Author: Mrs McCartney

P5A’s Political Week…

What a busy week ‘Saving Our School!’

We heard an incredible, true story that gave us an inspirational lift this week. We watched a video of children that live in the desert region of Cholistan, Pakistan who are in a battle for their education. They are often expected to work with their family’s livestock instead of going to lessons and many girls are kept out of school completely. Even if their parents want them to go, a lot of children in Cholistan live so far away from the nearest school that it’s dangerous for them to travel there.
In 2009, the regional government announced funding for 75 schools in Cholistan. This project changed the lives of 5,500 children over five years before disaster struck: it was announced that the project would end in March 2014 and that the schools would all have to close. Even though many of their classrooms were not fully built and they had to have lessons on the dusty floor outside, the children of Cholistan loved their schools. They needed to fight back against these closures. We found this story inspirational as they were successful, fighting for their cause. In Cholistan, the media helped to make change happen. The Governor couldn’t ignore the issue as so many people were talking about it.
In a democracy, we can all help to hold leaders to account for their actions by reminding them of things they have promised to do. We explored democracy and how people take part in it. We looked at how we would fight to keep our school open and how important education is.
We created our own political parties where we had to decide on the following:
*Make up a party and decide on a name.
*Decide who will be your candidate.
*Produce a manifesto.
*Write a speech for your candidate.
*Create posters for display.
* Write a press release.
We delivered our speeches and voted today for which party we thought would be best. The political party that won was W.W.W ‘What We Want- well done!! Sophie was their candidate and they all worked really well as a team! Primary 5B were our audience and voted also, thank you so much P5B! Fantastic effort by all!!
It left us realising that we have a voice and how lucky we are to get educated daily. There are still millions of children around the world who are without access to education.

You can watch the videos that inspired us on the Action Aid website.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone! The countdown begins to Santa coming…

Mrs McCartney and P5A x ho ho ho

Things to remember:
*P5A ‘Christmas Activity Afternoon’ 1.15-3.15pm on Monday 19th December (‘party clothes’ many be brought in and your child can get changed before party.)
*St Michael’s Family Carol Service 7pm on Tuesday 20th December
*School stops for holidays on Wednesday 21st December at 3.15pm
School returns Wednesday 4th January 2017.

Christmas Countdown…

St Michael’s Day Care Centre

What a proud moment singing to St Michael’s Day Care Centre. We all sang beautifully and Mrs McCartney and Mrs Matos were delighted with our singing. Adam and Oliver filmed us singing, we will share with you soon! We all felt very Christmassy!!!
We wish the Day Care Centre a very, very Merry Christmas!

Nativity
We thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Inkeeper’s Breakfast’ Nativity play on Tuesday. Lots of us had siblings that were in the performance. We thought it was very funny and amusing! Well done to all involved!

Tesco

Primary 5 all made wonderful Christmas tree art for Tesco. We wanted to add lots of detail and considered how we would achieve this task. Mrs Mellon is going to send our art work to Tesco and hopefully it will be in their windows soon!!

Bubblegum and Fluff
We all had a fantastic time at St Michel’s Church on Thursday morning. It was jam packed with lots of fun activities to do!! We made candle mosaic tiles, we learned that it is all about giving at Christmas time, not about what is inside the present.

Science
Mrs Tulloch was amazing and let us have our Science lesson on Wednesday rather than our usual Thursday because we had a trip. We made prototypes for our parachutes that we are going to make next week. We had to consider how it would float, if Santa would stay in it and what materials we would use to make it.

Twelve Days of Christmas Problem Solving Challenge

We had a sing-along to the Christmas Carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas’ then Mrs McCartney gave us a challenge! We had to think about the different characters that appear in the carol and then calculate how many legs are there ALTOGETHER in the carol. We also had to calculate how many gifts. Mrs McCartney asked us for our suggestions, if there was a method to how we calculated the answer and how we chose to record the results. We all worked really well in our teams!

Things to remember:
*Wednesday 14th December- Handball Festival at Linlithgow Academy *Wednesday 14th December- School Christmas lunch

Have a lovely Christmassy weekend and a good rest!
P5A and Mrs McCartney x

Christmas is coming…

Well, what a week preparing for the Christmas Fayre!

Enterprise/Christmas Fayre

Primary 5A have been brainstorming ideas of what we thought would sell at the Christmas Fayre, evaluating our ideas. We researched what resources what we thought we would need and how much they would be to buy. We looked at how to market our product and if we thought that it was something that our ‘customers’ would buy. We spent a lot of time considering how much to sell our product.
By 10.50am we were sold out!!!! What a brilliant success!! Mrs McCartney was overwhelmed with how enthusiastic we were, even singing Christmas carols beside our stall, we are already counting down to next year and wondering what to make???!!
We will be reflecting on our week next week thinking about what we personally thought of our Enterprise Project, which parts we enjoyed and if we were going to do it again, what would we change and why- well done to all and thank you so much for all your help and support!!

St Michael’s Day Care Centre
We have started to sing the songs that we are going to sing next Tuesday to the Day Care Centre! Our teachers think that we are doing a great job! We can’t wait for next Tuesday!

Things to remember:
*Christmas post begins on Monday 5th-16th December- there is no charge for the post
*Tuesday 6th December – singing to Day Care Centre. Children can wear Christmas hats that day if they wish.
*Thursday 8th December- Bubblegum and Fluff trip- please remember to bring a packed lunch.

Hola!!

Another busy, busy week!

1+2
We are beginning to identify key information from a short predictable conversation and react with words or gestures in Spanish. We worked with the other Primary 5 on Tuesday morning and created a months of the year calendar in Spanish. We are learning songs and rhymes and are showing understanding and enjoyment by listening, joining in and responding in both French and Spanish.

Health and Wellbeing
We have been doing Gymnastics in P.E. Mrs McCartney was so impressed that she came into the hall to see us with Mrs Reid and took photographs. We are recognising when we experience new challenges for learning, we are encouraged and supported to demonstrate our creative ability. We are going to the P5 Handball Festival on December 14th.We are going to be preparing for this festival over the next couple of week in our P.E slots.

We are beginning to identify key information from a short predictable conversation and react with words or gestures in Spanish. We worked with the other Primary 5 on Tuesday morning and created a months of the year calendar in Spanish. We are learning songs and rhymes and are showing understanding and enjoyment by listening, joining in and responding in both French and Spanish.

Literacy

We are continuing to explore the text, ‘The Amazing Story of Aldolphus Tips’. We are demonstrating our understanding of the text by answering very tricky questions about the text- even coming up with our own!!
We wrote fantastic poems about peace. We were asked to visualise what peace looks like and how we can link peace to our senses. Our poems were very emotional and brought a tear to Mrs McCartney’s eyes!

Maths

We have been looking at mental addition strategies for adding a 2 digit number to the three digit number. We were working with a partner to create a poster demonstrating our chosen strategy. Mrs McCartney told us to make sure that it made sense as we are going to share these with our peers. We are really working on having Growth Mindset in Maths. We are becoming more confident with which calculations are needed and can solve problems involving whole numbers using a range of methods. We are really enjoying sharing my approaches and solutions with others.

Book Fair

The Book Fair was a wonderful success!!! Mrs Manlove worked so, SO hard preparing for all the books for the fair and each class loved going along! Paul Manlove has been a credit to the school and helped his mum out each day! We are so proud of you, Paul! What a responsible citizen!
Christmas Hamper Appeal
Thank you to all who brought in food donations for the Christmas Hamper Appeal! Your support is very much appreciated. Both Primary 5 classes are going to prepare the Christmas bags next week to give to the Day Care Centre.

Christmas Fayre

We are looking forward to our enterprise focus next week and preparing our ‘Snowman Soup’ for the Christmas Fayre. We are very lucky to have parents coming in next week to help us with this and the Christmas Hamper Appeal.
Happy weekend everyone!

Adios!

Primary 5A and McCartney x

Things to remember:
*Growth Mindset Open Afternoon 1.30-2.45pm Wednesday 30th November
*Christmas Fayre next Friday 2nd December

Remembrance Day

What a BUSY week!

Celebrating Achievement

Mrs McCartney was so proud of us today as we presented our class assembly to infants, upper school and to parents/carers. We explored the reasons why we wear poppies and what the word conflict means. We then focused on strategies to help us resolve conflict in our daily lives- we really hope that this helped!
Mrs McCartney is going to appoint ‘Peer Mediators’ in our class to help resolve conflict .Many thanks for coming along today and sharing our learning!

Resolving Conflict

We have been exploring conflict resolution in class. We are learning that when we get into arguments with people, the problem won’t be sorted until both parties feel that they have been treated fairly. First we have to try to understand – by putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes. Each person must be allowed to say how they feel – without being interrupted. In order for it to work: each person must listen carefully to what the other has to say.

Book Focus
We are really enjoying exploring the text, ‘The Amazing Story of Aldolphus Tips.’ We will be doing lots of fun activities linked across the curriculum related to this novel. It is bringing all the knowledge that we have gained about World War 2 to life and helping us to realise what life was like during that time.
Shoe Box Appeal
The Shoe Box Appeal was a massive success. Primary 5 really enjoyed the full experience. Mrs McCartney said we were like Santa’s little helpers filling the shoe boxes last Friday. They have now been collected and are going to give many people in the world a memorable Christmas!!!
Well done, Primary 5! Thank you so, so much to EVERYONE who donated a shoe box- we really appreciate your support.
St Michael’s Christmas Hamper Appeal
We are overwhelmed already by the amount of food that has arrived in school for the Christmas Hamper Appeal- thank you so much!! The children are creating a display of the food outside both Primary 5’s classes.
Things to remember:
*St Michael’s Christmas Hamper Appeal in by Friday 25th November please
*Focusing on the poem ‘Flander’s Field’ for our reading homework this week- looking forward to hearing the children’s personal responses to the poem!

Happy weekend!
P5A and Mrs McCartney x

Assembly

Another busy week in Primary 5A! We are so busy preparing for our Assembly. We were given our lines that we are going to say with a focus on our pace, volume and expression. Looking forward to seeing you all there next Friday!

War Veteran
Dave, a war veteran that was in the Navy came to speak to Primary 5 and Primary 7. We were so lucky to share the experience of listening to his life story and all challenges he has encountered along the way.

British Legion Documentary Filming
Thank you so, so, so much to Adam in Primary 6 and to P7’s who came to help both P5 classes film our competition entries. All of Primary 5 really took their roles very seriously, showing enthusiasm and commitment to their task. Mrs McCartney is so proud of us all. Many thanks to parents/carers who helped us with this great experience.

Linlithgow Peel
How lucky were we to have such great weather on Monday when we went to Linlithgow Peel as part of our Science outdoor learning focus. The Rangers made our visit so interesting and we have learned lots of information about birds, migration and food chains. It was such a lot of fun using binoculars.

Quality Dining Table
Primary 5 are so excited to have been asked to take on the responsibility of our Springfield ‘Quality Dining Table’ which will take place every Thursday. It was the infants turn this week and every teacher picked a child in their class who has worked so hard all week to join the table. Primary 5 are going to have a vote to decide on a name and we are going to create posters etc to decorate the area. It is upper school’s turn next week…. Wonder who it will be????

Shoe Box Appeal
We are overwhelmed!! We cannot thank everyone enough for all your kind genorisity brining in shoe boxes or items for a shoe box. You have really helped to make Christmas Day a happy occasion for children that aren’t as lucky as us- thank you!!!

Things to remember:
*Please bring in materials on Monday to make your very own poppy- we have resources in school so don’t worry if you don’t find anything at home!
*Our assembly is at 11.15am next Friday 11th November- Looking forward to seeing you all then!!
*Letters are in your child’s bag today re St Michael’s Day Care Centre Christmas Hamper Appeal- please could you donate food items by Friday 25th November.

Thank you so much for your support!

Hello!

Another busy week for P5A!

Africa

P5A have been inspired by the dramatic silhouettes of the Maasai. We were learning to create African patterns and we created an art piece including a single warrior or a family adding dramatic African patterns. These are going to be sent to Africa along with the items that we have collected for our ‘Pack for a Purpose Project.’ We were delighted that Mrs Crocker was able to come back into school to celebrate our success with us and she went away with lots of exciting goodies to take to Africa. Thank you all for your support!

Achievement

We are all so proud of Joseph and Sophie who have raised money for Eczema Outreach Scotland. They organised their project all on their own and gave up their own time to make it such a success! Well done to both of you!

Shoe Box Appeal

Both Primary 5 classes are participating in organising the Shoe Box Appeal for our school. We began the process by planning how we were going to notify the classes. We decided to create posters to raise awareness. We are very excited about this project!

Please can all shoe boxes be handed in by Friday 4th November – many thanks in advance!

Special Person Afternoon

We were delighted that our ‘Special Person’ came along to help us create our class island which we decided to call ‘Anywhere Island.’ Mrs McCartney is very proud of us!

Things to remember:

*Shoe Box Appeal by Friday 4^th November please

*Pupils return Tuesday 25^th October

*Please return PE bags after the holidays

Have a lovely October holiday and a good rest!

P5A and Mrs McCartney x

 

 

 

We have had a fun filled week!

In Literacy we have been exploring the text, Kensuke’s Kingdom. We wrote ‘Messages in a Bottle’ and considered what important information we would need to put in our very own message if we were stranded on a desert Island. Callum visualised what Kensuke looked like and created a large version of his drawing for our wall display. We learned the importance of an effective story opener and played a game to see if we recognised familiar stories by their story openers- we were fantastic at this!

In Maths, we have been learning how to write number names for large numbers. We helped each other if we found it tricky and played lots of games on the netbooks to help us understand place value. We had good fun playing a place value game at home for homework.

We considered how we could use colour effectively to create a piece of art for Kensuke’s Kingdom with a sunset in the background, these were brilliant! Mrs McCartney thinks that we have lots of budding artists in P5A!We made large versions of the main characters in the story for our wall display- our favourite is Stella, the dog!

We designed our very own Islander that would live on our Island. We used a variety of material to do this task and had to consider gender, age, appearance and the use of similes to describe our interesting character.

Mrs McCartney was very impressed with our use of persuasive language when we delivered our Powerpoint presentations, we were certainly confident individuals!

Looking forward to our work for our ‘Pack for a Purpose’ project for Africa next week.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

P5A and Mrs McCartney x