Our topic this term is Body Systems. We are finding out what they are made of, their function, how to keep them healthy and what to do if something goes wrong with them. We have been looking at the skeletal and muscular systems. You have 206 bones in your body but have 300 when you are born.You have over 600 muscles in your body when you’re fully grown. The biggest/longest bone in you body is your femur, you have 3 different types of muscles:your smooth, your skeletal and your cardiac.Your ribs protect your lungs, organs and your heart. Your cardiac muscle are the walls of your heart and the heart as well.

Meah-I enjoyed helping the nursery with taking stones out of their vegetable patch to soon be building a mini green house out of the left over plastic bottles.

Lewis-I enjoyed the Maths that we were doing because it was quite easy and it was fun to put percentages in to decimals and fractions.

Ava-I enjoyed doing our own story about a skeleton in writing. It was a lot of fun to make up our own story about a skeleton.

Toby- As well as Meah I liked lifting up the stones which was very hard because I had a plastic mini spade, trust me its hard!

Melissa- I like every Wednesday afternoon because we go to the nursery and help them with decorations and things like that. The first week we were designing a music wall but another group were doing something else. Then this week we were creating a race track for the nursery kids.

Alexander -In math we have been learning about percentages ,decimals and fractions we have been learning how to make a fraction to a decimal to a percentage I found it really easy to make it from a fraction to a percentage or a decimal you had to divide the top number in the fraction by the bottom number in the fraction and that’s your percentage.

We have had a very busy start to term 3. Here is a little of taste of the things we have been doing.

We have had lots of visitors into school over the last few weeks.

The Scottish SPCA came to visit and we learned about rabbits. We found out how to look after them, what they eat and what they drink. We also learned that rabbits feel safe when they are high up so that they are away from the foxes.

We also had a visitor who did a cooking demonstration. We learned about where our food comes from – ham comes from pigs and beef comes from cows. Some people helped make beef fajitas. We all got to taste them at the end. Some of us liked them but some of us didn’t.

Claire and Liz visited us with Tudor. They look after guide dog puppies before they go to puppy school at age one and then start working at age two. We learned that Tudor isn’t allowed to play with balls because if he was leading a blind person and a ball went rolling past he might chase it.

In Jigsaw time, p2s made jam sandwiches! We were learning about the steps we need to take to be successful and then followed them.

In maths, we have been doing lots of different activities to help us learn. P1s have been learning about the number stories for numbers to 10. We have been using giant playing cards, uno cards and numicon. P2s have been learning adding and taking away with big numbers. We broke the big sums into little sums. We subtracted the tens and ones separately.

P1s have been working on blending sounds together by reading small words and matching them to pictures.

P2s have been learning about adjectives – we used them to describe a picture.

On Tuesday 22nd January a lady from Scotch Kitchen came in to teach us how to cook beef fajitas but first we learned what labels to look for on food.After that Melissa was chosen to come up to look out pictures and words on how to keep healthy.When the lady started to cook Meah, Toby, Tilly and Jack were picked by Miss Allan to go up and help. We were given aprons and started cooking the fajitas made with beef, lettuce, guacamole, yoghurt, peppers(green, red and yellow), garlic and two different spices. The four that were up each got to make a fajita and most the class took two slices each. Tthere was even enough for Miss Allan, Ms Mathieson and Mrs Agini.

Since returning to school after the Christmas holidays, P5/6/7 have been hard at work in all areas of the curriculum.

In Math/Numeracy we have been looking at adding and subtracting decimal numbers mentally, in our Number Talks, and using other methods. Some of us have been recalling and calculating equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages, which has proved challenging to some of us. Others have been calculating a fraction and percentage of a number and yet others have been comparing and ordering common fractions showing equivalent and simplified of a fraction. Phew!! you can see how busy we have been and are able to say why we are learning this in Math using TIB – ‘this is because’ as all our learning gives us skills for life and work.

As part of our Health and Wellbeing, a lady from the West Lothian Drug and Smoking unit came to school to inform us of the dangers of smoking. She had examples in jars of what our lungs would have in them if we smoked. She drew around Jamie and then got us each individually to give our ideas on what different things can affect our bodies by smoking. We soon filled up the body who we called Smoky Simon. We learned a lot and it made us think. She is coming back for a second session and we are looking forward to learning more.

In maths we have been making our own patterns from different shapes and colours.

In numeracy p2 have been counting on and back within 100 from different numbers and using this to help add numbers together. P1 have began thinking about adding numbers together using our knowledge of finger patterns.

In reading p2 have been learning all about non-fiction books. We have sorting fiction and non-fiction into groups using contents, index and glossary pages. P1 have been working hard to learn more sounds and begin blending these sounds together.

Over the last couple of weeks we have read 3 stories: I am bat, One Button Benny and Eric makes a splash. We have learned a little about bats and written our own stories about bats. We have learned a little more about water, ice and steam and compared the temperatures of these. We put ice cubes in the hot water and could see the water melting off the bottom of the ice cube. We have tried to make our own robots from boxes, blocks and junk. We also drew our own robot characters to write a story about this week. You will find out more about these stories and our learning around them at our assembly on the 21st.

In health, we have been exploring similarities and differences and have started learning about what Bullying really means. We will be continuing this over the next few weeks.

This week we have started practising for our nativity! We are working hard to learn all the songs and our narrators are very busy learning their lines. We are excited to continue our practises over the next few weeks.

In Primary 5/6/7 we have been learning about Scottish Inventors and what they invented and the impact each has had on Scotland and the rest of the world. It was interesting to find out that Scotland has produced so many inventors and showed us that  we could easily be Scottish inventors in the future.We also created a caricature about the inventors we researched in ID after watching a  video that showed us how to step by step. Some of us then thought that we could use this skill to become cartoonists or illustrators later in life.

In P.E we have been taking risk assessments on the bars in our gymnastics block. We have also been challenging ourselves to achieve new skills adding to our prior learning. We also enjoyed working on the different apparatus that was out in the hall. These skills could help us to follow in Mr Cox’s footsteps and become medal winning gymnasts.

During math the pentagons and squares have been learning quick and easy strategies for mental math and have been learning how to use B.O.M.D.A.S properly. The triangles have learned how to use a compass to draw circles and name different parts of the circles. They have also been learning how to multiply 3 digit numbers by 6 and 7. The rectangles have been working on writing, ordering, adding and subtracting decimals and relating their learning to money problems.

We did an outdoor literacy lesson which focused on our spelling. One group used chalks to write their words in different ways. The other group had to make their words using natural things found on the ground. We had the words with us to help but not many of us needed them.

We are still having futsal on a Friday morning, building up our skills to play more effectively in games. It is such a fun time as well as learning a new sporting skill.

In Health in the Hall we have been learning how to celebrate differences in each other, recognising that everyone is unique and must be respected. We got into groups and played team building games to help everyone feel respected and included. They were fun and we all got on really well.

We have been continuing to learn about the Jacobites, writing a biography about Bonnie Prince Charlie and a newspaper report on the Battle of Culloden. We had to write in the appropriate form and use adjectives. We had our VCOP pyramids to help us.

In math and numeracy the Pentagons and Squares  have been calculating the volume of solid shapes and the capacity a container can hold. This would be helpful if we wanted to be a pharmacist. The Rectangles have been working on measurements. This is a good skill to have for many jobs and accuracy is paramount. The triangles have been looking at different kinds of triangles, their names and properties. We have been continuing to do Number Talks and are finding the division ones tricky.

In art we did black line drawings on the battle of Culloden and drew a landscape picture of the battle scene, taking perspective and colours into account.

We have been learning how to play Futsal from a specialist coach on a Friday morning. It originated in Brasil and is mostly played on sand. The ball has to be on the ground most of the time and you can’t touch it with your hands. It is fun but exhausting. It is a game for practising skills. Here are some pictures of us having fun.