St John Ogilvie Primary School

Dear families of P5A,

We have had yet another wonderful (and very short) week!

When we arrived back on Wednesday morning, the class took on the challenge of writing a procedure to tell others how to play their favourite game. We had lots of fun explaining and reminding each other of the steps and rules of our favourite games and some pupils even designed their own new games! We also discussed what we mean by ‘bossy’ words and how these can be helpful when writing the steps of a procedure.

After break we had numeracy where we were using our knowledge of rounding to help us estimate an approximate answer to a problem. To begin our thinking around this, Miss Ventisei placed tape all over the classroom and tables and we held a mini competition to see who could correctly estimate the approximate length of each piece of tape. After we had all estimated, the rulers were brought out to check for the final answers! Aarya’s group were closest in their estimations- well done!  Following this, we started to estimate the approximate amount of miles between Livingston and Edinburgh; this catalysed a lot of interesting discussions and questions! We then worked in partners to estimate an approximate distance between lots of different towns and cities shown on a map and used the iPads to find the actual distance.

On Wednesday afternoon we continued our science topic of Space. We really enjoyed watching a ‘Day in the life of an astronaut’ video and researching all of the different types of jobs that are involved in Space exploration. One member of our class even asked if we could go to a University on a school trip to learn all about space medicine and law!

Thursday was another busy day! We started our day with learning about and practicing the skill of clarifying in literacy. The class helped Miss Ventisei clarify a few things in the class novel that she was unsure of and then practiced their new skill with their own ERIC book. We continued to use our knowledge of rounding to estimate the answers to problems throughout numeracy and particularly enjoyed estimating how many cheerios were in a bag! Once we had decided upon a rough estimate, we had to work collaboratively to count them all. This was a little bit challenging because there were lots and lots of individual cheerios and we knew it would take too long to count them all in ones! We decided to count them in either 10s or 100s and this worked a lot better for us. We then worked out how far away our estimates were and rounded our answers to the nearest 10 and 100 to give an approximate answer.

After lunch, we had health and wellbeing where we were focusing on our SHANARRI indicators of Safe, Healthy and Responsible. We had a really open and mature discussion about our emotions, particularly when we get angry, and how we deal with these big feelings safely and responsibly. We spoke about ways of calming ourselves in stressful situations and what we can do to make ourselves and others around us feel better after an emotional outburst.

Our focus for outdoor learning this week was leaf and tree identification! We headed outdoors with our iPads to take some pictures of all of the different types of leaves in the school grounds-some pupils managed to take some fantastic quality pictures! We then used a key to identify the specific type of leaves we had found and looked closer at the shape and unique features of each individual leaf! We started to create some fantastic posters to show others the types of leaves around our school and will finish these next week.

On Friday we had our first ever House group meeting! We were all so excited to go to a different class and meet all of the other children in our house. In our house meetings we discussed and shared various different types and meanings of bullying, what happens in our school if this happens and why bullying might occur.

All in all, we have had a super successful week! Our Hot Chocolate winner this week was Akshaj who consistently demonstrated our school values of Ready, Respectful and Safe- congratulations Akshaj! Our lead learners this week were Ayden and Ashlyn; they both worked extremely hard this week and pushed themselves to be their very best, well done!

It’s been a short but busy week in P2a!

We have been learning about what life was like in our Grandparents day.  Our focus this week was toys and we discovering what toys were like in the past and how they have changed over the years. The children were fascinated to learn that some of the toys they play with now would have been around when their grandparents were young.

In maths, we read a story about Tally O’Malley who plays a tally mark game with her family.  We went out into the woodlands and practised using tally marks to record how many of different items we could find.  We have also been practising counting  in 5’s as this really helps us to count the tally marks!

In literacy we were focusing on the ‘sh’ and ‘th’ sounds.  We also wrote about our favourite toy in our writing lesson.

The children have been enjoying lots of play activities and have been discovering and creating lots of new things!

Today was a special day because it was the first time since the beginning of the pandemic that we got to work with our house groups.  This was very exciting for the children because they got to go to another classroom in the school and work with other children from different classes.

Here are a few of the children’s highlights for the week:

Linda – I loved learning about toys from the past.

Caleb – I liked drawing what I think I will look like when I am a grandad.

Aadya – I liked writing about my grandma.

Rory – I liked counting using tally marks.

Jiade – I loved working in my house group.

Here are a few photographs from the past few weeks:

Dear Parents,

These last two half weeks were filled with many activities such as building bridges using spaghetti and hot glue, finding conkers and much more. We are learning netball with Miss Lafferty.

On Monday we did our Steven brown art which many of our class mates enjoyed. Lily did a giraffe which was very pretty. During that some people did designs for the class worry box.

On Tuesday we we are learned French conversations Zahra and Ruqqayah did a fabulous job. After that we did some research on 1970’s Scotland. Then we did Number Talks which Rhys was the champion for this time.

On Wednesday we wrote information reports about Life in 70s Scotland using our notes. Aside from some tech issues we mostly managed to complete them and get a print out.

On Thursday we built spaghetti towers in Technology and John’s group won the prize for tallest tower.

On Friday we had House groups for the first time in a long time and we worked on an anti-bullying activity to share our views.

Tanvi, and her assistants Alessio and Lily, have been watching out for who has been following our school rules and have picked:

Ready – Danyal

Respectful – Bettina

Safe – Junaid

who win a prize from the Prize Box.

Some P7A pupils have shared their thoughts on their latest learning:

Lewis “I enjoyed PE because I have learned how to play Netball.”

Nellie “I enjoyed outdoor learning because it was fun and exciting.”

Millan “I enjoyed Fun Friday playing basketball. In technology I learned triangles make things strong.”

Our Hot Chocolate at Home winner this week was…

Katie. Congratulations! She will be taking over the role of Lead Learner next week.

Have a Great Weekend,
Tanvi, Alessio, Lily, Mr McGurn and P7A

We have had a very busy but very short week in Primary 4b!

We have continued learning hockey in PE.  We played a match and some of us improved our goal skills.

Today, we went to different classes and met up in our house groups.  We were talking about bullying to keep everybody safe.

In maths, we continued with our rounding work.  We found rounding to the nearest 100 a bit more complicated but we persevered and we got there in the end!  We are now really confident at rounding to the nearest 10 and 100.

In literacy, we looked at the structure of procedures.  We know they are made up of a title, goal, materials and steps.  We also learned about nouns and adjectives and Mrs Brown was very impressed with how quickly and confidently we found nouns and adjectives in the example procedure text.  We also drew some cute hedgehogs to go with our Hedgehog stories from last week in writing.  We used our active listening skills to follow instructions really carefully and then we added in our own ideas at the end if we wanted to.

Some highlights from this week:

Leah: I enjoyed highlighting nouns and adjectives in literacy.

Jonah, Markuss and Zac (… and everybody!): I enjoyed doing hockey.  Zac is very p

roud of himself for scoring.

Aiden: I enjoyed drawing the hedgehogs and learning about nouns and adjectives.

Ishani S: I liked learning about rounding.

Ishani M: I enjoyed our reading comprehension (How to catch a star).

Mrs Lafferty announced that we have a hockey festival on Thursday of next week.  Jude in particular is very excited about this!

We got a special book about Queen Elizabeth yesterday and it tells us about some of the things that happened during her time on the throne. Also, we have got special card design forms to make cards for Christmas or other special occasions. We have to bring them back by Thursday.  Reading books also need to be back by next Thursday please.  We also need to remember to do our homework please!

Our hot chocolate winner this week is Mariam for her brilliantly helpful attitude and class, for being a great friend and for always trying her hardest.  Well done!

Have a lovely weekend everybody!

Mrs Brown

After 2 days of rest this week we have worked hard. We have been learning about clocks and telling the time. We also have played hockey in PE. We practised how to play a proper hockey game. So we have only used one ball.

In music we have been learning about semi quaver, crochet, dotted crochet and we sang some songs together.

In RE we learned about the new commandment from Jesus. To love one another as I have loved you.

Today we went to other classes in the school for House Groups. we talked about types of bullying and bullies and what to do if we are bullied.

We went for a 10 min run/walk with P7 on Wednesday. We got a special book about Queen Elizabeth and some of the things that happened during her time as Queen. Also we have got special card design forms to make cards for Christmas or other special occasions. We have to bring them back by Thursday.

Next week we are going to try to learn how to crochet. Mrs Ross has showed us.  Next week we are going to a hockey festival.

The week we learned the letter and sound ‘k’. We learned to write ‘k’.  We made kites.

We made butterflies because we were learning about symmetry. We know both sides need to be the same.

Victoria – I liked making butterflies.

We learned about the sense of sight. We made our own glasses and played a drawing game on our heads.

JJ – I liked making glasses

We went into the woods for outdoor learning. We also looked for shapes in the sky.

Connor – I liked outdoor learning.

Cameron – I liked climbing the trees.

Owen – I liked the fairy houses.

We also played with P1A and explored their classroom.

Khaleesi – I liked playing with my friends

Last week we planted daffodil bulbs around the school grounds to improve the environment and attract bees and insects. In our procedural writing we wrote down the instructions of where and how we should plant bulbs. On Thursday when we were in the woods we created a peace path amongst the trees by creating clay peace signs for people to follow. In math we have been rounding and estimating as well as investigating the properties of 3D shapes.

When we came back to school on Wednesday it was International Peace Day. Many articles of the CRC related to this theme but the activities link, in particular, to the following articles:  Article 38 – Governments must not allow children under the age of 15 to take part in war or join the armed forces. Governments must do everything they can to protect and care for children affected by war and armed conflict. Article 39 – Children who have experienced neglect, abuse, exploitation, torture or who are victims of war must receive special support to help them recover their health, dignity, self-respect and social life. We had an interesting class discussion about Peace then we wrote PEACE acrostic poems.

Yesterday we investigated some important events in the life of William Wallace as part of our learning about the Scottish Wars of Independence. In the afternoon in RE we investigated the lives of Saint Margaret and Saint David. For our outdoor learning we planted more bulbs and in the woods we carried out different math challenges.

Today – We had our first House Group meeting since 2019. We all took part in planning to update our positive behaviour policy in school. After break we had a school assembly with Mrs McLaughlin and Mrs Callaghan. We chose new lead learners. They are Maja and Dylan. Our Hot chocolate person is Leon. We worked in partners to practise our French numbers. We hope everyone has a great weekend and we will see our classmates on Monday.

Hello P2B families!

Here are the learning highlights of the week from the Green Table:

Lewis liked making animal 3D shapes.  The children could choose from a cube lion, a hippo pyramid, a cheetah cuboid or an elephant cone.  Everyone did a super job as some of the shapes were quite fiddly to cut and stick.  Those who have not made theirs yet will make them upon our return.

Evana loved our Word Boost story, ‘Tabby McTat’ and her favourite word was ‘linger’.  The children had great fun joining in singing and playing their imaginary guitars like Fred, when he sang, “Me, you and the old guitar…”  Here is a link to the story in case your child would like to listen to it again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_4e_BnEdbI

Amariah-Grace said the learning highlight of her week was when she put the body of the caterpillar in the correct alphabetical order.  Well done Amariah-Grace, you remembered to use your alphabet song to help you!

Safaa liked going on the bikes during out door learning when the children played with loose parts.

Mrs Devlin’s highlight was of course meeting the parents who could join us for ‘Meet the Teacher’.  It was so nice to have you finally back into our school after all this time and I look forward to welcoming you all again.

I hope you all have a great long weekend!

Hello everyone!

This week P5A have enjoyed another action packed week! We have been busy learning about King John Balliol and his contributions towards the Scottish Wars of Independence and Miss Ventisei was so impressed with the children’s highly knowledgeable and informed discussion surrounding life as a King in 1292 versus 2022! Miss Ventisei was also really proud of the quality of P5A’s writing this week- we were using our experience of baking an apple crumble to write a procedure! Well done P5A!  The children also loved learning about angles and 2D shapes with Mrs McLaughlin and were able to apply their knowledge to various real-life situations throughout the week .

Another highlight of the week was outdoor learning; we were planting daffodil bulbs in the school garden and working hard to find and clear all of the litter in the playground! It was wonderful to hear how passionate the children were about taking care of our environment.

Our focus for Health and Wellbeing this week was centred around the wellbeing indicator of Nurtured. We discussed collaboratively what this means to us and created some whole-class mindmaps to brainstorm ideas of what being nurtured feels like, sounds like and looks like. The children also voiced some fantastic ideas as to how pupils and adults can help to nurture each other in and around the school.

Wednesday was also a special day in P5A as we welcomed our families into our classroom for the Meet the Teacher event! Thank you so much to everyone who came along, it was lovely to meet everyone and share some of our upcoming learning.

Here is a copy of our learning for this term.

Thank you for another great week P5A! Have a lovely long weekend and see you all on Wednesday!

This week we have been learning about the letter ‘c’. We also learned the word ‘can’. We wrote the letter ‘c’ using yellow pen and we drew pictures of words that have ‘c’ as the first sound.  In writing, we helped to write a sentence using ‘can’. We wrote about all the things that Ogilvie Bear can do.

We have been learning to take care of the toys and to work together with our friends. We know it is important to look after our friends.

This week we read the story about The Little Spot of Anger. We learned how to calm down when we are angry. We have to tap our fingers and breathe deeply.

In Maths, we have been learning about repeating patterns. We made our own patterns using the penguins and we completed a task on Seesaw where we had to finish the pattern.  We have been writing number 6 and 7 this week. We have tried very hard to write them the correct way.

During PE, we were learning to throw the ball, bounce the ball and pass the ball to our friend. Mrs Lafferty was very pleased with us.

Some of our personal highlights this week are

Eve – I liked bouncing the ball.

Harald – I enjoyed PE.

Kacper – I enjoyed PE.

Vendash – I liked learning about Ready Rosie and playing with my friends.

Olga – I enjoyed playing with my friends.

Tiya – I enjoyed colouring in the balloons that had ‘can’ written in them.

Miss Stebbing

Another fantastic week in P1A with everyone working hard on the ‘c’ sound and the word ‘can’. I was very impressed with everyone’s efforts to write ‘can’ in their own sentences. It was lovely to meet so many parents and carers at the Meet the Teacher evening.