Primary 1 Maths & Numeracy Sway
Primary 1 Language & Literacy Sway
Dinosaur Invasion in Primary 3
We have been learning to write a story about a dinosaur invasion at Mid Calder Primary School
Success Criteria: I use features specific to an imaginary story including:
– an interesting opening sentence to ‘hook’ my reader in
– a description of the dinosaur
– a description of what happened
– my thoughts and feelings
– an interesting setting for my story
I can use adjectives to paint a clear picture in my reader’s head
This week, Primary 3 arrived into our classroom to find that it has been destroyed. We checked the CCTV footage and found out that we’d had a visitor, a very large visitor…
We used drama techniques to explore what we thought the tyrannosaurus rex might have done next during its invasion of our school. We improvised how we thought the rest of our pupils would react to seeing a dinosaur, then we created a still image using our body language and facial expressions to portray our thoughts and feelings.
We used these ideas to help us to write a story about the dinosaur invasion, describing what the tyrannosaurus rex got up to in Mid Calder Primary and how we reacted. We included lots of adjectives to help us to paint a clear picture in our reader’s mind. Some of us definitely enjoyed describing the teachers getting eaten a little bit too much…
Mr T.Rex Visits Mid Calder
Today Primary 3, Primary 4 and Primary 2 had a very special visitor, Mr T. Rex. At the beginning of their Dinosaurs IDL context, Mr Rex wrote each class a letter asking for their help, as he believed that the people were forgetting about the dinosaurs. He challenged P2, P3 and P4 to set up a Mid Calder Museum to teach other pupils and keep the memory of dinosaurs alive, and we enthusiastically accepted this request.
This week, we held our museums and shared our new knowledge and skills with Primary 1 and Primary 7. We loved showcasing our learning and we felt that we definitely helped Mr T. Rex. We were extremely excited to meet the man himself and asked him lots of relevant questions about his job and his experience of finding fossils. He was able to teach us lots of new and interesting facts about palaeontology and different dinosaurs.
A colossal thank you to Mr T. Rex for coming to visit. What an end to a very exciting week, and a fantastic IDL context. We have loved journeying back to the land before time to stop the memory of dinosaurs from becoming extinct.
Term 1 Celebration Assembly
This morning, we welcomed parents and friends along to our first Celebration Assembly of the 2017-18 session. We acknowledged the success of pupils from across the school and nursery with out STEM Super Star and, in line with our School Improvement Plan, our new Successful Speller Award. One member of each of the 6 groups from our recent Loch Insh residential were also presented with an award.
We announced the Top Scorers for each house and a big well done to Cunnigar who won the House Cup for the term.
Buzzards spotted in the Highlands!
The Buzzards had a fantastic time at Loch Insh. Working as a team, they encouraged and supported their friends trying the activities and are now professional skiers and canoeists! We thoroughly enjoyed singing the smurf song during our trip…especially Miss Burton! Well done troops, I thoroughly enjoyed my week away with you all.
P4’s Dinosaur Museum
This term Primary 4 have been working hard to bring the memory of dinosaurs back to life! We accepted a challenge from Mr T.Rex at the National Museum of Scotland, who asked us to set up our very own Mid Calder Museum. The children have enjoyed learning about dinosaurs and taking on different roles such as explorers, palaeontologists and museum curators.
Today P2, P3 and P4 opened the doors to their museum to boys and girls across the school. Our dinosaur exhibits included:
- Powerpoints and videos
- Fact files
- Dinosaur stories
- Sorting activities using Venn diagrams
- Volcanoes
- Dinosaur eggs
- Fossil hunts and much much more!
Carla: At first, when you told us we were creating a museum I wasn’t that excited. But now I’m loving it!
Olivia: I was so nervous at the start but this is actually so fun!
Isla: I love doing this!
Have a look at our museum in action!
P5C Numeracy
L.I. We are learning to link multiplication and division
S.C. I can count on and back in 3s, 4s, 6s, 8s
I can divide whole numbers into equal groups
Primary 5C were keen to improve their knowledge of times tables so we have had a week of working specifically on this to try and increase speed and accuracy with multiplication and division facts.
We used our knowledge of place value and known facts to multiply and divide numbers and engaged in a few practical games and activities to help us brush up our times tables facts!
We took advantage of a jotter-free day to learn some games which we think will be helpful – some of these could also be done easily at home:
- Times table challenge wheel – we tested each other on how quickly and accurately we could write all the stations of the chosen times table
- Multiplication / division bingo and dominoes
- Times table snakes and ladders
- King’s Game – taking turns to place cards at their correct station within the chosen times table
Now that we know these games we can hopefully keep using them to improve our times table accuracy and knowledge of division facts.
Crafty Christmas Fundraising
We are getting ready for Christmas making cards using line drawing, painting and then cut-out collage in the style of Alice Druitt at Gingerpaws designs. Nathan’s gran is coming in to help with the careful mounting and card design at our Craft Club on the first Tuesday back after the hols and thereafter on a Wednesday. We have some very crafty staff helping too. If you are a keen crafter and want to help please let Miss Brolls know. We need small colourful or mother of pearl buttons for one of the cards so donations will be gratefully received. Get out yer button boxes and give for the fundraiser!
