Calderwood Primary and Nursery

Tay Clan – Sharing the Learning

Tay clan were very proud to share their literacy learning with families this week. We were very excited to demonstrate what and how we have been learning in our writing lessons and the progress we have made in our writing. It was a lovely afternoon. Thank you to everyone who attended.

We also enjoyed listening to our new class novel ‘The Land of Roar’ which hooked us into our new literacy theme for this terms learning. We got comfy and relaxed on the carpet with pillows and sat ‘ by the fire’ (YouTube works wonders these days!) to listen to an imaginative story. Afterwards, we took inspiration from the story and created maps of our own imaginary worlds. We loved delving into our imagination, where anything is possible!

Spooky Schiehallion

This week in Schiehallion we’ve been writing Halloween poems. Our aim was to write riddle poems using six clues to describe a Halloween object. The reader would then have to guess what they think the poem is about.

We used our descriptive language skills that we developed last term to help write our clues. I think you’ll agree that the clan did a great job, and that the poems are a very enjoyable read.

Spooktacular Baird Clan

Baird Clan have begun to get in the Halloween spirit this week by creating our own spooky characters! We started with a game of “table wars”, with each table giving examples of Halloween related vocabulary until only one table was left. We then created riddles in pairs or independently as a way of focusing on describing objects without using their names. Finally, we created our own monster characters and used adjectives, similes and metaphors to describe our creations. Next week, we will use our monsters as the basis of our own spooky stories.

Halloween in Ben Lawers

In Ben Lawers we have had a wonderful time doing lots of activities around Halloween. We created Halloween poems in writing in the form of riddles and had a lot of fun guessing each others. In numeracy we have been solving and making our own Halloween code breakers, solving problems and matching the answers to a codex to reveal spooky words. We have been inspired by Vincent Van Gogh, who shares a birthday with our clan member Aarudh, and created Halloween versions of some of his most famous pieces. Finally we have loved creating a “Halloween Hut” outside our classroom full of our own crafts and sharing our Halloween costumes this Friday.

Burns

We have had a great start back from the October break in Burn’s clan. We have been developing our public speaking skills, as we get ready for our clan assembly. We have also started a new topic in math’s, we have been exploring different strategies to help us develop our addition and subtraction. We have engaged in fun games and challenges to enhance our understanding of these strategies. In writing this week we did a narrative cold piece. This means we had no help from our clan champion, however we all did fantastic and met lots of our writing targets. We played music and used visuals to give us some inspiration for our writing piece which was really fun.

Share the Learning – Rannoch

This week, Rannoch clan had the opportunity to share their learning about descriptive writing. At our Share the Learning event, we invited parents and carers along to demonstrate our hard work and show them all the learning which has went in to making our description writing so amazing!

We demonstrated the text map we had learned about Wolf Spiders, showed them how we structure a description text and explained what needs to go in each section. We also had the chance to show our Communicates and I’m an Author jotter to our adults. We loved reading them our favourite pieces writing and showing how much we have learned from our cold piece to our hot piece!

Thank you to everyone who came along!

Halloween in Ben Lomond Clan

Ben Lomond Clan have been having a blast in clan this week with some spooky Halloween-themed activities.

We kicked things off by taking a look at Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ before adding our own Halloween twist to it. The children then crafted some amazing artwork inspired by this stunning piece, focusing on colour and creating texture with paint.

We also took on a Halloween Code Breaker challenge, in which we used our teamwork skills and knowledge of four-digit addition and subtraction to crack a fun Halloween joke. We really enjoyed the challenge!

Tummel Dioramas

Tummel Clan have been very busy exploring their namesake habitats, the Tummel River and Loch. To consolidate our learning, we upcycled materials to make a three-dimensional model of a scene called a diorama. We had to apply what we had learned about the habitat such as the climate, plants and animals. We also had to plan, share tasks and collaborate on the construction as we worked together in groups to complete our dioramas!