Primary 7V Class Blog

LAST CHRISTMAS POST!!

2006-12-16T13:57:00.000Z

Back on Track!

2006-12-14T23:12:00.000Z

It's been very quiet on the Blog recently ..... but we're back!

We're also at http://carronshore.edublogs.org/ - the class helped to choose the template. What do you think?

The videos didn't travel well and a lot of other things need fixing ..... we're working on it!

It would also be nice to stay here where we know how thing work! :-)

...... And our reply to our Dingwall friends will be posted soon (we got it wrong today!!)

Proverbs

2006-12-10T12:00:00.000Z

We've been learning about 'Proverbs' in class. Proverbs are well-known, wise sayings. Many are centuries old and are handed down from generation to generation. We made cartoon pictures to illustrate the proverb meanings.

Please leave your comments here

Famous .... by default!

2006-12-09T14:38:00.000Z

Mr Barrett from Priestsic6 Primary helped us put a great 'Google Earth' link on our blog when we first set it up ... and now he's been shortlisted for an Edublog Award for the best wiki! (I've now cast my vote)

I noticed that Carronshore Primary is mentioned on his wikispace (I'd asked him for help to put the link on our Blog and the link is still there .... so we're famous!).

The sad thing is that I ended up taking the link off our Blog because it was blocked at school and the children were never able to see it. I've resored it again and have put a link to it in the margin on the right as well ..... we'll need to ask the 'powers that be' to unblock it so that the pupils can enjoy it!!

Click the link here!
Google Earthed

The Titanic - A Report

2006-12-08T15:07:00.000Z

Yesterday in class, we learned about two types of accounts - first hand and reporter accounts. We read the two examples in our textbook then we found a partner. One partner was the person who was there and the other was the reporter. We made a 'Radio Broadcast'.

Try this link for a News Broadcast!

More to follow when we've found out more about the disaster!!

Idioms

2006-12-06T19:48:00.000Z

We learned about idioms in class this week and made cartoon examples to show the meanings. Laura helped us to put them on the Blog. We used 'Bubbleshare' to display them. Laura helps in our class each week. We like Laura!

Poems and Reports!

2006-12-05T19:53:00.000Z

Doesn't it make you feel good when you think you've been heard? Thank you Thomas! You explain our poem criteria very well! Link

Marc, thank you for your Report on our school ... First to complete it (and I agree that it is a great school to be in!) I'm really looking forward to reading the other finished reports!

Thank you too, to Laura, for all her help and hard work today ( see you next week) ... we'll work on getting the other 'Bubbleshare' pics displayed before your return!!

Please comment here!

A selection of our poems and 'Reports' Catch Up!

2006-12-04T17:52:00.000Z

Most of our poems are now in our Poetry Pages. Why not have a look and leave a comment? You can also find a selection of them here.

Today we listened to all the podcasts about 'How our School is Doing'. We made some notes and discussed what should be included in the final Reports. We are going to work with a writing partner in our computer suite to write the reports. We hope to do this tomorrow!!

Mrs Williamson Interview

2006-12-01T22:02:00.000Z

When we asked the adults in the school the 'How Are We Doing?' questions, all of them mentioned the fact that the corridors and areas were bright and welcoming. We decided to interview Mrs Williamson, our art teacher, to find out more about how she manages the art lessons with the whole school.

Writing Reports

2006-11-30T20:03:00.000Z

Today, P.C. Ward visited our school to tell us what is involved when writing a police report. He read us some notebook entries. A community policeman always carries a spare notebook because they write down lots of details.

The notebook entries are very important because they are used to write up the formal reports that are presented in court. We had lots of questions to ask P.C. Ward and we made a video. We'll put in on our blog soon. He gave us lots of advice about report writing.

'How is Our School Doing?' Questionnaires

2006-11-30T07:23:00.000Z

We are going to be writing Reports during this block. To help us write a report on how our school is doing, we interviewed some adults around the school today to hear their views. You can listen to our podcasts to hear the 'live' interviews which will help us write our final reports.

Mrs Nathaniel is a Parent and also a school employee. Thomas and Jamie interviewed her. You can hear the podcast by clicking this. link

Mrs Nairn, our school secretary, was interviewed by James and Jamie L. Click here to hear her views.

Mrs Sheerin, a primary 7 teacher, spoke to Lisa and Danni. The podcast can be found here.

Miss Buick is a student who is working with the primary 7's this term. Here are her thoughts on the school so far. She spoke to Chloe C and Kaylegh.

Mrs Webster, one of our school helpers, and Mrs Duff, our Support for Learning teacher gave their views as well. You can click on their podcast by following this link

We are going to gather together all the different views and write a class report on how our school is doing. The report will be available in our new Functional Writing spaces soon!!

We always enjoy reading the comments that are left on our Blog.
Please comment on this post by clicking on this link

Very Exciting Comments!

2006-11-29T20:57:00.000Z

Thank you for all the comments recently! Our visitor from the Sunday Times left this super comment on our old wikispace writing area - we've just found it. Thank you ... we'll keep in touch! link

There have also been comments from our friends in Dingwall Primary - they make great videos and we hope to learn from them!!

Thank you also to all at 5/6P AllStars in Australia - maybe we'll start debating too. They've given us plenty of advice to start us off!!

Kirklandneuk Primary have given us ideas for French lessons ... we gave the web address to our French teachers in school

................ to mention just a few!!!

Poem Interviews - Rescued after Deletion!!

2006-11-26T15:48:00.000Z

Friendship Poems - And Other News!

2006-11-26T12:39:00.000Z

We all wrote Friendship Cinquains in class this week. We took photos of our own poems and we are going to import them into our new 'Poem Pages'

We also have new Imaginative Writing Pages and we've copied and pasted our 'Magic Box' stories to there.

We are going to do the same with our Autobiographies by placing them in our new Personal Writing Pages

Soon we're going to be doing some Report Writing, based on our new 'Disasters' Environmental Studies Topic. You'll be able to read these in our new Functional Writing Pages !

Meanwhile, over in our Math Class Blog we've been experimenting again with our new digital video camera ...... Mrs V accidentally deleted our Poem videos from Google Video so they can no longer be viewed on this Blog - but they're still in the camera, so they'll be uploaded again soon!!

New Comment from Africa - update

2006-11-23T20:02:00.000Z

How exciting!!

Gregory posted this comment on our Blog all the way from Namibia (we saw the town on our 'geovisitors' link earlier today ..... welcome, Gregory!!)!

At 23 November, 2006, Anonymous said...
Hallo

My name is Gregory, I live in Namibia in the south west of Africa.The town is Khorixas.Around here we live in very hot temperatures ranging from 32 up 40 degrees.I saw your blog on the internet and I loved the project, as this is an excellent method in helping the younger ones to start reading and using computers.Through writing and the internet I have also recently made a contact with a top I.T professional in England called Neil.If you read more and more you get more and more brains P.S: keep this in mind,.......

GREGORY

I've been talking to Neil in Manchester. He lives with Steph and her mum has recently gone out to work in Namibia. She put Gregory in touch with Neil (my eldest son ..... the top I.T. professional!? :-) ) and we think that she gave Gregory our Blog address ..... what a small world.

Please leave a comment by clicking here

Book Fayre

2006-11-22T22:32:00.000Z

We had a great time looking at books at our recent 'Book Fayre'.

We looked at all the very many different types of books available ..... maybe some will help us in our writing?

We're going to try to write some poems tomorrow - we'll try to publish them on our 'Wikispaces' on Friday!!

Please comment here

Magic Box Stories

2006-11-18T12:52:00.000Z

We've moved on now from our 'Magic Box Stories'. We learned so much by working independently and with our writing partners, and by peer and self assessing our completed work. We each completed our own self-made '2 stars and a wish' comment sheets and the stories and comments were shared with the parents during our recent 'Parent Nights' on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

'Magic Box' Comments
Here are the comments we received about our 'Magic Box' stories. We think Harry posted all the way from Australia! Neil is Mrs V's (class teach) son, who logged onto our blog from Manchester. What a great comment about the 'Movie Trailer' interviews ........ and Happy Birthday today, Neil!!!

At 08 November, 2006, Harry said...
Magic Box... It sounds very interesting, but I was wondering what the story "Magic Box" is about?

At 08 November, 2006, p7 teach said...
Hello Harry,It's about whatever the pupils in my class want it to be about! Check out our writing spaces link if you like - the stories are all very different!

At 16 November, 2006, Neil said...
Hi! I'm really impressed with this creative writing idea. It's great how many different stories can come from the same title. I also like the interview - it's like a movie trailer to get you interested in the story.

You can also check out the comments made by our friends in Australia recently P5/6 Allstars !!

Please comment here

New Technology!! Video Deleted in Error!! But rescued later!!

2006-11-18T12:34:00.000Z

This week in class we've been experimenting with our new digital video camera. We decided to video some volunteers interviewing each other about our poetry lesson this week. We're hoping to write some poems of our own soon, so we began by looking at a variety of poems by different authors. We then chose a favourite poem from the collection and filled in an evaluation sheet. In the video clip on the link below, Nathan is interviewing Lisa (Adam, seen in the video on the previous post, is off playing football with the school team - he probably feels more comfortable on the football field, rather than in front of the camera!).

We're deciding whether it's best to post the videos directly on to our blog, or whether to create a link to our wikispace ........ please comment!!

Video Link

Discussing Poetry! Video Attempt!! Now deleted .. OOPS!!

2006-11-17T10:09:00.001Z

Parents' Night

2006-11-14T19:55:00.000Z

It's Parents' night tomorrow and we're going to invite some parents to help us make a podcast. We want them to give us their opinion of our Blog. Hopefully the quality of the sound will be good ...... we'll be using our 'matsui' mp3 players (the tesco ones don't have the same quality). Watch this space!!

'Magic Box' Evaluations

2006-11-10T19:07:00.000Z

In the 'P.I.T.', we've been busy peer and self assessing our Magic Box stories. Danni's
review of her own story is just great - she is so pleased with her effort (and so am I!). She wrote most of her story on paper first and then typed it up on her wikispace page. The only trouble is that her story is about 8 pages long, so she didn't have time to transfer it all .... but she'd love some comments on what she's made public so far!

I love the way that Lisa explains in her self-evaluation that, as she re-read her story, she tried to put herself in a 'geovisitor's' shoes ........ :) What a great idea!

Josh is really pleased with his effort. He says that he worked really hard with his writing partners to fix the spelling and punctuation to make it eaier for the reader to follow. He loves to play computer games, and has made some of his favourite characters 'come alive' in his story.

A Wikispace Experiment!

The History Button

Earlier today Jamie's story read like this. I made some minor 'secretarial' changes. It now looks like this. The changes are very small, but if Jamie was to click on his history tab on the top of his wikispace page, he'd be able to see some small changes (the odd capital letter replacing lower case, a missing comma added, etc.) to his great story.

Even More Math Class Action!

2006-11-09T18:30:00.000Z

Over in our Math Class Blog we've been very busy working away 'behind the scenes'. ...... and there's lots more planned. Why not take a look?

Meanwhile on this blog, we're ready to self assess our 'Magic Box' stories - check in again soon to have a read!

For P 7V - Update of 2 stars and 1 wish (comments included)!

2006-11-08T22:23:00.000Z

Here is one example of the children's self-made worksheets. They use these to assess their own, and each others' writing. They know to add 2 'star' comments (things that have been done well) and they then add a 'wish' for the future......how could the writing be even better?

07 November, 2006

Kim said .... Your writing assessment worksheet looks really interesting. What sort of "star" comments do you use? Do you think that this sort of assessment sheet helps you to focus on the areas you need to work on in your writing? How helpful/useful is it? I'm interested because my class need some help in "polishing" their writing, before they publish.Thanks

Reply

Hello Kim,

Thank you so much for visiting our blog .... and thank you for taking the time to write a comment. It's quite new for us to comment on each others' writing but we're trying to learn to appreciate the good things - the 'star qualities'.
We're also learning to comment on what can be improved, but are trying to not hurt others' feelings - the 'wish for the future'.
We want to encourage each other to write so we always have 2 stars and only 1 wish ... does this help answer your question?
We're not sure yet how much of a difference it will make ........

More Math Class Action ... and other exciting news!

2006-11-07T19:00:00.000Z

Over on the Math Class Blog we're off to a flying start! The group names have been chosen, the rules have been set, the problems are being solved and the podcasts are being made.

An exciting day for Carronshore Primary today ..... we received our very first visitor comment - and it was from Australia!! Maybe we could be Blog Pals! Read it below (I only received it after the p7v had left .... we've spent the afternoon tracking them on our 'geovisitors' link).

Hello Primary 7V,
Your writing assessment worksheet looks really interesting. What sort of "star" comments do you use? Do you think that this sort of assessment sheet helps you to focus on the areas you need to work on in your writing? How helpful/useful is it? I'm interested because my class need some help in "polishing" their writing, before they publish.Thanks

You'll need to scroll down to the photo of our '2 Stars and a Wish' worksheet to read the original.

We'll definately reply tomorrow!!

End of an Exciting Week!

2006-11-03T11:29:00.000Z

It's been a quiet week on the Blog - but there's plenty been happening behind the scenes! Over on the Math class blog the pupils are being given new group wikispaces so that they can use our new MP3 players (10 of them .... thank you, Mrs Livingstone!).

We've also been in touch briefly with some fabulous bloggers! Over at Priestsic Primary School, we learned how track our visitors. Check out our new More About Us Blog and click on the 'geovisitors' icon down in the right hand margin.

Over at Sandaig Otters Blog, they've given us a mention. We wish them luck with their new Media Room - it looks great.

Both these Blogs are FANTASTIC ..... we'll keep visiting them to catch up on their news.

Visit to Denny Primary School

2006-10-25T20:13:00.000Z

Today some of us visited Denny Primary School to learn how pupils there use Edward de Bono's 6 Thinking Hats. We would like to say a big thank you to Mrs McKenna for arranging the visit - a special thanks too, to primary 4 and Mrs Kirk for sharing their great ideas with us.

The children use the activities from their 'Thinking Wall' to sharpen up their brains ..... we tried the 'Sorter' game in our own class today - it was great fun!!

We have written a fuller account of how they use the 'Thinking Hats'. Follow this link to read our account and to see some pictures of their colourful 'hats' display.

We interviewed P4 teacher, Mrs Kirk, to find out more about how they use thinking hats in class and made a podcast to put on our class blog.

Click the link below to hear our podcast! ........ please give it a moment or two to load :)

http://primary7.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/denny+final.mp3

The Magic Box!!

2006-10-18T19:00:00.000Z

Well - here goes - another podcast attempt! Some of the pupils interviewed their classmates to hear about their plan (so far) for our new imaginative story writing ... The Magic Box.
http://primary7.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/magic+box3.mp3

Click the link to hear the interview......but be patient, please, because it takes a wee while to load.

A website link

2006-10-17T16:53:00.000Z

Have you ever wondered how is writing taught in school today? This is an interesting website with lots of advice for parents - try it out by clicking here.

2006-10-10T16:08:00.000Z

In class this term, we have been writing our Autobiographies. We used 'mindmaps' to help us plan some of the chapters. The picture here shows examples of these on our classroom wall. They helped us to organise the paragraphs in our writing. In our writing pages, some of us decided to use extracts from our autobiography to let you know a little bit about our hobbies, our families, important events in our lives and who our friends are. Rebecca has written all about her life so far, and Ryan has told us what his hopes are for the future - good luck Ryan!

2 Stars and a Wish

2006-10-07T18:33:00.000Z

2006-10-06T12:41:00.000Z

Here are the comments that Lisa put on her page:

"2 stars and a wish is , 2 good polite comments on their
piece of writing and a thing you think they should try and improve on. My class
use this on all our writing and work with a friend . The 2 stars and a wish idea
is great it helps you be truthful and honest with your friends and you won't
feel bad. My class have designed our own layout of 2 stars and a wish , we drew
2 stars and some to do with a wish and what we do is write in them. I think all
schools should use this idea .It will help the class co-operate together. We
also talk to the class about the persons work so it's like a little
presentation."

She also commented on some writing using '2 stars and a wish'

Jamie has started a fantastic thriller like story 'please read

Star 1~ Fantastic description and detail well done
Star 2~ Brilliant use of detailed words great start
My wish ~ FINISH IT (because its superb)

The Story so Far

2006-10-05T19:38:00.000Z

Well! We've made a start - but not without some hiccups! We discovered yesterday that the children can't call their link pages the same name. We called them all my stories, but we realised that Marc's writing was appearing in everyone's page and over-writing what they had just written!

Fortunately, Sean decided not to follow my intructions and called his page a slightly different name..... and his writing was still there ( not following my instructions earned him 10 marbles on this occasion!!! Thank you Sean).

Today some pupils left the 'blog' site without saving their work. Oh dear - a lot of typing disappeared into cyberspace!

However, I logged on tonight to have a look and was heartened by what I read. Check out the children's pages .... and a great big thank you to Lisa for her lovely comments about her classmates' writing! She is so right - keep going Jamie, Josh, Danni and Jeanan ... and everyone else!

Mrs V

Welcome

2006-09-30T17:43:00.000Z

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Our first Blog! I'm hoping to use this weblog to provide a link between the school, the pupils in my class and their parents. I hope that the parents will contribute by commenting on the children's work and that the pupils will comment on each others' work. Primary 7V have been learning to assess each others' writing in a way at is both constructive and non-offenive, using '2 stars and a wish' . . . . more information will follow!

Meanwhile, why don't you try out the problem solving link on the right? Choose level 2/3 to begin with. The solutions are published at the end of the month!

Any pupils want a challenge? Try out the other math link!

The third link is to Primary 7V Math class blog - under construction at the moment!