Into school, essentials done, some Maths work completed and we all dashed outside to enjoy a little snow fun!
Just look at all the cheery, chilly chops smiling in the photos below!
For many, it was the first ‘turkey and all the trimmings’ of the season as the pupils and staff of Leswalt Primary sat down to a delicious Christmas lunch today.
Primary 7 pupils set the tables, switched on the Christmas tunes to add to the party atmosphere and welcomed their classmates into the hall. Crackers were pulled, turkey was scoffed and we all enjoyed a fabulous plate of festive food. Judging by those clean plates and big smiles – the meal was a hit!
The festive tunes were playing, the home baking was ready on the tables; the tea was brewing; handmade Christmas crafts were ready to be sold – yes, Leswalt Primary were ready to welcome friends and family into their school for the afternoon!
And what a wonderful afternoon it was! The children sang their little hearts out giving two performances of their ‘sneak peek’ of show songs – to rapturous applause! P5-7 pupils were busy tour guides; selling crafts for school funds; helping out in the kitchen; welcoming guests into the building and helping out with P1-4 crafts. Busy little elves!
P1-4 were busy making fabulous ‘shaving foam’ snowmen pictures (very cool!) and Christmas tree fir cones!
All afternoon, family and friends streamed through our shiny new door to spend the afternoon with us – all giving generously to the Glasgow Children’s Hospital who are caring for our schoolfriend Emma. Over £300 was raised at the door for this fabulous cause.
The fabulous Parent Council ran a very successful Tombola stall – and photos were also taken of the fabulous playground equipment we now have too. Many thanks to all for their help with this. More of that to follow next week…
It was great to see Mr Brawls and Mrs B who came back to their roots and were amazed at the changes made to Leswalt Primary building!
Special mention must go to Faye Adams who had her own little fund-raising enterprise going. She made woolly hat decorations, which she had sold to family and friends over the last few weeks, baked pancakes and ran a lolly stall at the Open Afternoon – all of which raised £100 for the charity too! Well done Miss Adams (and family!)
Our visitors enjoyed a tour of our school; a chat with pupils and friends; a delicious afternoon tea; the chance to buy some original home-made Christmas decorations and entertainment from the pupils too!
It was so good to see past pupils who dropped by. One of whom even parked his moped in the school carpark and made the teachers feel dreadfully old! Thank you Ethan, Finlay, Kayleigh, Arden, Megan, Logan, Jack, Andrew, Gregor, Chloe, Joshua, Aidan, Malcolm, Auryn and Breagh – we really appreciated you all taking the time to come in and say hello! Our door is always open if you are free to pop in again.
We hope to see you all again on Wednesday 21st December (1:30pm and 7pm) for the school show! Put the date in your diaries…
This Friday (2nd December), we are opening our doors to family and friends to welcome them into our shiny, new school and share an afternoon of early Festive fun; all whilst fund-raising to support one of our school friends!
Come along between 1:30pm – 4pm to be in with a chance to purchase one of our homemade Christmas decorations; sit back with a cuppa and some delicious home-baking and enjoy a sneak peak of a few Christmas show songs with some entertainment from Leswalt pupils at 2:30pm!
Plus, you’ll be able to see our refurbished school and all the happy, smiling faces in it!
We have been busy elves for the last few weeks learning our show songs; making Christmas crafts to sell (cue lots of glitter!); designing posters to advertise our Open Afternoon; delivering leaflets around the village; making phone calls to invite special guests along; writing letters to ask for home-baking; making yummy chocolate crispies and organising our sales tables.
Lots of work but very worth it – as all donations collected at the door will be presented to Glasgow Children’s Hospital who are caring for and supporting one of Leswalt Primary pupils.
So, pop the date in your diaries!
Remember:
A cheery bunch lined up to join us at Leswalt Primary this morning – but it seems lots of pupils forgot to get dressed for school! Pjs, cuddly dressing gowns, snuggly hoodies and cosy slippers seemed to be the dress code – and that was just the teachers! There were also some fabulous storybook characters joining us too and all in the name of Children in Need.
To add to the Friday fun, everyone enjoyed some Tri-Golf with Stuart Fisher. At breaktime, Ms Stevenson and Rose (House Captain) painted Pudsey faces for a donation and Mrs Kyle and Thomas (House Captain) supervised the Pudsey biscuit decorating table.
To round-off Book Week Scotland, the pupils held a book swap so they’re all home with a new book to cuddle up with this weekend.
We raised over £140 for Children in Need – what a fabulous amount for a little school!
P5-7 have been enjoying the Glasgow Science Centre Powering the Future workshops over the last two terms and today we were delighted to welcome Megan and Aileen from GSC in person!
We enjoyed a busy morning of active learning finding out more about renewable energy sources and the ways in which Scotland is working towards a greener future.
Megan and Aileen were on hand to offer guidance, demonstrate some very cool experiments and answer questions.
P5-7 literally had a blast participating in this workshop this morning! HUGE thanks to the GSC for taking the time to come and visit us – greatly appreciated!
Take a look at the photos below…
The rain dried up and the sun was shining so Leswalt pupils donned their Winter cosies and wellies and headed to Aldouran Wetlands to meet members of Stranraer Rotary Club. They had invited us along to plant purple crocus bulbs as part of Rotary International’s Purple for Polio awareness campaign.
Polio is a disease which can cause paralysis. Fortunately there is a vaccination which is given to children and so it has akmost been eradicated worldwide. Almost – but not quite. The Purple 4 Polio campaign was introduced by Rotary International in 1985 as a way to remind us all of this awful disease and to help raise awareness towards fundraising. A life-changing vaccine for a child costs just 20p! But, in some countries, this isn’t readily available.
Our Leswalt pupils were welcomed by a team of Rotary volunteers led by Mr Gordon Wemyss. The helpers dug the holes, whilst the willing children followed behind planting the bulbs into the holes. A whopping 3000 crocus bulbs were planted!
So, keep your eyes peeled next Spring for a beautiful array of crocuses – and remember Purple 4 Polio!
After a break of quite sometime, during which we were ‘living’ at Kirkcolm whilst refurbishments took place, we have returned to school!
We took the opportunity to get out and about in the community as we headed up to Leswalt’s war memorial today to observe the 11am silence.
The last couple of days have involved in pupils learning about the significance of the poppy, how it came to be the Remembrance symbol, how charity money is used to help veterans and their families and the importance of showing respect to those who have served their countries.
The children enjoyed finding out more by watching and discussing a short animation from Poppyscotland, making their own poppy wreaths and designing posters, leaflets, PowerPoints to explain more about the story behind the poppy. Some pupils even made iMovies.
It is great to be back in our wee village and to be able to observe Remembrance Day in our community.
Shape Hunts, scavenger trails and some STEMazing kicked off our celebration of Maths Week Scotland!
P1-4 held their very own shape hunt in school with Mrs Warwick. They went on a 2D shape hunt around the school, armed with an ipad and a tally mark sheet. Lots of circles and squares, the odd rectangle and 1 hexagon! They also joined in with the Cuthbert Sees Double interactive story and activity. They listened to a story about Cuthbert the Crocodile finding he couldn’t double his numbers and was sad that he couldn’t join in with his friends game. His friends helped him learn ways to double so he could join in.  The pupils then had a shot at playing our own doubling game using dice. They even tried to make it harder by using more dice!
STEMazing involved the whole school getting together for a live lesson which was led by Anne Okafor from Cruden Construction. She is a construction planner and talked about the maths involved in her job. From the three Cs: being curious, creative and courageous to designing prototypes and carrying out Tests to Destruction! Working in groups; using 8 sheets of scrap paper, some tape and books as a weight – the pupils investigated which shape could bear more weight; building triangular prisms or cylinders to be used supports. It was agreed that the cylinders worked better as they have no corners (weak points) and the circular face of the cylinder is equal the whole way round so allows for equal weight distribution.
P5-7 headed off to DGC Stranraer Campus for a fabulous morning of maths/careers and further education awareness with their North Rhins friends. See the blog post especially dedicated to this for more details and some fabulous photos!
Back in class, pupils explored maths through science through maths with their data analyst hats on and the P5/6 team created an indoor maths trail for P1-4 to solve with a P7 buddy (Mrs F created a maths trail for P5/6 so they didn’t feel left out!)
This Friday afternoon fun maths activity rounded off a week of Maths Week Scotland!
By-passing secondary altogether, out intrepid team of maths superstars headed into the DGC Stranraer Campus today! On offer was an interactive morning of maths fun! And my oh my, it was a very a busy time with pupils involved in everything from (are you ready for quite a list…!)?
Phew! What an action-packed session. Huge thanks to the lecturers and students for being so accommodating and to Ms Whorlow for organising the whole event! It was absolutely fabulous!
We successfully applied for funding from the Edinburgh Mathematical Society (EMS) School Enrichment Fund to pay for transportation costs for all three schools from our trio to attend this great event. Thank you also to this organisation for making today’s learning experience possible.
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