Here’s what P5 have been up to this week…
Literacy and English
We have continued reading our shared texts Holes, exploring the theme of discrimination within the text. We were told of the life and crimes of Kissin’ Kate Barlow, an old western outlaw in the story. After analysing her transformation from well-to-do school teacher to notorious outlaw, we created newspaper articles about her. These had to include a headline with alliteration, sub-heading, picture with caption, columns for our text and a description of who, what, where, why, when and how?
In writing, we have also been creating Burke and Hare comic strips to summarise events between 1827 and 1829 when their crimes were committed. These were to include a number of commonly seen comic strip features including a variety of bubbles, bold and colourful titles, captions that link with illustrations and onomatopoeia. We look forward to finishing these and displaying them on our Literacy wall next week for everyone to see!
Numeracy and Mathematics
In Numeracy and Mathematics this week we have been learning about the difference between volume and capacity. Capacity is how much an object can hold, whereas volume is the amount of space something occupies. We have also been ordering volume, converting between units of measurement, estimating volume and measuring accurately. Next week we are going to be demonstrating our learning when making mocktails! Here we are below attempting to measure accurately with measuring cylinders and containers. Our challenge was to estimate what 100ml, 250ml, 500ml and 750ml of water would be before checking how close we were and calculating the difference.
Learning Across the Curriculum
On Monday we endured a rather wet and windy walk along to Xcite for P5’s swimming assessments. Well done to all of the children for their lack of moans and positive attitude throughout!
Our Science has taken two routes this term. With Mrs Doran, we have continued our studies of bridges and civil engineering. On Wednesday we designed and built our spaghetti bridges which were to include triangles for extra strength. Mr Logan then worked with us to test each group’s effort and see what weight they could hold. Harrison, Jack G and Calan’s bridge managed to endure a weight of 4.5kg without breaking, brilliant effort guys! Is that a Springfield record?!
We’ve also been studying Human Anatomy in Science, taking on the role of Dr Knox as part of our Burke and Hare studies. Firstly we looked at the building blocks of the body, our cells. We compared animal and plant cells and explored the function of different parts of the cell such as the mitochondria, nucleus and cytoplasm. Later in the week, we discovered more about our circulatory system and how the heart pumps blood around our bodies. We found that the blood travels from:
right atrium > right ventricle > artery > lungs (becomes oxygenated) > artery > left atrium > left ventricle > artery > around our body > to the feet (becomes deoxygenated) > veins > back to the heart.
Ask us about this process at home to share our learning with you.
In French, we played different games to consolidate our learning as part of Scotland Loves Languages week. Nairn and Lucy did a brilliant job, leading these activities as part of their Language Ambassador roles!
We have been continuing our futsal sessions with the West Lothian Youth Football Foundation. This week was a ‘game week’ and we took part in small-sided games. It was a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the skills we’ve been developing over the first three weeks, for example, close control, use of both feet, different surfaces of the foot and accurate passing.
Coming Up
- 14.2.20 – February holiday
- 17.2.20 – February holiday
- 18.2.20 – February holiday
- 21.2.20 – Achieving Assembly
- 4.3.20 – Reflective Reading information evening (7-8pm)
- 4.3.20 – School Show (1)
- 5.3.20 – School Show (2)
- 5.3.20 – World Book Day
- 6.3.20 – BEAR reading event (am)
- 9.3.20 – Author visiting school (P4-6)
- 10.3.20 – 80s Dress Down Day for Fame
- 11.3.20 – Primary Dance Competition (selected pupils)
- 13.3.20 – P5 Class Assembly (Sport Relief)
- 25.3.20 – Parents Evening (1)
- 26.3.20 – Parents Evening (2)
- 3.4.20 – Easter Service at St Michael’s Church (am)
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
P5 and Mr Logan
