A Year in Yester – Page 2 – with Primary 5 and Mr Purves

John Muir Sketch Competition winner!

Art, Term 3, Uncategorized Comments Off

Mar 052014

Back in term 1, we spent our art time learning how to use pencils to great effect. We learned about shading, and how a single HB pencil can create many different, yet viually attractive drawings, as this post shows.
So when Mrs Hilsley alerted me to the fact that there was an East Lothian-wide competition for primary schools to enter, the John Muir Sketching competition, I felt P5 might well be in with a chance of doing well. Every pupil entered the competition, which asked for them to use a single pencil to create a sketch of something to do with nature.

A couple of days ago, we got an email that announced that one of the class, Anna, had won the competition! Well done Anna! The prize is a trip for the whole class to the Scottish Seabird Centre on 22nd April, where we will take part in some John Muir based activities. Further details to follow! Take a look at the post on the main Yester homepage, which gives more details of Anna’s achievement!

European Chain reaction – the results!

Collaborative work, Term 3, Uncategorized Comments Off

Feb 042014

Our recent chain reaction project came to its conclusion yesterday, with the results of all the countries’ entries having been counted up. Last week, P5 viewed and evaluated the entries from all 21 countries, and each child gave scored all the videos, apart from our own one. This process was repeated right across Europe, with each child in all the 21 countries scoring each chain reaction, apart from their own. The results were then collated by each teacher and submitted. Over the weekend, our Belgian partner in the project counted all the votes from all the countries, and recorded a special results video newsflash with his class.
The great news for us here in Yester is that our chain reaction finished in 6th position out of 21 countries!

So that’s our chain reaction project over for another year, and we have had great fun once again participating in this award-winning eTwinning project. A big thanks to the parents who helped the children film some very creative chain reactions at home in the early part of the project, and to our Belgian partner Dave for his great work in creating and administering the European Chain Reaction once again!
Have a look at the project website to see all the great entries!

Burns Supper 2014

Burns Supper, Term 3 Comments Off

Jan 252014

On Thursday, the P5 class led this year’s Burns Supper in the hall at lunchtime.
The whole school attended, and the top table of P5 pupils led the traditional speeches and poems. In addition, the individual class winners of the Scottish poetry competitions performed their poems, and we also had dancers, and a singer and a violinist too!
Here, you can see the Address to the Haggis, as well as the winner of the P5 poetry competition. The third video shows the Immortal Memory, followed by the Toast to the (Dinner) Lassies. Have a look at the other classes’ sites over the next few days to see the winners and performers from each class!

European Chain Reaction- P5’s entry

Collaborative work, ICT, Term 3 2 Responses »

Jan 192014

Our entry to the 2014 European Chain Reaction is ready.
We hope you like it- all entries need to be on the site by Friday 24th January, thereafter, we will need to view all the videos and give our votes for our favourites. The results will be announced by our Belgian partners once all the votes have been counted, at the end of the month!

Fencing

Collaborative work, PE, Term 3 Comments Off

Jan 162014

Today we had a taster in a really unusual sport- fencing!
The class had a great time learning how to fence properly, as you can see in the photos!

Stig of the Dump

Term 3 Comments Off

Jan 082014

Yesterday afternoon, the whole school were in the hall for a performance of the well-known story, Stig of the Dump. Firstly, the group performing explained that they needed some of the children to be actors in the show, and two of the P5s were chosen, along with children from other classes. They spent 30 minutes rehearsing for their roles, while the rest of the pupils in all the classes learned some songs that would be sung during the performance.
The show itself lasted for an hour, and it turned out to be great fun for all, including the teachers!

Christmas party fun!

Term 2 Comments Off

Dec 202013

Getting ready to head to the hall…

Yesterday afternoon, P4-P7 held their Christmas party. Everyone either dressed up, or dressed down, and headed to the hall, where we played games and danced to lots of our favourite songs. We also enjoyed snacks and drinks in the GP room, where there was even a chocolate fountain to dip fruit into!

Collaborative work with school in Finland

Collaborative work, ICT Comments Off

Dec 182013

Click on the pictures to see both classes working together and saving goodbye!

Yesterday, P5 played the online collaborative game Saarella (The Island) with a class of primary school children from the town of Tuusula, close to Helsinki, in Finland. As many parents already know, this game involves pupils working together to create a safe living environment on an island that they have been shipwrecked on.
We had great fun, and indeed, it appears that by working together very closely, we scored one of the highest scores recorded in the game so far!
After the games, we had an interesting discussion via webcams, with questions going between the two classes. The first question asked by the Finnish children was: “Why are you all wearing uniforms?” !
PS If you wish to play the game, it doesn’t work using Internet Explorer, but works very well on Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Accelerated Reader news

Literacy Comments Off

Dec 182013

Have you logged on to the Home Connect website yet?
Did you know you can log on to a website called Home Connect to see your child’s reading results and progress? It’s very simple to do…

https://ukhosted2.renlearn.co.uk/1894387/HomeConnect/Login.aspx

Click on the link above and simply enter your child’s username and password (all children should know this) and you will be able to:
■review results on AR quizzes taken in school
■view the number of books read, words read and quizzes passed
■see a virtual bookshelf showing the books your child has read

You will also see a link to ‘E-Mail Setup’ at the top of the page that gives you the chance to sign up to receive an e-mail every time your child takes a quiz to share the results with you instantly!

Is there a book at home that you’d like to check to see if it’s on AR?

Go to the link below and type in the title of your book, e.g. ‘Matilda’ and search. If it is there you will see the front cover of the book and information beside it.
http://www.arbookfind.co.uk/

Once your child has read the book, make sure they remember to take the quiz in school! With a couple of weeks over Christmas, there’s sure to be plenty of time to catch up with some reading!

P5’s Human Chain Reaction

Collaborative work, ICT, Term 2 4 Responses »

Dec 062013

Our first part of our Chain Reaction project was unveiled this morning at the class’ assembly. A big thank you to all the parents who came to the P5 assembly this morning. In addition, I’d like to thank parents too for their help in putting together the home-based chain reactions which we all enjoyed at the assembly! (Apologies that I didn’t include them all)
In the last week of term, we hope to put together our technical chain reaction, so I have asked that children bring in any resources that you might have at home that they think might be worth including in this big, class chain reaction. (Please name anything valuable!) The human chain reaction we played at the assembly today is now on the European Chain Reaction website and our technical chain reaction, along with all our competitors’, will be there in January! The website url is http://ecr2014.blogspot.com

Human Chain Reaction 2013 from Michael Purves on Vimeo.

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