Term 2

Thank you for the great response to Operation Smile, the children have been bringing in their t-shirts over the past couple of weeks. We have been looking on the map to see where we will be sending our surgical gowns to. We will begin the design process next week.

We are about to embark on our new topic: The Media and will be exploring newspapers, radio, television and the internet. Yes it's a lot to cover, but we're confident that we'll be budding journalists by the end of term. If you have any broadsheets or tabloids please feel free to contribute them to our study. Please remove any pages you don't think are appropriate.

What Primary 6 have done and are about to do

Well Term 1 was a buzz of activity in primary 6, with swimming, an exciting topic and improving our maths skills through the use of Nintendo DS.

Our 8 week blog of swimming was a great success and all the children received medals to celebrate their achievements in the water. Although some of us were a little nervous at first, the supportive and experienced coaches provided us with confidence and enabled us to improve our technique.

We learned about the famous architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh during term 1. We studied his life, designed new classrooms and explored famous buildings. The art of Mackintosh inspired our creativity and we designed school logos, produced Scotland Street school pictures and even used cotton buds to paint with. We have enjoyed this topic and our work is on display in and around primary 6.

At maths time primary 6 have been using the Nintendo DS to improved their mental agility. The children find this both challenging and fun. Even though some of us still have a brain age of 30, we are confident that we will all reach 20 by the end of term.

Operation Smile

This week Primary 6 will embark on Operation Smile. The campaign being supported by Blue Peter will help to fund vital operations in India and around the world.

It involves the design and manufacture of surgical gowns from second hand t-shirts. Could Primary 6 children please bring an old, clean t-shirt - the bigger the better so we will take mums' and dads' t-shirts as well.

Look out for the Blue Peter show featuring the Operation Smile campaign on Wednesday 21st October. Take a look at the website for more details.

Thanks for your support.

Kirky's Got Talent

Recently, the whole school participated in a talent show. Anyone who wanted to enter had to audition as each class was only entering one act. In Primary 6 we had many great, talented acts who auditioned. Unfortunately Mrs Hutchison could only choose one act - it was a very tough decision. The successful group were called "The Low Riders". This consisted of Dylan, James, Andrew, Daniel and Thomas. All five boys were fantastic and even managed to finish second overall!

Well done boys!

PACE

Primary 6 were lucky enough to have PACE visit the them and to participate in an anti-smoking workshop called "Smoke Free Me". The class had to learn two songs in preparation for the day - "Smoke Free Me" and "Never Give Up". On the afternoon we had an hour to rehearse before performing to the P4-7 classes.

Everyone participated well and proved to be both Confident Individuals and Effective Contributors, even those who sometimes find such a situation uncomfortable.

Cycling Proficiency

21 children in Primary 6 have been working on their cycling skills and safety over the past few weeks. Mrs Bryson and Mrs McWilliams have been working with them in the playground for an hour a week. All the children bring their bikes and helmets (the school provided helmets for those who do not have them)and we all hope for a nice dry day!

Joyning the Learning

We have been working very hard on a very special “Joyning the Learning” topic. We wanted it to be a big surprise for our families and invited guests so we did not say too much about it during the topic.



The topic Primary 6 have been working on is World War 2 - The Home Front. We started by learning about how the War actually started, and began to think about areas of the topic that interested us to be our "Big Questions" for group research. We chose Evacuation, The Homefront, The Blitz and Hitler, Germany and the Nazis. After a few weeks of research we gave group presentations and created our own display.



During this time we were also working on transforming our classroom. We started by making a "Blitz" wall, then we had an Evacuation scene - a steam train at a station platform with our photos in the carriage windows, we moved on to the kitchen (we blacked out our windows and displayed some work here), then our 1940's living room where we had to design and make appropriate wallpaper. We also used technology skills to create 3D objects to display in our living room and kitchen.






Throughout the topic we had several core writing tasks to do. These were - Declaration of War (newspaper report), and Evacuation sense poem, an Evacuee's letter home, an annotated diagram of an Anderson shelter, an imaginative story called Air Raid! and a war-time diary entry. All of our writing had to be of a high standard.



We were also given lots of challenges, task and research to do at home. These included finding a suitable evacuee costume to wear for our open evening, creating a 3D 1940's room and making a ration book.



Our open afternoon and evening were very successful and enjoyed by all! All pupils (and the teachers!) dressed in 1940s style clothing. These consisted of a play and performance in the hall - including some war-time songs- then a tour of our classrooms. We had made up several activities for our guests to do in the class and we showed off all of our tremendous work!



We have thoroughly enjoyed our Joyning the Learning topic and are very proud of everything we have achieved.