We welcomed everyone back to school this week for our last term in P5 including Miss Dunnigan who is with us for the first 4 weeks of the term. Quite a short term too with only 10 weeks for us.

PE Update – we have been asked to swap our PE slot on a Monday to a Tuesday to allow an external coach to use this with another class. So can pupils all please bring PE kits in on Tuesdays and Thursdays for this final term? A note has also been sent home with pupils.

Everyone has settled back into class and is looking forward to doing their best. Read on to hear what we have been doing.

• Maths – we were looking at addition and subtraction with Miss Dunnigan and which strategies we know that can help us and how to lay this down in our jotters.
• Literacy – we were looking at using our Prior Knowledge to help us with Thinking Reader this week. We looked at symbols, titles and book covers to get our minds working to help us predict what may happen when we heard a little bit more about these.
• Vikings – we were finishing off our helmets on Thursday by painting these. We hope to bring them home next week.
• PE – we started doing hockey with Miss Dunnigan. We were learning to dribble the ball and aim a shot between bean bags.
• Human Body – we were finishing off our skeletons from the last week of term and labeling the bones we have on our skeletons.
• Drama – we started some drama lessons and were learning to show expression by using our faces and arms to show emotions without saying anything. Some pupils were really good and we guessed them correctly.

Have a good weekend.

Mrs Rankin & P5

Well here we are at the end of term and we can’t believe how fast it has gone. It seems only a few weeks since we came back from the Christmas holidays. We welcomed Miss Dunnigan back to class this week and she’ll be with us for 4 weeks after the holidays as well.

Read on to hear what we have been up to:

• We started the Human Body topic with Miss Dunnigan. We were learning about skeletons and which bones make this up. We used pasta and cotton buds to create our own skeletons and we will label these after the holidays.
• In maths we were working on fractions and times tables to help improve our mental maths skills.
• In literacy we were learning about summarizing this week and making sure we read the full text and summarise all of it.
• In PE we were doing triple jump and were learning to hop, skip and jump. There were a few who may have an Olympic future!
• We were preparing for our trip to Sky Academy and had to be split into 4 Studios and then each take on a role of either: editor, producer, reporter, presenter, expert, eyewitness and camera operators. We chose the topic is a volcano to do in our news report. Read below for more on our trip.

We had our trip to Sky Academy today and what a day! Everyone really enjoyed it and want to go back. The team at Sky were great and made sure everyone was involved with the news report. We worked between 4 studios which meant we had to communicate with each studio to find out what they were working on so our full news report flowed nicely. We got a tour of Sky 3 and heard about the jobs that people did in there. It was all really interesting. At the end, we got to view our full news report in the mini cinema. We were all really excited to see it as we hadn’t seen any of it. We all got a USB wristband with our video on it so hopefully these have been shared!

Some pictures of our skeletons and Sky Academy.

Have a lovely time over the Easter holidays and we’ll be back on Tuesday 23rd April!

Enjoy.

P5 & Mrs Rankin

Another week closer to the Easter holidays and our parent’s have been in to see Mrs Rankin this week for Parent’s Evening. It was nice to see everyone and to share what the pupils have been doing in class this year.

Letters went home this week about our trip to Sky Academy next Friday, 5th April. These need to be returned to school ASAP to allow the office staff to complete the administration for this trip. We are all really looking forward to the trip!

Read on to hear what else we have been doing.

• Leannah – today we took part in the Special Peron’s Assembly.
• Madison – we were practicing for the Special person’s Assembly.
• Leona – in PE we were working on our sprinting technique.
• Mia – our parents came in to see Mrs Rankin this week.
• Leona – we continued with fractions in maths.
• Anna – we did some Mother’s Day colouring in this morning.
• Danny – some of us brought in our shoe boxes to do our personal talks. Some people have to still to do these and will do them next week.
• All – we were working on our Shot Put skills in PE on Monday.
• All – we were looking at the main ideas of texts for Thinking Reader.

Next week Miss Dunnigan is back at Letham for another 5 weeks, which she’ll continue with after the Easter holidays. Everyone is looking forward to welcoming her back to P5.

Have a nice weekend!

P5 & Mrs Rankin

Back to normal this week with out Blog timing. We have had a busy week as always with lots going on, including the West Lothain Sumdog competition!  Read to on to hear all about it.

• Mrs Rankin is very proud of everyone in class as they all worked brilliantly as a team and made it into the top ten for the competition! We finished up in 7th position with everyone receiving house points and extra points for those who managed to complete all of their questions and showed great enthusiasm for the competition to see P5 do well!
• Leona – in PE we started working on Athletics and were looking at the different races with runners compete in. We worked on our starting positions, timing each other doing different starting positions to see which was the best one.
• Junior – we had the P3 class assembly which we all really enjoyed and made us think about our use of plastic and recycling this safely.
• Anna – we were painting our Viking helmets on Thursday afternoon, putting the first layer on these.
• Rhys – we were playing Sumdog on Thursday to see if we could get back into the top ten.
• Leannah – there was a House Party on Wednesday afternoon and we were doing Mary Poppins singing and dancing for that.
• Cameron – Leona, Mrs Rankin and I went to Dedridge Primary School with 2 P6s on Wednesday afternoon. We were hearing all about how they use technology in their school lessons. It was really interesting and fun.
• Lucas – the boys Nurture Group went to Beecraigs on Wednesday afternoon with Mrs Gray.
• Blair – we were continuing on with Fractions in maths, finding other fractions which are the same.
• Gordon – Mrs Zohoorian is collecting boxes for her next projects for classes.
• Danny – there was a Girl’s Night In on Thursday after school – Boy’s Night will be Wed 3rd April.
• Madison – Mrs Zohoorian had us looking at surveys and completing these for STEM.

Here are some pictures from this week and last week as promised.

Parent’s Evening is next Wed & Thu from 3.40pm – 6pm. Some parents have already made appointments and some still have to make these online. Any issues with booking an appointment, please call the office. Mrs Rankin gave everyone letters with the details of how to book last week.

Have a lovely weekend.

P5 & Mrs Rankin

A little bit late for last week, we apologise! Things were just a bit hectic with the Science event being held on Friday morning so we updated Mrs Rankin on Monday morning with our news. Please read on to hear what we were up to last week.

• Junior – we has visitors in school on Friday morning who have jobs where they need science subjects. We were talking to a man, Bryan, who works for a company where he gets to travel the world and his company works with Apple.
• Cameron – another visitor at the science event was a lady that had a bit of a lambs brain and someone else who looked at volcanic rocks and fossils – it was really good hearing about these jobs.
• Esau – we started a Sumdog competition between the West Lothian schools – this lasts for a week and is our maths homework for next week.
• Kerry – for warm-up in PE this week, we all played Line Tig and really enjoyed this.
• Abby – we were working on our second coat of paper mache for our Viking helmets – very messy!
• Blair – we made boats with Mrs Zohoorian and had to test if they floated or sank.
• Mia – we were practicing our French days of the week and singing songs to remind us.

We’ll add extra pictures next week to show you what’s been going on in class!

P5 & Mrs Rankin

World Book Day activities have kept us busy this week along with our usual curriculum. This week was also Miss Dunnigan’s last week with us until 1st April when she returns for anther 5 week block in our class. Please read on to hear what we have been doing.

• Maths – we continued on with Fractions with Mrs Rankin looking at improper and mixed number fractions. Miss Dunnigan finished off her Time sessions with us.
• Literacy – this week we were looking at WOW words for out Thinking Reader tool kit. For grammar we were looking at using did and done
• Cartoonist – we had a visit from Neil Slorance on Tuesday who is a cartoonist who drew some Dr Who comics. He came int to give P5 & P6 some advice on drawing characters and creating cartoons. We all really enjoyed it. Mrs Rankin let us create a character and draw our own comic strips on Thursday – some of these are really good!
• World Book Day Activities – We have had a whole load of different tasks relating to World Book Day this week. We have had a Book Treasure Hunt out in the playground, we had the visit from Neil Slorance, we had to complete a story which had been started for us about Miss Wallace, we had to write or draw about a favourite book we have read, we all received our World Book Day books on Thursday, we had snack and read for parents to come along, we had a whole school snack and read today in the gym hall where we got to see everyone in their PJs or costumes – it really has been such a busy week!
• Visitors – we had a group of Algerian head teachers visit Letham on Thursday and they popped into our class to see what we were doing. They were asking us questions about our learning and we made them feel welcome.

Here are a few pictures from this week.

Homework was passed out on Tuesday for the P5 Shoe Box Challenge. This is for everyone to give a talk to the class about themselves and their interests – this should only last 2-3 minutes. Items don’t need to be in shoe box if you don’t have one and all items will be brought home once they have completed their talks. I hope to do these w/c 25th Mar & w/c 1st Apr. Please see the details they should have brought home.

Next week is Science week so there will be some great things going on!

Have a nice weekend.

P5 & Mrs Rankin

It’s Friday again and we’re reflecting our week and what we have been learning. Please read below to see what has been going on in P5 this week.

• Daniel – we were working on a code breaker in Music – everyone had a different code to crack!
• Amelia S – P3/4 class assembly this morning which was really good.
• Anna – we decorated our classroom door for World Book Day – since we have read the World’s Worst Children we have used this to decorate our door!
• Leannah – we started making Viking helmets out of paper mache.
• Leona – we were doing improper fractions in maths.
• Katie – we learned a new music song with Miss Dunnigan – it’s called Pass the Beat Around.
• Cameron – in PE we were doing tennis.
• Danny – we did a tennis challenge to keep the ball balanced on it.
• Anna – we also worked on our serves for tennis.
• Junior – Cameron and Kerry received certificates from our swimming assessments. Well done!
• Amelia S – we did Time with Miss Dunnigan in maths.
• Esau – we finished off our leaflets in writing making sure we met out success criteria. We will peer assess these next week.
• Anna – everyone who wore uniform received 2 house points for each day we wore it. 10 house points wer up for grabs!
• Katie – for grammar with week we were looking at using there, their and they’re to make sure we know which one we should use.
• Danny – Mr Hunter spoke to us about the Momo challenge and how to keep ourselves safe online. Then we found out it is fake news and is not real.
• Kerry – we finished off our characters for our book door – we all created our own World’s Worst Child with our heads for our classroom door.
• Abby – it’s my birthday on Sunday.

Next week is World Book week and pupils were given a letter to bring home with all the activities the school is doing for this. Thursday is when the Book Fair will be on for children to buy a book – if you would like them to buy book, please ensure they have money on Thursday. We are dressing up on Friday – either as a character from a book or wear our pyjamas to school. We are having ‘Big Booky Breakfast’ because ‘books aren’t just for bedtime’.

Here’s a few pictures from our paper mache helmets. We will hopefully get start painting them next week.

Have a good week!

P5, Mrs Rankin & Miss Dunnigan

We have had a shorter week after our half-term holiday last weekend but still managed to fit in a lot of learning! Please read on to hear what has been happening in P5.

• Abby – In maths with Mrs Rankin we were using Plickers to see how much we had remembered about fractions.
• Madison – we had music with Miss Dunnigan on Thursday afternoon.
• Amelia S – in music we were playing the drums again keeping the beat.
• Esau/Leona – we were creating our own leaflets in writing this week. We were researching and planning how we want out leaflet to look.
• Amelia B/Junior – we had PE with Miss Dunnigan and we continued with tennis and learning about the forehand and backhand passes.
• Blair – also during tennis we were learning to throw and hit the ball.
• Daniel – in maths with Miss Dunnigan we continued with Time.

Just a few reminders for everyone:

• PE kits are required on our PE days which are a Monday and Thursday – some pupils keep these in class and some bring them in on PE days which is great. However as a class, we are down to single figures for PE kits.
• Gym shoes/trainers are also required on PE days. This is for everyone’s safety in the gym hall. If pupils are not wearing suitable clothing/footwear, they may be asked to sit out of these lessons.
• Fridays – full uniform should be worn on a Friday unless the school advises of a dress down day or other dress code for special days e.g. World Book Day.
• Our next non-uniform day will be Friday 8th March – dress in your pyjamas or as a book character.

Thank you for supporting the Letham Way.

Have a nice weekend.

P5 & Mrs Rankin

Here we are at half-term and looking forward to our long weekend. We have had a good week with our focus on Scotland Loves Languages and having some parents visit us on Thursday afternoon to see what we have been doing. Read on to hear what else we have been up to in class.

• Junior/Daniel – we did music with Miss Dunnigan this week – we were learning about beats and rhythm and created our own rhythms for a partner to copy.
• Gordon – we were doing using our fraction knowledge for a Valentine code cracker in maths.
• Cameron – on Newsround this week we were hearing about a boy who might end up growing up to be the new Usain Bolt.
• Abby – we found out in assembly that the new STEM Ambassador is Kacey in P7.
• Esau – Mrs Zohoorian had us using the laptops to research prosthetic legs (running blades).
• Amelia B – we had PE with Miss Dunnigan. We have started a block of Tennis with her.
• Mia – it was Scotland Loves Languages week this week. We were greeting everyone in Lithuanian saying “Labas” each morning which means hello.
• Danny/Kerry – we have started looking at Time in maths with Miss Dunnigan.
• Amelia S – Parents came into class on Thursday afternoon to see what we had been learning about for Scotland Loves Languages week. We have a few parents join us.
• Lucas – for Thinking Reader this week we were looking at summarizing and we were summarizing some of our reading, a poem and a short cartoon.
• Junior – Danny was teaching us some Lithuanian this week after we greeted one another in his language.

We are on holiday on Monday and Tuesday so everyone is back on Wednesday next week.

Have a lovely extra long weekend!

P5 & Mrs Rankin

What a super fast week we have had in P5. February will be over before we know if it continues to go this fast. We have a new addition to our class for the next few weeks. Miss Dunnigan has joined us for 5 weeks and will be back after Easter for another 5 weeks. She will be taking the class for some lessons during her time with us and the class have been really welcomed her!

Please read on to hear what else we have been up to.

• Amelia S – we had PE this week and playing basketball games.
• Kerry – Miss Dunnigan is here to see what we do in P5.
• Robert – Miss Dunnigan took us for a lesson to get to know us and we did a quiz all about her.
• Leona – we did RME with Mrs Zohoorian. We were learning about the Chinese New Year and coloured in dragons.
• Leannah – we did handwriting this morning.
• Junior – there was no assembly this week.
• Anna – we were doing information writing on Up Helly Aa.
• Madison – Mia and I were designing Goddesses in relation to our Viking topic.
• Esau – we made t-shirts about ourselves to hang in the classroom.
• Ameila S – in maths we were doing fractions.
• Leannah – we were doing note taking about Up Helly Aa.
• Leona, Kerry, Amelia S & Amelia B – we went to the Parent Council meeting to talk about idea for the new Letham Primary accessories – headbands, bows and bow ties.

Have a great weekend.

P5 & Mrs Rankin