The nursery children are presented with challenges linked to the curriculum. Cayla has completed the challenge which tested her knowledge of baby animals.
Category Archives: Learning Stories
Parent Volunteers
We are very lucky to have parents/carers who kindly volunteer to come into our nursery and bake with our children.
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Nursery / Primary 1 Transtion
The children were very excited about the start of their transition into Primary 1.They met up with some of their friends from last year. 
The children were very excited about the start of their transition into Primary 1.They met up with some of their friends from last year.
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Mid Calder School Choir
Have a listen to our amazing school choir singing ‘Glorious’.
A lot of hard work learning lyrics and even some harmonies. Well done guys!
Have you been Making Maths Meaningful?
In P3 this year, we decided to do our class assembly on Maths and in particular focus on how we make maths meaningful within class and in our own lives at home.
Over the last term in Maths, we have been learning about multiplication and division. Through grouping and sharing activities, making and finding arrays and then looking at multiplication and division calculations, we have been developing our knowledge and understanding of the links between these operations.
To make it real within our own lives, we went on an array search within our homes to find different array patterns. Some of us went on an array search within school. It was great fun!
In order to help us develop our mathematical language and talk about different strategies we use to solve calculations and worded problems, we have loved doing number talks. We get to share with our peers ‘what we see’ and ‘how we see it’. Sometimes Miss Kerr visualises what we see and sometimes we do. We also get to apply what we talk about in number talks to solve mild, spicy and hot calculations within mental maths.
So we continue to make maths meaningful in our lives, currently learning about analogue and digital clock times and using time in school and at home.
How are you making your maths meaningful in your lives right now?
Enjoy our video and Maths song to remind you why maths is fun and meaningful!
Reading and Writing Non-Fiction Books with P3/2
What an exciting few weeks the children have had in P3/2 – We have been researching and writing our own non-fiction books LI. We are learning to write a non-fiction book.
In Reading – We were learning over a six week period;
- About the features of a non-fiction book.
- To consider how non-fiction books differ from fiction books.
- To discuss the difference between fact and fiction
How – lots of different opportunities were experienced to ‘hook’ us in e.g.
- I can share two new facts/information I have learned from my non-fiction book
- I can make questions to find the answers
- I can find the answers to others questions
Activity;
In reading groups appoint facilitator and resource manager
Give out white boards and pens
In groups the facilitator chose people in turn to share two facts they had learned and then invited questions from the group.
What are good question starters? What, where when how who is etc…
Next they had to generate three questions that you might find the answer to in their text. Mrs Allsopp modelled outloud her thinking giving an example from each text.
They then gave their questions to another group to find the answers!
In writing we were able to then generate our own success criteria having thoroughly researched the ‘common’ features of non-fiction texts.
- I can identify the success criteria for my book
- I can write three chapters – each chapter must share three new facts.
- I can include a picture, and/or diagram
- I can include an index , contents, glossary
- I can include a Front and back cover with a title and blurb
Now that we had completed the research we were ready to make our own books.
The success criteria were referred to throughout the process.
When the books were complete the children had to write a book review on each other’s…a lot of feedback and discussion was had.
Finally our books have been displayed for anyone to have a read and learn!
More P7 Science Centre Photos
P7 at Glasgow Science Centre
‘bmfy f ifd’!!! Only P7’s will be able to read this coded message that we learned about today at Glasgow Science Centre!
What a fantastic day. First up was a workshop to learn more about Caesar Cipher and cracking cryptography. The children will be able to take their code cracking skills back to school and use them in our CSI topic.
We then had a chance to look around the interactive games in the Science Malls. On floor 3 we took on the role of the snot barrier, burned some energy in the giant hamster wheel, performed a virtual autopsy and bust some moves at the DNA disco. Floor 1 offered us more inspiring games that made our minds work. We had to offer ideas on how to meet ever increasing energy demands without breaking the bank or damaging the environment, we had the chance to feel the force of wind in a hurricane booth, find out what happens in a nuclear chain reaction and crank the handles to generate enough power to race around a Scalextric track.
All of the activities were testing different skills – strength, patience, concentration, reaction times, organisation and team work.
In the afternoon we went to the workshop ‘My World of Work – All about Me’. We learned about our personality traits by completing the personality quiz, used the careers information wall to discover more about different careers linked to STEM and we were able to talk to a High School career officer about what subjects we should study if we were interested in working in one of these roles.
Staff from the Science Centre commented on the superb behaviour of the P7’s, how hard they worked and were impressed by there knowledge of STEM and code cracking. Well done P7 – another great day out. Your teachers are very ‘uwtzi’ (proud – caesars cipher)!
Cosmos Planetarium
Today Primary 1, P4, P5/4 and P5 had a very exciting visit from Cosmos Planetarium, a state of the art, 360° theatre experience. We were transported on a journey through the solar system and beyond – from flying through Saturn’s rings to diving into Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, to search it’s vast ocean for signs of life. We learned about the first moon landing, as well as what life might be like on the moon in future. We took a virtual tour of the International Space Station and were able to share our knowledge of Tim Peake from the biographies we wrote about his life and experiences last week.
In the Middle Area, we have been working in teams to create a planet fact file, and we were excited to use our new knowledge from our Cosmo Planetarium experience to help us. We also used our own devices, as well as the school’s netbooks and iPads, to research the key features of each planet. We will use ICT to bring our research together to create a group fact file about our Solar System.
Coordinated Maths
Learning Intention: We are learning to explore the use of coordinates to plot points and describe positions and movements on a grid (MTH 2-18a)
Success Criteria:
I can use coordinates to locate a point on a grid
I can use coordinates to describe and locate a unique point on a grid
I can plot coordinates on a grid
Primary 5 have been learning all about coordinates in maths. We know that you use coordinates to locate a specific point, usually on a map. We have been learning how to read coordinates accurately by finding the number that appears on the horizontal, or x axis first, then reading the number on the vertical, or y axis. Last week we looked at how to find and read coordinates in a grid with 1 quartile, but this week we challenged ourselves by locating and reading coordinates on a grid with 4 quartiles! That meant we had to use our knowledge of negative numbers to help us.
We rotated round three stations to demonstrate our knowledge and understanding:
- Teaching group- we plotted coordinates on a grid to create a pictures of an alien creature
- Game group- some of played a game of Spinning Coordinates, and others played Coordinates Bingo
- ICT group- Sumdog Challenge
We also used the AAL network to use our own and the school’s devices to try and and find the coordinates of our houses, learning about the meaning of latitude and longitude.
