Author: Mrs Ferguson

This afternoon, we had the pleasure of hopping aboard a bus and tootling around the shoreline to spend time with our friends at Kirkcolm Primary for our annual Inter-Schools Sports fun! 🏃🏻‍♀️☀️

Friends and family came to enjoy the sunshine and cheer us all on as we raced against one another on those traditional Sports Day races – flat race, egg and spoon, sack, skipping, distance and the relay! There were cheers a-plenty as we all gave the races our best. Stickers galore were handed out, water bottles guzzled and faces got pinker by the minute as everyone joined in together.

The loveliest aspect had to be the supportive atmosphere…how lovely to hear the chants of children as they cheered one another on. Just great to see such sportsmanship. 👏❤️

Well done each and every one of you! These pictures tell the story of a great afternoon…

Meta Skills – Integrity Imani, Adapting Aleksander, Feeling Felix

UNCRC – Articles 13 Sharing Thoughts Freely and 31 Rest, Play, Culture and Arts

 

 

As a finale to our fabulous Forest School experience, Richard joined us this morning and worked with us all to get a little fire going in the playground for us to toast marshmallows! Lucky us!

Recapping those all important safety rules first, every child had fun toasting at least 2 (some may have munched more!) marshmallows and dipping them in some melted chocolate too if they fancied! Staff felt it would be rude not to join in with such fun…

As Mondays go – this was a pretty fabulous one! Thank you Richard!

UNCRC Articles:

24 Health, Water, Food and Environment

29 Aims of Education

31 Rest, Play, Culture and Arts

Meta-Skills

Curiosity Carlos, Leading Li, Focusing Felix, Sense-making Samira, Integrity Imani, Collaborating Cora, Communicating Cate

It is not an exaggeration to claim that Leswalt Primary enjoyed possibly the best day ever on their school trip today!

We travelled in style with a return trip to Ayr on the train (thank you to Mr James Neil for organising this for us!); scored SO many strikes whilst ten pin bowling; darted about the Laser Tag like ultraviolet ninjas; munched the tastiest lunches washed down with a welcome refreshment; bounced happily around the park; devoured ice lollies on the beach (HUGE thanks to Beathan’s mum and dad for treating us to these!) and had the MOST fun ever on the beach playing with our friends and splashing in the sea! 🚝🍟🍦☀️🌊🏖️

Thank you must also go to some very kind residents of Church Grove who donated money to the school for all boys and girls to get an ince cream ! 

The weather was perfect, the activities were such fun and the company was the best you could hope for.

The happy photos below speak for themselves…

Quite literally, the best day out with the best people! 🥰

To round off a very busy Monday, we had our final week of Forest School with Richard and today’s mission was to build, start and cook over a fire!

Both classes banded together this afternoon so it was all hands on deck. Whilst Richard and Mrs Warwick helped children to get the fire going, the rest got to work on our stir fry prep – chopping and peeling vegetables  while we waited for the fire to get hot enough to cook the chicken 🔥🍗🥕🌶 As well as having the stir fry on offer, pupils also had stations where they could strip the bark from the wood and chop wood into kindling!🪓  

We all had the best time – enjoying the outdoors, being with our friends and enjoying food! 

Meta Skills 

Initiative Ivy

Curiosity Carlos

Sense-Making Samira

Communicating Cate

Articles

Article 6 – Life, Survival & Development

Article 17 – Access to Information

Article 24 – Health, Food, Water & Environment

 

What entertainment we all enjoyed this morning with Lighthouse Musicians superbly talented trio  of John, Helen and Gillian and treating us to a fabulous musical medley! ❤️

Playing well-known tunes such as Disney favourites on the violin and piano plus some weel-kent Scottish tunes on the bagpipes; our Leswalt Primary audience sat enthralled! We were even treated to some Taylor Swift! 🎹🎻 🎶🎼

It was good to chat and ask them questions about how and when they started to play musical instruments and the range of instruments they played too! Some pupils were just itching to get up and dance and sing – feet were tapping away! 

What a lovely start to the week… huge thanks to Lighthouse Musicians for joining us this morning!

UNCRC      Article 31 Rest, Play, Culture, Arts

Meta-Skills    Focusing Fergus, Curiosity Carlos, Integrity Imani, Feeling Felix

Today we donned our hi-viz vests, popped on a hard hat and met Ross and Lynsey from McTaggart Construction at the building site to hear more about the new housing development.

There are to be 56  houses built on the land and, at the moment, excavators, diggers and bulldozers are getting the land ready so the foundations can be put in place. This’ enabling phase’ is expected to take 6-12 weeks. The field they are building in is known as a ‘green field’ which means it hasn’t had anything built on it before ( a ‘brown field’ has had buildings which have been cleared to make way for new ones to be built). Ross told us that there are just under 1000 different jobs involved in the construction industry and lots of people need to work together to get from planning to the finished result!

As a treat, Ross and Lynsey had a bag of sweeties for each child – thank you!

We are looking forward to working with McTaggart Construction to find out more abut the building industry and watch the process of this housing development.

UNCRC 

27 – Food, clothing and a safe home

29 – Aims of Education

Meta-Skills

Focusing Fergus  Curiosity Carlos  Sense-making Samira

Another afternoon of the best outdoor fun today with Richard for week 5 of Forest School! 🌳
It was a little showery but we’re a hardy bunch. What is it they say…‘it’s not bad weather it’s just you’re not dressed for it!’ So kitted out in waterproof jackets, we were set for an hour of den building (plus the P6/7 pupils got a chance to learn how to use a saw responsibly!)

Interestingly, Isla unearthed a brown glass Domestos bottle down the burn which, we discovered after a quick Google search that this was in production from the late 1930s until the familiar blue plastic Domestos bottle came into production in 1961! We might get in touch with the local museum about her discovery!

We all had the best time. Initially we got a little waylaid spotting the many many tiny frogs hopping along the Wetland paths. Clearly the mild temperatures and damp conditions were paradise to them! 🐸

Richard set us all tasks to start creating our dens – he then took the older pupils to have a go at using a saw while he supervised and gave them top tips on how to use a saw safely. 🪚

Far too soon, it was time for us all to head back to school. We’ve just one more week of Forest School fun left. I think it’s safe to say that everyone has thoroughly enjoyed this experience! Thanks to Richard for leading these sessions. 😄

Meta-skills

Curiosity Carlos      Communicating Cate    Adapting Aleksander

Integrity Imani       Leading Li                        Collaborating Cora

UNCRC

13 sharing thoughts freely 🗣

28 access to education 🏫

24 health, water, food and environment 🌳

 

 

What fun we had yesterday afternoon over at Aldouran Wetlands with Richard Patchett!

The mission this week was to use natural materials to create art. P1-4 worked in groups building a nest, den and a tent. Jorgie designed a fabulous picture complete with a picture frame, tree and sunshine made from a yellow leaf! Love this creativity!

The P6/7 crew split into groups and all opted to build cosy dens. Teamwork was the order of the day with branches and leaves being used to support and cover the structures. All good fun – even the midges were being kind ! The smell of wild garlic was just amazing – pair that with the giggles of everyone as they had fun exploring and what is not to love?!

Look at the happy faces below 😀🌳

 

UNCRC

Article 24 – Health, Food, Water and Environment

Article 31 Rest, Play, Culture, Arts

Article 29 Aims of Education

Meta-Skills

Creativity Cassidy

Curiosity Carlos

Collaborating Cora

Communicating Cate

Integrity Imani

 

 

Sadly, yesterday was the final week of Bikeability for P6/7 – and they have LOVED every moment of these sessions!

Mike and Jo accompanied each group out and about on our village roads; putting their newly learnt skills to good use and enjoying our beautiful countryside. Each group managed to ride over 5 miles yesterday and all came back into school with a healthy glow on their face and slightly weary legs!

The support and infectious enthusiasm from Mike and Jo has been wonderful and the reason everyone has enjoyed these sessions so much! Such valuable skills to learn.

UNCRC Articles 24 Health, Food, Water, Environment

Article 31 Rest, Play, Culture, Arts

Meta Skills

Focusing Fergus

Integrity Imani

Initiative Ivy

Adapting Aleksander

Sense-making Samira

Curiosity Carlos

Collaborating Cora

 

Our hopes and prayers for the weather to hold out weren’t quite answered this afternoon – but did that stop us from having fun? Absolutely not!

Richard came in to do a session of Outdoor Based Games with the pupils and safe to say – they absolutely loved this! Both primaries played the same game where Richard had hidden some not so natural items amongst the woodland and bushes for us to find! There were 25 objects in total to look for and wow – pupils and their keen eyesight smashed it! 🥄🍴🍜🍌📱🧤🥽

Unfortunately for P5-7, it was P1-4 who hid their items and they did not hold back… Lots of fun and the rain didn’t hold us back one bit!

We have 3 more sessions with Richard to follow – let’s keep hoping for some sunshine! ☀

 

Meta Skills 

Initiative Ivy

Curiosity Carlos

Sense-Making Samira

Communicating Cate

Articles

Article 6 – Life, Survival & Development

Article 17 – Access to Information

Article 24 – Health, Food, Water & Environment