shoes is mainly for their comfort, so your child is not in school with wet feet and also to preserve our carpets, etc for as long as possible.
Christmas Lunch
Children are able to wear a Christmas jumper or themed accessory to school tomorrow over their school uniform.
Budgeting in the Bens
Solving real life maths last week while creating a family budget. Each family had already decided on the role in which they played within their family, which jobs the adults/young teens do and based on the overall family salary, the families worked together to calculate their gross and net income. From that, they decided which house they should live in, calculated the gas and electricity bills, how much a car would cost (some have enough for two) to run i.e. insurance and fuel, food shopping depending on which store they wish to buy from and finally the cost of how much it would be for the kids to go to clubs.
The groups also decided what they’d spend the rest of their monthly income on, how much Christmas might cost and had to factor in an emergency pay out for an unexpected household emergency like the car breaking down, a burst pipe, family visiting for a weekend or a broken washing machine.
Each family completed budget sheets and tracked a balance as money left their account. A variation of mental strategies were used as well as checking answers using technology.😜
Tay Clan’s Gymnastics Show
To showcase our learning in PE, Tay Clan performed a gymnastics show. The pupils worked in groups to create and perform their own gymnastics routine. They had to make sure their routine included jumps, balances and rolls. Miss Redmond was very impressed to see tricky movements being used such as a pike jump, a teddy bear roll and an arabesque balance. Each group selected their own song for their performance and joined a series of movements together. The pupils shared their routines with the rest of Tay Clan and we gave peer feedback using yellow for yes and green for growth.
There was lots of creativity and confidence being demonstrated by Tay! Miss Redmond was proud to see all the learners trying new things and persevering when movements were challenging! Well done!
Tay Clan should share their routines with family and friends at home. I would love to see you performing these different movements in safe and new places!
Climate Change
Rannoch clan have brought their learning about climate change to a close this week. After learning about deforestation through our reading of The Lorax by Dr Seuss, some of us transformed ourselves into the Lorax to ‘speak for the trees’. We used our new-found skills in persuasive writing to write a persuasive piece on what we could do as a community to look after the trees. Fantastic pieces of writing were produced using a clear structure, sensing verbs and persuasive language.
Some pupils have been learning about waste with Miss Redmond and they went for a walk around Calderwood to look at what bins were available for waste and recycling. Tjhey made a persuasive poster to persuade others to think more carefully about the waste we produce and how we dispose of it.
Some pupils learnt about transport and how this can affect our environment, with Miss Reid. They completed a traffic survey of Calderwood and created air quality sensors for round the school.
Our final task was to use art to persuade the Calderwood community to look after our planet. We discussed colour in art and thought about how we might use this in a picture showing our world in all its beauty and showing the world if we do not take action. I am sure you will agree that everyone produced very powerful pictures, showing great persuasive techniques through art.
All in all, we have had a very interesting and informative look at climate change and have many ideas on what we can do to support our planet moving forward.
Well done to all in Rannoch clan.
Stag Starts in Ness Clan
This week, we have been really focussing on our Stag Starts to give us more quality learning in the morning. This is the 20 minutes or so every morning that we spend getting our minds ready to learn and taking on different challenges. We had some fantastic work completed during this short time this week, so we thought we would share some of that work with families through our Stag Start Hall of Fame! The pupils are working really hard on reading all of the instructions and taking their time to complete tasks to the best of their ability. All of these pupils earned 2 points for their house! I’m excited to see what you all come up with for our next Stag Start challenges this week. It would be lovely to get as many pupils’ learning as possible in our Stag Start Hall of Fame.
Social Stories for Christmas Events
Launch of Calderwood Careers
This week children in P4-6 were given the opportunity to apply for a Calderwood Career at lunch time, to develop their creativity and leadership skills.
On Friday the children were very excited to receive some training and find out more about their role.
We are all set for our new playground routines on Monday.
