Primary 7 – Page 22 – Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School

March 24, 2017

P7b Blog

Numeracy and mathematics

We continued with our work on decimals this week in numeracy, dividing them by 10, 100 and 1,000 and applying our prior knowledge of place value to assist us with this. Having established that when dividing, our decimal point moves to the left and when multiplying to the right, we moved on to sequence and order decimal fractions with up to 5 places after the decimal point. We were also able to multiply and divide decimals using a calculator before rounding to the nearest whole number which aided us with some work on estimation and approximation. Next week, we will be looking at percentages and real-life contexts where these may be used.

Literacy

Our literacy work this week started with the study of a shared text on The Tudor period. This period of British history is a particular interest of some pupils and we took the opportunity to discuss and annotate a passage written by Lady Marsden. In this, she reflected on Mary Queen of Scots’ execution and the array of emotions that coincided with this. We were able to effectively find examples of where she was sympathetic towards Mary, and in contrast, where she was openly critical of Queen Elizabeth I. Additionally, we identified, discussed and annotated figurative language and instances of emotive language within Lady Marsden’s recount of events. Our writing lesson this week was inspired by The Great Escape and we have been creating instructional texts detailing a plan for an escape from the prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag Luft III. Our ideas were incredibly creative and the level of detail certainly left nothing to chance. I think it’s safe to say, P7b would have managed to elude the German guards!

IDL

As of last week, we have been continuing to put together our personal projects and are making excellent progress with these. Mr. Logan cannot wait to read these; a huge amount of hard work is being put in to meet both the criteria and deadline. Both P7 classes were very lucky to have two visitors in class this week to discuss different aspects of WWII. Firstly, Mrs. Gordon’s Aunt visited us to speak about primary and secondary sources of information from WWII, highlighting the difference between the two and sharing some local stories. We also welcomed in Mr. Boiling (Andrew’s Dad) who is a college lecturer in Glasgow. He delivered a presentation on The War at Sea during WWII. P7b enjoyed hearing about the naval warfare between the two sides, and how Germany’s most powerful warship, the Bismarck, was eventually sunk in an act of vengeance ordered by Winston Churchill.

Friday

We did our best to give Mr. Logan the fright of his life as he stepped out the door this morning with our crazy and wacky hairstyles in aid of Red Nose Day and Comic Relief. As a class we brought in just over £28 and donated in addition to this through our purchases at the bake sale organised by the Pupil Council. A huge thank you to them for organising this, along with Mrs. Gordon. We celebrated another successful week in P7b, winning the Peg Challenge for the second week running and also the Class of the Week trophy. This was as a result of them moving round the school sensibly and quietly, and for sharing such a depth of knowledge relating to WWII. P7’s quality of higher order questioning was particularly impressive, and caught the attention of both our visitors to class. They demonstrated their inferential and evaluative thinking when presented with a wealth of information. Well done P7b, I am incredibly proud of you, demonstrating again what an asset and credit you are to our school. With the weather being so nice, we finished up our day with Golden Time outside. Mr. Logan’s football team missed out on victory in a well contested 5-5 draw. To be continued next week…

Next Week

Camp EE2 forms to be sent home on Monday and returned by Friday 31st March at the latest
Friendly football fixture versus Linlithgow Bridge P.S on Monday at 4:15pm
Bunny Bingo on Tuesday evening
Easter Parade and songs on Thursday
WWII artifacts in P7 on Thursday afternoon 1-2pm
Easter Assembly on Friday morning at St. Michael’s, P7 to accompany P1 buddies

Thanks again for taking the time to read our class blog, we hope you all have a lovely weekend. One week to go!

P7b and Mr. Logan

March 24, 2017

P7a weekly blog

This week we have been very creative. We worked on spring art by drawing daffodils. We had to consider shape, proportion, shade, colour etc. We also made creations for “La fete des meres” in French.

We were also very lucky to have 2 visitors this week to talk to us about WWII. My Auntie Linda came in on Tuesday to tell us about the first air raid in WWII which my grandfather was involved in, being on the HMS Southampton in the Firth of Forth when it took place.

On Thursday Andrew’s dad Mr Boiling came to tell us all about the war at sea, in particular the sinking of HMS Hood and the Bismarck. The children were thoroughly engaged with both talks, and both visitors commented on the level of engagement and questioning and response from the children.

March 19, 2017March 19, 2017

P7a weekly news

P7a have been very busy this week. We started the research on our personal projects during our ICT slot this week. Our projects will be based on an aspect of World War II that we are interested in finding out more about.

In numeracy we were finishing off our learning on fractions, decimals and percentages with an assessment of the full topic. From this we could all see our areas that need more work and we will work on some of those next week.

In French we learnt how to count to 100, and how to write out the french words for the numbers. In Spanish we played happy families and learnt how to ask for a card using some new language and some of the family vocabulary we had previously learnt, eg tienes la madre roja?, si lo tengo, gracias.

In PE with Mrs Gordon we continued our handball learning by giving feedback whilst we watched other teams on their skills and strategies. By picking one player to mark, we improved our technique.

Our class had 3 award winners in the Scottish Maths Challenge. Well done to Oliver with Gold, James C with Silver and Ruby with Bronze. A fabulous effort.

March 17, 2017

Scottish Maths Challenge Award Winners!

We are very proud to announce that some of our P6 and P7 children have won an award in the Scottish Maths Challenge run by Edinburgh University! Well done to Ruby Cardie in P7A for winning a Bronze award, Alex Black in P6A and James Calder in P7A for gaining a Silver award and Oliver Thompson in P7A for receiving a Gold award. The Maths Challenge is run by Edinburgh University and is know to be particularly difficult, in order to really extend children’s mathematical thinking. We are proud of all of our children who took part and especially our award winners. Well done to you all! A huge thanks to Mrs Tulloch for her work with children in Numeracy and Maths and for her on-going help with these awards.

Miss Baillie x

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017

P7b Blog

Numeracy and mathematics

Our focus in numeracy over the past few weeks has been fractions, decimals and percentages. We have been working hard to establish the link between these and apply our learning in different, real-life contexts. This week we were asked to prepare a timetable for the S1 pupils at Linlithgow Academy based on the information provided by Mr. Logan. For example; 20% of our timetable had to consist of English, 0.1 had to be for the teaching of P.E whilst 0.05 of the timetable was to be assigned to Spanish. We were successful in doing so, quickly realising that showing our working and reading the question carefully were also important. In West Lothian’s contest on Sumdog, we managed to place in the top 100 schools, with some pupils scoring highly on the individual leaderboard.

Literacy

We are coming to the end of our group novels for Guided Reading and will be saying goodbye to Alex Rider, Harry Potter and The Eejits (The Twits by Roald Dahl converted to Scots). This year, we have been accessing a variety of texts and sources of information and continue to enjoy exploring reading in different ways. During comprehension we looked at a shared text, analysing a newspaper article before identifying and discussing key features and characteristics of the text. For example, we found it interesting that Spider Man’s character was in fact inspired by a fly crawling up a wall, as opposed to a spider. He also has a real address in Forrest Hills, New York, unlike other superheroes. Having carried out our reading this week, we composed 5 higher order questions that we could challenge the peers in our reading group with. These were posted to Yammer, and we had fun logging on to tackle other people’s questions. Finally, we will all be submitting entries to the Young Writer of the Year Competition and having completed our plans and first drafts, we are now moving on to word process our final drafts. Everyone is creating a text of their choice, we have some short stories, poems, newspaper articles and even one or two comic strips. You can look forward to seeing the end products, I’m sure they will be fantastic.

IDL

Our learning theme of World War II continues to interest us, and we have been demonstrating our wealth of knowledge through the creation of a personal project. Each pupil chose an aspect of World War II as the focus for their study and has used the findings from research to begin putting together their final project. From aircraft and naval fleets, to the role of women, the use of propaganda, forms of communication and children during the war, we certainly have a wealth of subtopics covered. These personal projects will form the basis for a class talk which we will deliver during the final term of P7. I’m sure this won’t phase any of our confident individuals and effective contributors here in P7b. Watching The Great Escape has provided a welcome break from our personal projects and we are intrigued as to whether the prisoners-of-war will pull off the finest escape in military history from Stalag Luft III…

Parents’ Evenings

Thank you to those of you who attended our parents’ evenings earlier this week. Both the children and I greatly appreciate the huge role you play in the learning partnership here at Springfield Primary School. On a similar note, thank you to our House Captains and P7 Leaders who volunteered their own time to assist on both evenings. The other teachers, staff and parents were singing their praises and complimenting the mature and sensible manner in which they conducted themselves. I’m incredibly proud of them all.

Next Week

– No homework next week due to ongoing personal projects, these can be submitted to me on Friday 31st March or the first day back after Easter Holidays.
– Academy staff will be here at Springfield P.S to discuss transition and ensure this is a smooth step for all pupils.
– School football training on Monday, 3.30-4.30pm outside. Friendly match against Linlithgow Bridge Primary School on Monday 27th March, letters to be distributed next week to those playing.
– Red Nose Day next Friday 24th March, organised by Pupil Council Committee. ‘Mad Hair’ Dress Down Day, bring £1 along with a bake sale. Please send in any baking bagged and priced, and remember these are to contain NO NUTS. The children may bring money to purchase these on the day.

We hope you enjoyed reading our blog and have a great weekend.

Primary 7b and Mr. Logan

March 12, 2017

P7 RBS Moneysense

Both P7 classes were very fortunate this week to have a Moneysense workshop brought to us by RBS. 6 RBS volunteers (some of whom were parents of children in our school) very kindly helped Mr Logan and Mrs Gordon deliver the workshop.

The children had to consider mobile phone characteristics and order them in terms of importance. In groups they then had to match a customer with a phone contract based on their needs. Each group presented the phone contract that best suited their customer with the reasons why.

Everyone was very engaged with the topic, and we hope it helps them to better understand the process we go through when thinking of purchasing something new. At a minimum they may now better appreciate their lovely parents and carers, who in most cases were the source of funding for their own mobile phones…

Mr Logan and Mrs Gordon

March 12, 2017

P7a

This week in PE we played handball. Mrs Gordon was on a handball course a few weeks ago so was keen to try out some of the warm up games she had learnt. Next steps are to look at our technique and tactics.

For World Book Day we finished our latest class novel – Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden. The children then went on to discuss the cliff-hanger ending whilst predicting what they think would happen in a sequel. Thanks to the parents who popped in to see us.

P7a and Mrs Gordon

March 3, 2017

P7a Learning

This week we had a fencing taster session. The children coped very well and followed the instructions carefully.

In numeracy we have been continuing our work on fractions, decimals and percentages and conversion of these. The children really enjoyed our M&M and Skittles challenges where they had to convert the skittles into fractions, decimals and percentages per colour. This was interesting as the packets had 17 skittles, making things tricky…

As a number talk this week I gave the children a word problem which we worked through together using a real life example of fractions, decimals and percentages and car insurance costs. There was a real buzz in the room as the children helped eachother to find the answers.

In literacy/IDL we learnt about air raids in WWII and wrote instructions of what to do when the air raid siren sounds. We learnt what imperative (bossy) verbs were to do this.

For World Book Day on Thursday we voted to change our door into the book cover of A bear called Paddington. We write some weird stories, where the children wrote one paragraph then passed it on for the next person to continue.

Here we are all dressed up for World Book Day.

February 24, 2017February 24, 2017

P7a World War II Focus

Here are a few photos of our World War II display. You can see our timeline and leader portraits.

This week the children had to write a letter from the perspective of an evacuee writing home to their parents. They really managed to put themselves into the shoes of an evacuee and used some excellent emotive language. The children then self assessed their letters against the success criteria and a partner peer assessed them. The children are becoming very confident at giving constructive feedback and recognising what they need to further develop.

We developed our ICT skills by exploring Glow and creating sway presentations (like PowerPoint but easier to create/adapt) about evacuees.

In numeracy we added percentages to our decimal and fraction work. The children were working on converting between all 3 measures and this is certainly challenging us. We will continue this next week.

In French we did a listening comprehension based on food and drink. We are working on developing the 4 skills the children will need to continue their language development at the academy (reading, writing, listening and speaking).

In Spanish we learnt about “la familia” and the names of our family members.

February 24, 2017

Outdoor Learning Committee.

These are the members of the Outdoor Learning Committee.

Today, we surveyed the playground and field areas to generate ideas of how we can improve outdoor learning opportunities. The committee members worked in groups to create a list of ideas.