P7 trip to Edinburgh College / STEM

On Thursday p7s had to be at school for 8:10am! When we got on the bus we scored back seats. When we were at the college we got told our teams,  Flynn and I were in Scooby. Next we went to a work shop and made our own cars out of foam.  After that we took our cars out to race and they put mini jet engines in them. Flynn and my  car went 72mph, the record was 87mph which is quite fast. I learned that a mini car can go that fast.

When we had break we went to our tables which had our names on them. Mrs Nicol was at our table, some people were very talkative in a good way –  just getting to know people.

My favourite part was all the p7s were together and I think we should do more trips together.

By Lewis Myles , P7

Exciting Electricity

This Monday Saltoun P5/6/7 started a new topic, electricity. We started off with some videos about what electricity is and then came my favourite bit – the circuits! We got to use small electrical wires to connect small bulbs, switches and batteries to make little electrical circuits. I found out that if you plug a wire in over the lamp it cancels the electricity going to the lamp and carries on going around the circuit. On Thursday this week we learnt what electricity is in a more active way. We all got hats with signs on. Most of the class had electrons on their hats but some of us had either a battery or a bulb. The people as electrons would walk around in a circle and every time they passed a battery they would collect a card that said energy. Every time you passed a bulb you had to hand your card to them and they would throw it up showing that the bulb was lighting up.

What I just described was a basic explanation of what electricity is and how it works .

I hope you enjoyed my post and I hope you also learned something . So thank you and GOODBYE!!

By Flynn Bronsdon

 

MATHS LEARNING

In maths recently we have been learning about jump strategy, split strategy and over-jump strategy. It turns out I am good at all of them. I love maths and this just makes it easier for me so now I use them all the time and I love to use them. Jump strategy is where you add or minus in jumps of hundreds tens and units. Split strategy is where you split your sum into tens and units then add on in bits.  Over-jump strategy is where you round the number you are adding to the nearest ten, add it then take away the same amount as you added to get your answer.

By Brodie P5

Happy Holidays!

Primary 5/6/7 would like to wish you a happy February holiday.  After the break our class will be one member less as Dylan is leaving us today to go to a new school, nearer his house.  Good luck Dylan! We will miss you.  Keep in touch! For everyone else, we will see you back on Monday 23rd.

4,000,000 words!

Over 4,000,000 words have been read this term by P4-7.  We set this ambitious target in April: we read in our teams, as a class and in our personal time. We were rewarded with a pink lemonade and glazed doughnut party.  This was the food and drink that Basil Wrathbone fed his victims in our class novel.  It sounded delicious and today it tasted delicious but thankfully it didn’t turn us into plastic toys as it did the characters in the novel.  Well done P4-7 so proud of you, special mention to Dylan who personally read over 1,000,000.

Biodiversity Officer

Stuart Macpherson, East Lothians biodiversity officer, visited our class to tell us about how we can be a biodiversity champion.  We also discussed food chains and pyramids and how the environment has changed in the last 50 years.

Personal Biodiversity Plan (click here)

Making a food pyramid

Extreme Reading in the Sun

Before the sun got too hot we split into our reading teams and found a spot in the school garden to read aloud. In our teams we decide on our roles for the day. This means we are all actively involved in reading at one time.  Roles include: summariser, predictor, clarifier and question master.  The pupils will be able to tell you all about what these roles involve.

Jubilee Mini Topic

Next week P4-7 are undertaking a mini project on the jubilee.  See below the details:

Some of learning we will cover:

I can discuss why people and events from a particular time in the past were important, placing them within a historical sequence. SOC 2-06a

By considering the type of text I am creating, I can select ideas and relevant information, organise these in an appropriate way for my purpose and use suitable vocabulary for my audience.  LIT 2-26a

Through observing and recording from my experiences across the curriculum, I can create images and objects which show my awareness and recognition of detail .EXA 2-04a

Activity: The class are split into group or pairs, each one has been assigned a decade from Queen Elizabeth’s reign.  They will need to research, using books and the ‘ to find out what the queen did in that decade and think about the effect that would have on society back then.  Pupils will also be able to research other major events, fashions, foods, schooling, music and politics from that decade.  They will display the information on a 6 foot banner in an artistic, colourful, innovative way that would make an audience want to look at it and read it. 

Most of this work will be done in class time, parents and the community will be able to see the banners in the community hall as part of the schools effort to decorate it for the Jubilee School Fair on 9th June.

Please see the homework sheet sent home today (Friday ) for more details.

Scale Drawings

We have been learning about scale in a very real context. The Eco Committee need to know the size of the area where we intend to plant the wild flower meadow so the correct amount of seedlings can be bought. We are mapping our schools grounds very accurately using scale drawings and we will be learning about area to give an accurate answer. We discussed proffesions and other contexts where we need to use the skill of scale drawings. I told the class about the scale drawings I did of their classroom during the summer holidays so I could decide the best use of furniture and space in their room.