Primary 4 and 5 featured in the West Lothian Courier for their achievements in their Dragons’ Den context for learning.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/marvellous-dragons-den-day-mid-9595628
Category Archives: Reading IDL 2016
Dragons’ Den
Today groups from Primary 4 and 5 presented their persuasive pitches as part of a Dragons’ Den challenge linked to their topic of George’s Marvellous Medicine. They were judged by a panel of experienced Dragons including Mrs Pendry, an expert in setting up cooperative businesses, and Mrs Ross, a representative from Enterprising Schools. The standard of pitches was extremely high and all of the teams did a fantastic job in selling George’s medicine to the judges.
A huge well done to Lewis, Lexie and Ben who made up the winning team, BB Bonkers, and a big thank you to our Dragons- Mrs Ross, Mrs Pendry, Mrs McKenzie and Fraser. Thank you also to Miss Burton for setting us such a great challenge, one that we really enjoyed taking part in.
Primary 2 and 3: The BFG at Christmas!
Following their interdisciplinary context for learning on the BFG, this week Primary 2 and 3 presented their original The BFG at Christmas to our parents and carers. They showed us their creative skills through drama, singing and improvisation, well done Primary 2 and 3! Santa even made a surprise appearance at the end. Thank you to everyone who joined us.
Marvellous Advertising Posters
Learning Intention: We are learning to use persuasive techniques to create a poster advertisement.
Success Criteria:
A successful poster will include:
– A picture of the product
– The price
– A slogan
– Persuasive techniques
– Key information from the text
In P5B, we have been learning about persuasive language and techniques that advertising experts use to sell products. We used this to help us to create poster advertisements for our redesigned versions of George’s Marvellous Medicine as part of our Dragons’ Den challenge.
We were allowed to select which ICT software we thought would suit our task the best, then set to work creating our posters. We had to make sure that we used as many persuasive techniques as possible to sell our product to our customers.
When we thought we had met all of the success criteria, we posted our posters onto our Yammer page, then gave our peers two stars and a wish feedback.
We used our feedback to make changes to our poster to ensure that our final product met the criteria, and was as clear and as persuasive as we could make it.
We think you’ll agree that our final designs are very persuasive. Would you buy our ‘marvellous medicines?’
Primary 6, 7/6 and 7 Alice success!
Myself, Miss Anderson and Mr Renshaw were so proud of our pupils following the success of our Alice the Musical Show. To celebrate the hard work and dedication shown by all pupils, we held a movie premiere afternoon in class, sharing snacks and having a sing-along to our show, viewed through the West Lothian Council youtube channel. It was lovely to see how all of the different teams of pupils, pulled together to pull off a great performance.
Have look below at some of our cast photos taken on the night time performance…
Fantastic job again boys and girls,
Mrs Ross, Miss Anderson and Mr Renshaw
Book Week – Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland has taken over P7/6! During book week we have been comparing and contrasting the original Alice In Wonderland with the modern adaptions and of course the original novel by Louis Carroll. We have discovered that books can let your imagination run free and inspire you to improve your own writing. The novel has been quite challenging due to the language and craziness in it, at times it can be hard to follow and very hard to visualise what Wonderland might look like. To help us do this we have been referring back to the original Disney version of 1951.
We have used the films, the novel and of course our own ‘Alice the Musical’to inspire us to create a new front cover or a scene in Alice in Wonderland.
to inspire us to create a new front cover or a scene in Alice in Wonderland.
Miss Anderson & Cailin McKenna
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!!
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.
Advertising Expert
Today the Primary 4s and 5s had a very special visit from Martha Tod, an advertising expert, who gave us a fantastic insight into the world of adverts. As part of our IDL context, George’s Marvellous Medicine, we have been given the challenge to try and sell the idea of George’s medicine to the Dragons’ Den. As part of this challenge, we have been asked to create a company name and logo, an advertising poster and new packaging for the product.
Martha explained to us about the importance of advertising, as well as what kind of jobs someone who works in advertising would be asked to do. We looked at what makes a good logo and were challenged to search for hidden meanings and objects in some well known logos. We also learned about the importance of colour in advertisements and logos, exploring how different colours make us feel and what they represent. For example, did you know that black gives a sense of power and mystery, while purple suggests royalty, luxury and wisdom?
Thank you to Martha for giving us such great hints and tips to help us with our challenge. We have a lot to think about now!
