This afternoon, the Time Team were back out again in force! 

We were slightly concerned when we saw Miss McLaughlin and Sarah-Jane carrying into our classroom what looked like a real body! Fortunately, our skeleton friend was a plastic reconstruction.

We had to look at the skeleton, decide if it was male or female and try to build up a picture of their life. Jed and Miss McLaughlin had made a prediction (like we do in Reading) that our skeleton friend was male, older, married with 3 children and because he had been buried with a bronze armlet, that he was probably a craftworker.

We also got to look at real Iron Age artefacts, including glass beads, a javelin head, a horse bridle and many pieces of pottery and polished bone/rocks. Many thanks to Archaeology Scotland for letting us use these fantastic resources. And of course thanks to Sarah-Jane (again!).

 

 

I would also like to take the time to thank the parents and friends of the school who have left kind words on the Community Council Facebook page. We are gutted about the destruction of our beloved roundhouse.

Many thanks.

Primary 4 & Miss M 🙁

We are very busy in maths (as always!) last week we were learning about decimal numbers. We now understand that decimal numbers link with fractions. The most common place to see a decimal number is on a price tag.

We all enjoyed the beautiful weather on Friday for our Sports Day! Well done to everyone who participated in all of the different activities.

We have all been busy preparing our class talks. We are starting to hear some of them today and they are of a very high standard. We discussed the link lizards – what other parts of the curriculum our talks link to: listening and talking / reading (as you are reading from the prompt cards) / ICT if you have prepared a powerpoint / drama (presentation skills).

We have been developing our cooking skills in time to cook for the family over the summer holidays! Last week we made cous cous with Mrs Hull. It was delicious! I wonder what delicious treat I will be getting today!

That’s all for this week

 

Today, Primary 4 had another amazing adventure with Tom and Sarah-Jane – we turned into archaeologists!

When we arrived today for what we thought would be another afternoon fixing up the roundhouse, we found Tom and Sarah-Jane at a miniature dig site nearby! We’d heard on the grapevine that there were lots of hidden finds in our local environment and today we had the chance to get looking.

We had to be careful on our dig site and clear the soil away to expose its different layers. We found a shale layer and a sand layer. The deeper down you go, the older the layers of soil are. We found bone, pottery, shells, charcoal and even a tooth!

Here are just a few of the snaps from today… (Thanks again Tom and Sarah-Jane)

   

Who knows what we might find next time?

Until then…

Primary 4 & Miss M 🙂

This Friday, 12th of June, we will be having Sports Day if the weather is dry.  In preparation for this we have been developing our running skills! We have been warming up our legs to help us run faster. We have been doing high knees and heels to bottom to help warm up the muscles in our legs. We have done sprints and then we did handicapped races eg. the person who was fourth got to move nearer the finishing line and the person who was first was moved further away from the line. So we are all set to apply our new skills to our races on Friday!

 

In maths we are starting to learn about decimal numbers. Everyone can recognize decimal numbers on price tags. We spotted a Link Lizard because we could see decimal numbers link with fractions.

Last week we were very lucky to meet Mrs Cullum who will be our teacher when we move up to P6.

That’s it for this week.

Today was Den Day! Den Day is a charity event for Save the Children, helping to raise money to provide emergency aid in different parts of the world.

We learned about the story of Anna Mae who lost her home when a Typhoon hit her village. Primary 1 were able to suggest the rights that Anna Mae is entitled to but are not being met, such as the right to clean water and a safe place to live. By taking part in Den Day, P1 are helping to provide children like Anna Mae with materials to build a shelter.

Primary 1 really enjoyed building their dens in groups with the help of some P7s. Once the dens were built, the children had the chance to play, read and draw inside. It was a great opportunity for imaginative play and the children came up with creative ideas for what parts of their dens were supposed to be. Ethan said he loved his den so much that he wanted to keep it forever!

Thank you for all your kind donations and materials for the event.

 

Primary 3 were out and about in Mid Calder today, learning about the local Church, inside and out! Rev Povey gave us a very interesting tour of the Kirk of Calder, showing us around this holy building.

We started on the outside, looking at the bell tower, doors and windows, then we explored the church yard and had a look at some of the gravestones.

Then we went inside and looked for the things on our checklist, like pews, the pulpit, the font and the communion table. We were able to ask Rev Povey lots of questions, and we were allowed to explore the balcony so we had a great view of the stained glass windows and the organ.

Mrs Hull asked everyone to write down the most important thing they had seen. Here are some of the answers:

“The pews, they are there so people can pray to God”.

“The graves, because we need a place to remember families who died.”

“The font, because if a baby comes the minister puts water on his head to become a Christian.”

“The pipes of the organ for all the children to sing songs.”

“The communion table, because the minister stands in front of it and speaks to the people.”

“The Bible because it tells all the stories of Jesus.”

“The cross to remember Jesus.”

Thank you very much to Rev Povey for all his help and for letting us see the church today. You can see Primary 3 learned a lot from their visit.

Cultural Diversity Project

We were delighted so many people came in to see our work for the Cultural Diversity project! We hope you learned about the relief efforts to help the people of Nepal.

‘I enjoyed learning about what all of the different countries had donated to help Nepal’. Louisa and Courtney.

‘I enjoyed explaining our learning to our Pumphie pals’. Sophie C and Lydia

‘I enjoyed researching using the netbooks to find out what countries donated to Nepal.’ Ella and Lewis P

‘I enjoyed researching flags for the different countries and drawing them for the display.’ Lewis C and Aiden

‘I enjoyed helping to mount my work and putting it up on the display’. Donatella and Rory

‘I enjoyed visiting all of the classes to see what they had researched’. Kimber and Craig