Category Archives: Interdisciplinary Learning

English & Literacy, Primary 2, Primary 3, Reading IDL 2016, Uncategorized

Primary 2/3 and Primary 3 Have a ‘Gigantosaurus’ Reading Afternoon!

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This week Primary 2/3 and Primary 3 listened to the author John Duddle read his book Gigantosaurus! Emma (P3) enjoyed listening to the author read his own book! Parents were invited to come and watch us do our reading activities.

Some groups had the opportunity to look at dinosaur books and use the internet to collect some interesting facts. Liam (P3) found a fun fact: Dinosaurs are now extinct! Oscar (P2/3) found an interesting fact: The crocodile and other lizards are related to the dinosaurs! Lewis C (P3) enjoyed reading about dinosaurs: A T-Rex’s brain is the size of a cucumber!

Another group had the opportunity to create their own dinosaur and label the parts of the body using adjectives. Eilidh (P3) enjoyed describing the dinosaurs using different adjectives. Cara (P2/3) enjoyed looking at the dinosaur pictures to give her ideas for interesting adjectives!

We also had to match rhyming words from the book and create dinosaur speech bubbles!

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

Reading Open Afternoon

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As part of Scottish Book Week Primary 1 to 7 invited their family and relatives to teach them all about reading. Parents got to experience what a reading lesson is like in their child’s class and the range of activities and resources available. They were also given tips on how to support their child at home.

P4-5 leaflet: supporting-reading-at-home-

Tips for supporting reading in the early years at home.

Tips for supporting reading at primary stages at home.

What is Literacy in Curriculum for Excellence?

Reading book lists from the Scottish Trust.

The Nursery had a pop in and play event, allowing parent and relatives to see how their child learns through play in the Nursery.

Thank you to everyone who attended.

Achievements, Anytime Anywhere Learning, Community, Events, Maths & Numeracy, Technologies, Uncategorized

West Lothian SumDog Maths Champs!

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Primary 4b pupils at Mid Calder Primary School have come first in the West Lothian SumDog Maths competition run across all West Lothian Council Primary Schools. Donna McMaster, Head of Education (Development) at West Lothian Council representatives from SumDog visited the school  yesterday to congratulate the class and to present them with their winning trophy.

Anytime Anywhere Learning, English & Literacy, Primary 5, Reading IDL 2016, Technologies

Reading in P5A

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We are learning to visualise characters, settings and actions by reading the text closely.

  • I can use my imagination to form pictures in my mind.
  • I can select the key language the author uses to help me to create pictures and can justify my thinking.
  • I can use my own experiences to make connections.

This week in reading we were learning about the skill of visualisation. We started by visualising people in the school and our partner had to guess who we were talking about from our clues.

Next we listened to chapter 7 of George’s Marvellous Medicine and we had to made notes oh how the author visualised characters, setting and actions. Now we will use this knowledge to help us create a piece of writing.

As part of Scottish Book week we have been running different events:

Novel Natters 

Primary 4 and 5 invited our Nanas, Papas and relatives of the older generation into school and we read a piece of our own writing linked to our IDL context for learning, George’s Marvellous Medicine. We had been asked to use our prediction skills to write chapter 7 of the book, using clues from the text and our knowledge of the author’s style to help us to make a realistic continuation of the story. Our Grandparents gave us ‘Nana’s Notions and Papa’s Praise’ feedback.

Book Week Afternoon

On Tuesday afternoon in P4 and P5 we had the choice of 2 different reading activities:

  • Creating a story using apps on the iPad
  • drama
  • reading games
  • using Purple Mash to create an animation

Miss Burton’s group created an animation of a book they had read. Click below to view some of the animations.

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNDMx Freiah

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNTg1 Freya and Niamh

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNDU3 Joel and Sorley

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNzAx Maya

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNzEw  Theo

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNzIw Saskia

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNzI4 Matthew C

https://www.purplemash.com/?~c3c9MjMxNzM5  Oliver

Reading in an Unusual Place

As part of Book Week we have asked pupils to tweet or bring in a photo of them reading in an usual place.

Anytime Anywhere Learning, Primary 1, Primary 2, Primary 3, Primary 5, Primary 7, Pupil Council, School Improvement Plan, Technologies

School Improvement Plan: Pupil Version

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At our Pupil Council Meeting this week we looked at the School Improvement Plan and what this would look like, sound like and feel like in our school. The pupils worked together in small groups to use OneNote to collaborate together using the one document, with the other pupils supporting the younger ones.

Here is a copy of our School Improvement Plan in a child friendly version: pupil-version-sip-16-17

Anytime Anywhere Learning, Events, Primary 5, Technologies

YamJam

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This year, Primary 5B have been using Yammer to share their learning through their IDL contexts, George’s Marvellous Medicine and the Romans. We use Yammer to access useful websites, contribute our thoughts and ideas and to share new facts we have learned.

Today, we took part in a live YamJam session where we had the opportunity to ask questions about Yammer to some of the administrators of the Glow Yammer Network. We asked some thoughtful questions, and were able to answer other people’s questions as well.

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

Novel Natters with Nana and Papa

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Yesterday, Primary 4 and 5 invited our Nanas, Papas and relatives of the older generation into school to join us for a Novel Natters session. We read a piece of our own writing linked to our IDL context for learning, George’s Marvellous Medicine. We had been asked to use our prediction skills to write chapter 7 of the book, using clues from the text and our knowledge of the author’s style to help us to make a realistic continuation of the story.

Our Grandparents gave us ‘Nana’s Notions and Papa’s Praise’ feedback, sharing what they thought we had done well in our prediction, what their favourite part was and ideas of how we could have made our piece even better. They even gave us a star rating.

We absolutely loved our Novel Natters session, so a big thank you to all those who attended. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

English & Literacy, Events, Primary 2, Primary 3, Primary 5, Primary 7, Reading IDL 2016

Into Film Festival

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The Into Film Festival is a free, annual, nationwide celebration of film & education for 5-19 year olds and as a school we have attended the festival for the past 3 years. After the pupils have watched the film they analyse it in class and complete a film review activity.

Primary 4 watched Ice Age Collision Course, Primary 5 watched Inside Out and P6-7 viewed Alice Through the Looking Glass in 3D.

Primary 3 and 3/2 visited Edinburgh Zoo to view My Neighbour Totoro a Japanese fantasy film. They also took part in a workshop and had a quick tour around the Zoo.

Thank you to all the parent helpers who helped support the cinema visits.

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.

sumdog-logo

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.