Author: Mrs Dick

Welcome back to everyone.  For a short week it has been a busy one.

We got straight into a new Maths topic this week which focused on function machines.  This will then lead us into algebra and algebraic thinking in the coming two weeks.  Have a go at using the function machine links below to practise.

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2numeracy-calculation.html

http://www2.smarttutor.com/player/swf/Algebra_Functions_L3_V1_T4a.swf

For our IDL work this week we have been re-engaging with the school Vision statement,

Our vision is to be a vibrant community of faith and learning where together we grow in the image and likeness of Christ.

We discussed how we can strive for this vision in our classroom and next week we will refresh our class charter and our vision will be reflected through it.  We also discussed our future vision that we have for ourselves and everyone created a poster which showcases what each person would like their future pathway to look like.  There were some amazing ideas, Kornelia and Rachel are both interested in becoming ‘youtubers’, Colin would like to become a Marine and Reece is interested in becoming a computer technician.

For PE this term the main focus will be gymnastics, through these lessons we will improve our agility as well as our cooperation skills.  We will also continue to develop our ability to give improvement feedback to one another.  Please make sure you have appropriate indoor footwear for this.  We have also started the long awaited swimming block.  The first lesson today went very well.  I was so impressed with the water confidence of everyone and the behaviour was of the highest standard, well done!

Homework will start again next week, so have a restful weekend and I look forward to our learning this coming term!

Mrs Currie

There have been many highlights this week,

Drama – we all really enjoyed the pantomime show “Beauty and The Beast” which visited the school on Wednesday morning.  The acting was great…oh no it wasn’t…oh yes it was!!

Maths – we continued to look at symmetry this week focusing on using diagonal symmetry.  We were able to create patterns using a mirror and dotted paper.  In numeracy we discussed and worked through examples of equivalent fractions.  We formed equivalent fractions by using our multiplication knowledge and the rule of whatever you do to the top you do to the bottom of the fraction.  If you would like further practise try this following link.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/fractions/memory_equivalent1.htm

 

Literacy – we listened to and read the poem “Twas The Night Before Christmas”.  We worked in our pairs/trios and completed both literal and inferential question in a quiz style.  This was great fun and it was brilliant to see the collaborative thinking going on especially for the question “what does luster mean?”  Here is a link to Literacy Shed where you can listen to this Classic piece of literature.

http://www.literacyshed.com/nightbeforechristmas.html

 

RE – we worked collaboratively to engage with the bible passage Luke 2 – 1:14.  We then created posters to demonstrate our understanding of the Nativity story.

Have a lovely weekend and holiday,

Mrs Currie

Christmas has arrived in P7/6 and we have based a lot of learning this week around the Christmas theme.

We started off the week by decorating our classroom door,

Jessica said – “we all decorated a bauble with our names and this was added to the display”.

We also started a wintry landscape picture.  We used Thomas Kinkade’s work to inspire us.  We discussed how to achieved depth in a picture by using darker/deeper/brighter colours in the forefront of the picture and paler/lighter/muted colours for our background.  These will be completed next week.

Our writing this week was based on a Christmas story. We used a “Story Mountain” to help us plan our work.

We watched the advert Mog’s Christmas Calamity” film clip to help inspire us to add good description and action to our work.  When we watched the clip we used the story mountain planning idea to track the action of the film, we discovered that this clip had two mountain peaks.  Have a go and watch the clip to find the two peaks.

http://www.literacyshed.com/mog.html

Maths did not escape the Christmas theme either.  We were working on symmetry and using two lines of symmetry.  One of our tasks was to complete a Christmas cracker design where we were only given one quarter of the picture and using two lines of symmetry we had to complete the cracker.  Great fun and super learning!

Well done P7/6.  Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Currie

 

 

This week we have focused on Science report writing.  We used our investigation about conductors and insulators to write our report.  We learned terms such as hypothesis, apparatus and results.  Hopefully the next time we complete a science investigation we can write the report as we work.

In maths, we have been working with percentages.  We used our number talks strategies to help us work out how much more is needed on a download percentage bar to reach 100%.  This was great fun.  The P6 children also played a game where they had to convert from a decimal number to a percentage to reach the other end of the board.  To help us with all of this learning we used the following site.  Have a go yourself with this site and blog a reply as to how you got on.

http://www.visnos.com/demos/percentage-fraction-decimals-grid

P7 children extended their learning by finding a way of converting a fraction (which did not have 100 as the denominator) into a percentage…great team work was on display.  I would say everyone gave 100% effort to their maths learning this week!

We had two special events this week, St Andrew’s Day and the start of Advent.  Miss Smyth helped us with our learning about St Andrew and we have been listening to traditional Scots vocabulary through the story “The Eejits” which is a retelling of the story “The Twits” by Roald Dahl, Miss Smyth had everyone laughing with her amazing scottish pronunciations!

Everyone is very excited about the countdown now, but we took sometime to think about the true meaning of Christmas and we have started to engage with our Gospel passages about the birth of Christ.  We completed some wordls in our journals to represent all the important words and messages that we can use in our prayers during advent.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Currie

 

 

Good afternoon everyone.

It has been another fun packed week in P7/6.

Our Science topic this week was really rocking!  We learned all about the structure of the Earth and spent sometime drawing and labelling diagrams which show the inner core, outer core, mantle and crust.  From here we became geologists and learned about different types of rocks, igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.  It was great to get a chance to touch and hold all these rock samples and not just use pictures. We were even then able to identify rocks from their colour and texture!  The rock and roll lifestyle of a P7/6!

In Maths we have continued working with decimal numbers and improved our ability to mentally add and subtract decimal numbers.  We also consolidated our knowledge of multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000.  This formed part of our Maths glass wall learning.

For our writing we completed our series of lessons on “Cool To Be Kind” and we completed diary entries from a refugee’s point of view.  We used emotional language to convey feelings and the finished result was some very powerful pieces.  These have formed a display in our classroom.

Well done P7/6.  have a lovely weekend

Mrs Currie

Here is the news from our class,

Danielle – “This week in maths we learned about co ordinates and decimals.”

Jessica- “This week in writing we have completed a report on a science carousel we  did on Wednesday.”

Darryn- This week we did writing on our science carousel. We did four activities so we had to write four sub headings in our report.”

Aurora – “This Friday I went to hot chocolate Friday because I was  good and I am proud of my self . Good good job me.”

Billie-  “This week we have been learning how to turn fractions into decimals. It was very fun and hard.”

Thank you to these children for volunteering to share their highlight of the week on the blog post.

As was mentioned we completed a four station Science carousel lesson on Wednesday afternoon.  The learning intention was to find out about electrical safety and how to build a circuit.

Station 1 – Building a simple circuit.  The children used the electricity kits in school to build a simple circuit with a battery, bulb, wires and a switch.  When the switch was closed the bulb would light.  Then we took the switch out of the circuit and they had to use a variety of different items (metal spoon, plastic spoon, peg, paper clip, balloon) to put into the circuit to see if the bulb would light. The children learned the vocabulary conductor and insulator.

Station 2 – Matching game.  The children had to match photographs of different circuits to circuit diagrams.  To be able to complete this they had to learn the electrical symbol for the various components.

Station 3 – The Electric Detective.  This is a short film showing the dangers that electricity can pose when not used correctly.  If you want to have a watch click on the link below.

Station 4 – Switched On Kids Website.  The children used this website to learn about electrical safety as well as other facts and information about electricity, such as how it is made?, how do we get it into our homes?

http://www.switchedonkids.org.uk/

As you can see there was a lot of learning going on and the children were developing their collaboration, team work and problem solving skills, which are are all part of our focus from the Skills Framework for this term.

In Maths we have been converting decimals to fractions and looking at the second decimal place (hundredths).  We have been working using pictorial guides and locating these on a number line.  Our interactive Maths wall focused on strategies used in our Number Talks mental addition calculations.  Some of us used partitioning, tower calculations, friendly numbers and so on.  Next week the Number Talks focus will be subtraction.  Have a go at this one and for an extra Dojo point post a response of the strategy you used.

91 – 19

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Currie

I would like to start this blog post off by saying a huge well done to all the children for their amazing assembly that they put on this morning.  I was so proud of the effort from everyone.  If you did not get a chance to come along and see it our assembly was based around the main idea of a News Channel.  We had two presenters in the studio (Freya and Luke) and then different segments in the programme.  These segments included,

• a wonderful weather report from Billie, Broady and Isabella where they described how to make a tornado in a bottle which was linked with our learning about the USA
• a sports round up from Tristan and Jack, which showcased some of the football skills we have learned during our PE block
• an entertainment review from Danielle and Sophia, of the novel “The Squint” by Leslie Howarth which had been our focus for the first six weeks of this session
• a roving reporter, Mark, and his interviewees, Jessica, Oskar, Mikolt and Aurora who all described life in P7/6 (and Aurora revealed the identity of the Friday Hot Chocolate thief!!!)
• a Foreign Affairs report from Kornelia and Rachel who described how we have been learning Spanish in class
• a look forward into the future from Ross and Aaron, explaining our focus for this term
• and that’s not all folks, a presentation to Miss Ross who will be leaving our class today to go and work with one of our infant classes (there was a tear in her eye!) from Colin and Moiz

And then back to the studio!  As you can see we packed a lot in and every child participated at a level they were comfortable with.  This type of event really allows the children to develop their skills of being effective contributors and confident individuals.  Well done!

Apart from rehearsing for our assembly this week we have also been busy with other areas of our learning too.  In our writing we used the theme of Fireworks to write some poetry.  We chose to complete a shape poem and within our piece the challenge was to use as many interesting and amazing adjectives as possible!  All jotters have gone home this weekend in preparation for parents meetings next week, make sure to look out for this piece of work.

In Maths we are continuing to look at decimals and fractions.  Our work this week for the P7 children were to add and subtract two numbers with up to two decimal places mentally.  There was a fabulous board game, matching game and connect four game to deepen their skills in this area.  P6 were focusing on converting a mixed number (wholes and tenths) into a decimal number and they used various resources such as the online resource Education City as well as cut and stick exercises to learn this skill.  I have included a link to the BBC bitesize teaching site which has a section all about fractions, it covers some of the aspects we have looked at but also goes on to look at finding equivalent fractions so that fractions can be ordered from smallest to largest.  These are all concepts which will be covered over the next few weeks so you can get a head start by having a look at this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/maths/number/fractions/read/6/

As part of the homework set this week everyone was asked to log onto the SumDog online resource.  This looks like it will be a fabulous resource to help boost mental agility in Maths.  Passwords are glued into the back of the homework jotter.  If for any reason you cannot get onto SumDog at home there is a class only homework club every Tuesday at lunchtime where the i-pads will be available specifically for those children who are not able to access it at home, so please come along.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Currie

It has been a fantastic STEM week!  We looked at James Dyson and some of his inventions and improvements that he has made to everyday pieces of equipment such as the vacuum cleaner and wheelbarrow.

With Miss Ross the children have been building bridges out of straws.  The children have learned about team work, logical thinking and problem solving through this activity.  Everyone’s bridges managed (some only just!)to hold 1.5kg.  Well done.  On Thursday we had a visit from a Civil Engineer called Alison.  She helped us understand about good bridge design which we then were able to use to help us build our straw bridges.

TALKING is going to be a major focus this term in Literacy.  Next week will see the introduction of talking homework.  The purpose of this is to encourage the children to construct coherent and informative arguments and statements orally so that in turn they will be able to write in well constructed sentences.  There is no need for the children to record anything in their jotter about this homework, but they will be asked to contribute to group and class discussions throughout the week.

Homework club will start up again on Tuesday in class at lunchtime.  Anyone who needs support or extra time to complete their homework should make use of this opportunity.

In Maths this term we will be focusing on fractions, decimals and percentages.  Already the children have been looking at the link between fractions and decimals by converting tenths from one form to another.  Everyone has enjoyed good success with this so far.  Here is a game for you to continue to practise and extend your skills with this concept.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/decimals/DecimalModels10.htm

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?b=maths/decimals

Well done class,

Mrs Currie