News from primary 5

This term got off to a brilliant start with our annual Scots Poetry recitation in celebration of Burns Day. The children did a fantastic job of learning and reciting their poems – quite a challenge for many, but all of them rose to the challenge and should be proud of their efforts.
Very quickly it was time for us to perform at The Fife Festival of Music. We sang three songs from Mary Poppins, and we received very positive feedback from the judges on our performance.
Our project this term on the Wars of Independence has been popular with the children. They have explored various aspects of medieval life, with most children concluding that life wasn’t very pleasant or easy in these days – even if you were rich. We also studied key events and people of that time. Our trip to Bannockburn was an excellent way of bringing the battle to life and the children were very excited to take part in their own interactive version of the battle learning about the consequences of decisions they made.
In ICT we are in the process of creating our own 3D animations of the Wars of Independence and have been designing and creating scenery and characters ready to start filming soon. Braveheart eat your heart out.
A visit from the outreach team from The Scottish Parliament helped us understand how our country is run today. The class were very engaged in creating manifestos, debating issues and voting. This allowed us to compare how the country is run today with how it was run in medieval times.
In numeracy our big focus has been on extending our skills and strategies for multiplication, division and fractions. Division proved a very big challenge for many, but with perseverance and a positive attitude we are much more confidently dividing. Numeracy this term has highlighted the importance of ‘knowing’ our times tables, so please encourage your child to practise this at home.
In literacy we have been enjoying our class novel The Nowhere Emporium, and we have had lots of good discussions based around this text. It also provided a focus for our imaginative writing this term where we have been exploring how to create a setting and develop characters through the use of descriptive vocabulary including similes and metaphors.
In science we have been learning about electrical circuits and can now build simple, parallel and series circuits. We even tried lighting LED bulbs using potato power – some more successfully than others. To consolidate our learning we have been creating ‘Wigglebots’ – ask your child for an explanation!
As you can see it has been a very busy term in primary 5, but lots of fun too.  I hope you have a lovely, relaxing holiday with your families.
Mrs Haddow