P3 and P5 future farmers!!

Primary 5 and 3 had an amazing day out learning about food and farming. A bit of forestry as well they saw a big machine that can cut down trees and they thought it was a great way to cut them down. There were three groups group one group two and finally group three. At the wool bit Fraser asked “can you dye the wool before you shear it”,? “Yes” said the woman “if you spray paint it first”.

Reported by Logan and Fraser

P5 and P3 Farm Day at Dalkeith Country Park

It was a exceptional day out in Dalkeith. P5 and P3 went to Dalkeith country park to a farming and food event. They were divided into groups of 3 one with Miss Chidgey, Miss Kelly and Miss Cornwall.

They learned about the different sheep breeds the male is called a runt. They learned about the different wools that are of sheep . They then learned about the different foods that grow in Scotland. They learned that barley is used to make  whiskey.

They learned about how many seeds a tractor can hold 100.000 seeds.

They learned how to milk a cow.

 They went on a tractor.

They had a food taster were they had to try different foods . They learned about the sheep males and females .

What farmers can provide that is good

Dairy milk , wool flooring ,

Matrices bedding , fruit and veg

Strawberry ,peas , carrots

 Oranges , apples , potatoes broccoli , collie flower , pares, wheat , cabbage and other veg and fruits .

  They learned about farming to encourage them to eat healthy food and to build  on there learning of forestry and farming and to help them on their topic. I would add in a station about how to grow fruit and veg. There next steps could be that they could download apps on their iPads or watch a farming video on the smart board.

Thank you to the staff and teachers and thanks for having us Dalkeith country park!

Dalkeith Country Park

Dalkeith country park

On Tuesday the 26th of May 2015 P3 and P5 went to Dalkeith Country Park. They went to learn a lot more about farms and farmers.
Dairy

They learned if you shake milk for 15 minutes it turns into scrambled milk and if you keep shaking it it turns into butter.image

They learned you have to put your hand behind a cows tail so they can milk it.

Trees
They learned that beech trees grow very large. They saw a tree getting cut down and they leaned all about the different animals who live in the trees.

imageSheep
They learned about different type of sheep. They learned how to use wool with a spinning wheel and how sheep go to the market!

Conclusion

They liked trees because we learned a lot at the tree station.

They learned how to make flour when they made it in the olden days.

We probably need to work on paying attention more.
They learned you have to put your hand behind a cows tail so they can milk it.
Sheep

They learned about different type of sheep. They learned how to use wool with a spinning wheel. They went to the sheep market and learned to milk a cow.

 

Conclusion
They really liked learning about the trees because they felt that they learnt a lot. The classes next step is to do some further research.

Reported by Connie (P5) and Michaella (P3)

Primary 7 Triops

Primary 7 Triops

Christin and Robert have a big secret. Primary 7 has a class pet! The pet is not a hamster or a guinea pig; it is even better. It’s a type of shrimp called a ‘Triop’, which comes from the group ‘longicaudatus’ and is great for observing for science.

Triops shed their exoskeleton several times a year which you can take out the tank and keep or just let them eat it – yum yum.

It all started when we had an idea, we wanted to learn new things and we thought “How about a class pet of some kind, we can’t have a hamster or anything like that…” then it came to us: Triops. Robert had hatched them at home and was very fascinated with them and Christin wanted to find out more about them.

It started with us going to Mr Currie with our heads held high to pitch our idea to get primary 7 a class pet. Then, after a lot of perseverance we finally got a yes to getting Class Triops.

It has now been about 2 weeks and he is doing great he should be laying eggs soon which we can give another class to use next year.

 

 

St David’s HS Maths Challenge

On the 26th of May P7 and P6 went to a maths challenge at St David’s High school and had lots of fun.

We earned lots of points and won three awards: we came third in the ‘Measurement’ poster competition (which we made at school before the event) and came 1st and 2nd   in the overall competition. We were really excited to win scientific calculators as prizes! We would also like to say a big well done to St Andrew’s for winning the best school prize.

During the day, we took part in some fantastic active maths challenges as well as problem solving activities, which were lots of fun!  The third years gave us scores for how well we completed the activities and sometimes they even helped us to get on the right track with finding the solutions.

After such a successful and enjoyable day, Primary 6 have already said how excited and determined they are about going back next year! We hope that all the other schools had fun and will come back next year too. We would like to say a big thank you to the high school for inviting us to the maths challenge. We had the coolest time ever we also like to say thank you to all the staff and third years for taking time out off class to help all of us. We would also like to say thank you to Miss O’Brien, Miss Gilmore and Sandra for taking time off their time table and looking after us. Primary 6 and Primary 7 also feel that they represented St David’s well by trying their hardest, working really well together and showing manners to other schools and staff at the high school.

IMG_2541

It’s All About Me!

P6 are learning all about themselves this term!

 

During the coming term we will be focusing, as a whole school, on developing our questioning and higher order thinking skills. We will develop these skills across the curriculum. In particular we have already been applying and growing these skills during our bug club reading and our talking and listening experiences as we learn about equal rights.

 

We will be finding out about our changing bodies and as we begin to understand the changes that occur we will learn how to best prepare and look after ourselves. We will investigate our physical health and wellbeing as well as or emotional and mental health and wellbeing. As we learn about ourselves we will also be finding out how to maintain healthy relationships with our peers and families. We will familiarise ourselves with the people in our lives that we can use for support and guidance.

 

We recognise now that we are becoming more independent but as we become more independent we need to be more able to keep ourselves safe. Going forward we will be learning about how to keep ourselves safe, both in public and on the internet.

 

As well as learning about ourselves we will be experiencing our local environment, and building an understanding of the processes involved in where our food comes and the processes involved. We will be visiting Dalkeith Country Park to take part in a ‘Food and Farming’ learning experience.

 

It will be an exciting term for us!

Our Learning

This term Primary 5 will be learning about Our Body, Food and Fitness. As a class we have been planning our learning to build on what we already know. Through our Interdisciplinary topic we will be developing our skills in Science, Religious and Moral Education, Health and Well Being, Technologies and Literacy and applying these skills across the curriculum. We will be developing our fitness through daily P.E lessons and learning about how we can sustain exercise through our lives. We will be learning about healthy eating and how we can build and cook healthy meals. We are also going to plant and grow our own vegetables! We will be learning about our bodies and the impact that our lifestyle can have on our body and how our body changes as we grow. We have planned a trip to Dalkeith Country Park to learn more out where our food comes from at the Food and Farming Event.

We will be learning how to use Higher Order Thinking Skills through our class Novel ‘The Butterfly Lion’. We will be learning to recognise, answer and create our own lower and higher order thinking questions. We will be developing our individual reading skills through Bug Club which we can access on any electronic device!

In Numeracy and Maths we will be consolidating our mental strategies for the four operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We will also be learning the formal written strategies and applying these strategies to help us solve different problems. In Maths we will be learning about Time, Shape and Measure and applying these skills in a real life context.

We are very excited for our final term in Primary 5 and preparing ourselves for the transition into Primary 6! We will keep you up to date on our learning journey so check back soon!!

P7 Summer Learning

Primary Seven have lots of fantastic and exciting things to look forward to this term! As it is our last term of primary school, we want to make it as special and memorable as possible!

We have an amazing trip to London planned at the beginning of June so we will get the chance to explore the famous sights like Big Ben and the London Eye, get a taste of London culture and even see some West End shows! Many of us are really looking forward to going to Harry Potter Studios! We are really excited to have this opportunity and can’t wait to make some super special memories.

Harry Potter Studios here we come!

Harry Potter Studios here we come!

We also have our long-awaited transition days at our high schools coming up. We will get the chance to meet some of our new classmates and build some new friendships, get to know the school and the teachers a bit better and we will be getting used to following timetables to get to our lessons. We are looking forward to this experience as we feel it will help us to feel more prepared for our move into secondary school.

We are really enjoying our learning so far this term too:

In Maths, we have been focusing on ‘Measurement’. We can now find the areas and perimeters of simple and compound shapes and have been applying this learning to real life problems. We have also revised telling the time and reading analogue and digital clocks. Our next step in measurement is to read and interpret timetables in order to help to prepare us for reading timetables when we go to High School. 

In Literacy, we have been focusing on developing our use of openers in our writing and learning to write simple, compound and complex sentences. Our next step is to improve the punctuation that we use across a range of writing genres.

We have been using Bug Club to help improve our reading comprehension. We get assigned different genres of texts regularly and have the opportunity to answer questions about the texts and develop our higher order thinking skills too. Bug Club is great because we can also use it at home to really challenge ourselves and make extra progress. Our next step in reading is to develop our own questioning skills using Bloom’s Taxonomy to challenge our own and our peers’ thinking. 

First Holy Communion

Sacramental ClassPrimary 4 have already successfully prepared for and received the Sacrament of Confirmation earlier this year. Arch Bishop Leo Cushley celebrated the Sacrament in St. David’s Roman Catholic Church alongside Monsignor Chambers. We are now learning about the life of Jesus and the ultimate sacrifice He made for us. This is in preparation for the class making their First Holy Communion in June this year. We ask that you keep all the Sacramental pupils in your prayers as they continue on this spiritual journey.

 

French

Primary 4 have been learning all about the weather in French. This term they will use their language skills to create a weather podcast that will be available on twitter each week. They have to identify the correct language to describe the date, area and weather for each podcast.

French Weather