This week has been very eventful, throughout the week we have had a maths focus and have been demonstrating our understanding of number in many different ways. We also took our maths outside and created balanced equations using sticks, leaves,. Stones and even tennis balls to create challenges for our friends to answer.
We found out what happened to Medusa through the learning of the story, we then recreated the story using drama. This was great fun and a brilliant way to ensure we all knew the story well.
We reflected on our Robinson Crusoe work from last year and learnt ways of turning salt water into drinking water by boiling salt water then catching the steam in a beaker. What we didn’t expect to find was all the salt left behind in the pan after the water had been evaporated.
Christmas came early this week as we planned and created our designs for Christmas cards, wrapping paper and gifts. We have all brought our work home to share with you and hopefully you will choose something that could be used as gifts. We do have to bring in the slip next week if we do want to order any items.
This week has been very hands on across all areas of the curriculum; we have enjoyed some topic work outside where we are creating our own marvellous mazes similar to the one Theseus navigated his way around when killing the Minotaur. We used all sorts to create numerous pathways which Mr Reed had to try and find his way out. Our learning this week took us to an even more terrifying creature known as Medusa, We found out how she became such a famous mythological creature. Mr Reed has assured us that next week she will meet a gruesome end.
We were thrilled when Mr Reed told us that during our Science lesson we would be making a mess!! He was not kidding, we were given the chance to turn tap water into the dirtiest water we could using mud, leaves, stones, grass and twigs. The transformation was impressive having started with tap water it now looked like the muddiest puddle ever.
We then were given various objects which we could use to make a water filter, this was great fun and in our groups we made our decisions based on what we knew about filters. With our filters made Mr Reed pored a certain amount of the muddy water into the filter and allowed the water to pass through our chosen materials. It is fair to say some filters were better than others but given the opportunity to repeat the task we were all able to say what we would do differently given the chance.
Tomorrow is Crazy Hair day so we are all wondering what Mr Reed will do as he has an obvious disadvantage.
On the Friday before we broke up for our holiday, as part of our outdoor learning we took part in a ‘Poetree’ activity. Mr Reed introduced us to this by sharing a poem that he had written about trees.
We then went outside with whiteboards and sat under, next to, near, in and around different trees in our playground and began to write poems about what we saw, felt, heard and smelt. Once we had some lines of poetry we then wrote them up on the computer.
This week we have been editing our work, we gave feedback to each other’s poems and then used the feedback to make changes to our own poems. Our new and improved poems were again typed up and then printed. We then illustrated our work before they were laminated and tomorrow we are going to place them on the trees that we wrote about.
Here are a few pictures of us as we wrote our first drafts of our ‘poetree’.
As part of our outdoor learning we were challenged to look for symmetry in nature by Mr Reed. Our first challenge was to find a leaf which when folded in half was symmetrical. After much searching we as a class had to agree that Cerys’s leaf was the most symmetrical leaf.
We then created symmetrical art using natural items that we could find on the playground and had a competition to see which was the best example of symmetry.
Throughout the week, as part of our topic we have been learning about the different gods of Ancient Greece and have been learning the connections between them. We have used what we learnt to aid our writing and included one in our writing task.
Primary 6 and Primary 7 have been invited to take part in a really exciting project which will draw upon our designing and artistic skills as we create a section of a mosaic that will be displayed here in Linlithgow. The project involves the other primary schools in the town and we are really excited to be part of it.
Mr Reed led a class discussion about the need for clean water and how so many people in the world do not have access to clean water like we do. Over the next few science lessons we will be creating different water filters to see if we are able to filter and clean water (we still will not be drinking it.) We will then look to see how clear we can get the water as it passes through various filters that we will be making.
This week has been full of fun filled learning; we ended last week with some wet weather so were not able to go outside for our outdoor learning session. Instead Mr Reed took us to the hall and provided us with various bits of equipment which we used to design our own playground games. Mr Reed allowed us the opportunity to share with the rest of the class what we had been working on as well as play our games.
During our topic sessions we have been learning about one of Mr Reed’s favourite myths, Theseus and the Minotaur. We have been learning the story and practising retelling it through remembering the key events.
During our Science lesson we were making observing how skittles dissolve in water and predicting which colours dissolve best. The lesson was great fun and created some fantastic results. We did end up with a few sweets which we were able to eat after school.
Our art work continues to focus on Henri Rousseau, this week we were collecting grass, leaves and twigs and then creating our own picture which we then attempted to draw.
Welcome back to what I can promise will be a wonderful year. We have so many new and exciting things planned for the children and I am sure as the days go on you will get to hear about some of what we have been discussing in class. Chatting with many of the children over the last couple of days it is evident that a good holiday was had by all.
Knowing the children well has allowed us to get stuck into our learning from day one, we have already started our topic and introduced our focus for art which the children seem really excited about.
I look forward to seeing many of you at our meet the teacher session on the 12th September where I will be able to share with you in more depth the areas that we plan to cover this year.
This week we have been having fun preparing for next year, we have been thinking about topics and what we would like to learn about. We have been busy creating our first display for our new classroom even before we break up.
On Friday we made a life size model of an osprey nest and found it amazing that it was so big. We managed to fit our entire class into it and there was room left over.
This week has been amazing, we have been working so hard towards our whole school production of Mary Poppins. It was great fun to be able to perform to so many adults we all felt like stars.
Today has been our moving on day, we went to our new classroom to see what it was like. We are pleased to be having Mr Reed again next year and we talked about some of our highlights from the year and some of our hopes and dreams for next year. Mr Reed has already hinted at some of the topics that we may be looking at. We have already hinted at some school trips that we would like to go on next year.
Primary 5
Dear Parents and carers, I am delighted to be moving on with the children next year and building on the wonderful year that we have shared together. The children have already been keen to plan ahead the year and what topics they would like to cover. As we all approach the end of the year, I would like to thank you for all the work you do with your children, I have greatly enjoyed hearing and reading about the various homework tasks.
It has been another fun filled week here at St. Joseph’s. We have been busy enjoying lots of fun learning. Over the week we have been regularly looking in at the osprey chicks and marvelling at how much they grow every day. We witnessed the adults bringing in fish and even a huge brown trout which was quickly gobbled up by the birds.
It was a real treat to have ‘Fishy Music’ come into school to teach us some new songs which we then sung in our very own concert.
We have been continuing our learning about Oliver Twist and finally got to meet Fagin, we had lots of fun getting to know this amazing and interesting character.
We have been learning about time during our maths sessions and are growing in confidence at using the 24 hour clock.
Thursday was our outdoor box play day and we had such fun using our imagination to build structures of all types. For some of us it was a great opportunity to see how many boxes we could actually fit in.
Friday we had our very own launch party as we formally introduce Free Write Fridays not only to the rest of the school but to all the schools in our cluster. Mr Reed has been so impressed with our work during these sessions he has not stopped telling teachers from other schools how amazing our work has been. We launched with a party in our class and the opportunity to use pens that we had made into quills. Mr Reed has said that our launch party will be seen by the other schools as we will be tweeting what we love about these sessions.
We are now at the end of what has been a wonderful term. We have had some great fun learning through our topic about sustainability. Some of our highlights from this term are:
The Fish in the Classroom project.
Our visit to the Loch
Our visit to Gooey Chocolate.
Our many outdoor learning lessons.
Making chocolate nests to sell (and eat).
Exploring Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and writing our own version of the story.
Learning and performing our poem about a ‘Tattieboggle’.
Seeing the Ospreys return to their nest.
Mr Reed has been showing us the webcam in class and we have been reading the blog that keeps us up to date with what has been happening. If all goes well we are expecting to see eggs laid in the next few days.
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