Category: Whole School

As it was Scotland Loves Languages week we have had a few language lessons.  P6 Language Ambassadors came into our class on Tuesday and we played some French counting games.  Mrs Gordon set a challenge for every person in the school to choose their favourite word in another language, P3A had a great variation – from Japanese to Irish!  We made a poster showing us all saying our favourite words, we also wrote what language it is and the meaning of the word in English.  On Friday, we had a French lesson on days of the week, we are building up our knowledge to be able to say the date in French each morning.

On Thursday we made clocks to help us as we learn to tell the time.  We painted the quarters first, then added the numbers and hands, finally we wrote how many minutes past the hour each number represents.  Mrs Kennedy showed us some times on a digital clock on the smartboard and we had to make the same time on our analogue clocks.  These clocks have now gone home so we can practise there too.

In other maths we are continuing to subtract – multiples of 10 and near multiples of 10.  Most of us have found a 100 square really helpful for this – let me know if you’d like to have one at home.  When subtracting multiples of 10 we move up the 100 square counting in 10s, for near multiples ending in 9 we subtract the nearest multiple of 10 and then add 1, for near multiples ending in 1, we subtract the 10s and then another 1.

In literacy we are learning some editing skills.  We ‘up-levelled’ sentences on Wednesday.  We were given short sentences with no capital letters or full stops.  We up-levelled them by adding correct punctuation, adjectives and joining words to make them more interesting, e.g. ‘three frogs swam in the pond’ could become ‘Three green frogs swam fast in the cool pond as it was a very hot day.’  Next week we will be correcting sentences with incorrect grammar and spelling.

We had PE outside this week, continuing with football.  We did some dribbling, passing and shooting drills.  It was good to be outside, there a few signs of spring beginning to emerge.

We got some great news at the beginning of the week! M won the Linlithgow Rotary Club design a poster competition.  Her design has now been made into an official poster to be used around Linlithgow – keep n eye out for it!  M also won a book token.  Well Done!

Have a good weekend everyone, P3A and Mrs Kennedy 🙂

 

The children have been amazing this week and coped so well with the changes of classrooms, where they line up etc. We are now back in our own classroom with a lovely, new green carpet and woe betide anyone who messes it up!
The highlight of the week was the visit from the Vikings Cathbad and Sigurd on Tuesday. We and P4A had a fantastic day learning about Viking life and looking at many artefacts. We began the day with a story where we learnt all about Viking life and some of us got to dress up as Vikings. Then we split into 4 groups where we got to look at artefacts close up and talk and ask questions about them. We also made a game called ‘Game of Sea Kings’, using clay to make little pieces for the game. We really enjoyed this and we also got to sketch some of the items found at a Viking burial site. We learnt that these can give us information about Viking Status. After lunch we went outside and fortunately the weather was kind, and played a game called ‘Settlers to Sea Kings’. The children were split into groups and learnt how Vikings built their settlements and travelled to other lands. We had to collect what we needed for building our village but also had to protect it at all times from other Viking raiders. It was great fun and we all worked well as teams. The day finished with some of us getting the opportunity to try on chainmail – very heavy, play the lyre, and look at some weapons and shields. We all had an amazing day and talked and then wrote a recount of our day. Hope you learnt lots P4!
We have also been learning about Viking longships and have begun to design our own. Next week we will use our designs to create our own longships.
In Maths we have continued with division and next week we will go onto Money.
We are beginning to plan our assembly and are all very enthusiastic about it. One guess as to what it might be on??
Next week we say goodbye to a member of our class and will have a little party to say farewell.
Have a lovely weekend everyone.
Love from P4B and Mrs. Burton

This week we have been celebrating “Scotland Loves Languages” with our P7 Language Ambassadors who came to teach us a French lesson involving our numbers.  We practiced counting forward and backwards up to thirty and then played a variety of games to improve our counting and pronunciation skills.   We then chose our favourite foreign language words and made flags of the countries the words were from to create a nice display for our classroom.  We chose foreign words from Spain, Scotland, South Africa and Italy.

In writing this week we have been looking at how we could make our imaginative writing more interesting for the reader.  We discussed how we could improve our sentences by up-levelling them using “wow” words to describe the different characters or the scene the story was set in.  We came up with some fantastic adjectives and then used these to up-level different sets of sentences.  We also had to remember to check that we had used the correct punctuation when we wrote the sentences.  After the sentences had been up levelled, we then looked at using different linking words to expand the sentence to make it longer and add more detail about what was happening for the reader.

In Maths this week we have been learning more strategies of how to subtract 9, 19, 29 … from a two-digit number by rounding up to the nearest ten and then adding back on.  We have had to think about the place value of the numbers and also to lay our work out very neatly to show our workings.  With Mrs Doran we have been continuing to work on time and have been using the mini clocks to help us work out and display the correct times to solve our problems.

We have also continued to enjoy the new outdoor play area with Mrs Stapleton especially as more items are being added.  We are all looking forward to playing in the “muddy kitchen” area when it opens next week!

In Reading we have been enjoying our new class novel “Flash the Sheep Dog” by Kathleen Findler,  and learning about the adventures of Tom as he settles into his Aunt Jane and Uncle John’s farm in the Scottish Borders.  Tom went to visit the cattle mart in Peebles with his Uncle so to help us understand the story we have been watching some videos about real life cattle marts in Scotland.  We are all amazed at the speed the auctioneer speaks when he is selling the livestock – you have to listen very carefully and not raise your hand in case the auctioneer thinks you have placed a bid. Tom is finding life in the Scottish Borders very different from the one he had in London with his mother.

We began to learn about the Vikings this week. We began by discussing what we already know about Vikings – which was quite a lot then we went onto talking about what we would like to find out. We know where they came they came from and why they came and next week we will investigate the longships and create our own designs. We also have a little surprise on Tuesday!!
In Literacy we completed our focus on poetry by creating our own Limericks. We made up one as a class first which was great fun:
There was a young man from Springy,
Who went to school in a dinghy.
He fell into the sea,
And got stung by a bee.
Then never again returned to Springy.
Not bad for a first attempt!
Then we made up our own, having listened to some by Edward Lear. Mrs.Burton was very impressed as we picked up the A,A,B,B,A rhyming very quickly. They were very funny and flowed really well.
We also worked on pronouns and now recognize when and where to use them. Our Short Read was on the Vikings, filling in the blanks and we did a literal comprehension exercise on dinosaurs.
In Numeracy, we have continued to work on division and some of us have progressed to remainders. We completed our bar charts, although needed reminding how to set it out.
We have continued with circuits in P.E and in N.Y.C.O.S we have continued to work on differentiating pulse and rhythm.
Have a lovely weekend everybody.
Love from P4B and Mrs.Burton

This week our trout eggs arrived and they are safely installed into our tank. We hope to release them into the wild in a few weeks time, once they have hatched and developed.

In maths our new topic is time. Some of us are converting between digital and analogue and 24hr time. Others have looked at time zones and how the time is different around the world.

Our comprehension this week was based around a poem written by Rudyard Kipling, called Smuggler’s Song.

We have written newspaper reports about the mishaps of Tam ‘O’ Shanter.

In Science we shared the games we made with Primary 2.  They enjoyed playing our games and gave us feedback about them.

Our rehearsals for Fame are continuing, with lots of practise happening for this!!

Have a lovely weekend

Kind regards

Primary 6 and Mrs Kerr

We have written more poems but this week our subject was the senses. Again we have done a brilliant job. They didn’t have to rhyme and we got to choose which sense we wrote our poem on. Some of us even chose to copy our poems out and take them home to show our parents – we were so proud of them! Continuing on the poetry theme – some of us read our “To a ……” Poems in our Burns assembly yesterday. Everyone read clearly and confidently.
In Numeracy, we have continued to work on division and in Maths we are beginning to create our own bar charts, using data we have collected ourselves.
We have begun to present our research on Scottish music and dance and so far – lots of fun. Next week we move onto the Vikings!!
We have worked on apostrophes and reflective reading was on the author Roald Dahl. We read a piece of text on his life, which had silly words in it. We found the correct words, amongst laughter! We also looked at a piece of text about Charles Rennie Mackintosh and we had to put it in the right order then write some notes bullet point style about his life.
NYCOS continued on Thursday and our rhythm is getting better each week.
In French, we can give you a weather forecast.
Hope that you are all having a lovely weekend.
Love from P4B and Mrs.Burton

We have been working again on telling the time this week.  We were revising o’clock, half past and quarter past and started to learn how to read quarter to on an analogue clock.  We played lots of games to practise, a time board game, time dominoes, time pairs, using clocks to set times and playing games on the smartboard.  We now have two clocks in the classroom, a new one on our maths wall which has the times marked on it to help us, we are looking at this throughout each day to remind us where the hands are at certain times.

In numeracy, we are continuing with subtraction, most completed work on subtraction within 20 and will begin to subtract within 100 next week.  Some have been subtracting within 100 and will be begin subtraction of 2-digit numbers with bridging next week.

In literacy, we have been learning about ‘blurbs’ – what they are and why they are important.  We pretended to be the author of The Secret of the Kelpie and  we had to write an exciting blurb to make people want to read our book.  They are very good, many ended with a question that really made the reader want to find out more.  We also took on the role of the illustrator and designed new front covers for the book.

In PE we were playing football again in the hall.  We’re getting really good at dribbling and played some very competitive team games were we had to dribble as fast and accurately as we could.

We started our new class novel ‘Flash the Sheep Dog’ on Wednesday.  The first couple of chapters are about a boy called Tom who has moved from London to a farm in the Scottish Borders.  It’s a big change for him and he has a lot to learn about his new way of life.  We also began to learn about farming and have been thinking about where our vegetables come from and the work done on farms to provide these for us.  We also had a lesson on the importance of eating fruit and vegetables and how ‘eating a rainbow’ is really good to help us to get all the nutrients we need from the different colours.

All classes in school had a Scots Assembly today.  Each class was to perform a song or poem.  We sang Katie Bairdie and all our practising this week really paid off – we were word perfect, loud and clear.  Great singing P3A 🙂

Have a good weekend everyone,

P3A and Mrs Kennedy

We have had a really busy week in Primary 5/6. The Primary 5’s had a great time taking part in the Handball festival at Linlithgow Academy on Tuesday where they were competed against other local schools.

On Wednesday the Primary 5’s listened to a very interesting presentation by Mr Woodhouse about the Forth Bridges. It provided us with lots of information to help us on our trip to the Bridges on Thursday with Mr. Logan and the rest of Primary 5.

In science we planned our spaghetti bridge challenge and next week will be building them.

The Primary 6’s have missed their classmates this week however they have also been very busy with Fame! As the week progressed we had Mrs Bell helping us with some of our songs, Mrs Gordon was teaching us some new dances and we are beginning to look at what is happening on the stage throughout each scene.

We are continuing to look at Decimals and in particular ordering decimals with one and two decimal places. We found this tricky at first but with more practise and exploring different games we are beginning to feel more confident.

In maths we were exploring types of angles and using a protractor to draw angles. We will be reinforcing this next week.

In music we are continuing to learn to play the recorder. We are doing playing and reading from the stave, the notes G,B A  high C. We are then using these playing skills to improvise 4 ”beat fills “ in a simple jazz piece.

Learning through play in the upper school    

 

Have a good weekend from Primary 5/6, Mrs McVay and Mrs Tulloch