P7 Transition – CDT with Dr Cherry

Over the last 5 weeks P7 have been working with Dr Cherry, a CDT teacher from West Calder high school. On the first week he taught us how to draw straight lines without using a ruler, on the second week we learned how to draw geometric shapes. On the third and final week of Dr Cherry coming to our class we drew  3D cubes also we did some shading with help from a colour scale.  On the fourth week we went up to the high school, when we first arrived we had to pick a template of a spatula either a cat or fish, we had aprons waiting for us on our desks so the first thing we did is put them on. Once we had put our aprons on Dr Cherry went through some safety procedures. Once we had gone through safety procedures Dr Cherry then showed us how to draw a line about half a centimetre far from the template then we drew an x on every part which would be the wood that we were going to cut off. We used a coping saw to cut the excess wood off. Today when we went to W.C.H.S  Dr Cherry had cleaned up our spatula then we had to sand it down to make it soft using 2 different types of sandpaper. We were also very lucky to see some of the big machines in action. Then Dr Cherry put olive oil on our hands and we had to  rub it on our spatula to make sure none of the wood came off in our food. At first it was very sticky and not very nice on our hands. When we washed the oil off the spatula and off our hands they were very soft. He then showed us some models that he was working on and trust us they were amazing.

We all enjoyed this experience very much  and cant wait to go to  High School,  we all hope that you enjoyed reading about or transition up to the high school.

written by Olivia, Laura and Caitlin. 044047

House Meeting: BYOD and Internet Safety

Last week we had our first House meeting of 2016 and the House and Vice Captains decided the focus should be on Anytime Anywhere Learning (AAL), Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and internet safety, as these are currently hot topics of conversations in our school.

As usual we started the meeting going over the plan for the meeting and expectations. Then the house members took part in a community builder. The House and Vice Captains showed us a video about internet safety as it is Internet Safety Day soon.

This led on to telling us about Bring Your Own Device, this is something the Technical Troopers and Pupil Council are leading. We had to create a post-it pledge to show how we would follow our school values of responsible and respectful if we became a BYOD school. The House and Vice Captains have taken these post-its and created a school crest.

Thank you to the House and Vice Captains, and P7s for organising such an interesting house meeting.

http://www.slideshare.net/midcps/house-meeting-3

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The Legend of Spud Murphy

P.5/4 have just finished reading ‘The Legend of Spud Murphy’ by Eoin Colfer. This is a very funny story with interesting characters. It is full of twists and has an important theme running through it about enjoying reading. There have been lots of learning opportunities throughout the four weeks we have been studying it, such as:

  • Discussing and writing about the characters’ attitudes towards books and reading.
  • Exploring the relationships between the main characters and how they change throughout the book.
  • Writing an email in the role of Will (the main character) to one of his friends.
  • Describing the librarian, Spud Murphy, using interesting vocabulary and evidence from the text.
  • Writing an informal letter from Will to his granny about his experiences at the library.

Here are some questions that you could discuss at home about the book. Maybe chatting about it will make you want to read it too!

  • Who was your favourite character and why?
  • Was there anything that surprised you about the plot?
  • Would you recommend this book to a friend and why/why not?

the legend of spud murphy

Sumdog

As P3-P7 now have access to Sumdog to support their learning in maths, and P2-P7 have it to support their learning in reading, P5 buddied up with P3/2 today to show them the wonders of Sumdog. The Primary 5s showed their buddy how to login, how to play some of the games, how to earn coins as well as explained how to get their first pet and how to decorate their Sumdog house.

Sumdog will be used to support learning in school, but can also be accessed at home where the children can complete challenges set by their class teacher. They can access this account at home by using the log in provided in their homework diary/book.

To access Sumdog, go to: https://www.sumdog.com

It’s Maths O’Clock in Primary 5!

 

Learning Intention: We are learning to tell the time on digital and analogue clocks (MNU 1-10a)

Success Criteria:
I can recognise and show time on analogue and digital clocks
I can answer simple problems involving time
I can talk about am and pm times

In Miss Sherlow’s maths class, we have started a new unit on time. We have been learning about how people use time in their daily lives, and now we are learning how to tell the time on both digital and analogue clocks. In our class today, we started by recapping some key time vocabulary- o’clock, quarter past, half past, quarter to, am and pm etc. We then discussed that the clock can be read in 5 minute intervals and used our knowledge of the 5 times tables to help with this. We used our counting stick to count up in 5 minute intervals starting at a variety of different times. We then played a game using our learning hats where we wrote a time secretly on a post it, then stuck it to our partners head. Each person had to guess what time they were given by asking questions e.g. is the hour even? Is the time before 5pm?

We then split into our groups:

1. Teaching table- we were learning to use am and pm times and write them as 24 hour times.
2. Sumdog group- Time Challenge.
3. Game group- Pass O’Clock– we set a clock at 3pm then flipped a coin. If we rolled a heads, we moved the time on 5 minutes. If we rolled a tails, we moved the time on 10 minutes. We had to read the time each time. First to 5 Hours- we rolled a dice 3 times with each dice showing how many lots of 5 minutes we had (e.g. a 3 would equal 3 lots of 5 minutes, so 15 minutes). When we reached 60 minutes, we received a counter. The winner was the first person to get 5 counters.

You can support your child’s learning at home by: asking your child to read the time from both digital and analogue clocks regularly; discussing time durations (e.g. how long it takes to walk to the shop, how long it would take to drive to your Granny’s house etc.) and by asking the difference between two times (e.g. how many minutes between 5.34pm and 6.03pm). You could also try making your own learning hats at home and challenging your child to guess the time.

Primary 6

Primary 6 are continuing to make good progress in learning this term.

We have well and truly begun our historical investigations into our Scottish roots: focusing on WHO the Jacobites were, WHEN in history they were living and WHERE they could be located within Scotland and abroad.  We have time lined the Stuart family tree to understand where the word “Jacobite” comes from and are beginning to build up information about Scottish clans and their influence on the Jacobites.  When the weather improves, we are looking forward to heading outside to continue our investigations into battle tactics, Jacobite soldier formation and increase our familiarity with the infamous Redcoats.

We are looking forward to getting to grips with Guided Reading in our classroom, delving into the wonderful world of texts, whilst developing our reading skills.  We have been developing our understanding of the layout, structure and contents of factual report writing.  We continue to up-level our work to ensure it is to the highest quality.

As part of our classroom community work, we are beginning to examine Growth Mindsets to develop our learning power.  We look forward to increasing our independence, our resilience and our perseverance within school and out, developing our future working and life skills.

Mrs Ross

jacobiteclan map

 

Glow Meet with Williamston PS

On Thursday some of our Pupil Council and Technical Troopers took part in a Glow Meet with some pupils from Williamston Primary School. Some classes at Williamston Primary already use Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), so we decided we would ask them some questions about their journey, including the benefits of BYOD and how they resolved any issues they came across. A big thank you to the P6s who gave gave some of their lunch time to meet with us, we have lots to think about.

Morning Blether: Profiling

This morning the Pupil Council held a Morning Blether to explain to parents what profiling is, how we are profiling at Mid Calder Primary School and how was can improve our approaches to profiling.
We also shared a new profiling tool that our staff have created in order for parents to understand what a level looks like in Maths and Language. This will be launched at the Curriculum evening on February 25th at 6pm and will be made available to all parents at this event and on the blog.

Thank you to the Pupil Council for organising this event and to the parents who attended, you can find a copy of the PowerPoint below.

http://www.slideshare.net/midcps/profiling-morning-blether

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