IDL – Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School

March 21, 2020

Vikings galore!

This week we have continued to work on division strategies as well as some revision on addition and subtraction.

We have enjoyed listening to lots of class talks on the Vikings and have been impressed with the effort everyone has put into their presentations so far and how confidently they have been delivered! We have also had lots of brilliant props brought in to support the talks such as a shield, a sword, Viking runes and jewellery. Well done everyone!

We also learned a bit more about what Vikings might have worn. We created our own Viking characters and designed some outfits for them. These look great on our topic wall in the classroom and we had lots of fun making them. We enjoyed listening to some Viking myths about Thor and Odin online.

We worked with our reflective reading partners and completed a ‘Blankety Blank’ activity which was an extract from Willy Wonka. This week we have also written letters and postcards to practise our skills within functional writing.

We have also enjoyed some learning through play, both inside and outside, and we particularly enjoyed playing outside in the sunshine yesterday with our friends!

May 4, 2018

4.5.18 Primary 5A

This week in P5A, we have started our literacy circle activities. We were well prepared and able to take on the different roles. The directors made very good teachers, leading the groups. To help with our reading and research we focused on identifying the main idea. At writing, having looked at different samples of text we were able to workout where the new paragraphs come. This will help when writing stories.

In number we have continued to find fractions of amounts and use real life examples. This makes much more sense to us now. We have been finding perimeters of shapes with Mrs Gordon and doing more number talks. She loves our strategies.

As part of our expressive arts and IDL we are comparing a classical artist, Edwin Landseer’s ” The Monarch of the Glen” (1851), with modern Scottish artist, Scott Naismith’s different beach scenes.

We painted our own version of Scottish mountains from photographs and then positioned a stag in the foreground. Next week we will use pastels to create beach scenes.

At science we discussed light and shadows and whether materials were translucent, opaque or transparent. We took part in different activities which involved making shadows smaller, larger and from different angles. We revisited how a solar eclipse occurs from our Space topic in term 1.

For IDL we studied the different landscapes in Scotland and also studied map symbols. We looked at the universal colour code and then designed our own ordnance survey symbols.

What great matches we had at basketball this week. The passing was super and there was great dribbling and shooting. Mr Logan said the class worked really well during his football lesson.

April 27, 2018April 27, 2018

27.4.18 5A Blog

We started our literacy circle this week and everybody was very pleased with their choice of book. There was lots of discussion about the cover, illustrations and our initial feelings about the story line and characters. Mrs Tulloch had a job trying to get us to stop talking. Everyone has a role for next week and we look forward to listening to how everyone in the group manages their literacy circle task.

We were using dictionaries to help when up leveling our writing. For comprehension, we focused on reading for information and this should help us prepare for our class talks.

In maths, we focused on equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions. This was quite tricky and we need to practise the method we have been using in class. Next week we will be finding fractions of an amount. Mrs Gordon was pleased with our work on area and we will continue with perimeter.

We started our new IDL geography trail about Scotland and used a map to show: what we know, what we would like to find out and how we are going to do it.

At PE, we practiced our drills at basketball and had some very fast games. Lots of double dribbles though!

Mrs Bain gave us instruments and we were practicing keeping different rhythms.

Mr Logan continued with our internet safety and we completed our posters.

We continued with Scratch and have been showing our work, cartoon and movies to rest of the class. They are fab.

March 9, 2018

P7b Weekly Blog

Numeracy and Mathematics

Capacity – ‘the maximum amount something can contain’
Volume – ‘the space that an object or substance occupies’

We’ve been reminding ourselves of the difference between these terms this week and building on our learning from last week. On Monday and Tuesday we rotated round a carousel of activities; estimating volume, measuring volume, converting between different units of measurement and ordering volumes by size. Robbie proved to be the most accurate estimator of volume as he found 500ml and 750ml of water exactly. On Wednesday we all became baristas as we made some mocktails. We had to carefully follow each recipe to ensure we included exactly the right amount of each coloured juice. Having made the mocktails from the menu, we concocted our own and named it! We found there to be a number of factors that could influence the accuracy of our measurements, and we improved as we progressed through the recipes.

Next week we will be consolidating our learning of written methods for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Health and Wellbeing

Our brains were put to the test again this week in football. We worked with a partner to carry out some mirrored dribbling exercises. One person had a football whilst their partner was the leader. As the leader moved, the other person had to mimic this, e.g. they move forwards = move back, to their right = move left. We then switched the roles and the person dribbling became the leader. Mr. Logan noticed we were getting the hang of this, so our footballs were exchanged for tennis balls with a focus on using the sole of the foot to manipulate a smaller object. We finished with some 2v2 attacking and defending situations and will progress to 2v1 attacking scenarios next week. Have a look at SF and RWi below as they demonstrate mirrored dribbling with a tennis ball.

In Health and Wellbeing, we also finished with our series of lessons focusing on internet safety. This week’s lesson was called ‘Codebreaker’ and we were tasked with trying to create strong passwords. Firstly, we were given two random children and some basic details about them. From the clues provided we had to make reasoned guesses as to what their passwords would be. The fact that we were able to do so highlighted the importance of using random combinations of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and symbols to create passwords which are difficult to predict. We have a greater understanding of how to protect our online accounts and data, and it was interesting how many people said they would be changing some passwords when they got home.

Fairtrade

Mr. Logan was delighted to see that everyone had made the effort to dress down in something wacky in support of Fairtrade on Friday. The costumes and outfits were brilliant, and made it very tricky to choose 5 winners. MF was given 5th place for her banana costume effort and AS was 4th in her Hawaiian gear. HR scooped 3rd place for his random assortment of dressing gown, school tie, sunglasses and cap whilst AE-C was second with too many hair baubles to count! Our class winner was RD who took bright colours and wackiness to a whole new level. Well done everyone! Great effort for a great cause!

World War II

We began our studies of World War II this week to much excitement from the class. Hearing the radio broadcast from Neville Chamberlain declaring war on Germany really made us think about the emotions people would have felt at this time in 1939. Having listened to this, we carried out some research on the Allies and Axis, countries within these factions and who their leaders were. It was noted that in 1940, Great Britain changed Prime Minister to Winston Churchill whilst Russia, or the Soviet Union, changed allegiances after a surprise invasion. We finished the week by sketching World War II leaders with Mrs. Doran. This was tricky as we were only given half of the leaders picture and had to sketch what we thought the other half would look like. You’ll see these displayed in class soon, so come and have a look!

Happy Weekend!

P7b and Mr. Logan

February 23, 2018

Primary 5A 23.2.18

This week in Primary 5 we have been researching the people who were part of Mary Queen of Scot’s life. We were highlighting the key facts and will produce a fact file for our timeline.

In maths we are continuing to reinforce our multiplication tables and are getting quicker when we play Buzz. We are able to do chimney sums with decomposition and then used this method to help solve everyday problems. Next week we will focus on multiplication and division sums. We also have the RBS coming in to Primary 5 to support us in a “planning a party” workshop . This will help to reinforce the work we did on money.

In literacy we looked at the different skills we need to use to help us understand a passage. Sequencing and finding the main idea were the main points we looked at.

In science we continued to look at mixtures and how to separate them. This week it was sieving. We didn’t realise how many different uses they had. Our task involved separating 5 different substances by making our own sieves from card. We were very successful and the classroom carpet wasn’t too badly covered in rice and lentils.

After the staff course on “better thinkers, better movers” we have now started a block on basketball. It really got us thinking and concentrating. Next week we will be adding also throwing and catching a tennis ball while we are dribbling and passing!

Mrs Tulloch enjoyed watching our canon routines we put together with Mrs Reid at PE. Unfortunately the video clip is too large for the blog. Sorry.

We have started a new class novel ” Kid Normal ” by Greg James and Chris Smith. It has got off to good start.

Letters have been sent home about our Palace visit on 5th March.

November 25, 2017

P7b Weekly Blog

Numeracy and Mathematics

In maths this week we have been comparing costs to find the cheapest option or best buy. We discovered that buying in bulk can often reduce the price per item and lower costs. Knowing this was beneficial when ordering resources this week for our enterprise projects. In order to ensure we maximise our net profits, we have been sourcing materials for the best price online through comparisons between different retailers. This week we have also been using written methods to divide sums of money, with a remainder on occasion. Long division forms part of the S1 assessment in maths and this will ensure we have a secure knowledge of this area before our transition. Our Standardised Assessments indicated that we needed some practise and consolidation of interpreting written word and multi-step problems. We have been working hard to read questions carefully at all times, take note of key information and use working to tackle this style of question step-by-step.

Literacy and English

On Thursday we embarked on our first Big Writing adventure with Mrs Doran. We further explored the issue of deforestation in the Amazon rain forest, carrying out various written tasks in response to a reporter on location. Our whole class targets in writing are to continue using an ambitious range of VCOP to make our writing exciting for the reader and developing the ability to proofread, self-check and up-level our work where appropriate. Mr Logan has been pleased with the level of description and detail we are beginning to incorporate into our work. Our focus in grammar and punctuation has been to use adjectives along with examples of figurative language such as simile, metaphor and personification. In shared reading this week we all examined the features of charity appeals. We were able to highlight simple features such as bold titles and thought-provoking images, but also looked deeper into ideas such as the way in which such adverts affect our emotions and influence our actions. P7b were able to identify persuasive language used throughout the text and used a dictionary to define unfamiliar words such as ‘malnutrition’, ‘irrigation’ and ‘supplements’. There was also a vote for our new class novel this week, and Ailsa’s choice of Maze Runner, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, was chosen by the majority of pupils.

Health and Wellbeing

We have two weeks remaining of futsal, and are grateful to our specialist coach Neil from the Livingston Youth Football Foundation for his continued commitment to the programme. In P.E next week we will be developing our passing and dribbling skills within basketball, our latest block of P.E, and applying these skills within small-sided game situations. Our after school clubs are going from strength to strength, with a huge number of pupils across all stages of school benefiting from the provision of various activities. A huge thank you goes to all of the teachers who are giving up their own time to deliver such high quality sessions. We really are doing our utmost to develop every aspect of our children’s Health and Wellbeing at Springfield Primary School and their continued participation in these activities is one way to ensure we do so. Next week, P7 are looking forward to the start of our skiing sessions as Midlothian Sports Centre. No matter what ability level, each of our pupils will be given the chance to either learn to ski or build on their previous experience. Mr Logan, Mrs Gordon and Miss Baillie are also looking forward to taking to the slopes! Thank you in advance to those parents who will be assisting us over the 4 weeks of lessons. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Coming Up

Skills for Learning, Life and Work focus group on 29.11.17 at 7pm
Skiing block begins on 30.11.17 at 8.30am – 1.15pm (4 weeks)
PTA Glitter Ball and Christmas Dress Down Day on 1.12.17
Nativity performances on 6.12.17 and 7.12.17
Christmas Fayre on 8.12.17 at 9.30am – 12 noon
Learning Showcase in classes on 13.12.17 at 1pm
Christmas Service at St. Michael’s on 19.12.17 at 6.30 – 7.30pm
Carols Round the Tree and Christmas jumpers on 22.12.17
Christmas holidays from 22.12.17 – 9.1.18

We hope you’re having a great weekend!

P7b and Mr Logan

November 5, 2017

P7b Weekly Blog

Numeracy

Last week in Numeracy and Mathematics we came to a conclusion with our work using decimal numbers. Whilst establishing the link to both fractions and percentages, we have been adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimal numbers through the use of written methods. We understand that ahead of our transition to S1 it is of great importance to show our working and verbalise the strategies we are using when completing written calculations or developing our mental arithmetic. Even if we don’t find the correct answer, we will gain credit for the steps we have taken in getting there. As it was Halloween on Tuesday, our problem solving this week was titled ‘Murder at the Movies’. We had to apply our knowledge of decimals in order to cross off names from the suspects list before eventually finding the culprit. Next week we will be further developing our knowledge of decimal numbers as we move on to look at money. This will be good practise ahead of our Christmas Fayre enterprise work where we will need to use money to purchase resources, work to a budget and hopefully calculate eventual gross and net profits.

Literacy

In spelling we are continuing to challenge ourselves with tricky spelling rules and patterns. Mr. Logan has been thoroughly impressed with the scores in our spelling test each Friday and the ability to demonstrate our understanding of these words’ definitions in our ambitious, up-leveled sentences. On Thursday we used mind maps as a tool for planning our Poppy Factory visit recount writing. This allowed us to note down key points and phrases that would aid the flow and structure of our work. These pieces of writing will be continued next week where we also have our Big Write event to look forward to. In this time we will be writing some rainforest tanka poems. Our guided reading timetables have been altered as we move onto new group novels, and we ended this week by entering discussion groups on Yammer. This online space within Glow was used to answer a range comprehension type questions posed by Mr. Logan and discuss our novels in greater detail with our peers.

Health and Wellbeing

In P.E, we have been practising ahead of our Linlithgow cluster Sportshall Athletics festival next Wednesday. The events we have been working on are speed bounce, chest push, standing long jump, vertical jump, javelin and relay races. If we are successful at the cluster event, we will move forward to West Lothian finals and Mr. Logan believes we have every chance of doing so judging by the level of performance he has seen. The Sports Committee had their second meeting of the session on Friday and pupils worked hard to design a new logo that will be displayed on any Sports Committee work around school. We will be voting for our winning design at our next meeting in December. Finally, Sam had some fantastic news to share this week as he has been selected to ball boy in Andy Murray’s Live Event next Tuesday. Murray will be facing Roger Federer amongst other matches at the SSE Hydro and you can tune in on Eurosport from 7pm for a chance to see Sam in action!

Coming Up This Term

The Great Kapok Tree book study next week
Enterprise project for Christmas Fayre begins on Monday
Big Write event in class on Tuesday at 9.30 – 10.30am
4 x P7b pupils to attend St. Michael’s Day Care Centre on Tuesday at 1.15 – 3.15pm
P7 Sportshall Athletics festival at Linlithgow Leisure Centre on Wednesday at 1.10 – 2.50pm
Anti-bullying and racism focus starts in class week beginning 13.11.17
Liaise with Leadership on 15.11.17 at 5-6pm
Children in Need on 17.11.17
Last session of futsal on 27.11.17
Skills for Learning, Life and Work focus group on 29.11.17 at 7pm
Skiing block begins on 30.11.17 at 8.30am – 1.15pm (4 weeks)
PTA Glitter Ball and Christmas Dress Down Day on 1.12.17
Nativity performances on 6.12.17 and 7.12.17
Christmas Fayre on 8.12.17 at 9.30am – 12 noon
Learning Showcase in classes on 13.12.17 at 1pm
Christmas Service at St. Michael’s on 19.12.17 at 6.30 – 7.30pm
Carols Round the Tree and Christmas jumpers on 22.12.17
Christmas holidays from 22.12.17 – 9.1.18

Thank you for reading!

P7b and Mr. Logan

April 28, 2017

P7b Blog

Numeracy and Mathematics

This week P7b have been started their work on Information Handling. We have been gathering, interpreting and displaying data in a variety of ways. Firstly, we created and carried out surveys based on a question of our choice before using Microsoft Word and Excel to present our results in the form of vertical bar charts. We then analysed each other’s bar charts and discussed the trends from our results. Additionally, we have been consolidating our previous learning of tally charts and frequency tables as a method of gathering data. Next week, we will continue our work on Information Handling when using pie charts and both straight and curved line graphs.

Literacy and English

Having finished reading our previous group novels, we have now moved on to study our final text for Guided Reading this year. The Red group will be reading Artemis Fowl, the Blue group will be reading Tiger and the Green and Yellow groups will be studying texts written in Scot’s. Our main focus this week for reading and comprehension was tackling cloze procedure passages where we were asked to fill in the gaps in passages both with and without the help of a word bank. Where there was no word bank provided, we had to carefully select the most appropriate word to ensure the sentence makes sense. For writing, we have been ensuring our work is detailed and accurate through our ability to up-level and proof read. When looking back at our writing, we identified examples of where we could use more ambitious examples of VCOP and implemented strategies to correct our spelling and punctuation. Our class talks will be based on our personal project theme and we must be prepared to deliver these the week beginning Monday 15th May. Mr. Logan is looking forward to hearing us present.

Health and Wellbeing

After our final session of basketball for P.E, which involved small-sided games and a tournament, we are ready to move onto our final block of P.E for P7. This will be outdoors to further develop our skills in athletics. Alongside P.E in school, we have also been lucky enough to participate in both golf and rugby sessions this week. A group of pupils from P7b travelled to Kingsfield Golf Range on Tuesday afternoon, courtesy of the Stephen Gallacher Foundation, to begin a 4 week programme designed to get young people playing golf. Mr. Logan accompanied us to the session where we used irons and were introduced to the ‘GASP’ routine (Grip, Aim, Stance, Posture). Those who stayed at school took part in the first of our rugby taster sessions delivered by volunteers from Linlithgow Rugby Club. Our pupils are incredibly lucky to be given these sporting opportunities and were a credit to Springfield Primary School throughout.

Sciences

Finally, Mrs. Tulloch and P7b have been working tirelessly over recent weeks to prepare moving buggies as part of our STEM project. The winners were announced today and we say a huge well done to Niamh and Cameron who were awarded First Prize. This was seen as a welcome birthday present for Niamh who turned 12 today! Third Prize also went to two members of P7b, Eve and Ross. Well done to all of our pupils for their hard work and perseverance throughout the project and thank you to Mrs. Tulloch. It wouldn’t have been possible without her!

Next week:

Monday – HOLIDAY
Tuesday – Golf @ Kingsfield 1-2pm, rugby taster session 2.45 – 3.15pm
Thursday – HOLIDAY
Friday – Russell’s assembly, dress down day for the Galaday (£1 per pupil)
No leavers hoodies to be worn until June
Personal Project feedback

Have a restful long weekend.

P7b & Mr. Logan

March 31, 2017

P7b Blog

Numeracy and mathematics

We demonstrated our learning and applied our knowledge of decimals in a topic assessment this week. All of us have been working incredibly hard to develop our understanding of decimals which has been a tricky topic. Thankfully, our positive attitude towards our learning and growth mindsets have enabled us to get to grips with various new concepts and we impressed Mr. Logan with our scores. After Easter we will be moving on to information and data handling where we shall be collecting, displaying using ICT, interpreting and analysing data in various forms including pie charts, bar graphs and line graphs.

Literacy

Our escape plans have been completed and Julia was chosen as our winner. Her plan was intricately thought out and carefully prepared, so therefore, she received the Easter egg prize. Well done Julia and the rest of the class, what detailed and instructive pieces of writing you produced. We have also submitted our final entries to the West Lothian Young Writer of the Year competition and we will cross our fingers that one of this year’s winners will be from P7b.

IDL

West Lothian Council’s Museum Service visited us this week to display and discuss some local WWII artefacts. We found this to be incredibly interesting and informative, and enjoyed being given the opportunity to handle and look closely at these items. Joe was chosen as our Air Raid Warden and had the pleasure of wearing a metal helmet throughout the hour long session. We hope your neck isn’t too sore! Some personal projects have been completed and handed in, and Mr. Logan is now looking forward to marking these over the Easter holidays. Having had a brief look at them already, he is impressed with the level of research and detail that has been put into these. You should be proud of these P7b, such an incredibly talented group of pupils.

Friday

P7 showed what responsible citizens they are as they accompanied their P1 Buddies to St. Michael’s Church for our Easter Service today. We enjoyed hearing from Sheryl and Stuart at church and celebrating the end of the school term with some songs and confidently delivered readings. Well done from Mr. Logan and P7b to the pupils from P4, P5 and P6 who were brave enough to speak in front of such a large audience. Thank you also to our parents and carers who joined us for the Easter Service, it was great to see you.

First week back

Camp medical forms to be sent home
STEM buggies to be judged by Mrs. Burgess and Mr. Woodhouse on Thursday 20th April
Golf EE2 letters home to those participating
Rugby taster sessions

Have a lovely Easter everyone, thanks for your continued support with all things P7b!

P7b and Mr. Logan

September 23, 2016

Easy As Yummy Cake!

This year both P7a and P7b decided to take on the challenge of… Cake Fest 2016! We all had the opportunity to make the palace out of cake. In the end ‘The Ladies of Loaf’ won and got to make the cake. After 2 days of hard work they were ready to present their cake at Stirling.

There were lots of fantastic cakes at Cake Fest and unfortunately we didn’t win, however, we had great fun and we had learned lots. Altogether, it was a great learning experience!

You can view our BBC film here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00kl3tf

By Kiera and Emma