Category Archives: Learning Stories

Buddying up for Purple Mash

As P1-P7 have access to Purple Mash to support their learning, P5B buddied up with P2/1 today to show them how to use this fantastic resource. The Primary 5s showed their buddy how to login, how to play some of the games, how to access the different tools and how to watch videos linked to the games they were playing.

Purple Mash will be used to support learning in school, but can also be accessed at home where the children can complete activities set by their class teacher or just explore the games and tools themselves. They can access this account at home by using the log in provided in their homework diary/book.

To access Purple Mash, go to:
https://www.purplemash.com/sch/midcalder-EH53

P7/6 WW2 Leaders

LI: We are learning to identify the leaders of the ‘Allied’ and ‘Axis’ Countries.

All of the children worked in groups to research one of the five leaders – Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini. Once the children had completed their leader they then began to draw a life size picture. When all leaders are complete, each group will present their leader and mini biography to the rest of the class.

As our topic is WW2, we have been letting the air raid siren off during different times of the day to give the children some experience of what it might be like during the war. As you can see from our pictures below the children know exactly what to do. Can anyone spot Katie?

I hope you all have a lovely September weekend.

Miss Anderson

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P2/1 Literacy

Today Primary 2/1 enjoyed a literacy morning.

P1

LI: We are learning about the sound /t/.

SC: I understand where and how I make the sound.

SC: I can recognise the letter shape for /t/.

SC: I can identify words with the initial sound /t/.

SC: I can form the letter shape for /t/ correctly.

The P1s learned all about a new sound, ‘t’. After being introduced to ‘t’ using interactive resources, we enjoyed lots of different activities to help us learn about the new sound and revisit others.

We played a game of popcorn, where the children pop up if they hear a word beginning with ‘t’.

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We used a variety of multi-sensory resources to make the letter shape.

“We used the slime to make it” Erin

“We made a twinkling ‘t’.” Charlie

“We were also writing on the mini boards.” Cayla

“With the wee beads we made a ‘t’.” Amber

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They also demonstrated their understanding of which sounds are long and stretchy, and which are short and bouncy.

“We were stretching for the long and stretchy sounds like ‘m’. Jake.

“We were doing short and bouncy. We jumped.” Imogen

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Grace’s favourite thing this morning was making ‘t’ with putty.

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P2

LI: We are learning to self-assess our writing using ‘Tickled Pink and Green for Growth.

SC: I can read my writing carefully.

SC: I can identify things in my writing which achieve the success criteria and highlight them pink.

SC: I can identify things in my writing which do not achieve the success criteria and highlight them green.

SC: I can talk about what I have done well and what I could try harder to achieve next time.

The Primary 2s are learning to self-assess their writing using ‘Tickled Pink and Green for Growth’. First they read their writing very carefully. As they read, they identified things in their writing which match the success criteria and highlighted them pink. Anything which didn’t quite meet the success criteria they highlighted green. We were very pleased with all of the pink in our writing jotters! 😀

The highlighting lets us consider what we have done really well, and create targets for the next time we write. For example, after self-assessing her writing this morning, Isla M said “I put all of my full stops in the right place, and I’m going to work on doing some openers next time.” Finlay said “I put two connectives in, which you asked for. Next time I’ll remember to put capital letters at the start of every sentence.”

Once we are confident using ‘Tickled Pink and Green for Growth’, we will start to peer assess each other’s writing. We can’t wait to see how much this technique improves the quality of our writing!

 

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P3’s Rainforest Poems

Liam Logan Kaitlin Wilson Ciara Ritchie Dean Hunter Eilidh Taylor

Our topic this term is The Rainforest. We have been working hard to write poems about The Rainforest using our 5 senses!

Our learning intention:

We are learning to write a poem about The Rainforest.

 

Our success criteria:

I can write a sentence about what I can see, hear, touch, taste and smell in the rainforest.

I can use an adjective in each sentence to describe the rainforest.

I can check that my writing makes sense.

 

Description of Activities:

We started by using a mind map to note down words of things we could see, smell, taste, touch and hear. Miss Clark played rainforest music in the background to help us imagine that we were in the rainforest.

We then had to put our senses words into sentences and use an adjective to describe the rainforest.

Once we had written our sentences we had to pick which ones we wanted to use in our poems. We had to start each line with ‘I can’ and include a senses word and an adjective.

We really enjoyed writing our poems and sharing them with the class.

Ben enjoyed reading his poem out to the class and felt confident!

Ciara enjoyed imagining that she was in the rainforest to help her add words to her mind map.

Sophie enjoyed writing her poem.

Daisy enjoyed adding detail to her rainforest picture to illustrate her poem.

Marc enjoyed sharing his poem with the class because he had worked hard.

 

Assessment of work:

We had to assess our own work by looking at the success criteria and putting a tick in the box if we had completed each part.

XVI.IX.MMXVI- Roman Numerals in P5B

Learning intention: We are learning to read Roman numerals and identify the place value of each symbol

As our IDL context for learning in P5B is The Romans, we have been learning how the Roman used to write numbers in our maths lessons this week. We learned that they used letters to represent numbers, for example, I=1, V=5, X=10 L=50, C= 100, D=500, M=1000. We learned about some of the rules involved in creating Roman numerals including that you can’t use the same symbol 3 times in a row and there is no symbol for 0.

We worked in stations to learn about Roman numerals.

Teaching station: We explored Roman numerals by using symbol cards to create our own. We were challenged to write our ages, birthdays, favourite numbers and the date in Roman numerals. Some of us also completed a Roman numeral crossword and some filled in a number square using the correct Roman symbols.

ICT station: We played two different online games to test our knowledge. Why don’t you have a go?
Roman Numeral Game
Roman Numeral Quiz

Game station: We played Roman numeral bingo, as well as a game of Roman numeral loop cards. Mhari and Lucy also invented a Roman numeral game based on one we had playing last week when we were learning about place value. They became our teachers and did a fantastic job!

Can you guess our birthdays?

Maya: XX.VIII.MMVII

Ross: XVIII.VI.MMVII

Stephen: I.V.MMVII

Kayden: XXVII.VIII.MMVII

Joel: XXIX.VII.MMVII

Primary 7 War Leader Biographies

 

Primary 7 have been using our IDL context to learn and research about what a biography is, it’s features and what differing types there are.  We began the week by researching about our groups’ political leader from WW2 – Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin.  We used a variety of texts in our reading lessons to look at some examples of current famous people’s biographies to gain a good understanding as to what a biography should look like and include.  We then used our research to plan our War leader biography, completing the write up and self assessment.  As part of our IDL context and research, we were also challenged to create life size art creations of the leaders, using measurement skills and their real life heights.  We focused in on attention to detail, from fashion, to iconic objects which the leaders were known to carry or use – the final results are fantastic.  We have proudly displayed our leaders around our classroom. Pictures to follow!

Learning Intention:

We are learning to write a biography using accurate information, sequenced in chronological order.

Success criteria:

I can include date and place of birth.

I can write about family/childhood information and education.

I can detail what this political leader was famous for.

I can include detail about their involvement in World War 2.

I can include information about place, date and circumstances of their death.

My information has been written in full sentences and follows chronological order.

 

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The building has started!

There has been lots of excitement in the nursery this week as the diggers arrived on site to start building our new nursery! The children enjoyed watching through the fence, chatting to the builders and even getting some building materials from them for our garden. The inside of the nursery now has a building site, site office and canteen for the workers and the children outside have been building with mud and bricks. We have talked about how to build safely and learned more about how to make the strongest structures.

It is going to be an exciting few months watching the changes, as they build our new place to play and learn.

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Pizza Delivery!

The nursery children have spent the last two weeks creating Pizza World! We have taken orders, written menus, made pizzas at the craft table, made deliveries, we have had cheese and tomato, pepperoni, ham and pineapple and much, much more! Pizza World got a new manager in the afternoon and he had to deal with complaints about noise and occasionally had to get his team to tidy up the shop!!! After all the hard work, creativity, sharing, communicating and lots of smiles, the children got the opportunity to make their own pizzas. With the help of 2 parents they prepared the area, washed their hands, spread the tomato base and added their topping. After 10 minutes in the oven the pizzas looked, tasted and smelled delicious!

Well done boys and girls!

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