A new way to practise our spelling words- 

Write each word on a label (we chose two), stick one on your jumper, walk around the room while the music plays, when the music stops find a partner to test you on your word! 

Great fun!

Here are some links to games you can play to help practise telling the time:

http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L9643/index.html

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/hickoryDickory/

There are lots of others that you can have a go of but the links don’t work at my end so if you type ‘time games’ into google you will get some more options! 

Time is really flying, we are full on in Primary 5 these last few weeks. 

We introduced Time this week, when we start a new topic for the first time it’s important that we share what we already know and that I can get an idea of where each of the children are in their learning. We had a great discussion about all the things we know to do with time then we had a look at digital (12 and 24 hour) and analogue clocks.

Time is a life skill that we need to have. Everything in life runs by time. Try over the next little while to become more aware of timings of things and to notice where the hands are or what the numbers are on the clock for certain times. I realise that digital clocks are a lot more popular now but it is still important that we can tell the time on an analogue clock too. 

If parents can get the children to be looking at the time when you need to go places etc or set timers for when you know you need to leave for a club. For example set a timer so that you have to get yourself organised and ready rather than relying on being told ‘right it’s time for swimming now’. Building this independence will develop good time keeping skills which is also an important life skill. 

Next week we will be exploring time further. For some, reading and setting the clock on both digital and analogue, others converting between 12 and 24 hours, or looking at time durations, reading timetables and making journeys from these. We will be working at what is appropriate to us and where we are in our learning. 

Over the last week or so we have been exploring religions and more specifically festivals/traditions that religions may have. We worked in pairs to choose a festival/tradition and present it to the class in anyway that we choose. We shared some of these today and it became apparent whilst we were doing this that we had copied and pasted lots directly from the internet and whilst this is okay in some cases, when we don’t actually understand what we are talking about then there is no purpose or sense of achievement in the learning. So we had a big chat about what we can do if we come across words that we don’t know the meaning of. Share with someone at home what these might be. We are going to go over what we have done on Monday and try and rephrase some of the words and make sure that what we have written we actually understand. Whilst this is also a really hard skill, it is an important one that we are going to put lots of work into so that we are confident with this and can apply this in lots of different parts of our learning. 

We have also been reading and plotting co-ordinates. So today we learned how to plot co-ordinates and the join them up to make a picture Share with someone at home what your picture revealed once you had plotted all the points. It was important that we joined the points up in order that we plotted them so that the picture was correct. Always remember when doing co-ordinates ‘along the corridor and up the stairs’. 

In literacy we used the app ‘Brush Ninja’ to create an animated character that we can then use to write a story about. You can work on these over the weekend if you are able to and can save it to your google drive so that you are ready to go on Tuesday. The character should not be a stick person and a setting needs to be included. Looking forward to seeing the finished product and piecing all of this together. 

Oh I almost forgot about the fun we had learning french classroom objects, I loved how we had a go in the first instance and just stuck le or la in front of computer or jotter etc. It made me laugh. Confidence is building just need to try and perfect that accent ;). 

As a school we are going to be looking at the children’s wider achievements. These are things that children achieve that are outwith school. It could be learning to tie your laces, winning a medal at a competition, baking a cake etc. On your profile there is a page for you to add these to. It is good to do this at home as parents can help remind you and also support you with what you have achieved. 

We really need to become more accountable for our learning and our successes/progress in Primary 5. There are 33 of us and only one teacher. So the drive and motivation needs to come from within. We want to strive to be mastery learners and this is going to be a focus for the rest of the year. We all have the potential to do wonderful things but too much time is being wasted doing things that are not needing to be done at that time which results in lots of unfinished work that eats into time where new learning can be done. Have a chat over the weekend and discuss your steps in how you are going to be successful and try and achieve the allocated tasks each day. What will this look like? Sound like and feel like for you?

Looking forward to seeing you all on Monday with your 3 question cubes 😉

Have a lovely weekend, that’s all from me! 

 

 

Last term, a few parents who  had been to the Millburn meeting to talk about ASN had offered some help in the class whether it was hearing children need, basic facts work, helping to organise worksheets/jotters, preparing work for displays. This was just on a trial basis to see how things went and if it was supportive to me. It has been really great to have an extra hand here and there and I would like to offer it out to other parents who feel they can spare an hour or two every so often.

Lee (Rory’s S Mum) has coordinated the support which has been really good and she is happy to continue to do so. If you would like to come in and help then please get in touch with Lee on lee66907@gmail.com and she will be in touch with you to organise when to come in.

Some weeks we have more helpers in than others but the more we  have the less it means you have to come in and help 🙂

Thank you again for your support! 

Today, marked the end of our work on learning to use a protractor, identifying and naming different angles and triangles and measuring and drawing different angles and triangles.

To show off all that we have learned, we  combined drawing and naming different triangles, measuring angles and using a protractor in one by creating a picture that includes all of this. Lots of creative ways of demonstrating their knowledge and skills! 

 

The weeks are just flying by. We have been busy in all different curricular areas this last week. 

In literacy, we have been looking at note taking, abbreviations and acronyms. We have been taking notes under different headings and then trying to use that to write a short paragraph in our own words to recall what we have read/seen. We have also looked at things that are already in note from and then tried to rewrite them in full sentences. This is what led us onto looking at abbreviations and acronyms and why we might use them. We have learned the difference between them by looking up their definitions.

In maths, we are coming to the end of our multiplying/dividing by 10,100 and 1000 and measuring angles. We are finishing up with naming and drawing different triangles and then creating a picture that includes these triangles. I would say that our confidence with using a protractor has really grown in the last few weeks. Lots of experts now. 

Great progress is being made in basic facts, hopefully lots of  you are practising using the games that are on the blog. Great sense of achievement in the class when we are moving up. 

Keep practising your tables for those that need to 🙂 

We began to look at different festivals/ traditions in world religions yesterday. The children have paired up and are working on presenting to the class (in any way that they choose) what they have learned about their chosen festival/tradition. 

We had a chat this morning about our ‘why?’ What does our learning behaviour look like? How will I know if something is not going well/too challenging/not enough challenge/what is causing you to not get your work complete? Is there changes that need to be made? We are going to be exploring this further so that we all know what our ‘why?’ looks, sounds and feels like. So that each time we are working we can refer to our learning behaviour and see if we are achieving our ‘why?’. 

Yesterday we had a visit from the SSPCA (an acronym) and we got to explore what makes animals feel happy/ sad. We heard that animals have emotions just like we do and it is the SSPCA’s role to try and make sure they make all animals feel happy again (where possible). We got to play about with some catbots at the end which was fun. I was impressed with our sharing and working togetherness :).

Today, we explored some famous artists and also  learned about some new ones. We are going to be choosing an artist that we are inspired by to then create our own piece of art. We are going to share what we like about the artist, why it inspires us and then share our final pieces that we create. We may choose to take inspiration from more than one artist or we may chose just one artist. We are going to add our own perspective to the piece of art rather than just copying it. We may need to bring in some resources that we may have at home for when are adding the finishing touches to them. But the children can make the choices of what they need for them.

I am looking forward to the final pieces.

I have asked that all children access their profile at home this week.

They can do this by:

typing google sites into google

clicking on new google sites- if they are not already logged into chrome at home then they need to do that. There is an opportunity on the top right that says sign in. This will allow chrome to access their account so that they can log into their own google site. They know their username and password. It is their Millburn academy email address. It should then ask them when they are on google sites to log in with google, click this and their profile should come up. 

Each week the children are given an afternoon a week (Monday usually) where they update their learning from the previous week and they add in what they have been doing to work on their goals/targets.

Some of the children have been very good at completing this and others have got very little documented. By this stage it is their responsibility to manage their profile, keep up to date with it and ensure they are completing it weekly. If they are not, it is a reflection of where they are in their learning. I can only do what I can to make sure I am encouraging them, they all get the same amount of time to complete this but if they choose to not make best use of their time then it is their profile that is not up to standard. The children need to take ownership of their own learning. 

Please encourage your children weekly to be going onto it, sharing it with you and if they have not completed it to support them to do so.

Thank you for the understanding.