St Ninian's Primary School

P7/6

These are some of the highlights the children have commented on this week,

Kornelia + Rachel – We are practising hard for our school show. It is starting to really come together now. Our class are focusing on two decades. The P7s are working on the decade 1970 and the the P6s are focusing on the decade 1980. There has already been a Dojo message sent out regarding costumes required and a paper copy for those not on Dojo. Just as a reminder P7 require; for Rocky, shorts and t-shirt and a house coat, for ABBA, black t-shirt and black trousers/leggings and a thin/chiffon scarf. P6 require; for Ghostbusters a black t-shirt and black trousers/leggings, for Fame, a brightly coloured top, shorts or leggings and leg warmers if possible. Other parts of the costumes are already in school…

…if you have your own 1970 inspired headband please feel free to bring it in,

…if you have your own boxing gloves please feel free to bring them in.

Billie + Freya – On Wednesday we celebrated 25th January, Robert Burns Day, by learning about Robert Burns and some of his famous works. We also had a recital of “The Lost Dinner Ticket” (written by Margaret Hamilton) from Mrs Currie and then we had a discussion about this piece and analysed the use of traditional Scots vocabulary.

Danielle – In PE Mr McCurdy was focusing on headstands, balances, vault and beam in gymnastics. We also made use of the dry afternoons and spent sometime playing favourite playground games.

Tristan + Aurora – In Maths we have completed our round up of algebra. We have now started work on time using Sumdog and the assessment feature. This allows Mrs Currie to set us questions which we answer through the Sumdog app. and then it let’s us analyse what we understood well and what we need to work on. This has been great at helping us to set goals for ourselves in our work.

Billie – We have also been practising hard for our Birthday Mass. We have learned some new hymns and the singing standard is amazing.

Jessica – On Friday at assembly P4/5 we showcasing their learning about “Other World Religions”. We really enjoyed the work they shared with us.

Oskar – P7 this week have made some memory snapshots of their time at St Ninian’s and these are being put into our time capsule. Next week as a class we are going to fill in a class memory chart.

Have a lovely weekend.

P6 Weekly News

Here is what we have to say about our learning in primary 6 this week.

Mia Sokoluk-This week we have been making comic strips in class, mine was about basketball and at the end of mine my team won, it was so much fun making it.

Kieran – This week we were finishing off our holiday advertisement and Scottish poems. We all put Scots words on the wall they are oot, aye, tae, didne, ye, oan.

Ben- This week we made Scottish comic strips inspired by Oor Wullie and the Broons, we have also been practising for our class shows but if you want to know more about them you’ll have to wait and see.

Nicholas- this week we have been working on our writing creating different country advertisements about any holiday you choose and the price of the holiday. We included our own discounts for economy, business class and first class. We have also learned about the word superlatives.

Emma-This week we have been working on the show and it will be amazing. We worked on a type of poem called Standard Habbie for Burns night and we created are own, mine was about a fox. Our writing was on a Scottish comic strip and we read some Oor Wullie and the Broons for ideas it was AMAZING!

Aliza- it has been a busy week because we have been rehearsing all week! It has also been quite fun though, we did some Scottish comic strips based on the book, Oor wullie and the Broons. I hope you are all coming to our fantastic show! Trust me it will blow your minds!!

Emily- this week we have done Scottish poems for Robbie Burns day and have also been rehearsing for our school show, I can’t wait for the show.

We have been using our classroom door to display our thoughts on the Rights of the Child. Each week we choose one article to focus on and discuss. This week we were looking at Article 13, the right to find out things and share information. Take a look at our door the next time you’re in to find out what the rights of the child mean to us.

A reminder that outfits for the 40th Anniversary concert should be in school by Wednesday 1st February.
Ghostbusters – black top, black bottoms.
Fame – bright top, black bottoms, leg warmers.

Thank you!

P4 News Round!

It has been a very quick week in Primary 4 because we have been SO busy!

We have been learning about the school and its 40^th Anniversary and have been putting a lot of effort and enthusiasm into rehearsing for our concert.

As our new topic is The Vikings, we have been learning about their lifestyle and we have been looking at maps to find out where they raided and where they settled. In our writing lesson, we wrote a letter to Viggot Samsson (a Viking) to ask questions and share information about ourselves.

We have continued with learning about multiplication this week but have been focussing more on our 6,7 and 8 times tables. Jay enjoyed playing multiplication card war, Aleksander enjoyed the written tasks, Shannon enjoyed using loop cards and Hannah enjoyed using Sumdog to practise her tables.

We have also had our class mass this week. We were a credit to St.Ninian’s with our participation and behaviour during the mass so much so, a parishioner thanked us for attending and complimented us on our behaviour. As a little treat/reward, we had a trip to the park on our way back to school which was great fun. We would also like to thank Mrs Slater (Ailie’s mum) for participating in our mass and supporting us.

Have a great weekend, P4 and Miss Diamond :)!

P1M Weekly News

This week we started our new topic in numeracy: subtraction. To introduce this topic we played lots of fun games and participated in fun activities. You could try out some of these at home too. We made a tower of 10 cubes (you could use lego), our partner done the same. We then had to roll a dice and subtract the number of cubes as shown on the dice. The winner was the person who gets to 0 cubes the quickest. Remember if you have 3 cubes left and roll a 6 you can’t take away your cubes!

We also participated in subtraction bowling. Set up 10 plastic cups (ten pin bowling style) and roll a ball at the cups – you only get one shot! Then make a subtraction sum showing the amount of ‘pins’ you knocked over. E.g. if you knocked over 6 cups your sum would be 10-6=4.

This week we have also been using SEAL strategies to develop our understanding of number further. Miss Meechan showed us some counters and then covered them with a piece of paper. Miss Meechan took away some counters and told us how many she had taken away. We then had to figure out how many counters were left. We really enjoyed this task too.

We are continuing with our number talks session and this week we were focusing on dot patterns. We were shown a dot pattern which had 4 dots at the top and 4 at the bottom, we very quickly recognised that this made 8. Kyle was able to show us a different way to make 8: 5+3=8.

This week we were given a box to collect some loose change in. We were very interested in the picture of the little girl on the box. Miss Meechan was telling us about how the little girl is not as fortunate as we are. Here is a link if you would like to discuss this further with your child at home: https://www.unicef.org.uk/?gclid=CNP_i6nX0dECFUkQ0wodkkUKaA&sissr=1

Here are some of the videos/games we used in class this week for you to use at home too.

http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/slides_US.swf

http://www.abcya.com/subtraction_game.htm

http://www.rabbittakeaway.co.uk/activity/

http://www.galacticphonics.com/cvc/interactive/memory/memoryt.htm

iPad app: puppet pals

songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDViX6Y9Q_0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRdD7ESj_GE

Some talk tasks for this week too:

This week was world religion day. We had a chat in class about the different religions in the world. You could do this too. We used this image to show us the different religions:

Image result for world religion day

Say a quiet prayer to God and remember that he is always listening.

Mapping our way through the week in P2!

We have continued to learn about multiplication this week. We are learning how to complete repeated addition sums. We know that 5 groups of 2 is 2+2+2+2+2. This helps us find out the total amount, 10. We have been practising our counting in two’s with this fun, catchy song.

This week we went on a trip to the Library, we love our trips to the Library. The Librarian showed us lots of different books: paper back, hard back, fiction and non-fiction. She explained how the books are filed in alphabetical order on the shelves by the authors surname. After we had a short discussion about the books the lady read us a very funny story. The story was called Nibbles the Book Monster. This story was all about a Monster who ate his way through different story books. After we listened to the story the Librarian asked us to put some books in alphabetical order by surname. We had to hold the cards with the initial of each surname and stand in the correct order. We found this very tricky, we need more practise of putting letters in alphabetical order.

In writing this week we wrote a recount of our trip to the library. We had to try and use the connectives “and” “because” “but” in our writing. We impressed Miss Boyes with our ability to use connectives in a way that our writing still makes sense.

On Wednesday we celebrated World Religion Day by listening to a traditional Buddhist story called “The Monkey King”. This story sends out an important message that we should help, think and be kind to others rather than being greedy. After we listened and watched the clip of the Monkey King we took turns of being a character and acting out the story. This showed Miss Boyes that we had listened very well. We discussed what we thought the important message might be and then Miss Boyes showed us real mangos just like the ones from the mango tree in the story. Miss Boyes let us hold one of the Mangos.

Lilly- “The Mangos are heavy.”

Zoe- “The Mango is smooth.”

Miss Boyes cut the mango up and we each got to taste a bit of the fruit.

Wojciech- “It’s juicy.”

Lennon- “It tastes sweet.”

Follow the link below to find the clip.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03cv3rq

On our topic plan we wanted to find the Isle of Struay on the map so Miss Boyes helped us navigate our way onto google maps on the netbooks and iPads. Miss Boyes told us that the Isle of Struay is a fictional island which is based on the real island of Coll. We searched for the Isle of Coll and then we also pinpointed Livingston on the map. This let us see the distance and the differences between each place. The Isle of Coll is surrounded by the sea but Livingston is surrounded by other towns and villages. For our topic we have been learning about physical and human features on the Isle of Struay. We discussed what defines a physical or human feature. In our groups, we each painted a feature of the island and discussed if it was physical or human.

Independently we completed a task where we had to cut the features out and categorise them under physical or human.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend from Miss Boyes and Primary 2.

Ahoy there mateys!

What a busy week we’ve had in P1R, we have lots to tell you about.

The focus in phonics this week was our new sounds ‘l’ and ‘r’. We can’t believe how many sounds we have learned so far, our ‘big mouth’ on the wall is running out of space! In carousels we used letter join to practise our letter formation, we all agreed that handwriting is a skill for life and something we should keep practising at school and home. Mrs Scott took time today to organise a learning families event to show families how to use it at home. We also played phonics games on the education city website which is one of our favourite sites and used the letter cubes for blending activities.

Subtraction continued to be the focus in numeracy and we are quickly learning the different mathematical language associated with this, our pirate subtraction song, ‘when you subtract with a pirate’ has helped with this. Carousels were great fun as most of the activities were practical play based activities – ten pin bowling(using plastic cups and a sponge ball), takeaway tower (all you need is 10 pieces of Lego in a tower and a dice), subtraction screening( counters and coloured paper) and interactive smart board games (rabbit take away).

In PE we are really enjoying our gymnastics block where we are exploring how we use our bodies and the space around us. We used a ‘space soundtrack’ in our lessons, eg. Space shapes/jumps, astronauts game, mediation to music. Using the mats and equipment is allowing us to practise turn taking, sharing and teamwork.

IDL has been ‘awesome’ as we continue to learn about the life of pirates who lived over 300 years ago. Ask us what we have learned about Anne Bonny and Blackbeard. We linked our learning using what we had learned to make WANTED posters for our displays, they look great! We also worked in small teams to make and build a pirate ship for our display, we are really proud of our efforts and teamwork. To make us feel like pirates we all made pirate hats, even Mrs Roy, or Ruby Roy as she likes to be known in pirate land! Our motto for structured play this term is ‘Work like a captain, play like a pirate’. We have set up different areas in our classroom: treasure chest maths area, pirate writing table, pirate role play, pirate story corner, pirate puppets and the pirate ship station. It’s been lovely to see each other’s IDL homework tasks, we have been taking photos for our pirates display.

We celebrated World Religion Day on Wednesday and enjoyed learning about Christianity and Islam. We used a smartboard activity to help us learn about the different signs and symbols associated with the religions, we even tweeted about our learning.

The week ended with Committees:

Paul M- we learned about UNICEF’s day for loose change. Every class has to collect loose change in their wee box.

Abigail-we made posters about the dangers of litter.

Ephraim-we learned about Fairtrade food.

Lucy- we thought about how we could show love to others.

James-we learned about Chinese New Year.

Phew, that’s all for this week, remember to try out some of the activities at home if you have a spare minute or two!

Primary 6 Weekly News

Primary 6 have had another very busy week.

We have started our new maths topic, money. We discussed what we already know and focused on calculating sale prices. We used our knowledge of percentages and fractions to help us with this.

In literacy this week we have been looking at some Scots Vocabulary to help us write poems. It was really fun finding out what all the words mean.

Here are some pupil comments about our learning this week:

Nicola – we are practising for our Ghostbuster and Fame song concert.

Emma-So this week we have been practising our songs for the 40th anniversary of St. Ninian’s, as Nicola said (Ghoustbusters and Fame) and I am really excited because I got a solo !!

Kieran – this week in literacy we looked at Scottish poems and put our holiday advertisement on A4 paper.

Amera – This week we did pie charts and how they work with Mrs Kerr.

Erwin – we’ve been singing Ghostbusters and Fame this week, working on our performance for the show.

Our focus in PE this term is gymnastics. Have a look at some of our balance photos!

All pupils have been given information about the 40th Anniversary concert. This will also be shared on Dojo. Pupils will take part in both songs, however will only be required to have a costume for one. If your child is on stage for Fame they should wear a bright t-shirt and black bottoms (with leg warmers if possible) and Ghostbusters should wear all black. We will make Ghostbuster signs in class to use.

Miss McCormack

Nursery News

We have had another busy and exciting week in Nursery.

Both sessions were super excited to meet Billie Bear our travelling teddy. This is part of our home link learning experiences. The children in both sessions will each be given the opportunity to take Billie home for a few days and share what they may be doing either at home or outside. Billie will be so happy to join in with anything. He comes with a backpack and a special letter which explains what is in the bag and how you and your child can engage in this super learning experience. We would love to see photographs of Billie and his special friend ( your child) spending time together which you can either bring into Nursery or upload to your child’s online journal. We can’t wait to hear about Billie and his adventures. If you have any questions regarding this project please ask any member of the nursery team who will be more than happy to help you.

We have also been looking at patterns in Numeracy and the children had an opportunity to make their own patterns using a variety of materials and also followed a pattern using our link elephants. This learning experience came from an interest the children had when drawing self portraits and talking about differences and similarities.

There was a lovely smell coming from the kitchen this week too as some of the children decided to bake their own play dough food and once cooled paint it. This will make its way into our kitchen in the house corner next week.

We even managed to get outside this week and enjoyed playing in our shed which has lots of natural resources for the children to experience. The bikes and new kitchen were also very popular.

As part of our consultative planning we will be asking the children next week what they would like to learn about Winter and this will go on display on our visible Learning Wall. We would love to hear any ideas that the children may mention to you at home and this can be added to our learning wall too.

To finish off our PM session yesterday we heard the sounds of pirates approaching the Nursery door. It was Mrs Roy with her band of pirates! We loved seeing the super pirate hats that the Primary 1 children had made and we joined in with lots of pirate noises! Both Primary 1 classes will be dropping in to both sessions of Nursery from time to time as part of our transition programme.

Its our PM children’s turn to share their learning experiences this week.

Emilie M and Emileigh Rose ” We loved playing in our new outside kitchen”

Mark, Kayla and Riley” We loved making our telescope and playing with the boomerang”

Shea and Lucas” We liked making things with the Lego”

Luke” Playing with the castle is my favourite”

Ethan and Jamie” We like drawing with the pens”

Scott” I liked the pirates ”

Just a wee reminder of upcoming events.

Both sessions will be visiting the library on Monday. If you have not handed in your child’s EE2 form please bring it to Nursery on Monday.

We will also be celebrating Burns day on Wednesday next week and Chinese New Year the following week.

Teeth varnishing will take place on Thursday.

Our sponsored Wellie Walks will be on Thursday 2nd February for PM and Friday 3rd February for AM. More information on this will follow.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.

P7/6 News

Another busy and productive week in P7/6.

We celebrated World Religion Day on Wednesday and through this we researched facts about four different religions. We worked in small groups and used facts sheets to read for information. We then produced power points with the information we had gathered. Every group had a chance to deliver their presentation to the class. There were some fabulous presentations and everyone in the class showed how well they can use and manipulated power point presentations.

We have had a wide range of experiences in PE this week. We used our time on Tuesday to focus on our gamesmanship skills. We participated in traditional playground games (Toilet Tig and Dodge Ball are always favourites) and demonstrated a good level of fairness when applying the rules and we could also develop the rules to suit our environment and skill levels. On Thursday we had a tennis lesson delivered to us by Mrs Burchill (a parent who is trained as a PE teacher). This was a great lesson and Mrs Burchill’s love and enthusiasm for the sport was very infectious.

On Friday we also had our swimming lesson. The children continue to impress myself and Mr McCurdy with their ability in the water and already we can see some improvements in stroke technique. Next week we will move back onto our Gymnastics work and as promised in last week’s blog here are the photos of our brilliant balances.

In Maths we have been looking at how to simplify algebraic expressions. This week’s homework task proved to be a real challenge and asked us to draw on our learning from adding and subtracting negative numbers. Don’t panic if you found it tricky, Algebra will continue to be our focus next week too.

As part of our show rehearsals this week we have been learning two songs from the era The 70’s. These are Eye of The Tiger by Survivor, this featured in the film Rocky, and Waterloo performed by ABBA. Everyone has been given a copy of the lyrics and have been asked to practising these songs at home too. Please feel free to join in with us at home!

To link with this era we have been learning about main events from the 70’s. We loved learning about the most successful failed mission to Space by learning about the Apollo 13 mission. Also in 1971 Walt Disney World opened in Florida. There’s lots more to learn about this era in the coming weeks.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Currie

cziesc/Ciao/Namaste!

We have had a superb week in P4!

This week, we continued with International Week and have been learning about Poland, Italy and India as these are some of the cultures we have in our class. We got to research and learn about these interesting countries, learn the language courtesy of our class mates and the highlight for us was getting to taste different foods. We got to taste village sausage, braided bread, mashed potatoes, vegetable and steak stew, mjeione (meat balls) and dumplings from Poland, Lasagne from Italy and vegetable pakora from India. We thoroughly enjoyed these delicious foods so much so we wanted more. We would like to thank the families in our class for providing us with the different foods to try!

What the children thought:-

‘I liked the Polish food, especially the mashed potatoes’ – Haseeb

‘I loved the lasagne from Italy!’ – Mark

‘I loved my mums cooking! ALL of it!’ – Aleksander

‘I enjoyed the lasagne from Italy and the Polish Sausage the best!’ – Jacob

‘The pakora was awesome! Thank you Adrin and his mum!’ – Jan

In maths, we have continued with multiplication and have been multiplying 2 digit numbers. We have introduced our 6 and 7 times tables and can’t wait to see what is in store for us next week.

During spelling this week, we got to explore Microsoft word and change the colour, font and size whilst typing our spelling words and we really enjoyed using magazines to find the letters required to make our spelling words.

We have been practising for our 40^th Anniversary concert which is still a work in progress but we are really enjoying it!

We finished our week with our pupil committees that were all very productive. We had people looking at Fairtrade, charity, budgeting, bakes sales, school prayers and lots more.

We hope you have a nice weekend!

P4, Miss Crookston and Miss Diamond :)!