A big thank you to the PSA and all the parents and staff that helped organise and support our Halloween Disco.
LI: Â We are learning to plan and organise a holiday to Japan, while keeping to a budget
SC: I can consider best value for money when booking car rental, hotels and airfares.
I can book a hotel that is less than 2 miles from the city centre of Tokyo.
I can plan a day out/excursion for 2 adults and 1 child.
I can research and price an appropriate restaurant that is located in the city of Tokyo that is suitable for 2 adults and 1 child.
I can stay within the budget of £6000
This week P7/6 were challenged to book a holiday for a family to Tokyo for a week. In trios the children researched flight details and times and tried to find the cheapest flight within the given dates. They had to ensure car hire was booked, so they picked up their rented car from Narita airport. The hotel they booked had to be within 2 miles from the city centre, so the children researched further in to location and not just the best price. To ensure they had the best time when they were in Tokyo the trios organised a day excursion for their family and found well priced restaurants for them to eat in.
The children were so motivated during this real life challenge, and at times were a little concerned that they had actually booked for 3 people to climb Mount Fuji!! They loved the competition of beating their friends to a cheaper holiday price and some trios returned to try to reduce prices by choosing different deals. It was an excellent way to practice our budgeting skills and find out more about holidaying in Japan.
Japan has been a fantastic topic and we now are all excited about moving in to term 2! Enjoy your holiday!
This week all the P7’s took part in the annual Sports Festival at East Calder Sports Centre. Over the past few weeks we have been practicing the skills involved in the various activities with Mrs Mitchell. The activities that we took part in at the festival were the javelin, time 2 lap-run, speed bounce and standing long, which we were scored in. There were also another 2 activities, one to test our endurance and one to test our balance. All P7’s who participated gave 100% and did extremely well on the day. Hopefully we will get the results soon. P7 hope everyone has a fantastic and safe holiday. See you all soon 
Today we had our second house meeting which had a focus on our playground. First of all the vice and house captains shared with us our house logos and slogans and also the values that our house thought were the most important:
The vice and house captains taught us a new community builder called; elephants, monkeys, helicopters and palm trees. They were taught how to play this game at peer mediator training.
Next we discussed the importance of being safe in the playground and why we need to create a playground charter. We got into groups and discussed what we should have in our playground charter, and the house and vice captains will take this information to make a school playground charter.
Thank you to our house and vice captains for organising the house meeting, and to the P7s for organising the groups.
Congratulations to our two P7 boys who were invited along to take part in the West Lothian Cross Country event. They came 11th and 16th out of 60 competitors! Well done boys.
To celebrate the end of Money Fortnight we invited our parents and families into school to share with them what we have been learning about in connection with money, and also our interdisciplinary learning context for learning. Activities included visiting the bank, sharing our storybook, making a rainforest in a bottle and making sushi. Thank you to all the parents and families that came along to support this event, there was a great ‘buzz’ around the school.
LI: We are learning about Japanese cherry blossoms and why they mean so much to the Japanese culture.
SC: I can discuss why the cherry blossom are important to the Japanese people.
SC: I can create a cherry blossom, using water colour and printing.
The children researched why the cherry blossom trees were so important to the Japanese people.They found that in much of Japan, the flowering cherry trees (which the Japanese call sakura) come into full bloom around the beginning of April. April is the month when the new school year starts for Japanese children; it’s also the month when companies start their new business years and when many new graduates start to work. So the cherry blossoms make people think of new beginnings.
P7/6 commented on how beautiful and bright the cherry blossoms were, so we decided to create our own. The children chose either hot or cold water colours and used these to create the background. Next, paying attention to line thickness, they used black paint to create the sweeping branches. To make the pink blossoms the children chose to either use their finger or  use the base of a bottle to print. You can see the different effects on the photos below.
Today we had our first House Meeting and the Vice and House Captains did a fantastic job or organising and leading the meeting. They created their own House Meeting Agenda which started with discussing the House Community Contract, followed by a Community Builder so that we could get to know everyone in our house. They completed a Values Vote to select which 2 values their house would stand for. Then they set the challenge of designing a logo and slogan for their house. The results will be shared at the assembly on Friday. Well done on a fantastic first House Meeting!
LI: We are learning about traditional Japanese foods.
SC: I can discuss the different foods that Japanese people eat
I can listen to and follow instructions on how to make sushi
Today Japan came to P7/6 and so did the smell of tuna!!! We are loving our new topic on Japan. We have already learned about the Japanese flag, Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms. We have researched the natural disasters that are common to Japan and have created an informative poster detailing facts, causes and ways to keep safe. It was now time to learn more about the traditional foods that Japanese people eat and to make some sushi for ourselves!
Our class were set off on a food challenge to find more information about sushi using the netbooks and Mrs Murray called out small groups to the class ‘kitchen’. First, we boiled the sushi rice. It was so stodgy and sticky. We used bamboo sushi mats to place our nori (seaweed sheets) on. We then had to place the rice on 2 thirds of the nori sheet. Our top tip when touching the rice is to always have wet hands, because we found that if our hands were too dry, the rice stuck to them. Next we used our finger to create a thin dent across the middle of the rice, this is where our filling went. We chose tuna and cucumber. Then came the tricky bit……rolling the sushi! We had to be very gentle and delicate with our hands. Once we had our long cylinder shaped sushi roll we moved over to the chopping board and cut it in to smaller pieces. We then added some soy sauce and ate it! Most of us were quite surprised at how much we enjoyed the taste. Some of us didn’t like it at all!
This was an exciting lesson where we had to use lots of different life skills. We had to listen, follow instructions, have the confidence to taste new foods, follow safety rules when using sharp knives, Â sharing space and utensils and of course we then had to clean up afterwards! A fantastic day, full of lots of fun and learning.
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