Pupil of the Term!

Today we had a whole school assembly where we awarded certificates for Pupil of the Term. This term in P4 the winner was Sophie and in P5 the winner was Isabella. Congratulations to both of them!!

Personal Project!

As you all know, this term P4/5 have been working independently on their own personal project. We have been so pleased by the results! The children have obviously spent a lot of their own time word processing, writing, drawing and researching their material for their projects and the results have been excellent!
Mrs Speirs looked at them all and spoke to all of P4/5 today to highlight the aspects of each project that had been particularly well done.
It would be unfair to pick a winner as all the projects were so different and each child was awarded a brick for their house. In addition the following projects were also awarded an extra brick by Mrs Speirs; Alexander, Isabella, Sophie and Benjamin.
Well done to all the children and many thanks to all the parents who assisted them!


Mr J :)

A Christmas Story

Last night was the first night of our Christmas play for 2009. It was a great evening and very much enjoyed by the 200+ audience that came to watch. The children were all super actors and actresses and played their parts so well. We are very proud of their performance and I'm sure all the parents are too!
Tonight is the final night and we look forward to another great performance.


Mr J :)

Maths Assessments

I can use addition and subtraction when solving problems, making best use of the mental strategies and written skills I have developed.

Today in P4/5 we are busy with maths assessments! We've spent much of the start of this year exploring numbers and looking at addition and subtraction. We have been using addition and subtraction to solve maths problems in various contexts and looked at mental and written methods of adding and subtracting numbers.

Today we are completing some assessment activities to prove the skills we have learned.

Mr J :)

Choir Singing in Largs

Last Wednesday night, the school's Senior Choir and some children from the Primary School sang at Brisbane Evangelical Church.

Some of the children were from Primary 4/5 and, as the youngest members of the choir they sang exceptionally well. All the people who came to watch us were delighted with the performance and the evening raised £250 for school funds.

The choir performed five pieces, all very different. The whole group sang brilliantly and were an asset to the school. The church congregation and friends were joined by lots of our own parents- thank you to everyone who supported us! Here's a snippet from the last piece the choir sang: Well done everyone!

Pupil of the Week!

Pupil of the week for this week was Sophie! Sophie has worked very hard at all her maths and has been particularly concentrating on her spelling.

Well done Sophie!

Personal Project Date

'I can select ideas and relevant information, organise these in a logical sequence and use words which will be interesting and/or useful to others.'

On Friday I will be collecting in the remaining personal projects from P4/5. This project has been very well done by all the children and they have enjoyed the freedom to choose their subject and the lack of constraint. They have produced many different types of project and will each receive feedback on their results.
Big congratulations to all and I look forward to reading them!

Mr J :)

Tile Painting 2 with Crafty Cards

'I have the opportunity to choose and explore a range of media and technologies to create images and objects, discovering their suitability for specific tasks.'

We have been completing our tile painting with Isobel and Lydia from Crafty Cards and Ceramics. We used a tile to experiment with different techniques from 'impressionist' style lilies to using tiny dots to create our own interpretations of Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' and today we looked at aboriginal art. It has been a great opportunity to look at different media and explore a range of techniques. Some of the tiles may even end up as Christmas presents - or on a bathroom wall!

Pupil of the Week!

'I can recognise achievement by discussing my thoughts and feelings and giving and accepting feedback.'

Pupil of the week for P4/5 this week is Benjamin. He has been working really hard to finish all his work and making good progress. Well done Benjamin!

'I was amazed to be Pupil of the Week this week. I felt happy as soon as she said my name. I think I am Pupil of the Week because I have been working hard and finishing my work. My mum and dad were amazed!'

Benjamin

Story Writing

'I can use what I learn to create my own stories... with interesting structures, characters and settings.'

P4/5 have been beginning to look at creating stories looking at characters, setting and plot. In groups we talked about our characters and got an idea what they were like. We also used different settings to begin our story. We will be looking more closely at each of these areas after Christmas but here are three of our first stories. They show that we've made a good start!



There was a policeman called Jack Chatterbox. There was also a spy
called Daria Atkinson. She was also a famous singer. The policeman was
bad. He lived in a castle called Darken Castle. He lived with his
gang.
Daria was 20. She lived in a house at number 90 Copper Street. It was
light in her house.It was 25 days til Christmas. She decided to have
eggs for tea. She cracked an egg and turned on the cooker. She went
into the warm living room and sat down. She turned on the telly. She
put it onto Channel 7 which was the news. It said:
'There is a murderer in our midst, we hope a spy is watching' She
turned it off and jumped into her car. She had a quest to go on. Daria
stopped the car at a corner and opened the newspaper.
Meanwhile, the murderer was in a house. It was a rich mans house. He
took out his knife and looked for the little boys room. He found it.
He grabbed his knife tight and stabbed the little boy.
Daria started her car again. She drove up a hill to the castle. By now
the murderer was back at home. He wiped the blood from his knife and
hid it under a loose floorboard. He went downstairs and into the
kitchen for tea. As he turned on the cooker he heard footsteps going
up the stairs. He followed them. They went into his bedroom and on
into the attic, to the bathroom...



Sophie




The girl screamed as the door slammed she was locked in the dungeon of the castle. It was dark and cold and scary. People had died there. Far away superman was watching TV. Suddenly there was a newsflash.
“Today Daria MacLean the famous singer has been taken and held by Red Warriors. she is being held in the dungeon of their evil castle. Superman, if you are watching this please help this little girl.”
In a flash Superman jumped up ripped off his shirt and was ready to fly. He was in the castle and he found the girl and kicked the door down and saved the girl and got her home to her mum and dad.



Arron



One day in the jungle an old man lived there. He had a wife called Mary. They were a happy couple together but Igor was a person who is a secret agent in a jungle who gets bad guys.
“Ring ring ring ring,” the phone went.
"Hello Igor here".
"Mr.Igor you have a misson".
"I am on my way" said Igor.
Igor went to his secret house and the radio said the bad guy is called Gino he is trying to get money off the poor. He has a house here in Tropicone island. I want you get to the bottom of this and when you catch him, take his money and take it back to the poor. When you are finished with him take him to the jail in the island.That very same day Igor was trying to find Gino he had a knife so he can chop through the bushes and leaves BUT! he spotted Gino’s secret house and his wife Gabriella was there. He sneaked into his back yard but guards were there.
“Oops,” said Igor then needed to go back to the front door. It was 3'oclock in the afternoon but Igor opened Gino’s door and saw him. Igor got his handcuffs out and got him.
“GOTCHA!” said Igor. Gino was arrested they sneaked out and they went to the secret jail . Igor got the money back to the poor.


Alexander

Multiplication Fun!

'I can use ... multiplication... when solving problems, making best use of the mental strategies and written skills I have developed.'

This term Primary 4/5 have moved on to look at multiplying in our maths. We have been looking at the language of multiplication and ways of writing multiplication sums. We have been working on knowing our tables and this has come in handy with our multiplication problems.

Trips - January to March 2010!

Next term we have a very exciting programme of out of school activities lined up in P4/5. In P.E the children will be extending their skills in ice skating with classes at the Waterfront every Friday. In addition there are some weeks where we have additional trips booked on Tuesdays to supplement classwork in a variety of curricular areas. I will post these again on the blog in January but here are some dates to look forward to:

12th Jan - Degas's Art at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow
19th Jan - Looking at Endangered Species at Kelvingrove, Glasgow
2nd Feb - 2D-3D workshop at the Gallery of Modern Art
9th Feb - Life in Ancient Greece at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow
23rd Feb - Painting People workshop at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

Already it promises to be an exciting term, we will be studying the impact of life in Ancient Greece on us in 2010, looking at birds and life cycles in science and continuing to look at art in various forms. Make sure you rest over Christmas - you'll need it!


Mr J :)

Tile Painting with Crafty Cards

Today in P4/5 we had the first of two visits from the ladies of Crafty Cards and Ceramics. They came to the class to do some tile painitng with us. First we looked at the impressionist style of Monet and painted a tile with waterlilies. After these were done we moved onto painting with tiny dots and recreated Van Gogh's classic 'Starry Night' image on our tiles.
The children absolutely loved the chance to experiment with different ways of using paint and were all very pleased with the results. You never know, perhaps some parents and relatives may be lucky enough to get one for Christmas!
Here is a small time lapse video of our happy morning of tile painting. many thanks to Lydia and her mum!



Mr J :)

Pupil of the Week!

Congratulations this week in P4/5 to Cameron who is this week's Pupil of the Week. Cameron has been working exceptionally hard and has been sent to show off his work to Mrs Speirs on two occasions this week. He has won bricks on the house wall for his language work and for his singing and generally had a great week. Well done Cameron!



Mr J :)

'Please Sir, My Dog Ate My Homework!'

Benjamin came to school with the classic homework excuse today, only it wasn't an excuse! His dog really did eat his homework jotter! 'Leo' - a goldendoodle, was obviously hungry! Luckily she snacked on the first few pages and not work from last night!
It was such a classic excuse , we had to put it on the blog!

Mr J :)

Kelvingrove Still Life!

Today Primary 4/5 visited the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow for a workshop on still life painting. We looked at some great examples by some very famous (mainly French) artists and then found our way downstairs to the education suite where we created our own still life pictures using a variety of media.
We looked at principles that we had begun last week with Mr MacKenzie-Smith and some of the pictures produced were great.
Well done P4/5.

Christmas Comes Early in P4/5

This afternoon in P4/5 we decided to put up the class Christmas tree. Yes, it's still November but it will be less than 4 weeks before we are thinking of taking it down again for another year so we put it up today. The children had all worked very hard at maths and language all morning so it was nice to be able to relax at the end of the day and put up the tree. Any parents coming to the class in the next week or two far parent interviews can see it in all it's beauty!!

Trip Tomorrow

Tomorrow P4/5 are going on a trip to Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow where we will be doing a workshop on still life drawing. This should be great after all the input we have had from Graham MacKenzie-Smith over the past two weeks.
The children should wear trip uniform and bring a packed lunch.
Can't wait!!

Mr J :)

Arron - Pupil of the Week!!

Congratulations to Arron who was Pupil of the Week for last week, it's taken a while to get up on the blog but hearty congratulations to Arron who has been working very hard in all his subjects.
Well done Arron!

Secret Santa!!

Today we broke the news about our 'Secret Santa' plans for Primary 4/5! Each of the children has picked a name of another child in the class at random from a tin. The idea is that they keep the identity of the person they are buying a present for secret from everyone (except Mum and Dad!). The presents should cost NO MORE THAN £3.00. They should be wrapped and handed in sometime before the last week of term and should have a label which reads as follows: 'To: (recipients name) Merry Christmas from P4/5'
We will gather the presents under our class tree and open the on Monday 21st December. It will be a nice reward after the children have worked so hard, especially with the play being performed on Thursday and Friday 17th/18th December.
Happy present hunting!


Mr J :)

Pupil of the Week!

Pupil of the week goes to a girl who has worked very hard to win it! Isabella has been working so hard in class, she obviously knows that parents evening is coming up! :)
Well done Isabella!

Art Masterclass 2 - Painting!

Today we had a visit from Graham McKenzie-Smith for the second of our art masterclasses. Last week we were looking at drawing techniques and this week we were moving onto painting!
We began by talking about foreground and background. we prepared a backdrop for our painting by dividing a page into two and painting it two contrasting colours to make the background and foreground clear.
We then did a sketch of the still life in front of us remembering some of the drawing techniques from last week. After this was finished we used watecolours to paint our drawing. We finished them off with black fineline pens and stuck our drawings onto our prepared backgrounds.
We were all delighted by what we had managed to produce!

It was fun!
Isabella
I thought it was cool, I was surprised how good mine was.
Courtney
It was awesome, it had a pirate ship in it!
Alex



It was great fun, I liked my picture
Emily
It was so fun and I liked the pirate ship!
Steven
I thought my picture came out great and it was really fun!
Kai
I liked painting because you can get messy!
Benjamin



My favourite thing to paint was the wooden ship
Cameron
I loved it.
Sophie
I really enjoyed painting, it was great fun!
Isabelle
I liked using watercolours.
Arron



It was spectacular, arty and messy!
Alexander
I cant wait to do art again!
Robert
It was incredible, we got to try new techniques.
Cayman
I really enjoyed myself and I was surprised how good my painting was!
Toby
It was really fun, cant wait to do it again!
Evan

Hard Working P4/5

This morning the children in P4/5 were working extremely hard. We were completing a spelling task looking at various letter patterns and the sounds they make in various words. Everyone was working very hard after a restful weekend!

Mr J :)

Tempest Photographers

On Monday 16th November we will be having Tempest Photographers in the school. Could all P4/5 please come in FORMAL uniform. They do not need to bring trip uniform with them as it will not be necessary for Monday's activities.
Many thanks

Mr J :)

Art Start!

Today we had our first art 'masterclass' from Graham McKenzie-Smith. Graham is a local artist and photographer. He is also the father of Katherine, in P2. You can learn more about Graham and his art by visiting his website.

We asked Graham to come along and run two sessions for us, the first, this week was on observational drawing tips and techniques.
we began by doing some quick sketches and then learned about drawing what we see and not what we know is there. We also looked at scale and ways of filling the space. Graham told us how to break complicated objects down into basic shapes to help our drawing. The difference in our drawing from the start to the end of the session was impressive. Next week we will be looking at painting techniques.

Pupil of the Week

Pupil of the week in P4/5 for this week has been Benjamin Davy. Benjamin has worked extremely hard at a number of recent assessment tasks and also did very well in our first art trip on Tuesday. Well done Ben!



This week is also a first because all the primary classes in Cedars School had boys for pupil of the week! Well done to all the hard working boys this week!


Mr J :)

Becoming Artists - 1

Today we took our first step in our exciting new art programme for this term. We went to the Maclean Museum just round from the school this afternoon and did some observational drawing of some of the exhibits there.
These drawings will form a baseline assessment for our art this term and we'll hopefully be able to see a great improvement after our programme of masterclasses and workshops.

Watch this space for some amazing art!


Mr J :)

Where Were You? Display

We've just finished our 'Where Were You?' display on the big wall outside Miss Speirs room. We used the giant spaceman we painted and added some of our acrostic 'Space' poems to complete the wall. The display asks people if they can remember where they were in July 1969 when we landed on the moon.
If you were alive and can remember - please post a comment here to tell us where you were on the night Neil Armstrong made his famous 'small step'!


Mr J :) and P4/5