Category Archives: Curriculum Areas

P2/1 Scottish Book Week

Primary 2/1 had a great time during Scottish Book week. We explored Cops and Robbers by Janet and Allan Ahlberg in more detail, choosing one of our favourite events and recreating it in planned role play.

During our Reading Open Afternoon, we welcomed some of our families into our classroom. Primary 1 pupils received their Book Bug Bags, and Primary 2 pupils were delighted to also receive a Read Write Count bag each. To start, the P1 pupils enjoyed an author reading of Shark in the Park on a Windy Day, while the P2s watched an author reading of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam. Thereafter we enjoyed a range of activities linked to the stories. For example, the P1s made their own telescopes (just like the main character, Timothy Pope in their story) and used them to find rhyming words around the classroom. Meanwhile the Primary 2s created their own criminal animals and choose appropriate adjectives to describe them. We also engaged in a range of reading activities which we enjoy on a daily basis within our reading lessons, such as common word games and comprehension activities.

Scottish Book Week in the Nursery

*I can explore and choose stories and other texts to watch, read and listen to, and can share my likes and dislikes.

Reading and the enjoyment of books is very important in the nursery and we have group story time every day. Different children choose the book for their group and tell the others why they chose it and what attracted them to the book. We discuss the author and illustrator and look at the picture to see if it can give us any clues about the story. After reading the book together the group talk about the characters and what they liked or didn’t like about the story. We also pay close attention to any rhyming words we might hear.

During free play time we read books to each other and sometimes the children like to be the teacher and read books to their class. The nursery love using books to help us learn and we enjoyed doing this during Scottish Book Week and every other week! Keeeeep reading!!

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Author Visit

As part of our focus on reading this session, today P1, P5 and P7 had an inspirational talk from the author, Emma Mooney. She shared where some of her ideas for writing come from, really making us think about how a simple idea can be transformed into the beginning of a whole novel. We learned about the importance of an interesting and engaging first line of a story, and were challenge to try and recognise different novels from the first sentence of the book.

When asked what advice she would given aspiring authors, Emma shared that it is extremely important to have people around you who believe in you, and to stick to the ‘not yet’ plan by not giving up, even when things get tough. We thought that this was great advice for everyone, not just those who want to become authors.

Thank you to Emma for such an encouraging and motivating talk.

PSA Christmas Fair 2016

A big thank you to everyone who showed up on Friday evening to support our school by attending our annual Christmas Fair. The PSA did a fantastic job of organising the event, and bringing the whole school community together for the festive season. It was lovely to see new members of the PSA, previous and current parents/carers, pupils past and present, members of the community and staff join together.

The fair raised the amazing total of £2,007.92! This will be added onto our Playground Fund, which brings it to the grand total of £8004.07. A big thank you to everyone who supported this event.

Alice: The Musical

Tonight and yesterday afternoon Primary 6 and 7 showcased their creative talents through Alice: The Musical! This term, the pupils through their interdisciplinary learning context of Alice invested setting and characters, looked at imagery, wrote their own scripts, compared and contrasts different versions of Alice and watched Alice Through the Looking Glass as part of the Into Film Festival.

They brought together all their musical, dramatic and artistic skills to put together a performance of Alice. A big well done to all our Primary 6 and 7 pupils who all contributed to the show in different ways, and a big thank you to our upper school staff. Thanks to the PSA who provided refreshments at the concert and to Williamston Primary for lending us their costumes. Thanks to everyone who made it along to the performance to support the children.

 

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West Lothian Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/westlothiancouncil/videos/10154200142190838/ 

Mr Anderson very kindly recorded our performance which is available on the West Lothian video channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqCLCya5doA

Green Flag Renewal!

A big congratulations to everyone on the renewal of our Eco Green Flag, especially to Mrs George and last years Eco Junior Leadership Team.

We received the following feedback from Eco School Scotland:

 I am delighted to confirm that your school has successfully renewed Eco-Schools Green Flag Award status. This is an outstanding achievement, so please pass on our congratulations to everyone involved. Interim Assessment Report Well done to everyone at Mid Calder Primary for successfully renewing your Green Flag status. I enjoyed reading your application and was pleased to see that you had maintained steady progress since your last award, monitoring progress well and sharing your successes with the wider school community via the school blog. The members of the Eco Junior Leadership team have been working hard to keep the campus litter-free, reduce waste in school and encourage a range of Biodiversity to your outside space. In addition, you are to be warmly commended for your community litter picking activities and I am sure that you will enjoy exploring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as part of your future Eco work.

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Book Week

LI We are learning to recognise rhyming words

SC I can listen carefully and identify pairs of words that rhyme

Last week, as part of Book Week Scotland, Primary 1 received their Bookbug Bag from the Scottish Book Trust. On Thursday afternoon we watched the author Nick Sharratt reading his book called Shark in the Park on a Windy Day. The grown ups who came to join us for the afternoon seemed to enjoy the story too! The story was about a little boy called Timothy Pope who looked through his telescope and thought he saw a shark in the park. But was it? We enjoyed listening to the story and joining in with the repetition. We also noticed that there were lots of rhyming words in the story. We were keen to make our own telescopes, but since we couldn’t take them to the park, we decided to use them in the classroom instead. Our task was to look through the telescope and find the rhyming words hidden around the room. Everyone worked really hard and soon all the words had been found. Very well done Primary 1, and Thank You to all the grown ups who came along to join us on our word hunt!