Primary 7 – Page 19 – Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School

September 15, 2017

P7a’s weekly news

Another busy week in P7a saw us finish our mini theme of “Cake Fest”. In groups of 4 the children presented their proposed monuments and how they would construct them out of cake. It was a very close competition with marks being awarded for feasibility, creativity, cost effectiveness, presentation and team work. The President Pineapples (Sophie D, Melissa, Rebecca and Beth) won and made their monument “The Dunmore Pineapple” out of cake. The team really worked hard designing and creating their cake which was a very tricky design to make. Thanks so much to our wonderful parent helpers Craig’s mum, Rebecca’s mum and grandad and Mrs Woolsey. Well done to all of P7 for their wonderful entries. Here are some photos.

As it was maths week this week we continued our work on inspirational maths by looking at Pascal’s triangle and patterns within it. We also looked at building 2D and 3D shapes with one loop of rope. Each child had to have one hand on the rope. Not as easy as it sounds…We have had a lot of fun whilst realising that maths is not about speed, but deep understanding, teamwork, patterns, sharing ideas and strategies.

In IDL we started our new Brazil theme by asking the children what they knew and what they wanted to learn. In groups of 5 the children are researching and presenting their chosen area of Brazil (Amazon River, Carnival, Rainforest Wildlife, Landmarks, Tropical Birds and Rio de Janeiro). In their presentation they are aiming to share facts about their topic and compare it to Scotland.

We had a lot of extra-curricular achievements over the past few weeks. Erin C walked over the new Queensferry Crossing with her family. Amelia and Erin C took part in a gymnastics competition and were runners up in their categories. Jack played rugby for the S1’s, Alastair got his Level 5 skiing award and Beth got a 6 second PB on her front crawl. James is seen below with his Om Lite maps. He took part in an orienteering competition with his dad in the Yorkshire Dales. They won the family category and came 9th overall. They walked/ran a total of about 56km…Arran pictured below took part in the 10 mile Linlithgow to Edinburgh cycle as part of Pedal for Scotland. Busy, busy children….well done to them all and to their families for supporting them.

Have a great long weekend! See you all on Wednesday.

Mrs Gordon and P7a

September 10, 2017

P7A’s Bake Off Assembly

Well done to P7A for their excellent assembly this week. We all really enjoyed seeing The Great British Bake Off come to Springfield. What a talented lot you are! All of those cupcakes made us feel very hungry! Yum!

Thank you to Mrs Gordon for her hard work.

Miss Baillie x

September 9, 2017September 9, 2017

P7a’s “Bake Off” Week

What a busy week we all had in P7a. In French we played a game where you had to find someone who had done certain activities during the holidays eg “tu as fait du camping? ” (did you go camping?). The winner was the first to find 12 different people for each of the activities. The focus was on asking and answering questions.

In numeracy we did 3 inspirational maths lessons from Professor Jo Boaler at Stanford University. The focus of these is on growth mindset and starting with good principles of teamwork. One of the tasks involved the children working in groups to complete the four 4’s (they had to find numbers from 0-20 only using four 4’s), not as easy as it sounds…As next week is maths week we will continue to challenge ourselves with some of these problem solving activities.

As part of the Cake Fest project we made Victoria Sponge Cake this week. The focus was on using the all in one sponge method and on making buttercream icing. Weight and measurement was important again as was: oven temperatures and timing during baking and consistency for the sponge and icing. Every child took part and then ate their end product. 100% of the class agreed that our sponges tasted better than shop bought !

In PE we continued extreme dodge ball with Mr Logan and started a 2 week mini orienteering course.

In literacy and expressive arts our main focus was on creating and performing our “Great Springfield Bake Off Assembly”. Thank you all for coming along and leaving such positive feedback ! Mrs Gordon was very proud of the final performance and everyone worked really hard to learn their words and speak loudly and clearly. Each group created their own mini act to help everyone find out more about baking and food hygiene, along with a few fun acts to showcase our skill-set in comedy and ICT.

Have a great weekend from Mrs Gordon and P7a.

September 2, 2017

The Cake Fest Project begins….

Primary 7 were extremely busy this week as they started their Cake Fest Project. Each team is coming up with a design of a Scottish Monument that can be made entirely of cake…the children will plan, design, model and present these ideas and the one winning cake will be built by that team. To start off Mrs Gordon worked with each class to do food hygiene and then used those skills and many more to make apple pie for 62 children…The children now know how to peel, core and chop and apple and make a basic crumble mixture from scratch. I will attach the recipe so they can make this for you at home. Here are a few pictures of us at work…

We had the first of our skill share sessions this week where Mrs Gordon teaches us French or Spanish and Mr Logan teaches us PE. This week was French focusing on “tout sur moi” all about me. We learnt how to say our favourite things in French and really challenged Mrs Gordon with jobs like atomic scientist and ninja!

In PE Mr Logan is focusing on extreme dodgeball this term.

During buddy time we helped our P1 buddies with their ICT skills. We helped them to log on and off the netbooks and play some maths games. We all had great fun. Here are a few photos of us.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our assembly next Friday 8th September at 10am.

Mrs Gordon and P7a

September 2, 2017

P7b Weekly Blog

This Week

Our mini IDL learning theme is Cake Fest, and in our groups we have continued preparations this week. Mrs. Gordon brought in a huge supply of apples from her garden and these were used to do some practical cooking skills. We made apple crumble which was delicious, whilst developing our knowledge of the importance of food hygiene and risks associated with this. With Mr. Logan, we focused on the design aspect for our cakes, producing annotated diagrams and using ICT to create a Lego representation of our chosen structures. Next week we look forward to finalising our designs (the most important criterion is feasibility) before Mr. Logan and Mrs. Gordon will decide which group will go forward to make their building out of cake.

We have been doing some assessment work for numeracy, spelling and writing this week. In numeracy, our Second Level baseline will be used to see where our strengths lie and also the areas in which we will be working hard to extend our knowledge this year. We will redo the assessment at the end of this year to see how much progress we have all made. On Thursday we met Mr. Ritchie who will be in class with us one day a week. He provided us with a picture stimulus and music before challenging us to write a creative piece about what lay behind the secret door. Once this writing has been marked, we will discuss our targets with Mr. Logan to ensure our writing continues to improve.

Mr. Logan and Mrs. Gordon swap classes on a Monday and Tuesday afternoon to allow for some skill sharing. With Mrs. Gordon we brushed up on some of previous learning in French and look forward to also learning some Spanish with her in the coming weeks. Mr. Logan is responsible for our P.E, and our first block will focus on Extreme Dodgeball. Last year’s P7s thoroughly enjoyed this activity and we began by gaining an insight into the basic rules and playing some competitive small-sided games. Next week we will develop different ways of throwing the dodgeball, aim to improve our accuracy and play some adaptations of the basic game.

Finally, we have continued our buddying duties this week but allowed our P1s to become increasingly independent. On Friday we were Digital Leaders when teaching our buddies how to turn on/off the laptops, log on, access the internet and play some games safely online. Mr. Logan has been impressed throughout the week with the mature and responsible approach we’ve taken to carrying out this role in school. All of us are determined and motivated to lead by example this year as the senior pupils within school.

Have a look at some photos from this week. Is Charlie reading a big book, or has Charlie shrunk? Who knows.

Coming Up in P7b

Next Monday – Duncan Slater (student from Edinburgh University) commences 5 week teaching placement in P7b
Orienteering sessions in P7
Meet The Teacher event – Thursday 7th September at 6pm
P7b Class Assembly – Friday 15th September at 10am
Holiday – Monday 18th September
Risk Factory trip – Thursday 21st September at 9.30am, EE2 forms to be sent out and parental help required
Parents’ Evenings – Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th October
October holidays – Monday 16th to Monday 23rd October
Poppy Factory trip – Thursday 26th October at 12.30pm
Skiing block (4 weeks) – commences Thursday 30th November until Thursday 21st December

Have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine!

P7b and Mr. Logan

August 25, 2017

Bienvenue/Bienvenida/Welcome to P7a

Here is the fabulous P7a looking so smart in their shirt and ties. What a lovely week we had getting to know each other. We did lots of different activities and worked in different groupings. Throughout the whole week the children have been fantastic at helping their buddies, they have really risen to the challenge of P7 and their responsibilities.

Creating our class charter allowed us to talk about the UN Rights of a Child, and remind ourselves of the need to respect each other, our classroom and resources and the environment.

We each filled in an “all about me” sheet which we put in an envelope with a letter to our future selves and a piece of string to show our height. The envelopes were all placed in a Time Capsule which won’t be opened until the last day of P7 when we will see how much we have grown and changed over the year…

Here are a few photos of us being measured…

We had a fun afternoon yesterday problem solving. Mrs Gordon split us into teams of 4 an gave us some spaghetti and marshmallows. The challenge was to build the tallest tower, or the longest bridge with these resources. We all learnt a lot about planning, estimation, stability, weight and of course team work and compromise. Here is the winning tower and bridge.

We can’t wait to find out what we will be learning next week, have a great weekend.

P7a and Mrs Gordon

August 25, 2017August 25, 2017

P7b Weekly Blog

This Week

This week we welcomed back our newest batch of P7s for session 2017/2018, and what a great first week it has been! All of our pupils have settled quickly into P7 and set a themselves high standards for the coming year. They have been engaged and motivated throughout the week and taken on board what the expectations of our P7s are.

Every pupil has been working closely with their new P1 Buddy this week at both breaks and lunchtimes to help them settle in to school life. Mrs. Gordon and I have been incredibly impressed with the care and kindness demonstrated by both classes, making what is a nerve wracking experience for our younger pupils that bit easier. Thank you to all of you for your dedication to this!

In the classroom, we have been getting things up and running whilst getting to know each other. P7b have been designing a tie in our competition where Mr. Wells will choose one winner to have their tie made for every P7. If we manage to wear our shirt and tie from Monday – Thursday, the reward on a Friday will be to wear their hoodies (more information and order forms to follow). Both classes have also created a Time Capsule which will be opened on the last day of term. We have included a letter to our future selves, a piece of string that represents our current height, a profile page about ourselves and a copy of this week’s Gazette. It will be interesting to see how much P7 have changed by the end of the year.

Finally, P7b have created their Emoji Class Charter listing the articles and rights from the UNCRC that will be respected within class at all times. We have also decided upon our class privileges available to us if we manage to reach a total of 300, 400 or 500 Dojo points each week. If the first week is anything to go by, these privileges will be a regular event.

Coming Up in P7b

Orienteering sessions in P7
P7b Class Assembly on Friday 15th September
Holiday on Monday 18th September
Risk Factory trip on Thursday 21st September, EE2 forms to be sent out and parental help required
Parents’ Evenings on Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th October
October holidays from Monday 16th to Monday 23rd October
Poppy Factory trip on Thursday 26th October
Skiing block (4 weeks) begins on Thursday 30th November

Have a restful weekend

P7b and Mr. Logan

June 30, 2017

P7a end of P7

Well that’s it…the end of P7…

I was so sad to say goodbye to P7a today that I couldn’t say much. I will miss each and every one of them, they have all worked so hard, but achieved so much. I know they will do us all proud at the Academy !

We opened our time capsule which we created in August. Look how much we have grown (string was measured in August 2016). We also looked at our goals and how we have changed since August. It was a lovely way to end our year and look forward to new beginnings…

Happy holidays

Mrs Gordon and P7a x

June 16, 2017

Scottish Maths Challenge Success

P6 and P7 had 4 award winners in the Scottish Maths Challenge this year. Well done to Oliver Thomson with Gold, James Calder and Alex Black with Silver and Ruby Cardie with Bronze. A fabulous effort. Well done to all who took part.

Here is a photo of Alex and Oliver at the presentation ceremony in Edinburgh a few weeks ago.

Oliver, Ruby and James.

Oliver at the ceremony.

June 11, 2017

Congratulations to Neve Leishman, our P7 “Good Samaritan” award winner

Cheryl from St Michael’s church visited us on Thursday to present the award for the P7 “Good Samaritan” for session 2016/17. It was a very difficult decision to make, as many of the children often go above and beyond in Springfield PS. Neve Leishman from P7b was our very worthy winner, and was commended for her ability to demonstrate acts of kindness within school (a particular focus within P1 and our buddies). Neve also recognises when something needs done and will do it without being asked to do so. Well done Neve, we are very proud of you !