Category Archives: English & Literacy

Anytime Anywhere Learning, English & Literacy, Events, Homework, Nursery, Primary 1, Primary 2, Primary 3, Primary 5, Primary 7, Reading IDL 2016

Scottish Book Week Reading Challenges: 21st-25th November 2016

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Scottish Book Week: 21st-25th November 2016

Reading Challenge

To celebrate Scottish Book Week we are asking pupils to take a photo of themselves reading for pleasure in an usual place. To share your photo you can:

  • Tweet us your photo to @MidCalder_PS
  • P5-7 can take a photo into school on their own device (if they have signed their BYOD contract)
  • Take a copy of their photo into their class

These photos will be displayed in our new library area,

reading-challenge

SumDog Reading Contest 

We are holding a SumDog Reading Challenge from 21st -24th November. There will be a P1-2, P3-4 and a P5-7 contest.

Your child can take part in this challenge at home or in school, and the winners will be announced at Assembly on 25th November.

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Reading Open Afternoon

Parents and carers are invited to join us on Thursday 24th between 1:30-2:30pm to find out how we teach reading and how you can support reading at home.

The Nursery session will run from 10-11am for morning pupils and 1:30-2:30pm for afternoon pupils.

English & Literacy, Events, Primary 5, Reading IDL 2016

Novel Natters with Nana and Papa

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Last week Primary 4 and 5 started George’s Marvellous Medicine, their new IDL context for learning. As this will have reading as a key curricular focus, and the story follows the characters of George and his Grandma, we would like to invite our Grandmas, Grandpas and other relatives of the older generations to join us in a ‘Novel Natters’ session on Monday 21st November at 2pm. This will be a lovely opportunity for the children to read pieces of their own work to their Grandparents…we just hope that you are all a lot nicer and friendlier than George’s Grandma!

We look forward to nattering to you then.

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English & Literacy, Primary 5, Reading IDL 2016

Read All About It!

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Learning Intention: We are learning to skim and scan for information.

P5B have been using the First News newspaper to develop our reading skills this week. We learned about the skills of skimming for gist and scanning for specific information, then applied these skills when taking part in a news quiz. We were read a set of questions related to articles in this week’s First News edition and had to skim and scan to locate the answer as quickly as possible. We have also been learning how to ask and answer a range of questions about a text through our new IDL context, George’s Marvellous Medicine.

 

English & Literacy

P6’s Playscripts

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P6 have been showing great effort and creativity this week whilst writing their own playscripts.

Learning intention – We are learning to turn a scene from a story into a playscript.

Success criteria – I can include the following features of a playscript in my writing:

  • Scene number
  • Scene title
  • Stage directions to set the scene
  • Stage directions in the present tense
  • Character names
  • Speech
  • Consistent use of capitalisation, underlined text, brackets and colons

In preparation for writing our own playscripts, we read lots of examples and highlighted their main features. We discussed how stage directions were used to set the scene and show actions. Also, we looked at how dialogue was set out differently to a story. We applied all of this knowledge to writing our own playscripts with every pupil choosing a well known story to adapt. Once we had finished our writing we spent a long time assessing each other’s work, picking out evidence that met each success criteria. It has been an enjoyable process and has enhanced our experience of reading and performing the script for ‘Alice’ the musical.

English & Literacy, Expressive Arts, Primary 7, Reading IDL 2016, Uncategorized

It’s all about the acting in P7/6!

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‘Alice’ the musical is well under way and in preparation for this P7/6 have been looking at play scripts and how they differ from stories.

LI: We are learning to identify the differences between a play and a story.

SC: I can identify stage directions

I can identify dialogue.

I can confidently discuss the differences.

Pupils have been looking at a story and how this could be changed into a script. Children had to identify dialogue and stage directions then had the opportunity to write their own dialogue and stage directions and act this out in front of the class. I can safely say, we have a very talented bunch in P7/6.

All of the upper area are working very hard at the moment to perfect our performances  for the show in a few weeks time. We are very busy making props and scenery and everyone is involved. We look forward to sharing our talents with you soon.

Miss Anderson

 

English & Literacy, Reading IDL 2016

P4b’s Marvellous Character Descriptions

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Learning Intention: We are learning about the key features of a character description.
Success Criteria:
– I can discuss the key features of character descriptions and can highlight these on given examples.
– I understand what a simile is, can give an example and highlight a simile in a piece of text.
– I can plan a character description for George/Granny from George’s Marvellous Medicine using ambitious vocabulary and similes.

P4 have started their novel based IDL Topic on Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine this week. In writing, we have been looking closely at character descriptions and what key information authors include in their stories to help us build up a picture of the characters in our imagination. We worked in pairs to highlight key character information from different pieces of text and then used this to help us plan our own individual character description of George or Granny.

English & Literacy, Expressive Arts, Primary 7, Reading IDL 2016, Uncategorized

Primary 7 are “acting” up a storm!

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This term’s IDL focus, linking Literacy and Expressive Arts, is all about getting musical and creative with Alice in Wonderland.

In our Literacy lessons we have been learning about playscripts as a genre and how they differ from a traditional story text.

Learning Intention:

We are learning to identify the features of a playscript.

Success Criteria:

I can identify the purpose of a playscript text.

I can confidently discuss the differences between a fictional text and a script.

I can explain what stage directions, dialogue and actions are, relating them to how an actor would use them in real life.

We have begun working on Alice the Musical, our wonderful production, and are all busy learning lines, dance routines and movements and of course, tuning our voices to be able to sing the tracks.  We look forward to sharing our show with you and showing off all of the different talents we have in Mid Calder Primary!!

English & Literacy, Primary 3, Reading IDL 2016, Uncategorized

Primary 3 have had a Whizzpopping week!

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Frobscottle!

This week Primary 3 looked at recipes. As our topic this term is The BFG we decided to write a recipe on how to make the BFG’s favourite drink, Frobscottle! We discussed the different ingredients that would be included in the recipe and came up with a set of instructions. We then followed the recipes we had written to make and taste our very own Frobscottle. Emma thought the Frobscottle was fantastic!

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