P7b Blog

Numeracy and mathematics

We continued with our work on decimals this week in numeracy, dividing them by 10, 100 and 1,000 and applying our prior knowledge of place value to assist us with this. Having established that when dividing, our decimal point moves to the left and when multiplying to the right, we moved on to sequence and order decimal fractions with up to 5 places after the decimal point. We were also able to multiply and divide decimals using a calculator before rounding to the nearest whole number which aided us with some work on estimation and approximation. Next week, we will be looking at percentages and real-life contexts where these may be used.

Literacy

Our literacy work this week started with the study of a shared text on The Tudor period. This period of British history is a particular interest of some pupils and we took the opportunity to discuss and annotate a passage written by Lady Marsden. In this, she reflected on Mary Queen of Scots’ execution and the array of emotions that coincided with this. We were able to effectively find examples of where she was sympathetic towards Mary, and in contrast, where she was openly critical of Queen Elizabeth I. Additionally, we identified, discussed and annotated figurative language and instances of emotive language within Lady Marsden’s recount of events. Our writing lesson this week was inspired by The Great Escape and we have been creating instructional texts detailing a plan for an escape from the prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag Luft III. Our ideas were incredibly creative and the level of detail certainly left nothing to chance. I think it’s safe to say, P7b would have managed to elude the German guards!

IDL

As of last week, we have been continuing to put together our personal projects and are making excellent progress with these. Mr. Logan cannot wait to read these; a huge amount of hard work is being put in to meet both the criteria and deadline. Both P7 classes were very lucky to have two visitors in class this week to discuss different aspects of WWII. Firstly, Mrs. Gordon’s Aunt visited us to speak about primary and secondary sources of information from WWII, highlighting the difference between the two and sharing some local stories. We also welcomed in Mr. Boiling (Andrew’s Dad) who is a college lecturer in Glasgow. He delivered a presentation on The War at Sea during WWII. P7b enjoyed hearing about the naval warfare between the two sides, and how Germany’s most powerful warship, the Bismarck, was eventually sunk in an act of vengeance ordered by Winston Churchill.

Friday

We did our best to give Mr. Logan the fright of his life as he stepped out the door this morning with our crazy and wacky hairstyles in aid of Red Nose Day and Comic Relief. As a class we brought in just over £28 and donated in addition to this through our purchases at the bake sale organised by the Pupil Council. A huge thank you to them for organising this, along with Mrs. Gordon. We celebrated another successful week in P7b, winning the Peg Challenge for the second week running and also the Class of the Week trophy. This was as a result of them moving round the school sensibly and quietly, and for sharing such a depth of knowledge relating to WWII. P7’s quality of higher order questioning was particularly impressive, and caught the attention of both our visitors to class. They demonstrated their inferential and evaluative thinking when presented with a wealth of information. Well done P7b, I am incredibly proud of you, demonstrating again what an asset and credit you are to our school. With the weather being so nice, we finished up our day with Golden Time outside. Mr. Logan’s football team missed out on victory in a well contested 5-5 draw. To be continued next week…

Next Week

• Camp EE2 forms to be sent home on Monday and returned by Friday 31st March at the latest
• Friendly football fixture versus Linlithgow Bridge P.S on Monday at 4:15pm
• Bunny Bingo on Tuesday evening
• Easter Parade and songs on Thursday
• WWII artifacts in P7 on Thursday afternoon 1-2pm
• Easter Assembly on Friday morning at St. Michael’s, P7 to accompany P1 buddies

Thanks again for taking the time to read our class blog, we hope you all have a lovely weekend. One week to go!

P7b and Mr. Logan