Month: October 2019

Primary 7 enjoyed their first day at Stranraer Academy in the company of all the other Primary 7 pupils from the cluster.  The day had an enjoyable focus of Music, with members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra travelling down to Stranraer to conduct a workshop with all the pupils.

Our pupils were singing, dancing, playing games, composing and learning about the orchestra and their music in a fun filled day.  After lunch they were joined by older pupils from the Academy who came along to listen to the final performance from the musicians.

All returned to Primary, more familiar with Stranraer Academy and informed and entertained by the orchestra.

Erin wrote a short recount of their day.

P7 Trip to the Academy for RSNO

On the 29th of October 2019 P7 went to the Academy for a transition visit to see the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.  The P7s got there on bus with Kirkcolm P7 and Mrs Gaw.

Firstly we sang a song called Bella Mama, and then we listened to some pieces of music and discussed what it made us think about. Then we played a game called Hip Hop. Then we had break in the canteen. After break we listened to a piece called A Soldier’s Tale. We also broke up into groups and wrote our own lyrics to Forward.  Later on we had lunch and we got a bit lost! In the afternoon the S4, 5 and 6s came in and listened as well, then we played another game of Hip Hop. Finally, before we left we went to see Rachel (Mrs Baillie’s Rachel. We really enjoyed the musical experience!

I really enjoyed the visit I would definitely go again. I am really looking forward to my next transition.

Erin Jamieson

Huge thanks to Mr Drennan of Balgracie Farm and Isobel Milroy from RHET for inviting the P5/6 pupils from Kirkcolm, Portpatrick and Leswalt to the farm for a farm tour and question session on a beautifully chilly October morning.

Mr Drennan has lived/worked at Balgracie for over 46 years. The farm  is a dairy,beef, sheep and crop farm. Teamwork ensures all the jobs get done on the farm – it’s a very busy job! He works alongside two workers to keep the farm going and sometimes workers from nearby farms help one another out too. Isobel Milroy was on-hand to help us with some of the questions and guide us around. She also tested our listening skills with a ‘Million Pound Drop’ style quiz. This really got us thinking!

We saw the calves and heard about what they are fed and when. The calves must have their mother’s special colostrum milk in their first six hours of life as this contains special antibodies to help them be healthy. We saw where the cows are milked and Mr Drennan explained how this is done and where the milk is then stored. Milking is done twice daily; at 6am and 5pm and it tends to take about two and a half hours to do this. Once they are milked, the cow’s teats are dipped in a special anti-bacterial liquid which helps to kill off bacteria.The milk is collected from the cows at body temperature, cooled to about 16 degrees as it passes through the pipes then, once in the milk tank which holds 5000 litres of milk, it is cooled to below 3.5 degrees. The milk tanker collects the milk every 2nd day. At the moment, milk is sold for about 29p a litre – it is crazy to think we pay more for water! Mr Drennan’s milk is sold to Nestle and is used to make the chocolate covering for Kit Kats!

Mr Drennan talked about the animal’s passports and how important these are; they cannot be bought/sold without this paperwork. Tagging the animal gives it a unique reference number; each farm has a number too. This keeps a paper trail of every animal.

The cows have a shed where they sleep at night. Soon they will be brought in through the day too as it is becoming colder. The cows sleep in the shed between cubicle divisions on a rubber mat and sawdust. The shed is scraped and the muck falls to a cellar below. This is then pumped every two weeks to a slurry tank and then used on the fields. No waste!

We went into the shed which houses the hay, straw, cattle crush and some cows in for their ‘dry’ period before they are due to calve. Cows are brought in for this for the two months before the calf is due to be born. The scanner is actually visiting the farm tomorrow to scan 70 cows! This job will take all morning.

It was amazing to see just how much there is to do on a farm. Some of our pupils were able to talk about their own experiences too. It’s a busy time for farmers all year round. We made sure we cleaned our hands and welly boots thoroughly and the beginning and end of the visit – and again once we were back at school.

Getting a Kit Kat from Mr Drennan was an extra bonus at the end of our visit! Thank you!

Tesco have kindly donated lots of stationery to the school, after having a clear out in their shop. All of those pencils, Pritt sticks, folders and pads of paper will certainly be put to good use! A huge thanks must go to Tesco for their generosity. Have a keek at the photo below to see some of the goodies we were given!

The Kilmorie Cross

Yesterday P4-7 travelled to Kirkcolm Primary to enjoy a day of learning with them in the village hall – this was in conjunction with the Rhins of Galloway Coast Path Project. At first, we were told about the Rhins coastal path which is to be built over the over the next 2 years. Archaelogists are ready to start their careful examinations of the areas in which the paths will be created. In groups we went to visit the Kilmorie cross stone which is in Kirkcolm church yard. The stone has been there for, it is believed, about a 1000 years. The ‘monk’ explained that it told us the stories of the people living in the area at that time. On one side of the stone it had the Last Supper with the table held up by two drinking horns. And on the other side there was the story of Sigurd and the dragon. He was regarded as a Viking Superhero! We think people carved this stone and possibly added to it over the years – you had to look really closely to be able to spot the picture clues. There was a picture of Jesus on his cross. There were workshops to participate in:  rune writing, weapons and artefacts with Sven, blacksmithing, a settler’s game and a battle re-enactment. It is really cool to think these things were around all those years ago and we can still see them today! We all got a tshirt with the newly-launched Rhins Coastal Path Project logo on it – it’s a version of the Viking rune symbol for a person.

We had a great day with our friends from Kirkcolm. We learnt about our local area through fun activities! Thank you to the Rhins Coastal Path Project!

P6/7 Digital Leaders Leswalt Primary

(Chloe and Erin)

On Monday, we welcomed families and parents into school to join in on some Maths fun! The whole school was split into 6 mixed ability groups and worked their way around different stations, which incorporated a range of Maths skills. Each station was led by a P6/7 pupil who explained the task and helped the pupils.

The 6 different stations included: bingo where we practised addition/multiplication; Code ‘n’ Go Mouse, putting our coding skills to use to navigate the mouse to the block of cheese; ‘Shut the Box’ game which focused on addition; Sumdog where we got the chance to explore our new subscription; indoor games such as dominoes and Snakes & Ladders to practise counting; and Big Maths Learn-its to give parents a chance to compete against their child as well as the clock!

Thanks to everyone who came along and to the class teachers for setting this up. Everyone had a great afternoon joining in on some Maths fun – have a look at our pictures below!

 

What fabulous Friday afternoon fun! The McDougalls brought their brilliant show to our school! The children enjoyed a great afternoon of singing and dancing as they went on a ‘global adventure’ with Max and Auntie Aggie visiting Spain, France, China and Scotland! The songs used Spanish, French, Mandarin, Gaelic and Scots with lots of fun actions to go along with them. The songs had everyone joining in and dancing along.

HUGE thanks to Natasha (Kaiden and Joshua’s mum) for winning this show for the school through a Facebook competition. Lucky lucky Leswalt!

Lots of Maths Week fun has been on offer at Leswalt Primary this week!

P1-3 headed off to a fabulously-named Bubbly Maths Show this morning. Bubbles of all different sizes were created.

P4-7 pupils ventured out into the Autumnal sunshine to refresh their shape skills; spotting parallel lines, 2D shapes with more than 4 sides, angles, perpendicular lines and 3d shapes in their playground. After this quick recap of prior knowledge; they investigated Roman Numerals using twigs to represent our more commonly recognised numbers. We then set each other some Roman Numeral sum challenges which really got our application skills working!

The class headed back inside and resumed their Talk Partners’ Famous Mathematicians research task. The pupils used suggested websites to collate the who, what, when, where, why and how about celebrated mathematicians such as Alan Turing or Stephen Hawking. Some even went rather further back in history to look at Leonardo da Vinci; whilst Mrs F researched Pythagoras. We then brought all our information together to share with one another.

In the afternoon, P4-7 had their turn at the Bubbly Maths Show. They too enjoyed watching bubbles of all different sizes being made with the children working out the diameter of the bubble sphere. Attention was then turned to estimation skills using metres; calculating area and volume, and checking their estimates using metre ‘balloons’. Finally the pupils tried to work out how many children might fit inside a cubic metre which was created entirely out of balloons!

Busy times indeed!

Free resources to learn together

Leswalt  Primary is happy to support families to learn more about digital technologies.  Senior pupils are using Office 365 through Glow in school.  If you would like access to this software at home, it is available free to use through the children’s Glow accounts.  The children have added the ‘app’ tile (shown below)  to their launch pads to make it easy to locate.

Should you need to locate it for yourself, once your child has logged in, simply click on the black flag on the left hand side of the screen and type Microsoft into the search app box in the top right hand section of the screen.  This image can be enlarged  by clicking on it.

 

Free online tutorials are available from the Microsoft Training Centre at the following address:

https://support.office.com/en-gb/office-training-center

Click on each software icon to reveal instructional videos by task.

 

We hope this is useful for you.

# Successful learners together