Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School

November 22, 2019

Primary 6 – w/e 22nd November 2019

This week we have continued with our mathematical art, creating images with squares, hopefully we’ll be able to share some pictures of these next week!!

In maths we have rounded off our current work on fractions, some of us using times tables to work out equivalent fractions, while others were finding a percentage of an amount.

In music we have continued to practise the Fame songs – good luck to all those who are auditioning on Monday.

We had a short assembly from Shelter Scotland, who helped us to understand how they help homeless people. They also thanked some of our pupils for raising money for this charity.

Our literacy this week involved rhyming poems and we had a go at creating our own poems about our reading books. We also uplevelled a piece of persuasive writing, using editing strips.

On Tuesday Jamie from Nil by Mouth came and spoke to us about anti-sectarianism. Ask us what we learned!!

Discussing stereotypes and creating our own characters during the Nil by Mouth Workshop.

Have a lovely weekend

Primary 6 and Mrs Kerr

November 22, 2019

Stick Man, Doubles and Dinosaurs in P2A

We have been very busy in P2A this week with Stick Man and practising for our Nativity. We can’t believe how fast time is flying by and that December is getting ever closer!

In Literacy we have been revising the sounds: ‘bl’, ‘cl’, ‘fl’, ‘gl’, ‘pl’ and ‘sl’ this week. We have also been learning ‘gr’ and ‘pr’. The magnetic boards have helped us sound out and blend our different words. Miss Muir even set us a challenge in pairs of how many words we could think of that had our sounds in them. We presented our boards in front of the class to show how many we had written down. We were really proud of them. In our writing we created our own Stick Man stories. First we watched a Stick Man animation and discussed what he was used for in the story. We then thought of what else Stick Man could have been used for. We came up with so many ideas from being used for a sparkler to a row for a boat. When writing our story Miss Muir challenged us to include how Stick Man would feel and use phrases from the story in our own writing. Some of us even tried to use speech marks.

In Numeracy and Mathematics we have been adding 10 onto single digit numbers and adding teen numbers. We have been sharing our addition strategies with each other in these class discussions. We were able to come up with many to help each other, such as using number lines and cubes. We created our own questions on whiteboards and swapped with a partner to see if they could answer them. We have also been recalling our doubles. The Hit the Button game helped us with this. We have been learning what a near double is. We enjoyed playing the near doubles bus board game to help us with our new learning and doubling space race to double even bigger numbers.

We had a special visit from Camembear this week. It has been his first time in P2A this year! Camembear had forgotten our names from P1 so we had to introduce ourselves to Camembear in French. We then revised our colours and learned some new ones by playing a matching game on the board. Miss Muir was very impressed at how well we could listen then say the word back. We had fun looking for different things in the classroom that were the colours we had been discussing and saying their colour in French. Some of us drew and some of us ticked how many things we could see.

Other highlights of the week…

We hope you have a lovely weekend. See you next week!

P2A and Miss Muir 🙂

November 17, 2019

P3B Week commencing 11th November 2019

As Monday was the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we all attended the special Remembrance Day assembly to learn about what it means and why we wear poppies. Then at 11am at the eleventh hour all the classes stopped working to take part in the two minutes silence to show our respect.

On Tuesday we all went to the hall to listen to Mrs Hocknull read the story about the Stick Man, written by Julia Donaldson. After listening to the story, we then had a discussion to “brainstorm” our ideas of what we would like to put into the play areas outside the classroom to change the area from construction to the Stick Man. We managed to come up with lots of different suggestions so we will now begin to change the area over the next few weeks.

We then linked the story of the Stick Man to our writing where we looked at how cartoon strips are made using different pictures, speech and though bubbles together with a sort description to tell the story. Using these techniques, we then made our own cartoon strips to tell different parts of the story. The cartoon strips look amazing and we will be using them to create part of the new Stick Man display in the corridor outside the classroom.

In literacy we also continued our work on common nouns and proper nouns. We are getting much better at recognising the difference nouns when writing sentences and when we need to use a capital letter.

In PE we continued to refine our ball and team working skills for playing Bench ball ready for the inter school cluster tournament which we will be taking part in at Linlithgow High School in two weeks time.

In Maths we are continuing to develop our “Number Talk” skills by learning about the different strategies we can use to solve the problems mentally. We are also using these skills to work out the sums during our Big Maths challenge on a Friday morning. During the rest of the week we are continuing to work on adding three-digit and two-digit numbers and looking at adding double numbers.

On Friday we celebrated “Kindness Week” by attending an assembly all about how being kind can make a difference to our lives in school and around the world.

Mr Ritchie and the tiggerrific P3B’s

November 16, 2019

P4A Blog Week Ending 15.11.19

Literacy and English

In literacy we have been learning to write about the arguments for and against keeping animals in captivity. We had lots of reasons why animals in zoos were good e.g. we get to see animals we might not be able to see and arguments against e.g. whether it the best environment for the animals. We used a passage to gather evidence to find words or phrases that supported our arguments. We did a short read to fill in the gaps of an article about animals in the wild.

In grammar we learned when to use connectives, how to use more sophisticated connectives like ‘however’ instead of ‘but’ and how connectives can change the meaning of sentences. For spelling this week, we were learning to spell words that start with ‘dis’ or end in ‘d’. We had some ERIC time (Everyone Reading in Class) to enjoy reading of our choice. We are continuing to focus on non-fiction books for home reading this week.

Numeracy and Mathematics

In Numeracy and Mathematics we have been practising our mental maths strategies every day. This week we were learning how to use ‘friendly numbers’ as it is easier to add tens. We have also continued using our previous week’s strategy of partitioning numbers and the column method for formal addition so that we can check our answers with a variety of strategies.

We also learned vocabulary for more (greater) than or less than, equals and not equals to help us to understand what kind of calculation we were being asked to work out.

Learning across the Curriculum

We had an assembly on Monday as it was Remembrance Day. We also had a two minute silence in the classroom at 11am to remember the people who had died in wars.

In French we have been learning about foods and restaurants. We do the register in French saying ‘Bonjour’ or ‘Je m’appelle’ or ‘ici’ to use throughout the week.

Well done to DR, SB, ET, CT, EM and NY for receiving an achievement certificate in assembly for school values.

P4A and Ms McAlpine

November 15, 2019

Stick Man, hibernation and vowels in P1a

Another busy week has passed in P1a. We are loving our hedgehog focus and this week investigated hibernation further. We learnt about all different types of animals that hibernate, and where they hibernate. Ask us what we know, you will be impressed…

We also made hibernation puppets and used them to act out animals going into hibernation and then waking up in the spring. Some of us them became hedgehogs, snakes and frogs and pretended to hibernate.

Mrs Hocknall read Stick Man to the infant department the other day and it is going to be the focus for our corridor displays and play area. We had a lot of fun making our own stick men yesterday and using the Chatterpix app to take a photo of them and make them talk! What fun!

In literacy this week we learnt about the 5 vowels (a,e,i,o,u). We learnt that we need these sounds in all words and they will mostly appear in the middle. We played vowel bingo. It was really tricky to always hear the middle sound, but we are trying really hard. We really loved this song and may like to practise it at home to help us remember them.

We also learnt 2 new common words, he and me. We are now able to find lots of our common words in our reading books.

This week we wrote our first sentence… it was really exciting. Mrs Gordon was really impressed with how many of us remembered the 3 important things for a sentence – a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop.

In numeracy we continued our addition journey and started to investigate the different ways to make 2, 3 and 4. We are managing very well with the language and symbols of addition. We also continued looking at time by looking at the seasons, and what things happen in certain seasons.

In French Camembear taught us bleu, blanc and rouge just like the French flag the tricolor. We also learnt violet since we were wearing purple today for our dress down.

Happy weekend from Mrs Gordon and P1a

November 15, 2019

Dinosaurs Delight (P2B)

This week we have been learning all about dinosaurs as part of our IDL Book Study. We have been listening to different fiction texts about dinosaurs and using non-fiction texts to find information. During play this week we have been digging for fossils in our tuff tray, creating our own dinosaur pictures and writing facts about dinosaurs. On Wednesday we watched a video about dinosaurs and discussed the word ‘extinct’. We also looked at different carnivores and herbivores. At the end of the lesson, we told Miss Harrison which dinosaurs we would like to learn about in more detail. On Thursday, we listened to a dinosaur song, explored each dinosaur closely and then Miss Harrison gave us dinosaur fact cards about the dinosaurs we had selected. We went around our classroom and chose which dinosaurs we would like to learn about and used the fact cards to find information. Our chosen dinosaurs were the Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, Diplodocus, Pterodactyl, Velociraptor and the Triceratops.

In Literacy we were learning the sounds ‘pl’ and ‘sl’. We made ‘pl’ words, drew ‘pl’ pictures and we wrote ‘pl’ and ‘sl’ sentences in our jotters. Some of us were also learning the sounds ‘dr’ and ‘fr’. To help us to learn our common words, this week we looked at the shape of the words. We also looked for our common words in our reading books.

In Numeracy and Mathematics we concluded our work on 2D shapes and 3D objects. We explored the properties of 3D shapes. We played a game on Education City and we counted how many faces and edges were on each 3D object. This week we also began our work on addition. We have spent a couple of days revising our number bonds to 10. We have played ‘Hit the Button’ and we have looked at how to solve missing number sums. Next week we will look at addition to 20.

This week we went to a Remembrance Assembly on Monday morning. We watched a video from Poppy Scotland about the journey of the poppy and what it means. On Friday our assembly was about one of our school values, ‘kind’. On Wednesday it was World Kindness Day and we listened to a story called ‘Have You Filled a Bucket Today?’. We learned that everyone walks around with an invisible bucket and when we smile, give a compliment, treat others with respect or do something kind then you fill a bucket. Miss Harrison set us a challenge to carry out random acts of kindness and we did a great job!

This week we have been continuing to practise our songs for our nativity ‘Lights, Camel, Action’. Some of the songs are pretty catchy! On Thursday and Friday we also started to run through the script and practise our speaking parts. It’ll be here before we know it!

Thank you for reading our blog post. We hope that you have a lovely weekend.

P2B and Miss Harrison xxx

November 15, 2019

week ending 15.11.19

Blog by Aimee and Rose

This week in maths, we were learning about parallel and perpendicular lines. We were looking at lots of shapes and identifying their properties. We also looked at different triangles , isoceles, equilateral , scalene and right angled. There were lots of words to learn . Mrs Tulloch is going to make us a vocabulary help sheet just like our 3d shape sheet.

In numeracy, we were learning about number patterns and doing real life problems. We had to find the rule for the problems which was quite tricky.

In grammar, we were using speech marks and had to remember the 4 rules, spoken words in adverted commas, new line when someone speaks, punctuation before the final commas,

Primary 6 continue to learn about the Scottish Parliament and P5 were looking more closely at global issues like global warming. We had to draw a cartoon with a global message.

In PE, we worked with a partner and were keeping fit doing different circuits.

At music, we learned how to play A and B on the recorder. We have to remember to left hand at the top. We can now read the notes A and B on a treble clef. Primary 6 are also trying really hard to learn Scottish Opera songs and preparing for the auditions for Fame. Good luck everyone!

We had a visitor in science, Mr Kerr, Katie’s dad who spoke to us about his job in renewable enrgy. He was really impressed with our knowledge and we learned a lot about real life wind farms. We forgot to take photos , sorry.

Finally can we thank everyone for the fantastic sum of £285 we raised for Purple for Polio. You have all been very generous.

November 15, 2019November 15, 2019

Stick Man Mad in P3A

We began the week with a Remembrance Day assembly, we took some time to learn about why we have Remembrance Day and why we wear poppies. In class there was some paint and red paper, card and other art materials for us to make our own poppies at Learning Through Play time. At 11am the whole school had 2 minutes silence and we were all very sensible and respectful.

In numeracy, we are still adding 2 digit and 3 digit numbers. On Wednesday, we worked on quick recall of doubles to help us with our mental addition. We warmed up by rolling a die with a partner and quickly doubling the number shown. We then used these skills to double larger numbers, e.g. 42+42. Some children had a very competitive game of ‘Mathopoly’, each space has an addition sum on it and points are given for working out the answer mentally, there were also chance and challenge cards too so sometimes we lost points!

In science we started making our ‘forces’ models. Each model had to be something in a playground that involves a force. There are some very good ideas – rope slides using gravity, climbing frames that you need to pull yourself up, swings that you need to use your body to push. Although these were started on Tuesday with Mrs Begarnie, we have worked on them every day, to finish them so we can present our model to the class next Tuesday. Lots of great teamwork, discussion, problem solving, negotiation and decision making going on. Every child can explain their model well and the forces used either by the play equipment and/or the person using it.

For Reflective Reading this week we read a comic strip and answered some comprehension questions with a partner, we had to read carefully to find all the information. We also had to answer a couple of inference questions where we had to think about how the characters were feeling.

We are changing our infant play area next week and have chosen the Stick Man by Julia Donaldson as our theme. Mrs Hocknull read it to all P1 to P3 children and then in our classes we decided what play areas we would like based on the story. There are some great ideas and teachers will be working with the children next week to get this set up.

Our writing this week was also based on the Stick Man story. We had to summarise the main points, in the correct order and then create a comic strip. These are absolutely fantastic, I’m looking forward to putting them on display so everyone can see our hard work. Everyone was so quiet when were writing and some were asking for quiet music, so we put on the music from Blue Planet. It was a lovely relaxing afternoon. Some of us have began to write Further Adventures of Stick Man, creating our own comic strips.

We finished off the week with a lovely assembly all about Kindness. Have a good weekend, P3A and Mrs Kennedy 🙂

November 15, 2019January 20, 2020

P7b

The P7s have been busy with costing and making enterprise products for the upcoming Christmas Fayre. They have taken this responsibility seriously. It’s a joy to watch them negotiate and make decisions as a group.

For the F1 challenge, the children actively research information on t”what makes a fast car”. This will help them create their own F1 version. In addition to this, they have also looked into designing their own team logo and name.

For literacy, we uplevelled our stories that we wrote. Then we wrote a recount on what we have so far done with our F1 project. We had exciting Wednesday afternoon as we met the author of Shadows of Winterspell, Amy Wilson. She gave us tips on how to write magical stories.

For Numeracy, the P7s investigated angles of triangles. They learnt how to find the value of x in equations and some of simplified simple expressions.

Some of children went to the Sportshall Athletics event. They did so well. They showed true sportsmanship and determination. They make the whole school proud!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

P7b and Mrs Durano

November 15, 2019

A week of lasts in P7a

This week we have had lots of lasts. On Monday we had our last Rememberance Day Assembly, this was a lovely assembly and we remembered all our fallen service personnel (and all the animals who worked during the wars and conflicts). We also had our last class photo, you should be able to see this using the code that was sent home with your children. Or visit the Springfield twitter page to see one that Mrs Newton took.

Tuesday we had our last visit from the Dental Nurses, we all rocked this visit and have great teeth.

Wednesday was our last ever flu nasal spray at Springfield (it was also the last time we can get the spray as we will be too old next year!). This was a simple and easy process and most of us put our stickers on the wall display for “Lasts”.

On Thursday we had two lasts- our last author visit, Amy Wilson came in to talk to us about her books and how she became an author. Then some of us went to the Sports Hall Athletics event at the Academy. We all did really well and showed what an amazing school Springfield is.

Finally today, whilst this will not be our last dress down day, it is our last dress in purple for polio day!

We also had some firsts- those of us trying out for the main parts in Fame were given our scripts, we started to design logos and slogans for the Jaguar F1 challenge and we learned about a hailstone string (ask us about this, it’s great fun.)

Have a great weekend 🙂

P7a and Mrs Newton