Page 46 – East Calder Primary School Blog

P5/4 have been working hard :)

Have a look at what we have been up to this week. We have been focusing on the following:-

Identifying the difference between a fact and opinion.
Reading Circles where we have focused on our new reading books.
Our ‘ough’ sound.
The Skeletal Structure and researching the names of the different parts and what they do.
Time where we have been identifying 5 minute intervals as well as minute intervals and discussing the importance of the hands and how they can be drawn – ensuring there is a difference between the minute and hour hand. We have been linking this to digital time and how this looks.
Circuits and gymnastics have been covered in P.E where we are trying to improve each week on our individual skills.
In Spanish we have had fun learning the colours and playing games to help reinforce them.
Writing a recount based on our WW1 context that we have been learning about. These recounts were based on The Christmas Truce. We planned it out and ensured our recount had an orientation, sequence of events and personal comment at the end.
Finally, we are in the process of creating a new WW1 display for outside our classroom – watch this space!

Well done for your hard work this week, p5/4! I am enjoying working with you and look forward to more learning and fun next week. Have a lovely weekend 🙂 Alison Baldacci (Principal Teacher).

P1 News

Thank you to all who donated to our Red Nose Day collection. We looked amazing all dressed up in our PJ’s.

This week in literacy, we have been practising our sh, ch, th and wh sounds. We have also enjoyed new stories and learned four more Word Boost words to extend our vocabulary. We’re getting very quick at spotting the words in our everyday speech and in other stories too!

We loved meeting our P7 buddies this week in our brand new library and shared lots of interesting books and texts.

We have been practising telling the time to the half hour and also working with numbers to 20. Meanwhile, in science, we had lots of fun finding out about forces when experimenting with cars and ramps.

PE with The Hive

For the last few Fridays the Hive have been able to have a PE lesson in the gym hall with Mrs Grieve and Mr Fazakerley. We are focusing on gymnastics skills, being safe on the equipment and most of all having fun and keeping fit.

Our New Library is open!

Our much anticipated, newly-refurbished library has opened for business. Last week all classes enjoyed a ribbon cutting ceremony, exploring the books in the library space and a snack and a drink.

We have lots of lovely new furniture ..our super, big reading chair has been a great hit with everyone and lots of pupils loved a cosy read in the den.

During their weekly library time classes can read a wide variety of books, discover new authors, find out information, learn new things and especially just read for enjoyment in a relaxing, calm space. Reading is a life skill. It helps us with our self-esteem and Well-being, as well as building confidence and having fun!

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture): Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Red Nose Day 2022

As part of our fundraising efforts for Comic Relief, Primary 6B will be selling noses in school starting on Friday 11th March. Noses are £1.50 each.

We will also have a dress down pyjama day in school on Friday 18th March for Red Nose Day itself. We ask that children who come to school wearing their pyjamas bring a small donation towards our fundraising.

International Women’s Day in P7A

We explored International women’s day by looking at some inspirational women throughout history; recognising that there have not always been equal rights. We then discussed unconscious bias, looking more closely at animated films, character portrayal and story writing.

Based on this research, we came up with our own take on a ‘Protesting Princess’, have a look at some of the activist statements and compositions we ended up with.

Primary 6B World Book Day Celebrations

Last week Primary 6B participated in many learning activities to celebrate World Book Day 2022.

Firstly, we visited our new School Library and thoroughly enjoyed our visit, exploring the new areas and enjoying a quiet read. In class we considered ourselves as readers, in particular our current strengths and personal preferences in texts. We designed book covers for our own stories and watched a live event with some famous authors including Michael Morpurgo. In small teams we created characters for World Book Day on Friday.

Primary 6A and P6B Artist Visit

On Monday 21st February both Primary 6 classes worked with artist Svetlana Kondakova to design a memorial artwork project for the new Almondell Cemetery.

To allow visitors time for reminiscing and quiet observation the theme for the artwork was water and nature. The children considered how peaceful watching a river could be and used local plants and flowers to decorate the top of the sculpture so it represented an autumnal river with plant life floating on top. Each child designed their own templates before cutting out and making their own design. These were then collated to make a larger sculpture including all 52 individual pieces. The paper template for the sculpture is now proudly displayed in school. We cannot wait to see the finished sculpture in the community.

A Busy Week for P5/4

In P5/4, we have had a very busy week with all our learning. On Thursday, it was World Book Day and we celebrated by starting the day with “Relax and Read.” Our favourite thing about this is choosing where in the classroom we would like to read (as long as we choose a safe place.) As you will see from our photos, we chose some interesting places to enjoy a book.

We have been learning how to see ourselves as readers and we know that we enjoy reading more when we get to choose books we like. One of the highlights of our week was our first visit to the library. Unfortunately, Miss Marra forgot to pictures as she was enjoying it so much too. Caitlin proudly cut the ribbon and we were so excited to enjoy our new space. It was hard to choose from so many comfortable and exciting places to read. The choice of books was amazing too. Some of us even chose to read some nostalgic books from when we were younger. One of our favourites was Stick Man and Elmer. We can’t wait to go back for our next visit.

Another highlight in our learning this week was when we engaged in Drama to clarify our understanding of a text. In class, we have been reading the Harry Potter series as our class novels. We are currently reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We engaged in a “Hot Seat” learning activity in which we chose to be in role as a character from the series and everyone had to ask us questions. Miss Marra modelled our learning first by being “in role” as Draco Malfoy which everyone found hilarious. Our Drama skills were very impressive and we used our knowledge of our chosen character well to engage in this learning activity.

We engage in Mental Maths daily and we have been working hard on using division to solve problems. We are developing our confidence using the “Bus Stop Method” and this is helping us apply our knowledge to word problems.

Our new Maths Topic is “Time.” We started our topic by having a great class discussion about why we need to learn to tell the time. We use time so much in our daily lives! We have been practising some of the different times we already know e.g. o’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to. We engage in outdoor Maths and Numeracy every Thursday, and this week we practised telling the time in the playground. Struan did the honours, drawing a large analogue clock with our chalk. We then practised different times with some of us representing the hands. We had to jump to the correct number and we were able to talk about why this was the correct number, using the Numeracy skills we know and our prior knowledge of time. Our next step is to move on to five minute intervals.

Article 29: We have the right to develop our talents and abilities.