Category: Primary 5

It was important that our blog started off with the highlight of the week. Entering the classroom we noticed something  in the  corner of the room , suspiciously cornered off with tape, and the words ‘ CAUTION’.. We were keen to find out what this was all about. Soon we heard the sounds to the breaking news, and all was revealed, In our classroom was the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. We knew that this news needed to be reported in our P5B news report. We were all quickly trained on how to be creative and factual journalists. We learnt about the three C’s in a news report –  Clear, Concise and Correct. After our journalism crash course we got straight to work gathering facts about Mary Queen of Scots and the lead up to her execution. We made sure we sorted through all the facts and planned what will be important and relevant in our report. We made sure that our opening statement answered the questions, who, what, when, where and why. We are looking forward to reading and sharing our news report with the class next week.

We have continued to learn a variety of subtraction strategies. We have enjoyed sharing and discussing the different strategies that we prefer using during our Number talk discussions. Our Number talk sessions helps us to talk about our thinking and the strategies that we find most effective to use. We worked together with a partner and created a story board of the different subtraction strategies that we can use.

During literacy this week we have been learning about the three uses for the apostrophe. We shared and gave examples of the three uses for the apostrophe. We had great fun singing along to the apostrophe song. The song helped us to learn when to use the words, they’re, their, and there correctly. The song also helped us learn how to use the words your and you’re correctly. Mrs Matos has set us a challenge to check any written work done by the adults at home and see if they make any apostrophe errors. As we discovered the apostrophe can often be used incorrectly. We worked together and sorted out words and phrases that showed if the apostrophe is used correctly. We later became editors and edited a passage from ‘The sea King and the Little Mermaid’. We quickly picked up the apostrophe errors and were able to correct them. We really got the hang of editing when Evie had spotted that Mrs Matos had forgotten out her apostrophe on her PowerPoint. Well done Evie. We guess teachers can make mistakes too.

 

We did something rather strange this week…We got to relax!!! While it was a type of relaxing. Mrs Matos and Mrs McCartney took us on a journey of Mindfulness.  It was interesting to learn how important breathing is and by breathing correctly it can help us to relax and if we get upset or worried about something, taking only a few minutes to go somewhere quiet and take careful breaths can really help.

 

Next week we looking forward to our fencing taster session on Tuesday. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

P5B and Mrs Matos

 

 

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

It was lovely to see all the children back this week, after what sounds like a busy and fun long weekend.

Although it was only a short week, we managed to get plenty of learning done.

On Wednesday we were excited to show of our bridges that we had built at home. This was a follow up activity from our visit to the Forth Road Education centre. Mrs Matos was so pleased and proud of all the hard work and thought that was put into building our bridges. We used all the knowledge we had learnt from our visit, to build our bridges. Primary 3 came along to look at our master piece, we spent time talking to Primary 3 , explaining why we chose the design and materials that we did. Primary 3 were so impressed with our work, that word spread around the school, that Primary 2 wanted to come have a look and even Miss Baillie.

In Literacy this week we were learning about the comma, and how important that the comma is used correctly in our writing. To help us remember when to use a comma, we worked with a partner and created a ‘Rules about Commas’ poster. Our poster displayed the 6 comma rules and for each rule we had to write our own sentence using the comma rule correctly. Mrs Matos has displayed some of the poster on the classroom wall, so that we can refer back to the rules, when using commas in our writing.

We have been continuing to learn different strategies in subtraction. Last week we had learnt the counting on strategy/shopkeepers method, using a number line. But this week we learnt the counting on strategy without using a number. We also learnt one other strategy and that is called the negative way. We are enjoying learning all these different strategies, and we will be able to use the one that we feel is best for us.

We’ve been learning a lot about Scotland and about the people who have made a difference in Scotland, one person we have been researching about is Mary Queen of Scots. Mrs Matos his clues around the classroom, we needed to find the clues and use our note taking skills, to write down as much information as we could. We used the information that we had found on the clues to create a time line of events for  Mary Queen of Scots. Did you know? Mary Queen of Scots was married THREE times!

What more could we possibly learn this week?

Continuing with our Scottish focus, we spent some time on the netbooks  researching facts about Scotland. We looked up interesting places in Scotland, historical sites, traditional foods, and so much more. We made a note of the all the information we found on a Scotland snapshot worksheet.

Last week we created interactive posters which included the facts we had learnt about the life of Alexander Graham Bell, this week we had the opportunity to present our research and posters to the class. A lot of work was put into the posters, a lot of creativity and detail was shown.

In literacy this week we continued learning about the different types of figurative language. We worked together with a partner. We were given some pictures, we had to match the pictures together, decide what figurative language it would demonstrate and using the pictures we made our own sentences that would demonstrate the type of figurative language it was. We worked really well together, we communicated our ideas, listened to each other and we had to use some problem solving skills too. We put all this information onto a poster, which we later presented to the class.

In Numeracy this week we continued with subtraction, the strategy that we learnt was partitioning. During number talks we were given a string of 2 digit subtraction problems, we were encouraged to use the bridging strategy to solve the problem, we also had to think of one other strategy that we could use to help us solve the subtraction problem. We are becoming very confident with our number talk discussions. We all really enjoyed the partitioning strategy better, so far we find that this strategy can help us solve 2 and 3 digit subtraction must quicker. We wonder which strategy we will be learning this week?

This week Tuesday was our last week of Rugby at the Linlithgow Rugby club. We have learnt so much over the last three weeks, not only did we learn about rugby, but we learnt the importance of teamwork and listening. The coaches and our teachers were so impressed with our behaviour , our willingness to learn and our team playing, both Primary 5 classes were award class of the week this week at Friday’s assembly! Well done P5A and P5B.

It’s a short week this week, we wonder what Mrs Matos could have in store for us this week?

P5B and Mrs Matos

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

A fun start to our week. Miss Baillie came along to our class on Monday morning, and got involved in our lesson on famous Scots. Miss Matos really got into the spirit of things, although born in South Africa, Mrs Matos is proud to call Scotland her home. We discussed things about Scotland that made us proud, and we learnt that Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh and amongst other inventions, he is most famous for inventing the telephone. As part of our learning, we worked together in groups, and did some research on Alexander Graham Bell, we researched facts about his early life, his inventions and his interest in sound. Once we had gathered all our information, we created an interactive poster ( this is a poster that you can stick your head through so that you look just like Alexander Graham Bell). We will be presenting our interactive posters to the rest of the class next week. Emily, Jared and Hannah presented their poster at our Scottish Assembly on Friday.   ( Written By: Evie and Emily)

This week’s  highlight was our trip to the Forth Road Crossing Education Centre.  On Wednesday the, 25th January, Primary 5 went to on a trip to the Forth Road Crossing Education Centre, we were so lucky to have Elaine Barry, a Civil Engineer, to educate us about the new bridge and how different bridges are made. We worked in two teams , Ready 2 Build and Engineering Scotland. In our teams we had to work together to build a bridge. Our project managers were, Andrew and Emily. The Quantity surveyors were, Evie and Anna, and the health and safety officers were Hannah and Barry. The winning team was Ready 2 Build- Well done, their project manager, Emily lead the team to success, everyone worked really well together and had their bridge built in speedy time. After lunch we had the opportunity to walk across the Forth Road Bridge, this gave us the opportunity to have a closer look at the bridge’s construction. It was a wonderful trip, lots of fun and a better understanding of what all is involved in building a bridge.  (Written By: Dayna ).

Numeracy this week we focused on subtraction. The first strategy that we worked with was Bridging. Bridging is when we use a number to help us subtract 2 and three digit numbers. Some of us found this tricky, but after some practise on the white boards we quickly became more confident using this method. We even made some subtraction problems for our elbow partner to solve. In number talks we were given a string of subtraction problems. Using our mental agility we quickly found the link and were able to solve the problems using more than one strategy. (Written by Evie)

 

In Literacy this week we have been learning about Figurative language. Some of the ones we focused on were, Similes, Metaphors, Hyperbole, Onomatopoeia and Personification. We worked together with our elbow partners to complete a task of deciding which Figurative language each sentence would be. Some of the sentences were a little tricky and we were getting confused between a Metaphor and a Hyperbole, Mrs Matos then got us all up on our feet, and taught us a dance and song to help us remember the differences between them. Our spelling sound for this week was words with the ind and idl sound patterns. ( Written by Emily and Adam).

 

In science this week we made the colour wheel. 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.

 

On Tuesday it will be our last trip to Linlithgow Rugby Club, we all looking forward to what will be in store for us next week.

P5B and Mrs Matos

 

 

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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This week in P5B we have had an active fun filled week. Starting our week off with a walk to Linlithgow Rugby Club. Once we arrived we were met by the coaches. We were divided into two groups. Once in our groups, we played a few warm up games and then a few rounds of tag rugby. It was great fun and we are looking forward to another round of games next week Tuesday.

The fun didn’t stop there. On Wednesday morning the RSPB came to visit. We had a lovely discussion about the different types of birds that we can find in our area, and we were also given tips on how we can identify the different birds. We then headed outside to do a little bird watching and we helped the RSPB count the number of birds on our pitch. This week we will be logging our bird count on the RSPB website.

The fun didn’t stop there. Mrs Matos surprised us on Thursday afternoon with a visit from one of the teachers from Dance World, who came along to teach us some street dance! What fun, Mrs Tulloch and Miss Prince came along too, to learn a few new moves. We even got to add a dab to our dance.

In numeracy this week, we used all our knowledge that we have learnt so far in P5 (Place value, doubles/ near doubles, rounding and addition) and worked in pairs to create our own Math game. We needed to use all that we know to create a challenging and Fun Math game. This week we will get the opportunity to play each other’s games. This week we became Math detectives, we worked with a partner to answer some maths problems to help find the super hero who had turned bad in Mathhaton. Ryan, Ambra, Evie, Samuel, Emily and Gabriella were among a few of the detectives who managed to solve the mystery of the evil super hero. We are looking forward to learning different strategies to help us solve subtraction problems  next week.

The fun never stops in primary 5, next week we have another trip to Linlithgow Rugby club to look forward to, and on Wednesday we are going to the Fourth Crossing Education centre!

Till next week Mrs Matos and P5B