Interdisciplinary Learning – Mid Calder Primary School Learning Blog

November 12, 2019

The Upper Area Will Rock You!

Don’t Stop Us Now- we’re having such a good time!

This term, Primary 7, 7/6 and 6 have been working extremely hard to prepare for their upcoming show, Schools Will Rock You, and it’s guaranteed to blow your mind!!

Our amazing pupils have been busy learning songs, memorising scripts, creating posters and tickets, selecting scenery, writing letters, designing programmes, counting money raised, researching costumes, making and sourcing props, and much, much more!

Not only have we been enhancing our drama and musical abilities, we have also been learning skills for life, learning and work like budgeting, emailing, teamwork, choreography, digital designs, fundraising and advertising.

The teachers have been blown away by the enthusiasm, dedication and talent our children have already shown in the rehearsal/preparation process, and we cannot wait to see the faces of our audience when they see our champions both onstage and behind the scenes. It will send shivers down your spine….

November 11, 2019

#saveourseas

P5 have been engaged in their learning this term through their save our seas IDL this term. Their favourite tasks so far have been creating seascape textured art, exploring a range of different media to create an image. They also learned about the angers of plastic pollution and demonstrated this by adding plastic to sea-creatures. Although P5 enjoyed creating the art work, we discussed how moving the finished product made them feel.

They have also created a “Tweet wall” after finding out that you have to return single use cups to coffee shops to be successfully recycled. They are extremely passionate about this and we plan to send a class tweet to a coffee shop.. watch this space!

November 10, 2019

P1 Descriptive Writing

Primary one have been working hard over this term to learn about the 7 different describing bubbles (colour, shape, number, position, texture, doing and size), using our new whole school writing resources.

We have been using and choosing different bubbles to help us describe ourselves, our class mates and different objects.

Last week we went outside to explore and describe autumn trees, focusing on texture.

This week, we focused on shape and applied what we have learned so far to describe our class T-Rex, who appeared in our class with a mysterious egg!

May 8, 2019May 8, 2019

Perfect Planting Promotion Challenge

As part of their Rainforest IDL, Primary 3 have been learning all about what plants need to grow and survive. As P1, P2/1 and P2 are going to be learning about ‘In the Garden’ this term, we were challenged to share our knowledge with them by creating a tutorial video about how to plant a plant.

We had to script, film, direct and edit our tutorials, using our digital skills to help us to add background music, transitions and sound effects when filming was complete. Check out our amazing videos!

Bafooni Tribe:

Cfilmt Tribe:

Minyo Tribe:

Pando Tribe:

Pirano Tribe:

We shared our tutorials with P1, P2/1 and P2 and then wrote invitations to ask them to come and help us to plant the plants that our tribe have been growing and nurturing for the last 2 months. Both Primary 3 and Primary 1-2 loved planing the plants and we can’t wait to see how well they continue to grow in their new home in our playground.

March 2, 2019

P2/1 Transport Learning Sway

February 27, 2019

Leah is Leading the Learning in Second Level French

on the 14th of february Leah lead the learning in French with her Cloze procedure worksheet all about St.Valentin. Pupils in three classes had to use a FRENCH dictionary and research skills on the netbooks and their own devices to find the missing words and to translate these into french. This was part of our mid calder loves languages week. please come and look at the wall display in the upper area to see what else we got up to?!

February 18, 2019

Primary 3 are extraordinary!

On Friday, Primary 3 shared their learning about what it means to be ‘extraordinary’ with their parents/carers, family and friends, as well as the rest of our school, at their class assembly. They told everyone all about their IDL context, Extraordinary Humans, and taught their audience about some of the challenges that the people they have met and been learning about have overcome. They explained what gender stereotypes are, described challenges like dyslexia and autism, and discussed some physical disabilities, ultimately teaching everyone to break down these barriers because all of these things can make people extraordinary!

Check out their fascinating documentary, Extraordinary Earth, which is all about gender stereotypes and is led by the trusted explorer, Smavid Battenborough:

A big part of our IDL context has been looking at what makes Primary 3 extraordinary too, and celebrating how amazing it is that we are all different and unique. We created a music video for one of our favourite songs, Different, by singer, Tom Fletcher.

Primary 3 did a fantastic job at teaching their audience that everyone should have an equal place in society, and that being different really is what makes us extraordinary!

February 18, 2019

Extraordinary Homework in P3

At the beginning of our IDL, Extraordinary Humans, P3 were given the challenge to choose an extraordinary human that we wanted to learn more about at home. We could choose someone famous, or a family member or friend. We were also able to decide how we wanted to present the information that we found out, making sure that we included how the person has inspired us, and what challenges they have overcome in their lives. Last week, we shared our learning with our classmates and gave each other peer feedback based on the success criteria. We did an extraordinary job and we taught each other lots of new and interesting facts about a range of different extraordinary humans. Well done Primary 3!

February 13, 2019

Mardi Gras Carnival and Celebrations for Scotland Loves Languages Week!

Pupils in P6/7 and P7 have participated in a week long programme of learning opportunities, incorporating many different skills for life and learning, across curriculum areas. We have been focusing on applying our spoken French language skills, whilst learning about French culture and celebrations. We have created elaborately designed masks for Mardi Gras; we have used and learned French vocabulary for describing our school, resulting in a fantastic “Voici Mon Ecole” video; we have learned how to participate in a Mardi Gras carnival procession, including our drumming and dancing skills; and finally have been learning how to cook crepes!
Lots of very exciting IDL learning, shared also with Mrs Green from the 1+2 Modern Languages development team, who brought her conversational French skills into our classes! We loved speaking French with her!

January 29, 2019January 29, 2019

Extraordinary Humans in Primary 3

As part of our IDL context, Extraordinary Humans, Primary 3 have been learning all about different people who have not let a physical disability affect their confidence, strength, or their ability to believe in themselves and become extraordinary.

We have been learning all about the Paralympic swimmer, Ellie Simmonds. We used fact sheets and online search engines to find out about her childhood, achievements and life after the Paralympics. We organised our notes under subheadings and then used Microsoft Word to create a biography about her. We tinkered with the features of Word before using it, learning how to layout our biographies neatly, add an image, how to change the fonts and colours, and how to use bold and underlining to make our headings and subheadings clear. As our final subheading, we had to explain why, in our opinion, Ellie was extraordinary, and our reasons were something that we should all aspire towards.

Last week, we also had a talk from Linda, who told us all about how her granddaughter had the life threatening liver disease, biliary atresia. Linda explained how, despite having gone through many challenges in her 9 years of life, Alesha is always a fighter and has an enthusiastic and positive outlook on life. She left us with the message: Stay strong. Stay beautiful. Be yourself. Believe. Another extraordinary human!