All posts by Miss Sherlow

Community, Events, Interdisciplinary Learning, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 5

Getting our business heads on in the Middle Area

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This afternoon, P4, P5/4 and P5 were lucky enough to have a second visitor to come and help them with their IDL topic, Grand Designs. Mrs Deerness, the school’s Business Manager, spoke to the middle area about her job of helping Mid Calder Primary to make the most of our school budget from West Lothian Council. We learnt all about council tax and what this is used for, how much money our school is given to spend each financial year and what this might be spent on. Mrs Deerness even told us how much money is given to spend on each individual pupil in the school, which made us appreciate all of the resources we have even more! We asked lots of thoughtful questions to deepen our understanding about budgets and finance.

A big thank you to Mrs Deerness for coming in to speak to us. We know that this knowledge of budgeting will help us when we are making the tough decisions in our classroom designs.

English & Literacy, Homework, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 2, Primary 3, Primary 5, Primary 7, Supporting homework, Uncategorized, Useful Websites

Sumdog

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As P3-P7 now have access to Sumdog to support their learning in maths, and P2-P7 have it to support their learning in reading, P5 buddied up with P3/2 today to show them the wonders of Sumdog. The Primary 5s showed their buddy how to login, how to play some of the games, how to earn coins as well as explained how to get their first pet and how to decorate their Sumdog house.

Sumdog will be used to support learning in school, but can also be accessed at home where the children can complete challenges set by their class teacher. They can access this account at home by using the log in provided in their homework diary/book.

To access Sumdog, go to: https://www.sumdog.com

Homework, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 5, Supporting homework

It’s Maths O’Clock in Primary 5!

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Learning Intention: We are learning to tell the time on digital and analogue clocks (MNU 1-10a)

Success Criteria:
I can recognise and show time on analogue and digital clocks
I can answer simple problems involving time
I can talk about am and pm times

In Miss Sherlow’s maths class, we have started a new unit on time. We have been learning about how people use time in their daily lives, and now we are learning how to tell the time on both digital and analogue clocks. In our class today, we started by recapping some key time vocabulary- o’clock, quarter past, half past, quarter to, am and pm etc. We then discussed that the clock can be read in 5 minute intervals and used our knowledge of the 5 times tables to help with this. We used our counting stick to count up in 5 minute intervals starting at a variety of different times. We then played a game using our learning hats where we wrote a time secretly on a post it, then stuck it to our partners head. Each person had to guess what time they were given by asking questions e.g. is the hour even? Is the time before 5pm?

We then split into our groups:

1. Teaching table- we were learning to use am and pm times and write them as 24 hour times.
2. Sumdog group- Time Challenge.
3. Game group- Pass O’Clock– we set a clock at 3pm then flipped a coin. If we rolled a heads, we moved the time on 5 minutes. If we rolled a tails, we moved the time on 10 minutes. We had to read the time each time. First to 5 Hours- we rolled a dice 3 times with each dice showing how many lots of 5 minutes we had (e.g. a 3 would equal 3 lots of 5 minutes, so 15 minutes). When we reached 60 minutes, we received a counter. The winner was the first person to get 5 counters.

You can support your child’s learning at home by: asking your child to read the time from both digital and analogue clocks regularly; discussing time durations (e.g. how long it takes to walk to the shop, how long it would take to drive to your Granny’s house etc.) and by asking the difference between two times (e.g. how many minutes between 5.34pm and 6.03pm). You could also try making your own learning hats at home and challenging your child to guess the time.

Community, Interdisciplinary Learning, Primary 5, Uncategorized

Grand Designs

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This afternoon, the middle area were lucky enough to have a special visitor to come and help them with their IDL context, Grand Designs. Mr Cargill, the Depute Headteacher at West Calder High School, came to share some wisdom and words of advice based on his experiences of being involved in the design of the new high school. He discussed the budget for the school, how some of the money might be spent, and how he knows that tough budgeting decisions will have to be made based on what’s best for the learners and staff in the school. He also shared the questions that those involved in this process have been asking themselves, some of which were the questions we have been asking during our own design challenge. We also learned about the different places Mr Cargill has gone to find ideas to help him. He even travelled as far as Liverpool to visit a newly built school, speak to those who now learn and work in the school, and to take pictures to remember ideas that he liked. Although we might not make it to England to  get some great ideas, we were certainly inspired by the creative layouts and designs he showed us.

A big thank you to Mr Cargill for sharing his experiences. We can’t wait to use what we have learned in our classroom designs and to share our finished designs with him!

 

Interdisciplinary Learning, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 5

Primary 5 measure up, but does our classroom?

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Learning Intentions:
We are learning what a budget is and why it is important
We are learning to prioritise within a budget

We are learning to measure in cm and metres

Success Criteria:
I understand what a budget is and what it does
I can prioritise my choices and justify my selection
I can select the most efficient operation and calculate accurately

I can measure using rulers, measuring tapes and meter sticks
I can measure to the nearest cm

This week, the classes in the middle area received a special challenge from Miss Thompson- to redesign our classrooms for the 21st century! Miss Thompson is going to set us a budget, and we will use this to help us to create a design for a new room. We need to make sure that it is a classroom that is ready for us to learn and for our teachers to teach, but with some exciting new features!

To help us develop the skills we will need to complete this challenge, we started with a task in small groups where we had to plan a party with a budget of £200. We used our knowledge of the four operations to work out what we had spent and how much we had left. We presented our ideas to our peers and had to justify and explain our choices. This helped us to understand what a budget is, why it is important, as well as how to find clever ways to help us to stick to it.

Next, to get ready for the design aspect of our challenge, we had use the skills we have been learning in our class maths to measure different parts of our classroom so we know how much space we have to work with. We used a variety of measuring apparatus to measure objects in meters and centimeters, and even had to use a decimal point. We developed our teamwork and communication skills by working closely with our group to make decisions and to share out the task equally.

We can’t wait to get planning our designs! Watch this space…

Homework, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 5

We certainly measure up in Primary 5!

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Learning Intention:
We are learning to estimate and measure items and then check to see how close I was – Length (MNU 2-11b, MNU 2-11a)

Success Criteria:
I can use the vocabulary and metric units of length
I can select and use appropriate equipment to measure the lengths of different items considering how accurate I need to be
I can choose and use suitable units to measure the lengths of items, converting when appropriate, and can present my answer
I can compare my measurement with my estimate to see if my answer was sensible

In our class maths lessons, we have been learning about different ways of measuring things, why you would measure and the instruments you can use to help you. This week, we focused on measuring length and created a list of the key vocabulary we might use, including longest, shortest, width, height, distance, centimeters, meters, millimetres and more… In our teaching group, we looked at the value of estimating and how this can help us, then we were given objects to guess the length, width and height of. We checked our answers using a variety of measuring instruments and even used decimal points when recording the measurements in meters and centimeters, or centimeters and millimeters. In our game group, we were challenged to measure different body parts, for example, the length from the tip of our thumb to our pinkie, or from one ear to the other. We also demonstrated our knowledge of measure using Sumdog, an activity that we can also work on at home.

An extra challenge: can you measure the length of some of the objects around your house and comment with your findings below?

English & Literacy, Events, Primary 5, Winter Ready P5

Pure dead braw poems for P5!

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To celebrate the life and works of Robert Burns and other Scottish poets, Primary 5 have been asked to learn one of the three poems in the link below. We will be reciting our poems in class on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, with two class representatives then being selected to perform at the Burns Assembly on Friday 22nd January. But dinnae fret and keep the heid! There will be time given in class to prepare 🙂

Primary 5 Poems

To show that you are Winter Ready and are able to access the blog if the school is closed, please comment your name and the poem you have chosen to perform below.

Events, Primary 5

Primary 5 Christmas Party

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“Tis the season to be jolly…” and Primary 5 were certainly feeling jolly on Monday when they celebrated at the P5 Christmas Party.

We kicked off the party with a game of Corners followed by a very impressive game of Musical Statues that Miss Sherlow, Mr Renshaw and Miss Burton found extremely difficult to judge because everyone was so good! Next, we played an energetic game of Musical Arms, then Pass the Parcel. After that, we stopped for a bite to eat in to replenish our energy, then got back to party mode with another game of Musical Arms. We finished our party by showing off our dance moves in the Primary 5 Dance Off. Everyone had a fantastic afternoon :) Merry Christmas Primary 5!

Uncategorized

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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As part of our topic, Primary 5 made a video all about the knowledge and skills they have been developing through their IDL context, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. During our assembly, one of the characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mike Teavee, was getting a little ‘bored’ of listening to all of the interesting information we had been sharing. He decided he wanted to watch TV instead…