Pudsey at SPS!

Today Primary 5 kicked off the Children in Need fundraising effort at SPS!  We used the Achievement Assembly to tell everyone what we’re planning for Friday 13^th November – Children in Need Day.  We had a very special helper come along to help us with this – Pudsey!  He came to see everyone and help us with our launch.  He also helped Mr McIntosh to give out our SPS Hero awards – it was a great assembly! 

Wonderful Wednesday!

What a Wednesday we’ve had! 

We started off our day by learning about time.  We used analogue clocks to play games with and develop our understanding of analogue, digital, 12 hour and 24 hour time.  We’re doing really well with this and are working hard at moving between the different times. 

 

Then we were learning about writing instructions.  To help us write an accurate set of instructions, Miss Shearer asked us to make a traybake called ‘Thirteen’s’.  This is because there is thirteen of each ingredient!  It was great fun crushing digestives, chopping cherries and mixing in condensed milk!  We left them to set and then rolled them in coconut.  We all got one each to eat and then we gave the rest to Primary 2 for their Macmillan Coffee Morning!  We were then able to write a set of instructions for making thirteens.  It was easy to do as we had just done it ourselves!  Ask us for the recipe – we might even make it for you!      

 

Needs and Wants

Yesterday we started learning about the difference between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’.  We discussed what we thought the difference between each one was.  Miss Shearer then gave us 40 bits of paper with different items on them.  We had to imagine we could only select 16 of these items and had to only take the most important ones.  After we had done that she told us we now had to only choose 8 items.  This was tricky but we managed.  Then we had to choose only 4.  We had to really choose the things that were ‘needs’ rather than things that were ‘wants’.  We had to think carefully about sources of food and water and how these would help us to survive. 

 

 

 

It was very interesting having to think about what we actually need to survive.   In the end we decided clean water, seeds, fertile soil and some chickens were the best things to have.  We then discussed that some people don’t have access to these basic needs.  We are going to learn a bit more about this throughout the week. 

Our Eyes on the Prize

Today we were very lucky to get to visit the Travelling Gallery with the art exhibition ‘Eyes on the Prize’.  This is a bus which has been specially made and is full of artwork. 

This exhibition is all about artists who are nominated for this years’ Turner Prize – a very prestigious art award which is normally based in London but is in Glasgow this year.  All the artists have connections with Scotland.

We were shown around by a guide who told us all about the artwork.  We thought about what the art made us think of and how it made us feel.  Some of our answers were different from each other but this was ok as art is all about what each person thinks of it. 

It was a great opportunity to see these artworks in real life and hear about how they were created. 

Revolting Children

Next Friday SPS is going to celebrate Roald Dahl Day.  As part of this we are performing a class assembly all about Roald Dahl.  We will be singing ‘Revolting Children’ from Matilda the Musical.  I’ve put the link to the song here so that you can practice at home over the weekend!  Feel free to think of some dance moves too!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6PXm34OBP8

Money Money Money

This week we have started learning about money.  We had a big discussion about what money is and Miss Shearer filled up the whole white board with the words and ideas we came up with.  We realised the topic of money is no just about coins! 

Today we were thinking about adding coins up and giving change.  We worked in pairs to challenge each other with a total and then working out the change we would give using the coins we had on the table. 

We had to really think about the coins we were using and the change we were giving each other.  We are going to work on this throughout the week as well as learning about the different ways people get and access money. 

Hugh Miller and the Fabulous Fossil Fish

On Friday we were able to go to workshop from Dynamic Earth about Hugh Miller and the Fabulous Fossil Fish.  We learned all about fossils, how they are formed and where we can actually find some fossil fish in Orkney!  We also learned about Hugh Miller and how he discovered the fossil fish.

First of all we had a bag of ‘things’ we had to look at and decided if they would fossilise. Then Emma told us that almost anything can fossilise as long as the conditions were right. 

 

Then we had to pretend to be a fish to find out what the conditions for fossilisation are.  First we were swimming around, then we ‘died’ and fell to the bottom of the lake.  Lots of mud fell on top of us and squashed us flat and then millions of years later we were discovered! 

 

 

 

 

Emma told us that at one time all the way from Caithness right up to Shetland was a big lake and had lots of fish swimming around in it.  To show us where the lake used to be we used a map with co-ordinates and drew on it to show where the lake used to be.  It was a great test of our mapping skills. 

 

 

Finally we got to be archaeologists and search for some fossils in sand.  We had to brush the sand away carefully using brushes and then find out what type of fish we had found!  It was great fun and we enjoyed this bit the most! 

 

 

 

It was a really interesting presentation and we thoroughly enjoyed it!