Curriculum Areas, English & Literacy, Primary 2, Primary 3, Uncategorized

P3 and P3/2 visit Linlithgow Palace and surrounding area.

November 26, 2015 User deactivated 2 Comments

What a great day and fun was had by all…

As part of our IDL topic we have been exploring aspects of these Experiences & Outcomes:

By exploring places, investigating artefacts and locating them in time, I have developed an awareness of the ways we remember and preserve Scotland’s history.

SOC 1-02a

I can use evidence to recreate the story of a place or individual of local historical interest.

SOC 1-03a

I can compare aspects of people’s daily lives in the past with my own by using historical evidence or the experience of recreating an historical setting.

SOC 1-04a

By exploring my community and the groups within it, I can identify and consider different types of housing and how they meet needs.

Key Questions to be explored

What do we think we know and what do we want to find out?
Who might have lived here and why?
How were these buildings built and who for?

We were also able to use the experience to make links with our functional writing. We are learning to select relevant ideas, order our writing, use connectives and adjectives to make our writing interesting.

My Personal Response

Yesterday we went to visit Linlithgow Palace because we have been learning about People and Places in the past.

We organised ourselves ready to leave at 10 o’clock.

We wore our welly boots and waterproof coats so we were prepared for the cold, windy weather.

When we arrived at the palace we met our tour guides then we went off in our groups to the first room and learned lots of interesting facts.

My favourite room was the Vomitorium as it was very interesting to hear about, it also made me laugh.

We ate our lunch altogether in the Palace Hall and then went to meet the Rangers.

When we were outside we had to imagine we were peasants, think about what their life was like. I got to carry the bundle of sticks as well as throw a mud mixture as if I was building my own hut!

We had a great day at Linlithgow Palace even though the weather was rather wet and cold.

Please enjoy a few visuals from our experience.

Interdisciplinary Learning, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 1, Uncategorized

P1a Toyshop

November 25, 2015 Mrs Smith 1 Comment

This week we have been shopping in the Toyshop.

LI We are learning to use coins to buy things

SC I can say how much each item costs I can choose the correct coins to pay for the things I buy

There are lots of things to buy in the toyshop. We choose what we would like and put it into our

shopping basket.

The shopkeeper checks the price and tells us how much we need to pay. We look in the purse and choose the coins we need. The shopkeeper puts the money in the till. We are using real coins to do our shopping!

Einartas – ‘You need money to buy the car. That’s my favourite.’

Aidan – ‘At the shop I bought an aeroplane and a car. The shopkeeper said it was 6p, so I counted out six 1p coins.’

Naomi – ‘You need 10p to buy the doll and the dinosaur.’

Daisy – ‘I went to the shop and I bought a dolly and a toy giraffe. It cost 2p and 3p, so that was 5p altogether.’

Community, English & Literacy, Events, Homework, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 5, Primary 7, Supporting homework, Useful Websites

P4-7 Parent Drop In: Using ICT to Support Homework

November 24, 2015 Miss Burton Leave a comment

Thank you to all of you who attended the 4-7 parent drop in session, looking at how to use ICT to support learning at home.

If you were unavailable to attend you will find out more information by clicking below:

Sum Dog

Purple Mash

Here is the feedback from those who attended:

Tickled Pink:

It was excellent to see SumDog and to know more about Purple Mash. Both will be good learning tools made fun for the children.
Sum Dog and Purple Mash both look like fun programmes for learning.

Sum Dog:

My child loves it can use it independently.
They have never been so keen to do maths homework before this.
Likes to compete with friends.
Quick, fast, keeps the mind ticking.
Feels like a game.
Can do it on their own, therefore it doesn’t seem like homework.
Instructions really clear and formative.
I now understand what Sum Dog does.
Excellent way for them to learn in a fun way.

Purple Mash:

Really caught their imagination.
My child loves it.
Great that they can use it independently.
Looks like a great tool. Many thanks to Anna for her clear explanation.

Green for Growth:

Purple Mash can have some aspects that are quite difficult
Would be good to have written work to back up Sum Dog
Clearer instructions of what homework is and what is ‘nice to do’

Maths & Numeracy, Primary 1, Uncategorized

P1b Information Handling

November 23, 2015 User deactivated 1 Comment

LI: We are learning how to display information on a bar graph.

SC: I can identify the title, x axis, y axis and labels on a bar graph.

LI: We are learning a how to interpret information on a bar graph.

SC: I can analyse information on a bar graph using the y axis to help me.

Through the context of our Toys topic, Primary 1b have been learning about different ways to collect, sort and display information.

We have:

– Carried out surveys, recording our results with tally marks;

– Sorted our toys and other information on Venn Diagrams using our own and given criteria; and

– Displayed information about our favourite toys on a block graph.

On Friday, we learned about bar graphs. We created a copy of the block graph which we made on Monday, to allow us to transform it into a bar graph. First we drew around the outline of each tower of blocks, and imagined that we were melting blocks of chocolate into long bars of chocolate.

Then we realised that we could no longer count how many people voted for each toy. After some brainstorming, Oscar suggested that we needed to put numbers on our graph. That’s when we learned about the purpose of the y axis.

We used our bar graph to answer interpretation questions. Amorie analysed the bar graph and told everyone that dolls were the most popular toy, and Isla MacKinnon told everyone that construction toys were the least popular.

Finally we applied what we had learned in order to interpret a variety of other bar graphs online.

Uncategorized

West Lothian Council Parental Involvement Strategy

November 23, 2015 User deactivated Leave a comment

The West Lothian Council Parental Involvement Strategy group request that all parents/carers completed an online survey to help inform an updated West Lothian Parental Involvement Strategy.

The survey contains only five statements to rate strongly disagree to strongly agree – there is also space to add comments if you wish:

· Communication is effective between my child’s school and home.

· My child’s school provides me with the information I need to help my child learn at home.

· I feel confident supporting my child’s learning at home.

· I am aware of West Lothian’s complaints procedure.

· I know how I can become involved in my school’s parent council.

You can access the survey on:

https://www.esurveycreator.co.uk/s/PIStrategySurvey

Please complete this survey by 11th December.

English & Literacy, Primary 3

Dear family and friends of P3…

November 23, 2015 User deactivated 1 Comment

We are learning to write a letter of invitation.

Success Criteria

I can include:

the school address in the top right hand corner
The date underneath the address
An appropriate greeting
Persuasive wow words to make my guest want to come to my event
The date, time, price and venue of my event
An appropriate sign off

In P3 last week, we wrote our letters of invitation for either our Nativity called ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ or to Edinburgh Zoo for a day out with friends. Within our writing, we needed to include features such as an appropriate greeting and sign off, the price of the ticket and correct punctuation.

During our planning session, we worked in pairs and read through Miss Kerr’s good example of a letter of invitation and a letter of invitation that was missing some important features. Our job was to highlight features that met the success criteria (tickled pink) and highlight features that were missing with green (green for growth). We had to tell Miss Kerr how she could make her letter better.

After, we wrote our letters of invitation in our groups with help from Miss Kerr, Mrs Allsopp and Mrs Robertson. Some of us read out our letters to inspire others that were struggling with their ideas.

When we finished our writing, we had to self and peer assess using traffic light colours and then write the evidence to match our assessment.

“I enjoyed it because I like writing invitations and it was fun”- Finlay Fraser

“I thought it was fun because I like writing invitations”- Rebekah Bell

“I am proud of myself because I got my letter completely finished in the time, meeting the success criteria and including details about my part”- Matthew P W

Achievements, Events, Maths & Numeracy, Primary 5, Primary 7, Uncategorized, Useful Websites

Sumdog’s West Lothian Maths Contest

November 23, 2015 Miss Sherlow 3 Comments

A huge well done to all the children in Primary 5-7 that took part in Sumdog’s West Lothian Maths Contest last week. Each person that contributed was to answer 1000 questions on a variety of topics within maths and were then ranked based on how many questions they answered correctly. Out of the 743 children that took part, Mid Calder had 10 pupils in the top 50! A fantastic achievement, and a brilliant opportunity to build upon your mental maths skills. Congratulations!

Expressive Arts, Nursery

The Grumpy Sheep

November 22, 2015 Miss Burton 1 Comment

We are learning to sing songs and follow a tune for our nursery nativity. EXA 0-16a

This week during gathering time we have been practising our nativity songs. We had to listen carefully to the music and words. We have also started adding actions to show what the sheep looks like when he is grumpy and happy. Miss Thompson and Miss Burton were very impressed with our singing skills.

Interdisciplinary Learning, Primary 2

Primary Two visit Linlithgow Palace

November 20, 2015 User deactivated 1 Comment

On Monday 16^th November Primary Two visited Linlithgow Palace. We had a wonderful time and learned lots about how people lived in the past. Our day began with a tour of the palace from the P7’s from Linlithgow Primary. We really enjoyed playing the games and learnt about Mary Queen of Scots who was born there. After our lunch we did some exciting outdoor activities with the park rangers. We learnt about how people might have got food and water to the palace and how walls were made from sticks and mud. Mr Nelson and Primary Two would like to thank all the helpers who came along and made this trip such a success.

Interdisciplinary Learning, Primary 5

Creating Confectionery in Primary 5

November 20, 2015 Miss Sherlow 1 Comment

Learning Intention: We are learning to use our market research to create our own confectionery product

A successful product name will be:

Catchy and memorable

Successful packaging will be:

Eye catching
Memorable
Neatly designed
An appropriate shape for your product

This week, Primary 5 received another one of our mysterious golden envelopes from Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity. It contained our third challenge that asked us to design our own confectionery product and packaging. We had to think a bit more about what ingredients would be in our product, and we used our market research questionnaires to help us. We had asked Primary 5/4 about whether they prefer sweets or chocolate, what flavours they like, what packaging designs they like and if they have any allergies. We looked at their answers and then we based our sweet on that. We had to give our product a catchy and memorable name and design an eye catching packet for it to go in. We were developing our listening skills by listening to our team mate’s ideas, as well as our team work skills by each having a job to do and sharing the work equally.

“We looked at our questionnaires and we decided to go for chocolate because that was the most popular. With the other flavours, we decided we were going to make a mix of flavours in one bar so that everyone could enjoy it,” commented Katie.

“I had fun deciding what we were going to put inside our chocolate tube. We put lots of sour and hot sweets because lots of people like to trick people with sweets. We also put game cards inside for people to collect,” said Jamie.

“I liked deciding what we were going to put on the wrapper and we made it nice and bold. We all enjoyed saying what we wanted to put in it and what the flavours would be, and I really like working with my group,” added Erin.