This week we found out that we are going on a class trip to Edinburgh in February. We are going to see Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace and we are going to have a walk up the Royal Mile. We are going to enjoy a Costume workshop at the Palace. We have made an illustrated time line of the History of Edinburgh and continued reading the story of Greyfriar’s Bobby.
We have been preparing for our Burn’s night – we have learnt songs and poems. We made a collaborative piece of art work but we can’t tell you what of, as it would spoil the surprise.
In PE this week we did more gymnastics using benches and mats for jumping and balancing.
Our literacy work has focused on play script writing. We read an excerpt from Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and had our first attempt at writing our own scripts around a bible story. We enjoyed a visit from a local poet – Peter McCulloch, who recited some of his poems for us. He writes in Scots and lives in East Lothian. We shared some of the poetry we have written this school year and he was very impressed by our work.

Today a group of Primary six and Primary  sevens went to The National Library Of Scotland, the lucky people who went were Andrew, Gerda, Julie, Heidi and Finlay from P7 and Sam, Charlie and Anya from P6. We had three activities and we were all split into groups, the three activities were a tour of the parts of the library that no one is allowed into, a storytelling of Tam O’ Shanter by the manager of the library and a look at the Jacobite exhibit with a quiz. We were allowed to design our own coats of arms, the qualities were portrayed as different animals, symbols and colours. Inside the Library there are 15 floors and 10 of them were full of books. Altogether there was about 17 million books in the library. we also found out that the book fetchers walked about 10 miles a day.

Report by Andrew, Gerda and Julie

We’ve had another busy week. We’ve continued reading the story of Greyfriars Bobby and we learnt about the fishwives from Newhaven who sold herring around Edinburgh and sang the song ‘Caller Herring’. We were lucky enough to have a drama session from Shona our wonderful drama workshop teacher who told us the story of Ann Frank, which related well to our previous topic of WW2. In PE this week the class enjoyed working on balance, flight and travel skills in gymnastics. Poetry has been an important part of our week. We wrote poems inspired by the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, called ‘I was the Giant’, everyone had a go at writing using rhyming couplets and four line stanzas. We also  had a poetry recital this morning with every pupil performing their chosen Scottish poem. David recited his poem so well that Mrs Bagnall asked him to say it for Mrs MacDonald when she dropped by.

Next week begins with a few pupils who have been selected to join a Ross Rocks Reading event at the National Libraries of Scotland, who have never opened their doors to primary school children before…. we are looking forward to hearing about the experience. We are making Scotch broth next week to try out the new school cooker and to find out how it’s made. Perhaps they will treat you to a pot of it at home!

The long awaiting French cheese tasting will be happening next week too!!

Primary 7 has started their new topic –  the History of Edinburgh and we are hoping to go on a trip to Edinburgh this term. We have been reading the story of Greyfriar’s Bobby and from our reading we have learned about the poor sanitation of Old Edinburgh, how to make broth and what it is, and some Scots vocabulary. We found out about drovers and how they took animals to the Grassmarket in Edinburgh. We also read about pickpockets, pedlars and dealers who went there.

In French we have started to learn vocabulary for animals and we translated from French into English. We are also able to write a paragraph in French now using dictionaries to help us.

Our Maths lessons this week have focused on Time and we have started our Mathletics booklets to challenge us  as well as reinforce our learning.

Everyone is reading to reach their AR target and many pupils are pursuing their Ross Rocks reading goals. Each of us has spent time on setting ourselves goals for the rest of the school year and for the future.

In Primary 7 it was a good week for Maths challenges, eight pupils passed their Maths challenge.
We had a visit from the Scottish Beekeeper’s Association. They showed us the machine to separate honey from combs and demonstrated how it works. They explained what bees there are in each hive and what each kind of bee does. They brought a special hive that you could take apart to see how it works.
Ellie learned about a magic c in tennis and it was fun learning how to use this to play tennis.
In our cooperative learning teams we are learning about historic figures of importance during World War 2. We also drew carton pictures to illustrate the instructions during the blackouts.

‘We had fun writing excellent poems’, says Andrew. Our poems were about the Blitz in London which we have been learning about this week. We have watched a video with live footage.
Mikaela gave us an excellent presentation this morning about WW2 evacuations which she had researched for homework. Heidi is going to read us her grandfathers memories of the war before we head home. Lewis brought a model WW2 plane in which has been admired and a talking point.
‘We had a lot of fun rounding in Maths’, says Cameron W. and Shaun enjoyed learning about decimals. Jack thinks Mathletics is great and we all worked hard yesterday afternoon on our Mathletics.
Next week we are going to be tasting some French cheeses as part of our French learning. David is buzzing about this but Holly is dreading it!

P7 have to learn their spelling words for our weekly test on Friday. They must also learn French vocabulary for the body – Le corps for a written test on Friday.

Topic – Please interview someone in your family or a friend of the family about their experience of WW2 and write up what they tell you. Also try to bring in any artefacts, photos, or anything else your family may have at home from WW2 – anything you bring in would be kept safe.

Everyone wants to go back to Benmore, but Laura would prefer a dorm on the groundfloor! Many of us want to go kayaking again. Mikaela would love to go sailing again and Andrew would like to try gorge walking. Katie and Sam would like to go caving again, but Andrew and Mrs B, would rather not! Julie, Jack, Rhys, Shaun, Heidi and Gerda really loved the high ropes (gulp!). David and many others would love to do another forest walk in the beautiful hills around Benmore.

We have spent some of this afternoon completing our diaries and reflecting on all the personal things being at Benmore taught us. We all smile recalling all the exciting and happy moments we had there.

Maths – please prepare for your next Maths challenge or do the work I have assigned you individually. Maths challenge will take place on Thursday.

Spelling – write sentences using your spelling words and prepare for our Friday test.

French – learn to say and write all numbers from 1 -30 for a written assessment on Friday.

This week we enjoyed meeting Dan Smith the author at Ross High School, with Primary 6. It was a super Ross Rocks Reading event. We had a chance to get copies of his books autographed by him and to speak to him personally. He told us that when he was a child he loved the film ‘Star Wars’ and that we should practice our writing to get better!

We are very excited about going to school camp next week.  Almost all of Primary 7 are looking forward to kayaking, but lots of them are worried that they will miss tv, x boxes, ipads, playstations, and their families…! We will report back and let you know if they do miss these things once they are away.