Congratulations for winning Player of the Week with your football team East Calder United. You told us you were awarded your medal for not only playing well in each game but also working hard in training. It was great to hear you were so happy to receive it and we are proud of your achievement too!
Last week, we were visited by Fischy Music! We learned new songs and had good fun singing and dancing. Then we had a school concert in the afternoon which was very loud and great fun.
In Literacy, we continue to learn new sounds: ‘u’ , ‘l’ and ‘f’, and are practising blending to read small words. We read in school on a Monday and a Tuesday, and then we send books home on a Tuesday to be returned on a THURSDAY.
In Numeracy, we have been learning all about addition and can add two sets together. We use the vocabulary – add, plus, equals, makes and total.
This week is Book Week. We are enjoying stories every day in class and taking part in fun activities. Yesterday we listened to stories and songs in a live event with Julia Donaldson. We all know some of her books and shared our favourites. We look forward to seeing you at the library on Wednesday at 2.20pm when book bags will be gifted!
In science we have been learning about mixtures and chemical reactions. We made our own lava lamps by mixing oil and coloured water and added an effervescent tablet to the bottle. This created a chemical reaction when the tablet mixed with the water and started to bubble.
Congratulations on winning a bronze medal at the East Lothian Gala. You shared with us that you swim for Broxburn Amateur Swimming Club and that you achieved your medal for the butterfly stroke. Congratulations,we are all really proud of you!
In Numeracy, we have been learning to use subtraction strategies and we have been learning to find the most efficient strategy. We have been using our Numeracy Tools to support our learning. We love sharing our strategies with each other.
Our first calculation was 23 – 13. One group worked with Miss Marra and we also worked in random partners. Even though some of us knew the answer straight away, we still used the Numeracy Tools to demonstrate our understanding and share our strategy.
We were challenged to keep making our starting number ten more and we had to keep subtracting 13. Some of us were eventually starting with a three digit number which was a fun challenge.
Innes was provided with 213 as his starting number and he kept subtracting 13 until he reached the smallest number he could. This was how he shared his strategy, he chose to write it on the desk using white board pen. He also taught his partner column subtraction.
This group worked well together with Miss Marra and they used the cubes to support their learning. They counted the cubes to ensure they started with 23 and they subtracted 13, they then wrote the calculation on the board.
As always, we co-created the Success Criteria. One of the skills we decided we had to use was “teamwork.” We thought it was very important to work together with our partners in order to be successful in our learning.
In Literacy, we have continued learning about question marks in Grammar. This links closely with our learning in Writing and Guided Reading. This term, in Guided Reading we are focusing on questioning to develop our comprehension skills.
This week, we co-created the Success Criteria as always and we also identified the missing punctuation in The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The story was displayed on a power point on the smart board and we had to add missing full stops and question marks. We also identified missing speech marks when a character was speaking.
We also focused on question words and identified these words on our Literacy Bump It Up Wall. We often use these to support with questioning in Guided Reading.
We then worked in random partners to complete a pencil task in which we had to complete the sentences by adding the correct question word at the beginning, and writing a question mark at the end of each question. Some of us worked with Miss Marra and we were so good at identifying the correct word because we worked so hard. We were very focused on our learning too. It was funny when we tried to say the questions aloud with the wrong question word. We shared our learning during our Plenary and we peer-assessed two pupils’ work using our Success Criteria.
In Art this week, we worked hard to design our own bookmark for the Book Week competition. Although Book Week is next week, we started our bookmarks early so we can send them to Mrs Robertson. We were very focused on our learning and made sure we did our very best work. We used our creativity and got some ideas from examples of bookmarks that Miss Marra showed us. This helped us to create our Success Criteria. We can’t wait to share more Book Week learning next week.
On Thursday, 9th November, P5A visited East Calder Library with Mrs Campbell and Mrs Robertson.
We met Deborah the librarian who told us all about how to become a member and explained all of the different services the library provides. We did some reading activities and then listened to a story. Lots of us were keen to get an application form so we can become members and visit the library more regularly.
Our Book Fair from Scholastic Travelling Books has arrived!
The Book Fair is packed with hundreds of the best children’s books for all ages – from award-winners and the newest titles to pocket-money pick-ups and treasured classics.
The range includes picture books, early readers, chapter books, books for reluctant readers, older fiction, non-fiction, home learning and lots more.
East Calder Primary receives rewards for every sale, so purchases you make will help us add to our book collections in school.
Payment at the Book Fair
Please note we unfortunately cannot take cash payment.
Payments can be made using our online payment system. Please use the link below. You can locate our school using the school’s postcode.
travellingbooks.co.uk/pay
If you wish to purchase in person (again by card please, no cash) see below for the opening times when the Book Fair will be open after school for parents and carers.
It is situated near the office . Please enter at the Primary 2 door.
Mon 13th – Thurs 16th Nov 3.15 until 4.15pm
Friday 17th 12.15 until 1.15pm
Please also note if some titles prove to be popular and we have to order extra copies, these will be delivered to your child’s class when the Book Fair is collected on Wed 22nd November.
This week has been busy finishing off our climate posters and working in groups to display the correct animals that live in those climates. We have started to look at counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s and are discussing how this links to multiplication. We enjoy working on Sumdog in class as part of our maths lessons as well. We have also started a new genre of writing this week and we have been learning about information reports. We are very much looking forward to Book Week next week and can’t wait for all of the activities.
This week we recapped the time work we should know from P2 of o’clock, half past & quarter past. We worked in pairs to test each other. Then we challenged each other to try to tell quarter to times. We will continue to work using analogue clocks and start to use digital times next week.
We have just started learning to write a discussion. To do this we need to think about ‘arguments for’ and ‘arguments against’. So far we have completed discussion text for the questions, ‘Should children wear school uniform?’ and, ‘Should we have a class pet?’. Next week we will be thinking about the question, ‘Should children play at school?’.
We have also been learning about using question marks and have been enjoying finding them in our reading books.
Well done to our Primary 7s who took part in Sportshall Athletics last Wednesday. The pupils worked really hard as a team and showed outstanding behaviour in front of the other schools. Everyone enjoyed taking part in the activities and cheering on their fellow pupils. We have now received our score and I can confirm that East Calder Primary got 149 points and came 5th out of the 9 schools competing! Well done everyone.
