Category Archives: Reading IDL 2016

Achievements, Community, English & Literacy, Events, Expressive Arts, Fundraising, Musical, Primary 7, Reading IDL 2016, Uncategorized

Alice: The Musical

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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

Events, Nursery, Primary 1, Primary 2, Primary 3, Primary 5, Primary 7, Reading IDL 2016, Uncategorized

Mid Calder Reading Challenge

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To celebrate Book Week Scotland,  MCPS were set a reading challenge- to take a photo of ourselves reading for pleasure in an unusual place. We were inundated with weird and wonderful pictures of some very unusual places, and it looks like everyone had lots of fun taking part in the challenge. A big well done to all those who tweeted us their photos, or brought them into school on paper or on their own device.

 

Even some of the staff got involved…

English & Literacy, Primary 1, Reading IDL 2016

Book Week

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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!

 

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

Primary 7 Book Week

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In Primary Seven, we have celebrated Book Week by focusing our work on comparing and contrasting the modern and older adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, with the original Lewis Carroll novel.

We have found some challenges when reading the novel – the language used when the book was originally written in 1865, has been difficult to follow at times whilst reading.  We have also found that Lewis Carroll is a less descriptive author, compared to some modern day authors, therefore we have found visualising Wonderland quite challenging.  We have had to refer back to the 1951 Disney version to help us to think about setting.

We are currently working on developing our knowledge of what a synopsis is and how to write one, within the context of a film review.  We’re looking forward to being able to give our “Star Ratings” to each of the versions we have studied.

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

P5B’s Booktastic Assembly

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On Friday, P5B presented our love of books and reading in our class assembly. We also shared the reading skills we have been developing through our IDL context for learning, George’s Marvellous Medicine.

Questioning:

We have been learning to ask and answer a range of questions about a text. We looked at what makes a quality question and know that it has to make someone think hard about a text. We wrote a set of questions about the first two chapters of the book, then tested our partners on them.

Predicting:

We have been learning to use clues from a text to make realistic predictions. We used these skills to write chapter 7 of George’s Marvellous Medicine, which we then shared with our Grandparents at our Novel Natters session.

Visualising:

We have been learning to use key words and phrases from a text to create images in our mind. This week, we had to select the words and phrases that the author uses when he described what happened when Grandma took the medicine and discuss how these stimulated our senses and helped us to visualise the scene.

Book Week Scotland

Here are some of the ways we celebrated Book Week Scotland:

English & Literacy, Interdisciplinary Learning, Reading IDL 2016

P4b – Marvellous Freeze Frames

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LI: We are learning to create a freeze frame of a key moment in the text.

SC: I can work with others.
I can consider body language, facial expressions and use of props.
I can perform my drama to others and accept and provide constructive feedback.

In P4b this week we have been using drama to further develop our understanding of George’s Marvellous Medicine IDL Context. In groups, we were given a key moment from the text and asked to create a freeze frame/still image to represent this. We had to consider: body language, facial expressions and use of props (imaginative and physical). Once we had prepared our freeze frames, our classmates then had to use the freeze frame to guess which part of the text is being represented.

 

English & Literacy, Events, Reading IDL 2016, Uncategorized

P4A Making Predictions

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P4A Predictions 

We have had a tremendous amount of fun this week, developing our reading skills by learning how to select clues from the text to help us make realistic predictions. We read chapter 7 in George’s Marvellous Medicine, selecting clues from the text to help us predict what might happen to Grandma. Then we wrote what our predictions were following on from when George gives Grandma her medicine. During our ‘Natters to Nannas and Papa’s’ event,  we asked what our own Grandparents/family members thought of our predictions and how accurate they thought they were.

LI: We are learning to use what we know about the text to make predictions.

SC: I know that my genre of text determines how realistic my predictions need to be.

I can select key themes, information and identify the author’s style to help e make suitable                             predictions.

Thank you to those who came to hear our predictions.

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English & Literacy, Reading IDL 2016

Studying Settings in P6

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Over the last couple of weeks Primary 6 have been learning all about how authors create effective settings.

Learning intention:

We are learning to identify how different authors create settings.

Success criteria:

I can identify the key features of a good setting.

I can identify the language used to describe a setting.

We chose 3 different extracts to study: Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden and Peter Pan. We selected key phrases and words that the authors used to describe their setting and evaluated how effective we thought they were. Also, we discussed the similarities and differences between the texts. Next, we are going to apply what we have learned to create a piece of writing that describes a setting from Alice in Wonderland. We will have to create our own descriptive words and phrases that suit the genre of text and the author’s style.

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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