Day 1

We have just about survived our first day! Been wet and cold but we’ve all braved it to do our activities. Group 1 successfully canoed this afternoon with a few losing control of their paddles and group 2 braved the rocks for some abseiling. Well done to everyone for facing their fears today! 

After hot showers we enjoyed meatballs for dinner with cake for dessert before heading outside for some blindfolded games. We then worked as a team and headed off into the forest, still blindfolded, whilst facing some obstacles along the way. Lots of scream could be heard around the centre but lots of fun was had by all! 

Successful day for us all and hopefully all sleeping by 10pm...maybe not! 

We are here...

All arrived safely in Lochgoilhead. We have some very hyper, excited children! Just had soup and rolls for lunch. We are about 

 to get ready for kayaking and rock climbing. 

First challenge has already been completed...making our beds! Oh dear!

Lochgoilhead Update

Hi everyone, 

Just a wee update on our upcoming trip! I spoke with the manager at lochgoilhead yesterday and thankfully, the weather up there hasn’t been as bad so the centre is fully functional and roads leading to it are clear. I’ve to phone again on Monday just to double check however they aren’t expecting any bad weather over next few days so looks like everything should be fine, which I’m sure you will all be delighted to hear after having a few extra snow days with your child :-) 

I will update the blog again on Monday once I have spoken to them. 

While we are there, the blog will be updated on a daily basis with pictures and news from your little darlings! 

Looking forward to it.

Mrs McBeth 

Glasgow Bus Tour

Primary 7 all enjoyed a tour of Glasgow today on the city sightseeing bus tour. We visited Celtic Park, Ibrox, Emirates Arena, People’s Palace, Glasgow Green, art gallery, Kelvingrove Park and lots of other great sites around Glasgow. We also went to Garngad which is where our novel, Divided City was based. Everyone had a good time, answered well when asked questions and enjoyed having some time out of school! 

International week

Primary 7 learned some traditional dances from around the world, as part of international week celebrations. We learned salsa, Greek dancing, hip hop, line dancing, Russian dancing and ended with some Beyoncé! I’m not sure if the stars of strictly need to worry just yet! 

Primary 7 - Term 3 Information

Happy new year to everyone!  I can't believe that we are in term 3 already.  As always, it is going to be another busy few weeks for us, especially as it is almost time for our residential trip to Lochgoilhead. 

LOCHGOILHEAD
We leave on Wednesday 7th March at 9.15am and come back on Friday 9th March.  The children are already very excited and have now written down their choices for who they would like to share a room with.  Mrs Barclay and I are open to bribes (in the form of chocolate!).  As a group, we have also decided on our activities.  Our daytime activities will be kayaking, raft building, Jacob's Ladder and rock climbing and our evening activities will be Night Line and Robot Wars.  Each of these activities looks and sounds like it will be a lot of fun!

LITERACY
Both primary 7 classes will be reading Divided City as their class novel this term.  As this novel is based in Glasgow, we will be looking at the history of the city as well as finding out about famous scots, landmarks and sporting culture.  This book focuses on a divide in Glasgow with the emphasis on religion and football.  We will also look at discrimination and sectarianism in other cultures and beliefs.  Our novel will link to our topic for this term which is Scotland.
As part of our novel study, the children will take part in a workshop with the charity 'Nil by Mouth' on Thursday 25th January.  This workshop educates children on sectarianism and the effects in Scotland.
We are very lucky to have the opportunity to spend a day on the Glasgow City Sightseeing bus which will collect us from the school on Thursday 22nd February and take us to some of the famous landmarks in Glasgow as well as the areas which are used in the setting of the story.  This was a hugely successful trip last year and the children are very excited about exploring their city.

MATHS
P7a will be working on fractions, decimals and percentages this term as well as being introduced to algebra.  P7b will revise some whole number concepts as well as learning about data handling and time.

OTHER INFO
Primary 7b will start swimming lessons on Thursday 18th January.  This will continue for 10 weeks.

Our Robert Burns competition will take place on Thursday 25th January.  Each class will put forward 3 children.  Primary 7a are learning 'Address to the toothache' and p7b are learning 'My love is like a red red rose'.  The winner from each class will then take part in a Burns competition in Knoxland Primary School.

FINALLY
Our senior children will be auditioning for their annual school show in the middle of term 3.  The show will take place at the end of May and therefore scripts will be distributed in the next few weeks to allow children time to prepare for their auditions and then learn their part in the lead up to the Easter holidays.  The children will be performing a comedy play called 'Cinderella and Rockerfella'.

Thank you!
Mrs McBeth 

P7a Christmas Elves

Our wee p7 elves busy in the Christmas workshop today making lots of nice crafts to sell at the Christmas Fayre next Friday (8th December 3pm-5pm).

Elf doors - £1.50

Christmas coasters - £1.50

Hope to see you all there! 

P7a 

Clydebank High Visit

Today we enjoyed our first visit to Clydebank High School. We took part in a literacy, numeracy and health lesson and it was lovely to meet the teachers and get to know some of the children from the other school. We had a great time and we are excited about our next visit.

Primary 7

Primary 7a Term 2 Update

Primary 7a had a very busy and very successful first term and we are sure that this will continue in term 2.  The children are approaching the year with a very positive attitude and this is creating a lovely atmosphere in our classroom.

We recently enjoyed some Judo lessons in school and it was fun to watch the children enjoying a new experience, although I am not sure if they were as pleased to be thrown around the mat.  However, some of the children did give the coach some serious competition!

 

The children have also participated in weekly swimming lessons at Clydebank Leisure Centre and it has been fantastic to watch the progress that they have all made in only 5 weeks.  They are very determined to do well and the staff have commented on the effort that they are putting into their lessons.

Last week, we enjoyed our final Halloween Party at primary school.  The children had gone to a lot of effort to ensure that they had fun or scary outfits.  They all had a great time!  We also used the Halloween theme for art and writing last week and I am extremely proud to say that the children produced excellent pieces of work for their writing assessments.  I am quite sure that they would be delighted to tell you about the progress that they have made!

We have another busy term ahead of us between now and Christmas (is it too early to mention that word?).  The children will be continuing with swimming lessons for the next 4 weeks, as well as taking part in cross country, netball, gaelic football and football tournaments.  

On Thursday 23rd November, primary 7 have been invited along to Clydebank High School for their first transition visit.  During the morning, they will all take part in a maths, literacy and health lesson.  The children are looking forward to this and I am sure that they will do a great job in representing Clydemuir Primary.

We have arranged for a member of staff from Lochgoilhead Outdoor Centre to come along to the school at 3.15pm on Tuesday 14th November, to talk to parents and the children who will be coming to Lochgoilhead next year.  This presentation will give you an insight into what will happen and what the children will be involved in during their 3 days away (and your 3 days of rest!) as well as giving you ideas of the clothing etc that the children are expected to take with them.  I hope to see you all there!

LITERACY

This term, our new class novel will be Kensuke's Kingdom.  The children will be encouraged to read aloud in class, as well as doing some independent reading at home and I would appreciate your help in supporting this.  We will use our novel to complete comprehension tasks as well as reciprocal reading activities and writing.

The children recently completed writing assessments and now have their own personalised targets for this term.  Each week, the children are encouraged to use these targets to help with their development in writing and they are enjoying having access to these.

NUMERACY

The children are continuing to enjoy a range of mental maths activities, which are done on a daily basis.  We use 50 Club, number of the day, bingo and we recently started doing a times table challenge which the children thoroughly enjoy.  We are also using websites such as Education City, Sumdog and Kahoot to reinforce new concepts taught in maths.  All of these are accessible outside of school and children all have their own logins and passwords to use these.  Maybe they could try them out at home and show you what they can do!

INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING

Our focus for learning this term is going to be on Food and Health and we are going to be looking at food packaging, the effects that the media and marketing can have and doing some research into the sugar content of some of our favourite food and drinks.

HOMEWORK

After discussions with the class, we have decided that each week we will have a different focus for our spelling homework and we will work on a 4 week rotation:

Week 1 - write words 3 times and complete an active task

Week 2 - write words 3 times and write 5 sentences

Week 3 - write words 3 times and write a short story using as many words as possible

Week 4 - write words 3 times

We also decided that the winners of our weekly table challenge would be given the opportunity to have a 'homework break' if they win.  I would still encourage the children in the winning group to practise their words for the weekly spelling test, however they do not need to do any other homework for that week!

I hope that this information has been useful for you and we would love to hear your comments about our blog.

Mrs McBeth & Primary 7a