Tag: Effective contributors

Future Oscar Winning Actors in East Calder Primary!

We have started the term with a very busy few weeks in Drama. It has been lovely working with every class and the children should be so proud of how much they have embraced their new learning opportunities in Drama, with a positive attitude and eagerness to learn. Well done everyone! Below are a few examples of some of the learning in Drama so far this term. We always start every Drama lesson with a game to get us warmed up and ready to learn.

Primary 6 pupils worked hard to create a short improvised drama using role-play cards and performing it for the class. We have been working on using a variety of facial expressions, projecting our voice and diction. We gave feedback on each performance linked to our co-created Success Criteria. 

Primary 5 have also been working on short improvised dramas using Improv cards. Well done to these two fantastic learners who presented their short drama to the class using facial expressions and voice. In Primary 5 we are working on diction to make sure we speak clearly.

We have also started exploring the features of a script and we are learning to analyse scripted language. We are also practising reading from a script and we are excited to perform for the class using the Drama techniques we have been learning.

In Primary 3, we are learning to take on roles and use facial expressions, voice and movement in role-play. We have recently been engaging in “hot seating” in characters from stories. We have also been using freeze frames to act out chapters from “I Don’t Want To” by Bel Mooney. We have been in character and have been learning to use fantastic facial expressions to show different emotions.

In Primary 1, we have been playing games to practise using our voice, actions and facial expressions. We are starting to use our learning to act out stories. We have particularly enjoyed re-telling stories using puppets.

Watch this space for more regular updates about our learning in Drama! There are definitely some future performers in our school. Well done for all your hard work so far everyone!

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

Learning in P3/2

 

We have been so busy over the last few weeks and we have been really enjoying our learning. This is a summary of some of our learning highlights which we would like to share.

 

Topic – Ancient Egypt

We are really interested in our Topic, Ancient Egypt and we have enjoyed leading our learning. We wanted to learn more about the Pyramids of Giza and we started off by following a tutorial to create picture of the pyramids. They look great and we were so focused on our learning.

We also learned more about how and why the pyramids were built. We have been reading books and watching videos in class to support our learning. One of our favourite recent learning activities was a STEAM Challenge (Science, Technologies, Engineering, Art and Mathematics.) We had to create a 3D model of the Pyramids of Giza. This was fun because we worked in partners and we chose how to create our model. Some of us used paper, some of us used construction or other strategies.

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We loved talking about our strategies and the tools we chose to use. Creativity was one of the main skills we identified as part of our Success Criteria. We also had to use great teamwork with our partner to be successful. We currently have our pyramids displayed in our classroom and we love to show them to anyone visiting our classroom.

 

Numeracy and Maths

We continue to engage in Number Talks every day to consolidate Numeracy skills and to talk about different Numeracy strategies. We also engage in Numeracy every day and one day a week, we focus on a Maths topic. At the moment, we are exploring fractions in Maths, and in Numeracy, we are learning division strategies. We are starting to understand the link between fractions and division. The following learning activities are examples of our learning from the last few weeks.

Using arrays to divide numbers and consolidate multiplication.

 

Using Numeracy Tools to make equal groups and write the algorithms in our Maths and Numeracy jotters.

 

Working in random partners and in groups to solve division calculations by making equal groups. We always share our strategies and help each other. We love talking about our learning.

 

Literacy – Writing

 

We are working vey hard in Writing. Primary 2 are moving on to writing a Procedure and Primary are continuing to work on writing explanation texts. We are still splitting into two groups for Writing at the moment due to P2 and P3 focusing on different genres. Mrs Robertson will soon work with P3 pupils, and P2 pupils will work with Miss Marra.

We are excited to share more of our writing with you. Watch this space and we will share more examples of our writing.

We recently peer-assessed our writing again to give each other feedback and identify next steps. We were very focused and used the skill “communication” to talk about our ideas and listen to others in our group.

 

Literacy – Grammar

We are learning to identify and use past and present tense verbs in Grammar. We are consolidating our learning and applying our learning in different contexts. We recently engaged in a learning activity that we loved so much, we asked to do it again! Miss Marra gave each of us a card with verb on it. Some verbs were past tense and some were present tense. We had to find the person who had the same verb as us in a different tense e.g. walk – walked. This is how we were split into random partners. We then wrote a sentence for each verb on our cards. Mrs Mitchell worked with a group, and Miss Marra supported us with our learning. Our challenge was to make up our own sentences with past and present tense verbs which we really enjoyed, especially when we made up silly sentences.


This is Blair’s past and present tense verbs with her sentences above which she created with a partner. She confidently shared her sentences with the class and could talk about how she knew which verb was past tense and which verb was written in the present tense.

 

 

Music

We look forward to our music workshop with Dave every Wednesday. We all had the opportunity to play instruments this week which was amazing! Miss Marra forgot to take photos, so we will share some photos of us playing instruments next week. We learned to make loud and quiet sounds with our instruments to tell a story.

 

Last week, we used sound and learned how music can be used to tell stories. We also took part in acting out the story to help us understand it better. Some of us were even talking about the links with Guided Reading and Reading Comprehension. This role-play activity in Music helped us to understand the story.

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

 

 

P3 Scot’s Week

This week we took part in lots of different learning. We engaged with Fischy Music Scot’s concert and even got a ‘shout out’ from the presenters. We listened to some short stories in Scot’s, including The Boy in the Bunnet, and thought about all the Scot’s words we knew. We thought about and drew what the Loch Ness Monster might look like. We learned and recited a Scot’s poem to the class. We learned about Scot’s words for different parts of the body and sang Heid, shoulders, knaps & taes.

Dividing in P3/2

We have been learning to create fractions in shapes and we have also been learning to divide numbers by 2, 3 and 4. We have been using the Numeracy Tools to help us make the calculation and then we share our strategies. We then write the calculation to show the link between the concrete and abstract approach.

We have to make sure everyone has an equal amount.   Colin

It is easier to divide the counters equally by sharing them one at a time.  Jamie

I used my times tables to help me.   Ellie

If we haven’t got an equal amount we can check again and we can notice if we have counted too many or something.    Lilly Rose

We enjoy leading our own learning and we were so excited to do this on Wednesday. The council were cutting down a tree in the playground and we were so fascinated by what was going on. We kept going to the window and Miss Marra decided to take us out to the playground to have a closer look. We enjoyed talking about what was happening and why it was happening. We also drew pictures with chalk to show what we could see.

Back in the classroom, we looked at photos that we took on one of the ipads while we were outside and we talked about what we could see. We asked lots of questions and shared our knowledge of why trees are so important. It was then time for Numeracy and Miss Marra adapted our learning to make it relevant to our interest.

We worked on this word problem in random partners to support us with learning division:

40 new trees are going to be planted in four different fields. The council would like the same number of tree planted in each field. How many trees would need to be planted in each field to make it equal?

We then realised the division calculation is 40 divided by 4 = ? We shared counters equally in random partners and worked out that 10 trees would need to be planted in each field. Some of us knew the answer straight away but we enjoyed using the tools to show the calculation and help our partner. We were challenged with different numbers and calculations which we then solved and shared with everyone. We all agreed that we really enjoyed our learning.

Article 12: We have the right to be heard

Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others.

We are working hard in P3/2!

 

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.

Learning in P3/2

 

We have been working in Writing and we continue to use our “Bump It Up Wall” to help us improve our writing. We are learning to talk about our writing and peer-assess to help us identify our next steps. We worked in groups last week to peer-assess our last piece of writing and we wrote feedback on the desks using white board pens.

The writing we peer-assessed this week are now displayed on our Literacy Bump It Up Wall. We decided where they should go on our wall depending on what each person did well and what they need to work on to “bump up” their writing.

 

 

 

We are also working hard in Guided Reading. We are learning to read fluently and this term we are focusing on questioning. We start each Guided Reading lesson with “echo reading.” Miss Marra used to demonstrate this and now one of us leads it for the class. It helps us to practise reading fluently. We then split into our Reading groups to work on different learning activities. One group works with Miss Marra each day and we practise echo reading with our group. We also work on Comprehension skills. We have been using questioning cards to ask and answer questions about our book.

We are continuing to develop skills in Numeracy and we enjoy engaging in Number Talks daily. We recently took part in our first Choral Count of the term and we came up with even more number patterns than last time. We were great at talking about the patterns we noticed and talking about each other’s ideas. Our favourite thing about this is when we get to “be the teacher” and stand at the board to share our pattern. We came up with some patterns that Miss Marra didn’t even notice! We could talk about the Numeracy skills we were using. We stood in front of the board this time and it made us all stay focused on our learning. We liked this much better than sitting down for a choral count.

We can’t wait to continue to share more of our learning with you! Watch this space to see our progress in Writing. We are so proud of ourselves!

 

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

Sharing the Learning in P3/2

We had a very exciting start to our new term in P3/2 as we had our Sharing the Learning for parents and carers on Thursday. We focused on our learning in Numeracy and we were excited to show off all the hard work we have doing in multiplication so far. We used concrete materials to make times tables and we wrote the calculations on the desk. We love writing on the desk!

We showed our parents and carers how to play “Whack a Mole” on the ipads and we were confidently able to explain how this game helps us to skip count. We share our Dienes materials and showed our adults how we can use them to make two, three or four digit numbers. We also enjoyed showing off all the other tools we use to support our learning in Numeracy. Some of were also excited to show our jotters to our adults too, especially to show our great progress in Writing so far this year.

 

 

Thank you to all our parents and carers who came to our Sharing the Learning. It was a lovely afternoon and the children really enjoyed having you all in class with us.

Article 28: We have the right to learn.

Learning in P3/2

 

We have been learning to estimate in Numeracy and we have been taking part in esti-mysteries once a week. We have been enjoying our learning and we work in random partners. One of our co-created Success Criteria was to use what we know about number to help us estimate. We talk about number throughout and use prior learning such as addition, subtraction and multiplication.


This amazing learner asked to lead our esti-mystery and supported Miss Marra with questioning. She got people talking about their estimate and explaining why they chose that number.

 

 

We write our estimate and change it throughout the esti-mystery as we work our way through the clues. More often than not, we have to change our estimate depending on the clues and we are provided with opportunities to share our answers.


               

This is our reaction when the answer is revealed.  We then talk about our final estimate and compare strategies.                                                                                                                                         

In Literacy, we are continuing to work on identifying and using adjectives. We have worked in random partners to write sentences with adjectives, highlight adjectives in a passage and add missing adjectives to a passage.

We are use our learning to develop our confidence using adjectives in our writing. We can all explain what an adjective is now and we can give an example. We have been working very hard!

Article 13: We have the right to find out things and share what we think with others. 


Literacy Bump It Up Wall in P3/2

 

 

 

We are working hard in Writing and we are using our Bump It Up Wall to support our learning. We have been learning to peer-assess our writing and we all know our targets. We are using our Bump It Up Wall to create individual targets too. We are so proud of all our hard work so far! Stay tuned to see some more excellent examples of our writing.

 


We have also been practising writing a description on our desks with white board pens. We are working hard to make sure we include each section of a descriptive text and we are becoming more independent. In this writing, we were describing “Tidy Teddy.” This amazing learner used some fantastic adjectives to bump her writing up.

 

This is the beginning of Ellie’s writing. We are learning to write a description and this piece of writing was describing one of our positive behaviour class animals “Positive Penguin.” Ellie has included a title, an introduction and she has started using adjectives to describe “Positive Penguin.” We cannot to see what she writes next!


We have been working so hard that we have forgotten to take more photos of our fantastic writing. We will share more of our writing with you next week and we are very excited to show our progress.

 

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

P3/2 Literacy Bump It Up Wall

 

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

are going to start using the PM approach to support us in Writing, however, we have started to think about how we can improve and “bump up” our writing using our “Literacy Bump It Up Wall.” Miss Marra showed a picture on the smart board and we had to write sentences about what we could see. It was a very exciting picture, and Mrs Robertson came to our class too. We had to write independently so Miss Marra and Mrs Robertson could see what we can write by ourselves. We spent two writing sessions working on the same piece, and we tried our very best, using a Growth Mind Set.

 

 

Miss Marra photocopied three random pieces of writing and we used a massive magnifying glass to look for what we liked about each piece of writing. We looked at our Learning Intention and Success Criteria and spoke about what we think we did well. We also identified next steps in our learning so we know how we can improve our writing. Miss Marra and Mrs Robertson are going to display this on our Bump It Up Wall in class.

We are so excited to be the first class in the school to do this.

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

 

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