Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School

January 19, 2020

P7b

Primary 7s have been revising on their multiplication and division strategies.

They been learning about WWII. This involved lots of cooperative work, researching and script writing. In addition to this, the children have analysed the poem ” The Sodger’s Rerurn” by Robert Burns. They then wrote their individual narrative poem which included Scottish words. They have done themselves proud!

They have also created oil pastel portraits which used the subject of children during WWII. This type of art was inspired the work of a Scottish artist named Joan Eardley.

January 19, 2020

Comics and The Batcave in P4a

Comics and the Batcave in P4a

P4 a have had a very busy week. In Literacy we have had a focus on comics and graphics novels. We created a Batcave for our class library and have been reading comics in class. We enjoyed reading Dave Pilkey’s Dog Man so decided to make our own Dog Man comic strips. The first thing we had to do was learn how to draw Dog Man and Lil Petey. We watched tutorials on You Tube. Mrs Hocknull was very impressed and thought everyone made a better job than she did!

Next we learnt about different types of thought, speech and scream bubbles, caption words and jagged splats for action words. We only took 12 minutes to plan our comics! We were all very inventive and Dog Man was attacked by an evil toaster, stranded on a deserted island and fought evil powers in the city! We also designed our own front covers. Our comic strips are going to be made into a giant book to put in our class library so we can all read each other’s.

Once we were finished writing our comics, we used Stop Motion on the ipads to make our own animation movies. We had to make our own Play Doh characters which was tricky. We learnt that it takes real patience and perseverance to make an animation movie!

Mrs Hocknull was very impressed with everyone who went home and made their own comic strips and animation movies! Well done!

For reading this week we explored a text about Charles Rennie MacKintosh. It was all jumbled up and we had to work in pairs to sort it out into the correct order. We read it through to check for meaning and then made short notes about his life. Then we used Chatterpix on the ipads to record a mini autobiography, pretending to be Charles Rennie MacKintosh! We had lots of fun during this lesson.

Mrs Fleming also did a comprehension lesson focussing on literal questioning, meaning the answer is literally in front of you in the text! We used skimming and scanning skills to look for the answer. Next week, we will be working on deductive questioning. This means you have to ‘read between the lines’ and look a bit harder for the answer as it’s not so obvious!

As next week is Scots Week, we will be learning a Scottish poem for homework for our Scots Assembly on Friday. Look out for this in school bags!

In art we designed our own tartans and used oil pastels to complete these. Then we used a stencil of a Scottish animal which we covered with zentangle patterns in black pen. We cut these out and stuck them in the centre of our tartan designs. They are very effective.

Mrs Doyle, our new Support for Learning teacher, taught us for Numeracy this week. Mrs Doyle will be working across the two P4 classes to support raising attainment in Numeracy for the whole term. Mrs Doyle focussed on multiplication this week.

Mrs Hocknull taught us for Maths. We revised what we knew about data handling by answering questions about data that we were given. We had to use addition and subtraction to calculate the answers.

We had lots of different Number Talks sessions this week. We particularly enjoyed The Cookie Monster https://gfletchy.com/the-cookie-monster/ We had to work out which of the 4 operations to use to calculate how many cookies the cookie monster had eaten. We were given one clue at a time to help us. It was really tricky!

On Thursday we had NYCOS. We will have this every Thursday afternoon. We also had our first PE session with Mrs Reid.

During assembly last week Mrs Hocknull talked about our school values and we watched the short Pixar movie, Birds on a Wire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2PJ6T7U2eU. We spotted lots of school values in the movie. Mrs Hocknull set the school a challenge to think of a New Year’s resolution related to the playground and design our own ‘Birds on a Wire’ for our window. You should be able to see these in all our classroom windows from the playground.

After a very busy week, we continued our learning during Learning Through Play time. We were challenged to build something symmetrical. Mrs Hocknull was amazed!

Another great week in P4a. Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hocknull

Next Week

Miss McAlpine will be absent all week. Mrs Hocknull will be in Monday and Tuesday. Mrs Fleming for the rest of the week
Please watch out for home learning overview and new home learning grids coming home on 20.1.20
Please note new P6 and P7 show dates in the learning overview

January 18, 2020

Scottish Art in P4B

We have continued our focus on Scottish Art and songs and music this week. We completed our Rennie Mackintosh pictures and they’re brilliant. Some budding artists in P4B. We have also designed our own tartans and used oil pastels to complete these. Then we used a stencil of a Scottish animal which we covered with zentangle patterns in black pen. We cut these out and stuck them in the centre of our tartan designs. They are very effective.
We continued our Scottish theme in our writing- we listened to a reading of “To a Mouse” and discussed the meaning behind it. Then we created our own poems about a Scottish animal, trying to use some Scots language. Some great poems – well done P4B.
We have also worked on tenses this week and the introduction of the present perfect tense.
We have completed our block on multiplication and have done an assessment on it. Some of us still need to practise the higher tables. So continue to practise in your tables booklets.
Our birds are on our classroom windows with our New Year’s Resolutions for the playground.
Have a lovely weekend everyone.
Love from P4B and Mrs. Burton

January 17, 2020January 17, 2020

Snow Animals, Time and Kelpies in P3A

P3A are very much back in the swing of things this week. In maths we have begun subtraction. At the moment we are practising our mental subtraction through number talks and working hard to become more confident with missing number sums (eg, 18 – ___ = 7 or ___ – 5 = 12) as quite a few of us were finding these tricky – we’re getting good at them now though!

In outer maths we have begun ‘time.’ We are working on telling the time using an analogue clock at the moment. Focusing on half past and quarter past. We also drew the hands on a clock face to represent these times too. We have to remember that the little hand points to the hour and the big hand points to the minutes. We will continue with this topic for the next few weeks.

All classes are changing their corridor wall displays at the moment and P3A chose ‘snow animals’ as their theme. We have been learning about how some animals have adapted to survive in very cold climates, we have been learning about snow leopard, snowshoe hare, sika deer, arctic fox, bobcat and polar bear. In groups we did some reading for information, highlighting interesting facts. We then used these notes to write a fact file. These are very informative and will be great on our display. We have been enjoying watching clips from a program on BBC iplayer called ‘Stunning Survivors: The Secret Skills of Snow Animals’ It has been very interesting and we have learned a lot about how animals survive extremely cold conditions – much better than us humans can!

We also created some artwork for the display. When we were watching Stunning Survivors we saw the Northern Lights and decided to learn more about them. We then created our own interpretations using water colour paint. We also drew line drawings of a snow animal of our choice and glued them onto our Northern Lights backgrounds. They are very effective and we worked hard to look at the animals looking at the lines, shapes and features and trying to recreate them in our drawing.

We read the book The Secret of the Kelpie by Lari Don, an adaptation of a traditional Scottish folk tale. This led us to look at traditional Scottish designs. In the Secret of the Kelpies there are some drawings carved into stone – shapes to represent objects and tell a story. We decorated our own initial with Scottish patterns. We also did a ‘Spot the Silly Word’ reflective reader task on a passage from the book, we read the passage carefully, spotted the silly words and suggested more suitable words to use in their place. This really helps to increase our vocabulary as we work together, discussing possible words to use.

We now have music lessons with Ms Bain on a Thursday. This week we were singing the Scottish song – Katie Bairdie, I haven’t heard it yet but I got very good feedback from Ms Bain on how well P3A sang 🙂

In PE we have begun a block on football. We were improving our dribbling skills this week – trying to keep the ball close to our bodies and in control while we move around quickly.

Another great week, well done P3A. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

January 17, 2020

Amazing Artists (P2B)

This week we started our Scottish Focus in P2B. Every class in the school is learning about a Creative Scot and we are learning about the artist, Steven Brown. When we looked at his art work, we discussed how it made us feel and some of us realised that we had his paintings at home! We learned that he uses bright colours in his work. On Wednesday, we used bright oil pastels to create our own McCoo and McZoo pictures. Don’t they look amazing?!

In Literacy this week we learned the sounds ‘st’ and ‘sw’. We created our own sentences containing these sounds and made ‘sw’ words on our magnetic boards. Our common words this week were ‘find’ and ‘kind’. Some of us were also learning the sounds ‘sk’ and ‘sm’.

In reading, we have selected our own reading target. Some of us are using our sounds to read words, some of us are using expression when reading aloud and some of us are using our common words to help us to read. We have been working on our targets when reading aloud in class. In our Short Read lesson this week, we played a game called ‘Blankety Blank’. We listened to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and then we looked at a character description for the wolf. Miss Harrison had covered up some of the adjectives. If we were able to fill in the blanks with the same word as the text, we got two points. If we suggested a different word from the text but it still made sense, then we got one point. We enjoyed playing ‘Blankety Blank’!

In French we were learning to say the months of the year. We listened to a song, learned the words for each month and played a game on the Promethean board. In groups, we worked together to match the month in English to the month in French.

In Numeracy and Mathematics, we learned to subtract a single digit from a teen number and twenty. We also learned to subtract a teen number from a teen number and how to subtract a single digit, bridging 10. During Number Talks, we have been explaining which subtraction strategy we have used to each other and we are using these strategies in our numeracy lessons.

In PE we explored balancing in different shapes. We had dice at each mat and when it was our turn, we rolled the dice and balanced on the number of body parts shown on the dice. To make it more challenging, Miss Harrison then gave us a bean bag and we had to form different balances whilst balancing the bean bag!

At last week’s assembly, Mrs Hocknull showed us a video called ‘Birds on a Wire’. Some of the birds weren’t displaying our school values. We discussed ways that we could display our school values in the playground. This week, Mrs Hocknull gave us a little bird each and in their tummies, we wrote ways that we could demonstrate our school values in the playground. These are going to go up in a display in our school.

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

P2B and Miss Harrison xxx

January 17, 2020January 17, 2020

Welcome to Primary 5 week ending 17.1.20

We have had a very busy week in Primary 5/6! We are continuing to explore Scots language and created our own Scots poems about an animal of our choice. We spent time exploring a wide range of vocabulary and using this to create our poems. Mrs McVay hopes that some of us will have the confidence to recite our poems to the rest of the school next week during assembly.

We were introduced to a new maths topic this week and that was decimals. During our lessons we began to look at the place value of decimals up to 3 decimal places. To develop our understanding further we then created diagrams (that looked like chocolate bars) to understand the concepts of tenths and hundredths. Next week the class will focus on ordering and sequencing decimals up to 2 decimal places.

Mrs Tulloch and Mrs Doyle showed us how to measure angles using a protractor. We made a protractor for the classroom door and now we can measure going in and out of class.

As part of our Art lesson this week, we learned about the famous Scottish artist Samuel Peploe. We looked at some of his paintings and discussed how they make us feel and how he used light and dark colours to create still life and landscapes. Using water colours and oil pastels we drew our own representation of one of his paintings called, Rocks. Our pictures have turned out very well!

P6 continue to learn their songs for the school show this week and will hopefully have the words home by the end of the week for them to memorise. P5 have been using this time to learn more about Rabbie Burns and this week created a fantastic collage of his very famous portrait.

As you walk by our classroom window have a look at our new year resolutions for in the school playground. They are there to remind us the importance of playing kindly, showing respect and being inclusive to ensure that everyone has fun during playtime and lunchtime.

In science Primary 5 have been learning about bridges and mad paper bridges. Daniel and Leith’s bridge carried 180g.

Have a lovely weekend,

Primary 5/6

January 17, 2020

Crazy, Crafty, Crackin P7a’s

This week we have focused on Robert Burns and Joan Eardley.

We looked at a few of Robert Burns poems as well as reading about his life. We tried to work out what the Scots words he had used meant, this tricky and we all had to help each other. After this we investigated Joan Eardley

We researched Joan Eardley and looked at her works of art. We then created drawings inspired by her works. Then using, the poetry of Robert Burns to help us, we wrote poems about Joan, her life or her art work.

In Numeracy we looked at currency exchange and how to calculate different foreign currencies. We also worked out the price of different items in different currencies to see which were cheaper.

In Science we finishing off our F1 work, our competition date is next month and we want to make sure we are all ready.

We had Fame rehearsals on Monday and Thursday. These are going well and next week we will be starting our dance choreography with Mrs Gordon.

We have reintroduced the Star Table, we are now responsible for nominating the people we think have shown the values of our school. The people at the table will change each Friday, depending on the nominations.

Next week we have a visit from the Poppy Bud on Monday, this will intoduce us to what they Poppy Factory does and why it is so importanty.

Have a lovely weekend, the sun is supposed to shine tomorrow.

P7a and Mrs Newton 🙂

January 17, 2020

Primary 6 w/e 17th January 2020

This week we have begun our rehearsals for Fame and we also had the opportunity to watch a performance of the show by another group.

Today we had a visit from Fish in the Classroom, who have told us all about the project and set a tank up within our classroom. They will return in a couple of weeks with some trout eggs, which we will care for, before releasing them into the wild.

We created our own version of Tam ‘O’ Shanter, retelling the story that was written by Robert Burns.

Our artwork this week looked at the Scottish Colourists, in particular, Samuel Peploe. We recreated some artwork of our own, based on some of his paintings.

Have a lovely weekend.

Happy song practising!!

From Primary 6 and Mrs Kerr

January 17, 2020

Bright Colours and Balancing in P2A

We have been busy learning in P2A this week.

Look below at what we have been doing in our play based learning…

In Literacy we have all been learning new sounds: ‘st’, ‘sw’, ‘sk’ and ‘sm’ this week. We have enjoyed using the magnetic boards to spell our words. Some of us have even thought of our own words with our sound and written these down on whiteboards and our jotters. We were able to create our own sentences using these words as well. Some of us enjoyed completing the ‘st’ word hunt in the classroom.

In Numeracy and Mathematics we have been subtracting within 20 and 100 this week. Some of us were subtracting a single digit from 20. We went over the different strategies we could use to help us with this from using number lines to counting with cubes. We also were subtracting a teens number from a teens number. Some of us found this challenging to start with but we were resilient and were able to complete our work. As a class we learned that ‘find the difference’ is another way of saying subtract so we wrote this on our subtraction class mind map. It is getting very full now!

In P.E we were exploring different movements, how we control these in a safe way and how you can balance. As a class we were able to state and demonstrate lots of different moves we can make. We had lots of fun playing an activity called ‘Visit to the Zoo’. In partners we moved like different zoo animals from crocodiles to penguins. We realised how these animals move in different ways. We even had an ‘Animal Quiz’ where we had to guess the animals people were by looking at how they moved. It was really fun.

In Art we have been creating pictures using different materials and bright colours. We looked at the artist Steven Brown and his pictures. Some of us knew who he was and had noticed some of his pictures before in shops we had visited and hairdresser’s. We discussed the colours and lines/shapes he used in his work. We then created our own highland coos and giraffes in the style of Steven Brown.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

P2A and Miss Muir 🙂

January 16, 2020

Subtraction, ‘sh’ and 3 Craws in P1B

What a lovely week in P1B, full of lots of learning and playing.

In Numeracy we began learning about subtraction. We ‘subtracted’ marshmellows to help us to understand the concept – this was a highlight of the week for lots of us! We will forever understand subtraction as the act of eating marshmellows and there getting ‘less’. We also explored subtraction using cubes, played subtraction games and had a go at solving some written sums.

In Maths we learned how to tell the time o’clock on an analogue clock. We were amazing at this! We know that the big hand is called the minute hand and the small hand is called the hour hand. If you have an old watch we can wear this will help us to engage with telling the time. A digital one is fine too as we will be learning how to read the time on a digital clock next week.

In Literacy we learned the digraph ‘sh’. A digraph is 2 letters combined together to make a sound. We will be learning lots of these this term. We highlighted ‘sh’ words in a story, wrote ‘sh’ words and we even made a ship!

Our IDL focus this week and next is Scots. We learned the song ‘3 Craws’, ask us to sing it to you, we’re very good. Maili and Olga helped us to make our own craws, we’re really proud of them:

If any of you are able to speak in Scots, we’d love you to come in and read us a story or poem…. Mrs Bell tries but it really is not her area of expertise!

Have a fab weekend 🙂

Love P1B and Mrs Bell x