Author: Mrs Matos Van Den Heever

Wow, what a busy and active week we have had. We have been learning about the importance of keeping our minds and bodies healthy. This week our school focus was Health fitness week, we took part in a variety of fun, healthy and active activities. A massive thank you to Mr. Logan who had organized such a fun and active week for us!

It was important this week that we took part in an active start every morning, this helped us to wake ourselves up, but aso to help our body and mind to get ready for our busy days ahead.  Each morning we started with a different active start to our day, to name just a few activities, we took part in some yoga and mindfulness, just dance, Kids fitness program and some 5 a day Spanish ( doing exercise and learning Spanish at the same time!). As the biggest craze at the moment is Fortnite we even managed to use all the Fortnite dancers for  part of our active start, this was great fun, but wow did we find it challenging and exhausting – even Mrs. Matos was struggling to keep up! Throughout the week we took part in different sport games such as rugby, handball and Gaelic football – this was a good opportunity to play together as a team, have fun and learn new skills too. One of our highlights of our healthy fitness week was having the opportunity to make and taste some fruit smoothies, mmmmm!! Let’s not forget our fantastic sports day on Wednesday, it has truly been a fun filled week.

Amongst all the fun, on Tuesday we took a walk to St Michael’s church, where we were given a tour of the church, our focus of the tour was to learn the history about the church and we had a closer look at the windows and the meaning behind some of the lovely art on the windows. After our tour we walked to the rugby club for the Linlithgow Book Festival, we had the opportunity to meet and listen to the author of our class novel, Fox Girl and the White Gazelle. We really enjoying our novel and some of us were lucky enough to purchase the novel for ourselves and had it signed by the author.

Over the last 30 weeks, some Primary 6 and Primary 7 children have been practicing with the company Limelight, they have been playing instruments and transforming into rock stars. On Tuesday the ‘rock band’ performed at Howden Park Centre, Mrs. Matos went a long to watch the performance and was blown away by the level of confidence and enthusiasm by all children involved, a massive well done to all involved.

Only two weeks to go before our summer holidays begin, what more is still in store for us?

 

P6A and Mrs. Matos

 

 

 

It’s been another fun filled week in Primary 6.

 

Literacy:  We have continued to develop our comprehension skills, we are learning to use a range of different strategies to help us understand a text. We are looking very forward to being buddies to the P1 learners next term. We have been drafting and editing  our friendly letters to our buddies. We have been paying special attention to our spelling, grammar and punctuation in our letters. Next week Tuesday we will be going along to the Linlithgow book festival to meet the author of our class novel, The fox girl and the white gazelle. The novel that we have been reading has been very engaging, as it is based in Glasgow and it refers to real life situations, we have all been very engaged and had a lot of discussions based on what has been happening to the two main characters and we have been comparing their lives to our own. Continuing with figure of speech, this week we have focused on Hyperbole and how we can use it in our writing.

Numeracy: We have been continuing to further develop our understanding of fractions, we have been comparing and simplifying fractions. We have used the Singapore Bar modeling method to help us to understand and calculate a fraction of an amount.

PE: This week in PE we have been developing our athletic skills, We have been improving our running and sprint techniques. We have also been learning the correct technique for a relay race, we got a little competitive during our PE when we had a few relay races.

1+2: For 1+2 this week, we practiced and learnt some new French vocabulary and phrases, we are all brushing up on our language skills just in time for our fast approaching summer holidays.

IDL: We have continued with map work this week. Using the netbooks we have researched different map symbols for the Ordnance Survey mapping.  In preparation of our tour of st Michael’s church on Tuesday, we used the netbooks to do some research of the history of the church, and we had a look at different pictures that showed the design and art of the church.

Expressive arts: Continuing with our Linlithgow focus, we completed our Linlithgow sketches, we completed our sketches by either adding paint, chalk, pastel or pen to bring our art to life. Our pictures represent what Linlithgow means to us.

Wishing for good weather next week, Tuesday we will be attending the Linlithgow book festival and having a tour of St Michael’s church. Wednesday is sports day. Another busy week planned for next week.

P6A and Mrs Matos

Another busy week, filled with fun and learning.

Literacy:  We just couldn’t resist watching a short clip of the Royal wedding, the wedding created a lot of discussions and comparisons to previous royal weddings and weddings that we have attended before. We all turned into budding journalists during Literacy and we planned and wrote a newspaper report for our local paper, using formative language to let our community know all about the royal wedding. We concentrated on the layout of our newspaper, made sure we used a bold and catching headline, and we made sure that we use interesting openers and vocabulary throughout our writing to make sure that we grabbed our readers attention and kept them engaged.

Numeracy: Fractions, fractions, fractions. We have continued with fractions this week and have been consolidating our learning of converting, comparing and ordering fractions. We’ve begun practicing our measuring skills, and have discussed the different times that we would use measure and why and we discussed the importance of using the correct unit of measure and how to measure accurately. Can you guess the length of our school pitch? We went outside and measured the length of our pitch , we discussed different ways that we could measure the length and which would be more sufficient. This activity will help us a little later during IDL when we have to imagine  or understand how far 50 meters on a map will represent.

IDL: We are continuing to learn about our local area, we used different resources such as maps and books to help us to compare how Linlithgow has changed and developed over the years. We have really enjoyed learning about how Linlithgow has changed, and we found some old pictures of Springfield Primary school.

1+2:  In Spanish this week, we learnt some words for the different school stationary that we use in the classroom, and we learnt vocabulary for different classroom instructions .

PE: We have been taking  advantage of the good weather. This week we took our PE outside and improved our skills in rounders. It is always good fun to play a competitive team sport, but without realising it, we are developing our hand and eye co-ordination, speed, accuracy, team building skills, and so much more.

Science: Science this week was some what…..gross!! We learnt all about the digestive system, from start to finish, Ms. Crombie and Mrs. Matos showed us a demonstration of the digestive system, please ask us to explain what we have learnt, although ‘gross’ at times, it was all very fun and interesting.

NSPCC: NSPCC came along and spoke to us about who we can talk to when we feel we are being bullied or mistreated. We discussed different types of abuse and how we can identify these. We also shared who we can talk to or contact if we need any help.

 

P6A, Ms. Crombie and Mrs. Matos

 

 

Another busy week for Primary 6. Well done to all the boys and girls that took part in the triathlon this week, you can all be so proud of yourselves.

Literacy:  We have been very busy during Literacy this week. Over the last couple of weeks, we have been discussing different ways that we can up level our writing, to keep the reader engaged. We discussed the meaning and use of Figurative Speech and how we can use it in our writing. So far we have learnt and identified Alliteration in poetry and this week we discussed the meaning  of Metaphors and we identified the use of Metaphors in music. To help improve our comprehension skills, we learnt about inference. We learnt how to use inference when reading a text to help us to understand what we are reading, and it helps us to ‘read between the lines’. When last have you written a letter? Probably not for a long time, since most people now send emails or use other forms of technology. But it is still important that we learn about the format and language that we would use in a formal letter. This week we have been learning about land developments and how they can affect the community, we decided to write a letter to Tom Kerr, we used the format of a formal letter, and persuasive language to convince Mr. Kerr of the benefits of the new cycle circuit land development in Linlithgow.

Numeracy: We continuing to extend our knowledge in Fractions. We have been working in different groups this week, some groups have been furthering their understanding of adding fractions with mixed denominators and other groups have been learning to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers and mixed numbers to improper fractions. For home learning this week, we have been challenged to identify where fractions have been used around the home, shops, magazines and TV.

IDL: We have been discussing how land developments can affect the community. We were lucky this week to have some sunshine and were able to take our learning outdoors. Debating was the name of the game, we were given a scenario where a lovely park, was going to used for a new housing development, we were placed into different groups, such as the developers, the loyal community and the eco friendly group. We had to debate to the judges on the effects of the land development will have on the community. It was very tricky trying to put our arguments across and a lot of persuasive language was used. After this fun activity, it was brought to our attention that something very similar to this is happening in our community. There are plans for a cycle circuit/skate park to be built just behind the Xcite Leisure center. It was very interesting to learn about this new development and we discussed our own thoughts on what we thought about it. We looked at the proposed maps and discussed the effects this has on the community and the environment.

1+2: With all the sunshine we had this week, and the upcoming summer holidays, it was decided that we would learn some vocabulary and phrases to help us to talk about the weather in French.

Science: This week in science we learnt about the muscles in the body and how the help with movements. We also had a look at different joints in our body and how they help us to move. To consolidate our learning we created our own 3D replicas of arm muscles to show how they contract and expand during movements.

Buddies: This week we have started to meet our buddies, that we will be helping to settle into Primary 1 next year, and to feel welcome and part of the Springfield family. Some of us had the opportunity to go to the nursery and spend some time getting to know our buddies and to play some games with them. We also took some lovely photos with our buddy ,so keep your eyes open for our buddy board in school.

P6A, Mrs Matos and Ms Crombie

 

After a lovely long weekend off, we got off to a running start to our 3 day week.

On Wednesday morning all Primary 6 children took part in the cluster cross country. The morning was well organized with a 1.5km run around the Loch. Everyone took part with enthusiasm and put there athletic skills and perseverance to the test. GC from P6B came 4th overall in the girls group, well done! Within our school, RD, PM and CH were the top 3 for the boys and EC, AP and GC were the top 3 for the girls – a massive well done to all primary 6 children, what great effort and achievement!

Literacy: Our Lion King production was such a success we thought it would be a good idea to write a ‘theatre review’ based on the feedback from our audience, as well as our own personal experience. We had a look at the different features of a review, we discussed the target audience, the purpose, layout and language. We discussed the good and the not so good about the production, and looked at ways that it could have been improved, concentrating on using a wide range of interesting adjectives and persuasive language we began our new roles as Theatre critics. In grammar this week we discussed and identified  alliterations being used in song lyrics and text.

Numeracy:  Using concrete materials such as Lego and building blocks we continued to expand our knowledge and understanding of fractions, In different groups we looked at and discussed mixed numbers and equivalent fractions. Can you help us to use fractions in our everyday lives?

Health and Wellbeing: We continued with our previous lesson from last week, learning about food allergies, this week we concentrated on what happens to our bodies if we eat something that we may be allergic to.

IDL: During IDL this term our focus is going to be geography and learning about our local area. To start us off, Ms Crombie shared with us her previous experience of a Marine Geophysicist, she shared some very interesting facts about how different Scottish landforms have been developed over time as well as her time out at sea, mapping the sea. The children enjoyed making a 3D models of Arthur seat to end a very interesting and informative lesson, thank you  Ms Crombie.

Science: In science this week, we continued learning and expanding our knowledge of the skeleton, we completed some fun activities and built a pasta skeleton to consolidate our learning.

P6A, Mrs Matos and Ms Crombie

Another week gone filled with fun and learning. Our week started off with some lucky sunny weather for us to take part in some Pond Dipping at the Loch. Using our nets we tried to find and identify as many pond creatures as possible.

Literacy: It’s the early 1900’s and we have moved to the big city for work, plenty of work in the new factories, but our living conditions are not what we expected…….This week during literacy we imagined our lives during the Industrial Revolution, because we had imagined moving to the city we wrote postcards home describing what our living conditions were like. During our grammar lessons we learnt the importance and purpose of punctuation in our writing. We consolidated our knowledge of using the full stop, comma, question mark and exclamation mark, and we are beginning to understand and present the colon, semi-colon, brackets and ellipsis in our writing.

Numeracy: We finished learning about time with a fun stopwatch activity. We were learning to read and record timings from a stopwatch. This week we have started with fractions, we had a ‘sweet’ lesson working out the different fraction of colours in a bag of Skittles. Who knew learning about fractions could be so tasty!

IDL: We’ve come to the end of our Industrial Revolution topic. We learnt about the three mains form of transport during the revolution and discussed the pros and cons of each. We also discovered the living conditions that the poor had to experience during the revolution.  We learnt about how these conditions lead to the spread of germs and illness.  We also had a look at photographs of slum housing and back to back housing. We compared living conditions from during the Industrial Revolution to living conditions now and we are now very grateful for having our own private toilets at home. We have also been looking a lot through the research we have done to present out class talk on the Industrial Revolution. Mrs Matos has been very impressed with the quality of our presentations and talk.

HWB: On Wednesday the 9th May we will be taking part in the cluster cross country, so to get us prepared, during PE we worked on athletic agility. As part of our school values, being respectful and kind to others is very important, this week we learnt how important it is to carry these values even further than the school and we discussed ways on how to be responsible, respectful and kind global citizen. This week we investigated different food allergies and described the effect it has on a persons body. We had a look at the back of food packages and were surprised of some of the ingredients.

Science: It was all about the skeleton in science this week. We had closer look at the human skeleton and it’s function we have also been learning the correct biological terms for the different bones – ask us about this.

P6A, Mrs Matos and Ms Crombie

 

Wow, what a week Primary 6 have had! With the start of the week starting with a Lion King dress rehearsal at Linlithgow Academy, to ending the week off, with an amazing show stopping Lion King production! Primary 6 and Primary 7 put on a show that will  never be forgotten. All the children put in a lot of effort and enthusiasm to pull off the best show ever. Well done to all the children!

Literacy: Playing games  can help us to learn different spelling rules. This week for active spelling we played a variety of spelling games to reinforce spelling rules we have learnt before.  We continued to read our class novel, The mysterious journey of Edward Tulane. Edward has been on so many adventures and his character changes with each adventure, we used our imagination and created the different personalities that Edward has developed. During guided reading this week, we used our individual reading novel and completed tasks that were based on grammar, we used the text to find different nouns, connectives and punctuations. We’ve been learning about the Industrial Revolution and what it was like to be a child worker. During Literacy we analysed the elements and features of a diary entry. Using our knowledge on the life of a child worker we wrote a diary entry to explain a typical day in the life of a child worker. Our grammar focus this week was identifying and using direct and indirect speech correctly in a text.

Numeracy: We have continued learning about time and how and where it is used in real life context. We have been consolidating solving  and calculating time problems.

HWB: This week is internet safety week. With the rise of online gaming, we have been learning the importance of the responsible use of the internet and the safety of chatting on line. We have discussed and shared our thoughts and ideas on what it means to us to be a Global citizen.

RME: Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, who was planning to kill all the Jews. We a little late with the celebration, but this week, we learnt about Purim, we learnt how and why it is celebrated. It was a very exciting lesson as we even got to do some baking, this gave us an opportunity to experience some of the foods that are eating during the celebration.

Things to remember:

Monday, 30th May we going Pond Dipping, please make sure you have sensible shoes that can get wet.

P6A and Mrs Matos

 

After a lovely week at camp last week, it was time to get our heads down and back to the grind stone.

Literacy: We took some time to reflect on our camp experience. Mrs Matos shared with us some of the photos of us that were taken during our time at Dalguise. We had a few good giggles at some of the photos, but they were all good memories of a fun time together. Together with our fond memories and photos, we designed our very own brochure for PGL Dalguise. Before our creative juices started flowing we discussed the main elements and features of a brochure. We took some time to analyse and discuss some travel brochures, we specifically looked at the layout, Title, who the brochure is aimed for ( audience) and lastly we analysed the purpose. We used all this knowledge and created informative PGL Dalguise brochures….. perhaps Dalguise may want to use some of our brochures for marketing purposes.  We continued to make our way through our class novel, the mysterious journey of Edward Tulane, we read a few more chapters in the book, and discussed how the character is evolving and how his adventures is the cause of the change. We looking forward to reading more next week, to hear what adventure will he be on next.

Numeracy and Mathematics: We have been working with time this week. We have looked at how we use time in our everyday lives. We’ve been solving time problems and been calculating the difference between time on a travel time table. Our favourite,the TV guide, we have been calculating the duration of TV shows.  During Number talks Mrs Matos gave us a very challenging division problem to solve, and after some discussion and sharing of different strategies it was a lot easier to solve than we thought. Using the stratgeies shared we were able to complete the remaining string of problems.

IDL: Industrial Revolution – this week we discussed the 5 factors that lead to the Industrial Revolution, we worked in groups to read through some facts and create a poster that best described each factors part in the cause of the revolution. We also had a read through various different sources of what life  was like for child workers during the revolution. After reading some alarming facts and stories this lead to a discussion and comparison to life as a child now and the rights that children now have… we really are very lucky, and we all agreed that if we were to choose, we would definitely to choose to be a child now.

 HWB: Did you know that storks no longer deliver babies? This week we learnt all about how babies are made and how they are born.  Although some of us felt a little nervous and shy to hear about this, we really found it interesting and Mrs Matos was very impressed by how mature we all were and was pleased with some of the mature questions that were asked.

PE: This was our first week of athletics training. In May we will be taking part in the cluster cross country and we are determined to be prepared and ready to win. We warmed up with some jogs around the pitch, and later we completed some various circuit training activities.

Expressive Arts: Not long to go now, until our long awaited Lion King production. We were back  to  rehearsals this week. It is all starting to feel real now after our full day  of  rehearsals   at the Linlithgow Academy on Thursday. The production has help to build our confidence in both drama and music, and we are looking forward to sharing this experience with all our families and friends next week.

Primary 6 and Mrs Matos