What a great virtual sports week we had last week! Huge thank you to Mrs Reid for organising our daily sports challenges and gathering together all of our scores and also to our class teachers for sending out lots of fun and engaging sport-related tasks and activities for us to try.
Well done to all of our pupils, parents, carers and families who got involved, it was lovely to see photos and videos of what you’ve all been getting up to! We’ve had over 180 pupils submit scores, 1,800 daily challenges completed and travelled the equivalent of Edinburgh to Leicester in the house distance challenge! That’s a massive 391 kilometres!
I’m sure you’re all eager to hear who is this year’s winning house and the new holders of the House Cup, but there’s one more little step to take before you can find out. Click on the link below to see the results from the week, including: our winning house, the highest scoring pupil in each class, the winners of the house distance challenge and even our top 3 parents!
From Monday 15th of June – Friday 19th June I would like to invite all our pupils and families to take part in our Virtual Sports Challenges.
For each challenge you complete you will score points for your school house and at the end of Virtual Sports Week we will have a winning house for 2020.
Each slide in the attached Powerpoint will explain one of our 11 challenges and give details on how to score points for your house.
Keep a note of your score for each challenge and then fill in the score form attached and send it back when all your challenges are complete! This can be done using the Forms link on the final slide.
Everyone in your family is welcome to get involved so lets get active and have lots of fun!
Click on the link to access the Powerpoint with all the information you need – Virtual Sports Week
This was our first week of learning from home. Monday was a bit confusing with lots of tech issues and many questions, however we all managed to complete the work and helped each other where we could.
Tuesday was better as we were able to access the work more easily. We still had questions but Mrs Newton was able to help us.
On Wednesday we started the daily photo challenge, this tested Mrs Newton’s IT skills, however she found some work arounds and spent Thursday and Friday trying to fix the issues. If you want to join us in taking pictures the details are below (but remember to follow the new rules about social distancing and staying safe.)
Today we listened to David Walliams read a story, the story was very funny. We have also been taking part in The Body Coach work out each day, this is good fun and some of our Mums, Dads, brothers and sisters have also joined in.
At the end of week 1 we are a bit more used to home learning, even though it is very different from being in school, have helped each other everyday(and Mrs Newton misses us all lots!) 🙂 and had some fun sharing our photographs.
Where to start with everything that has been going on in P7B over the last two weeks…
After showcasing their outstanding musical theatre talents in the FAME! performances, P7B have been settling back into their classroom routines (while also showing Miss Kennedy the Springfield ropes!) and showcasing a whole range of other talents.
Mysteries have been the name of the game in our Maths learning. In Number Talks, using clues to estimate, justify, challenge and defend answers have been key to solving the ‘Esti-Mysteries’. Meanwhile, multi-step word problems have caused a Maths Curse, with everything in our day becoming a potential Maths problem. Fear not though, P7B know exactly what strategies to use to approach these problems now, not only solving them but demonstrating their understanding by writing their own. They are well on their way to breaking the Maths Curse!
In Literacy, we have been investigating the structure, features and literary devices used to write theatre reviews.
Our week started with a very competitive ‘Blankety Blank’ Short Read. Our ‘Blankety Blank’ champions from this week even earned a Classroom Economy bonus for their efforts (more of that later). We have started to look at the Reading skills needed for a Long Read activity, with a focus on the Read and Understand and Explore Some More skills sections of the Comprehension Compass. In preparation for writing our own theatre critic reviews, we also started to experiment with ‘SPAGHETTI Sweeps’ to analyse texts, looking for features and literary devices to include in our own.
To test our understanding of persuasive literary devices (A.F.O.R.E.S.T), we watched this….
How many persuasive literary devices did you notice?
Our class novel ‘Shadow Jumper’ by J.M. Forster has been inspiration for other areas of our learning too. In Art, we discussed the element of form and used this to create models of the main character, Jack. Our poetry from last week, using the literary device of personification, was also inspired by the main character’s love of ‘shadow jumping’. We also spent some time researching and understanding (and experimenting with) the sport of Parkour.
In Science, we are preparing to submit our entries for the ‘If You Were An Engineer What Would You Do?’ competition. After identifying a problem that we thought could be or needed to be fixed, we explained our ideas using annotated diagrams.
In our Learning Through Play, we had a chance to test our logic, team work and perseverance skills!
And finally, a couple of new additions to P7B, the introduction of ‘First Chapter Friday’ to share and discuss new books that will be added to our class library. And, the first pay day from the Springfield Savers Bank as part of our Classroom Economy. Full employment, saving and spending starts next week!
Phew…..it’s a lot! Now time to relax and enjoy the weekend.
P7B and Miss Kennedy
After all the rehearsals for FAME, this week we were able to focus more on our class tasks and upcoming activities.
In Literacy we wrote newspaper reports on FAME, these were well written and it was good to read everyone else’s point of view. Then we wrote our draft letters to the STEM Editor as part of the Young Engineers Competition. We also finished our invention designs and annotated diagrams. We are hoping that one of us is picked and our design is made.
In Maths we started to work with equations and replacing numbers with letters. This was tricky to understand at first, however we are now all more confident in what we are doing.
As part of our transition to the Academy we have set up Teams accounts. One account is for both classes to talk to each other, the other is just for P7a and we will be using this for work and ideas as we get ready for the move S1.
On Thursday afternoon we had our treat for doing so well in FAME. The Nerf battles were great and the silent disco (not so silent!) had a great 80’s sound track.
Today we had an assembly were we reminded to be kind, use ICT appropriately and to stay calm and carry on. We are a bit disappointed that skiing has been postponed to April 28th, however we will have better weather now to ski in 🙂
Have a great weekend, hopefully the sun will shine.
This week has all been about FAME. We had our last full in school rehearsal on Monday and then on Tuesday we had two full dress rehearsals at the Academy. These went really well and we were very happy with what we had learned. Rebecca Holmes took pictures of us and they look amazing 🙂
Wednesday and Thursday were show days and we were outstanding. Mrs Newton (and all the other teachers) said we were FABULOUS and we came off stage on Thursday night on a high. We are happy that we do not need to rehearse any more, but also a little sad that it is all over.
On Monday we had a small break from FAME when Angus Gaillie, a Senior Mechanical Engineer from The Royal Observatory of Scotland, came into speak to us. We had lots of questions about his job and we loved hearing about the parts he has designed for telescopes that are going into space.
Today we had a reflective reading event for parents, This was a nice way to end the week as we were working in pairs and had the chance to share our learning with family.
Have a lovely weekend, most of us intend to sleep 😉
This week has been a very busy week, with rehearsals for Fame happening every day and our technical rehearsal at Linlithgow Academy on Wednesday.
On Tuesday we had our third skiing lesson, everyone is having great fun and the weather has been beautiful.
In numeracy we have been using our skills in real life contexts, this has helped us make connections between, and through, our learning. We have also been honing our mental skills using our knowledge of doubles and near doubles.
80’s day saw us exploring life during the 1980’s, inventions, toys, cars and historical events. Our sports leaders led a Jane Fonda type workout and we took part in a fashion parade- we did look amazing (even if we do say so ourselves!)
We are looking forward to our performances of Fame next week and hope to see you all there.
On Tuesday we had our second skiing session. The weather was lovely and we all had great time. Kieran came with us, but we think we are way better than him 😉
On Wednesday we visited Linlithgow Academy, this was interesting as we managed to visit some of the classes we will be attending and meet some other P7’s and new teachers. One of the teachers gave some of her students cake because they had failed their prelims (some of us love cake, but we are not sure that is a reason to fail tests!)
Fame rehearsals are ongoing and we are getting better- the dancers worked really hard with Mrs Gordon and Caitlyn to learn a new dance in just over an hour and everyone agreed it was amazing. The singers have been rehearsing with Mrs Bell and sound fantastic and the actors have been practising their craft with Mrs Newton, Mrs Kerr, Mrs Tulloch and Mrs McVay- watch out Hollywood!
On Thursday we had a visit from PC Dave and PC Matt to talk to us about appropriate use of social media and the internet. We asked a few interesting questions and listened to what they had to say.
Our Language Ambassadors taught us two games in French. One was called Le jeu du beret, we had to wear a miam miam beret and try to be first to put it on. The other game was called vingt-et-un where we had to count to 21 in French. Have a look at our twitter feed to see a video and some pictures.
Fame rehearsals continue next week, tickets will be on sale on Monday and Wednesday from 3.15pm-3.30pm outside the P6 and P7 classrooms. £5 per adult and £2 per child.
We have our F1 challenge on Tuesday, we have worked really hard on this and are looking forward to racing our cars.
Have a lovely weekend, stay safe as it is supposed to be very, very windy.
P7a and Mrs Newton 🙂
P.S. Please remember we are on holiday next Friday woo hoo 🙂
This week, in Maths we have been learning about how to exchange money if you travel abroad.
In literacy we have been finishing off our Scottish poems inspired by Robbie Burns. N.G got to say her poem in assembly.
On Monday P7 got a visit from the Poppy bus we got to make our own Poppies and listen to the stories of the soldiers and families that Poppy Scotland helped .
Everybody is working very hard for our F1 challenge in schools .
We have finished off our script for assembly. Our last class assembly is on next Friday. If parents and carers could come that would be great.
