Author: Mrs McCartney

Hello!
Another busy week!
We have been practising our songs for the Easter Church Service next Friday and for the Easter Parade next Thursday, Mrs McCartney thinks that we are all singing beautifully!

Joseph Burgess was a confident individual when he presented a tutorial on the ACE dictionary. He was so clear and showed everyone in Primary 5 both cases!!) how to use it effectively and how it could benefit us and help us to improve our spelling- thank you so much Joseph!

Red Nose Day fun was had by all on Friday. We all had a great time with our crazy hair and we would like to than you everyone who brought in baking, it looked delicious!

Mrs McCartney had a class ‘Design a Red Nose’ competition for our class. Lot of us were very creative when we were designing our red nose and took inspiration from the red noses that we can get in the shops. Well done to all… the winner was…….PAUL!! Congratulations!!

We have been learning the ‘bus stop’ strategy for division this week. We are realising how strong the link is between division and multiplication and how important that it is that we know our times tables. We are learning the ‘Multiplication Mash Up’ song to help us in class with our tables.
In Literacy we have been looking at suffixes this week. We have been exploring the spelling rules and how using them can improve our writing.
Joanna did a suffix powerpoint presentation with crazy hair!! Well done, Joanna!

We have also been making top secret things for a special day on Sunday….apologies would ruin the surprise if we told you anything else!!!
Have a wonderful weekend and we hope that all the mums and special people in the world have the best day on Sunday!!!
Happy, relaxing weekend!

Mrs McCartney and P5A x

Things to remember:
*Easter bonnets on Wed 29th March

Hello!

Many thanks to all parents who came along for Parents’ Night- it was lovely to share how well your children are doing with you!

Lily and Nicci
Lily and Nicci were confident and responsible individuals when they went around the whole school collecting money for Sick Kids. They raised £32.10- amazing!
Well done girls- we are all very proud of you both!
Thank you to everyone who supported them.

Sharing Learning
Primary 5 visited P2, 3 and P2/3 to see how their ‘Victorian Day’ was going. Waw- they were all dressed up in Victorian clothes and were doing activities that children in those days would have done. They made dolls, kites and played Victorian games in the PE HALL. We all really enjoyed our visit- thank you very much for allowing us to come and share in your learning!

Science
In Science with Mrs Tulloch, we brought in our very own resources to make our own guitars. We used junior saws, wood, cardboard, rubber bands and wood.
We had to make 3 different pitches, it was a lot of fun!

Maths
We have been exploring multiplication strategies to help us calculate sums. We are giving every strategy a go and maintaining a growth mindset when we find sums tricky!
Mrs McCartney has definitely noticed our confidence growing, especially when we are managing to calculate extremely tricky sums.

Round Table Competition
This year’s theme is the Union Canal. Opened almost 200 years ago, it has been a central part of Linlithgow’s heritage, from the transport of goods in earlier times to becoming a haven for wildlife and leisure pursuits nowadays. Primary 5 were asked to take part in a writing competition: A story or a poem about the canal, e.g. how does the canal enrich our life? What do we love about the canal?
Our entries were fantastic!

Bridge Testing
We were delighted to showcase our bridges at Parents’ Night. We received lovely feedback about impressive they were!
We all tested our bridges this week- this was a lot of fun!
Lots of our bridges managed to hold 7 food tins!
Thank you to all who helped us make our bridges.

Things to remember:
Easter Bonnet for Wednesday 29th March- thank you!!

Many thanks for taking the time to read our blog.
We all hope that you have a fantastic weekend!
Mrs McCartney and P5A x

We were learning to create a (rather strange!) combined whole class story. The Library Committee came up with the idea! Sophie in our class, Louise from P5B, Fraser from P7B and Rebecca from P6B gave the whole school a ‘Weird Write All’ story pack. The class were divided into 3 groups to write the beginning, middle and end. Our title was ‘The Amazing Adventure.’
It was so funny to hear our WHOLE story being read out! We created a book to give to the library with our story.

In Maths we were learning to draw arrays to calculate the answer to a multiplication sum. We each came up with a sum and we drew arrays to demonstrate our understanding. We then were introduced to a new multiplication strategy called the ‘Distributive Property.’ We started off questioning what the word ‘distributive’ meant and how this could help us calculate multiplication sums. We were fantastic at calculating the answer and we EVEN managed to multiply a four digit number by a single digit! Waw!!!

In PE we have been doing Volleyball with Mrs Reid and team games with Mrs McCartney. This helps us to assume leadership, cooperate with others; question actions and regulations and accept responsibility for their own behaviour. It was a lot of fun and we demonstrated a team spirit throughout!

Our class novel is ‘Private Peaceful’ and we had a debate whether Tommo was to blame for his father’s death. One half of the class had to create a list of reasons why Tommo was to blame for his father’s death and the other half of the class had to create a list of reasons why Tommo was not to blame for his father’s death. We are becoming very good at explaining our reasoning.

In Art, we were focusing on Romero Britto and created Spring art in the style of him. He is a Brazilian neo-pop artist. He was born in Recife in East Brazil in 1963. He is very famous for his very bright and bold colourful paintings and prints. A lot of people enjoy Romero’s artwork (including famous people) and global companies such as Disney, LG, Mini and 02 have paid Romero to create paintings, portraits and sculptures!
He uses black to create the outline of the main shapes and for some of the features but he makes sure that some patterns do not have a black outline otherwise you would not be able to see the children or the world! For example, the spots and the stripes do not have a black outline but the flowers are painted black. Our art work was amazing!

It was lovely to see visitors to our class for our Reading open afternoon!
We showed our visitors lots of reading strategies that we use and how good we are at showing at demonstrating a deep understanding of the novel.

We won class of the week this week! Well done, P5A! So proud of you all!

Things to remember:
*Easter Bonnet- Wednesday 29th March.

Happy Friday and thank you very much for taking the time to read our blog!
Mrs McCartney and P5A x

Hello!

On Monday we drew detailed pencil drawings of Linlithgow Palace, where Mary Queen of Scots was born. We looked at the technique that artists use and we tried our best to use some of the techniques that we learned. We used a variety of photos of the palace and our drawings were all different. Mrs McCartney was delighted with our efforts!

We created subtraction word problems in Maths. We identified key subtraction words to use in our word problems and even created some tricky problems. Primary 5A got Primary 5B to solve their word problems- well done, P5B!

On Tuesday we started to decorate our door for World Book Day. We decided to do a ‘Gangsta Granny’door and used photos of us as if we were on the scooter like ‘Gangsta Granny.’

We had a wonderful visit from Mr Woodhouse who came to talk to use about his life experiences working on the original Forth Road Bridge. It was an amazing talk and he brought to life all of his stories! Thank you so much, Mr Woodhouse.

On Thursday it was World Book Day. We all brought in our favourite book and enjoyed a reading session with our book. We used persuasive language with our peers by creating a ‘Try this’ poster. Our peer s listened to us really well and some managed to be persuaded to try out their books.

We dressed up for ‘World Book Day’ on Friday. It was a lot of fun and we were very creative with our costumes!

We took part in a World Book Day Scavenger Hunt in our school library. We had to find an item in a variety of books, write the title of the book that it was found in, the page number and identify whether there it was a word, picture book or both.

Have a wonderful weekend, happy reading and thank you for taking the time to read our blog!
Mrs McCartney and P5A x

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Primary 5A have been busy debating this week…

We were exploring ‘Mindfulness’ in PE

with the other P5 class, this helps us to engage with the mind and breathing- it taught us a lot.

On Monday we has a taster Fencing session where we learned to lunge, block an attack and the on-guard position.

Mary Queen of Scots visited our class on Tuesday! She introduced herself and answered questions about her life very confidently. We played a game called the ‘Wall of Truth’ to help us learn to to explain our opinions. We had to say whether we agreed or not that children could make a big difference to the environment and if we should ban junk for children- the majority didn’t agree!
We worked in pairs to put statements and decide whether the statements were FOR or against Mary Queen of Scots execution. This helped to us to support us writing a balanced argument. We were given a checklist to help us use sentence openers for a debate. Mrs McCartney was delighted with our balanced arguments, we certainly are getting very confident explaining our views!
We were given the challenge of delivering a presentation with a partner, showcasing all we have learnt about Mary Queen of Scot . Some of us created Powerpoints, art pieces, some of us created class teams to play games and a quiz to check our knowledge!
The presentations were absolutely brilliant- we really are trying our best to be as creative as possible- good job!

In Maths, we have been learning how to use the column method to help us with subtracting. This is a speedy way to help us get an accurate answer and lots of us challenged ourselves to subtract using 3 and 4 digit numbers. We are going to look at subtracting word problems nest week in order to help us recognise the key words to look for in word problems.

Have a fantastic weekend and thank you for reading our blog!!

Mrs McCartney and P5A X

On Monday we were very excited to be set a ‘Build a Bridge’ challenge for homework. This task will encourage us to be creative and think strategically about simple structures. We have to decide upon the best design discussing which criteria to use for our bridge. When we bring our bridges back to school, we will test our bridge structures for strength, which will require a systematic approach. We will be prepared to share our bridge design with our teacher and our peers on Wednesday 15th February. Bridge building has begun…
On Tuesday we had the last of our Tag Rubgy sessions. We would like to thank all the helpers who so very kindly walked to the Rugby Club with us and many thanks also to the Rugby coaches at the Rugby Club for making it such a fun session! Lots of fun was had by all!
On Wednesday we had the “best fun in school ever!” said Ewan! The whole school had sessions with Google Expeditions, where learners can take ‘expeditions’ right from their classroom. Expeditions allowed Mrs McCartney to act as a “guide” through collections of 360° and 3D images of the Seven Wonders of the World and Edinburgh Castle, while pointing out interesting sights along the way. It really was amazing!

On Thursday we wrote newspaper reports about the new Queensferry Crossing. We were very excited to hear that the last part of the bridge was put in place last night!! We learned that to write a great newspaper report you need to choose an interesting event to write about. It is very important to have a short and snappy first paragraph that briefly explains what happened, the tricky part was making this so that, even if the reader stopped reading after this, they will still know roughly what happened. We tried our best to keep our most important information near the top of the report . We thought about; Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?. It was important that we considered these questions during the planning process and we made sure that we answered them all, keeping our sentences short and punchy, so that it doesn’t become boring. Our peers helped us to CHECK our spelling and facts! Lots of us included quotes and interviews. We shared these reports with our peers. Mrs McCartney said that our headlines were amazing!!

On Friday we had the very first of our Committee meetings in our groups. We were all very excited to hear what group we were in and loved that we were asked which groups we would like to be part of first, what a big job organising all of those names into Committees. They were a success and we are already looking forward to the next Committee meeting!
Well done to Joseph Moon who took part in a TV show called ‘All Over the Workplace’. It was brilliant. What a confident and enthusiastic teacher you will be!
We all watched his show this morning- great job!

Have a fabulous weekend!
Mrs McCartney and P5A x

Engineers in P5A…

What a fun and creative week!

On Monday we designed Maths games in pairs or in a group of 3 to end our addition work in Maths. We had to include additional maths language, which was actually quite tricky and lots of us had to think hard to use a variety of additional vocabulary. Once we had created our game, we then came had to come up with clear and logical instructions so that our peers can play them! This proved to be challenging but rewarding as we all managed to work together in order to create our very OWN game!

On Tuesday it was our second session of rugby at the Rugby Club. We are learning of positive values while participating in this experience. First, there is honesty, we must readily admit that we have been tagged. Second, there is the value of teamwork. Touch rugby is not a one-man show. We realise that our team must pull together in order to win. Lastly, there is discipline. As with any other sport, there are rules to be followed in rugby, which we and play fairly. We are looking forward to our third and last session next week.
We would like to thank everyone that has come along and supported us during these taster sessions- your support is very much appreciated.

On Wednesday we went on our class trip to the Forth Crossing Education Centre to learn all about bridges and the design of them. It was so informative and really benefited us. We learned, not only a lot about bridges in general but also about the new bridge being built and the many aspects that need to be considered. It was wonderful that we got an opportunity to walk across the bridge and really put all the knowledge that they had gained into context. We also had an insight into their own ‘perception’ of their strengths and weaknesses in the team building exercise in the afternoon. The visit has really helped our understanding about engineering and bridges.

On Thursday we made colour wheels with Mrs Tulloch. We coloured our wheel the 7 colours of the spectrum and then we put it onto a motor. We made the motor spin with our electrical circuit. The colour wheel spun and we saw white. What a lot of fun! Thank you Mrs Tulloch!

On Friday, Ruairidh, Rory and Zak ‘Shared our Learning’ about Scotland in our Scots Assembly. We were researching facts about Scotland in groups. They were picked as a representative for each group to explain what we have been doing this week in class. We had to consider how to present our information about Scotland to an audience. We were exploring Scottish culture, cities or landmarks in groups. It was very important that we worked as a team, using a clear, loud voice during our presentation. We are researching a ‘Famous Scot’ called Alexander Graham Bell. We created interactive information posters about his life.

Have a fantastic weekend!
Mrs McCartney and P5A X

Things to remember:
*Last session of Rugby on Tuesday 31st January.

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We have certainly been very active this week!

Rugby

We walked to the Rugby Club this week for the start of a block of 3 sessions of Rugby. We all played Tag Rugby. It is a non- tackle, minimal contact version of rugby. The objective of the game is to be the team that has accumulated the most points at full time by scoring trys. A try is scored by the attacking team when they place the ball on ground on or over the try line. A try is worth one point. Mrs McCartney really enjoyed watching us and was very impressed with our positive attitudes! We are looking forward to the next couple of rugby sessions.

Sweeties in a Jar

Mrs McCartney is so proud of Zara, Joseph Moon and Joanna! They have been raising money for the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. They have gone around the classes for the last 2 weeks and lots of the children have guessed how many sweets are in the jar. We are going to announce the winner at assembly this morning!!!
Thank you everyone who supported this wonderful cause!

Maths

We have been learning how to calculate addition sums using the standard written method (ie. chimney sums) after we have developed some mental strategies.
We found this useful for dealing with larger numbers as mental calculations can be tricky. We have persevered and helped each other if we get stuck. Chimney sums provide an accurate and quick means to the answer.

Literacy

In Grammar this week we were focussing on Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ song. We were exploring the use of figurative language. We had to identify, label, and explain the type of figurative language used in the song lyrics. Example included: imagery devices such as metaphors, similes and personification. We are going to follow up this lesson next week by using similes, metaphors and personification to describe a family member!!

Street Dance

We had a taster Street Dance session on Thursday with Sam! We learned a whole dance routine and Mrs McCartney joined in too! We learned that no beat sounds go beyond 8 and how important it is to listen to the beat of a song-what a lot of fun!!

Things to remember:

*Rugby on Tuesday 24th Jan
*Forth Crossing Education Centre trip on Wednesday 25th January- packed lunch and snack is required please.

Have a fabulous weekend!

P5A and Mrs McCartney x

What a busy week our first full week back!

Birds

We have been studying birds for our ‘Outdoor Learning’ focus. We have been learning to use a map to locate the world’s countries, continents and oceans and to understand why some animals travel long distances around the world. Mrs McCartney asked us to show our understanding by plotting the migration route of a bird, name the countries, continents and oceans the bird will fly over and to identify the hazards that a migrating bird might encounter. We have been working really well in our small groups and are looking forward to seeing each other’s presentations! Our RSPB workshop on Thursday was great, we even had snow when we were exploring the outside school grounds when we were identifying birds!
Thank you very much to our parent helpers who came along to help with this workshop and to Mrs Law for organising it!

Maths

Mrs McCartney is very impressed with the strategies that we are using to asdd 4/4 digit numbers. It has really helped us having ‘solid, logical’ ways to add 3 digit numbers and lots of us have used the same strategies for larger numbers. We are working well to support each other, especially when we are calculating the missing numbers in addition sums!!

Literacy

We have been focusing on adverbs this week for Grammar. We worked in pairs and were given a verb. We had to think about 5 adverbs that we could use for our given verb. Lots of us were very creative and came up with games to guess these, such as Charades etc! We were asked to use adverbs in our story writing this week, ‘If I Were In a Snow Globe’. We ‘chunked’ down what our writing would look like by answering 4 questions during the planning process. We had to think about, How did I get in there? What was it like inside? How did I get out or will I stay inside forever?
We are looking forward to our Rugby sessions that start this Tuesday!

All of P5A are wishing you all a happy, snowy weekend!

Things to Remember:
*Rugby sessions start on Tuesday 17th January-please return the Rugby permission slips by Monday 16th January.