We have had a brilliant morning working together creating books and comics. I have been very impressed with the focus and the creativeness and excited to see the finish product. 

Over the holidays you can create a story or a comic of your time and what you get up to and can share this with us when you get back. For those who did not get on today on their account this is the class code: 5KZ9C5Z so that your books are all stored together. 

It’s been a very busy few weeks!

Lots of wonderful things have been going on in P5!

Literacy-

After doing lots of work on description and similes we put all of this together to create a poem about a tiger. We were not allowed to use the word tiger in the poem but instead describe their movement/features surroundings to allow the reader to know what we were writing about. These are now on display for the whole school to have a read of as I was so impressed with them, I felt they needed to be shown off. We typed them up to make them look even better. Our typing skills are improving and we are learning new skills on google docs. 

We looked at contractions last week- where we are taking two words and shortening them to one using an apostrophe. We then looked for these whilst we were reading our books. We will be looking at the other use for apostrophes in the New Year as often when we learn about them they then appear in all sorts of funny places.

The character Ahmet in ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’ is a refugee from Syria. We have been hearing more and more about his life up until now. We had to visualise what we thought he looked like based on what we know about him. We drew these focusing on proportion. They look great, everyone has a different perception of what he looked like based on what they have inferred. 

Numeracy-

We have been looking at multiplication and division through arrays. This is a visual representation of times tables in the form of dots. It allows us to see the connection between multiplication and division. When we don’t know the answer to a times table we can draw an array to work it out. Some of us have also been looking at multiplying 2 digit numbers by a 1 digit number. Those who have been doing this can share with you at home how they work out the answer. We are also going to be looking at angles this week and hopefully learning how to use a protractor. 

Expressive Arts-

We have been doing a big focus on using different lines, shading/tone and also proportion. There has been a big improvement on this, I have to say. Our pictures are looking much more realistic and we are adding much more detail. Last week, we got out the water colours and explored making our colours bleed/blend to create a realistic looking sky. It is definitely something we need to practise as it’s a change using less colour and more water. 

Christmas Party-

Tomorrow afternoon. Come dressed in your clothes tomorrow, school clothes are not needed. 

Sickness-

There have been lots of us not well, please remember to only come back if you are germ free as we don’t want anymore of us falling ill. We wish you a speedy recovery and hope to see you when you are well! 

Vote for our little champions at Crown!

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/lifestyle/which-inverness-primary-school-is-the-christmas-carol-singing-champion-187505/

We looked at creating different tones today by having a practise of going from  light to dark and dark to light without it looking blocky and there being a gradual increase or decrease of the colour. We used a coloured pencil to practise before we were ready to try on our Edgars. We are trying to make our character look as realistic as we can so by creating different tones and textures we can achieve this. 

They are really starting to take shape- you can tell the ones who are focusing on trying to create different tones than the ones who are just wanting to get it finished. I have tried to explain that pieces of art should not be finished quickly and that taking time over them is what will allow us to achieve what we set out to achieve.

Green jotters have been sent home today with spelling words. We need to pay particular attention to ie and ei. Words are on spelling shed to practise also. 

This week as learning tasks

Choose 5 of the words to grow and shrink and do this 3 times for each word.

Using your reading book that you are reading at home- can you look for words with the long e spelling for this week (ei, ie, ey, y e_e) and make a list of the words, ready to share on Thursday in class. 

As the practise for the Christmas performance is underway- our class will be doing PE in the Church hall on a Tuesday and Miss Mackenzie has asked that we do not wear PE kit that day as there is no time to change and it disrupts the performance using the changing rooms so just come to school in school clothes and no kit is needed on a Tuesday. Thanks! 

Today, we watched the new John Lewis advert which features Excitable Edgar. We discussed our initial thoughts of the advert and we had some really great ideas. Edgar doesn’t mean to cause any harm but when he is experiencing things for the first time he can’t help but get excited. Unfortunately when he gets excited, he breathes fire and it doesn’t always end well. 

We picked out key features of Edgar that we could describe and WOW- I was blown away with our amazing word choices. Share your descriptions with someone at home.

I have to say I am very impressed with the difference between our vocabulary and the way we use words since we have really focused in on it the last few weeks. It is truly impressive.

We spent the afternoon drawing our interpretation of Edgar with the main intentions being on proportions and texture to create an illusion. Share with someone at home how we focused on getting the right proportions (size) and what we did to create texture. Looking forward to the finished pieces.

This week in Numeracy, we  finished off using jump strategies and moved onto equal adjustments- ask your child to demonstrate this new strategy to you. We will be doing this for one more day on Monday before looking at the standard written method. We will then  begin assessments on multiplication and division.

Spelling tests as a whole went well this week but continue to practise these over the weekend as still some confusion with which e to use (ee or ea). 

Can anyone read a book over the long weekend and bring it in on Monday to fill up our wall and inspire others?

Enjoy your long weekend and we will see you all on Monday.

This is our Big Learning for the term.

This term we are really focusing on building independence and ownership of our learning. There are 32 children and only one of me, so the ownership needs to go onto the children a lot of the time.

This means that they are constantly working to their best of their ability in school, making their best use of time, choosing appropriate challenges and then practising all of these at home.

We have very little extra support in class so there is only so much of me that I can split with the children and it has to be fair for all. So please do what you can at home to help and support your children. Reading, writing, spelling, tables and basic facts being the biggies. Thanks as always! 

Primary 5 Learning Overview Term 2

ALL green books must be handed in tomorrow so that I can get spelling organised for Monday as many people do not have them on a Monday and it means they are not getting their spellings for the week and it clearly shows on Friday when we do our spelling check and they have not practised. From now on, green books will be collected in on a Friday and handed back out on a Monday. Dojos will be lost for those who do not bring them in.

A reminder also that we will be doing our spelling check tomorrow- so get practising tonight 🙂 

What a great time we had yesterday at Pizza Express. The best trips are always the ones where food is involved. We demonstrated a good understanding of the foods involved in making pizzas and where they come from. I don’t think many of us will be rushing to eat raw red onion again… Great effort with making the pizzas and I think they tasted pretty good by the looks of things! 

Thank you to our helpers Sarah and Ali, it is very much appreciated! 

Parents evening slips will be coming  home today to let you know  your scheduled time- Thank you! 

Thank you for all the offers of help for Wednesday. I tried to choose those who weren’t helpers at swimming to give some of you a break. 

If on Wednesday we could have Sarah (Fergus’ Mum) and Ali (George’s Mum) to come along with us. If you meet us at the front gate at 9:15 and we should be back by 11:30. If you comment on here that you have 

Thanks again!