Author: Mrs Ferguson

Children in Need 2019

P1-3 were given the responsibility for this year’s fundraising efforts.  The main aim was to beat the previous total of £258 whilst at the same time, have lots of fun.  After much brainstorming, the children voted on their favourite fundraising activities and set to work.

The quiz proved to be an amazing success, raising a grand total of £375 alone!  Wowsers!!  The winning family, selling an astonishing £76 worth of quizzes, were the Clark Family!  The boy’s prize for being top sellers is the chance to take charge of the school for an afternoon and become Head Teacher and Depute Head – wish us luck!  The winner of the actual quiz itself was Mr Angus Brown! This lucky winner has won a Pudsey Wristband and a set of Pudsey Ears.

We also had a successful Bring and Buy Sale.  Not only did the parents get the chance to clear out old and unwanted toys before Christmas, the girls and boys got the chance to buy some new goodies!  All remaining items will now be donated to the Cancer Research shop in town.

The girls and boys also got to come into school for the day dressed in their pyjamas, and bring their favourite teddy and a pillow too.  In the afternoon we snuggled down and enjoyed cookies (kindly donated by the McGregor family) and hot chocolate.  We were also delighted to welcome Renita Boyle to school to entertain the team with a bedtime story.

Other daftness on the day included face painting (thank you P7 girls!) and a marshmallow competition for the teachers…who could fit the most in their mouth?? Some controversy there – was it Mrs McKnight? Or Mrs Baillie? In the end, Mrs Ferguson, Mrs Baillie and Mrs McKnight all rook one for the team and skipped to the shop and back (a forfeit decided by the P1-3 class!), whilst the boys and girls stood at the school fence and cheered them on!

Amazing effort from all the girls and boys and on the day we raised an incredible £568 so far – with the final total yet to be announced! Wow!  Thank you to all the parents for supporting this too!  What a team we have at Leswalt Primary!

 

 

Today we welcomed Mr Kerr back into our class to lead our Spanish lesson. We have been working on counting to 20, days of the week, months of the year, colours and food.

Every morning in class, we get our whiteboards and have a shot at writing the date in French and Spanish – and we’re getting really good at this! We’ve noticed some similarities between the two languages too; all helpful when learning different languages.

Songs are really helpful when learning – we’ve found lots to help us learn new vocabulary! They’re fun to do too!

Today we took our Maths lesson outside! We have been doing some work on finding percentages; 10% and 50% with everyone, with some people working on some even more complicated percentage work!

Mrs Ferguson had set up a quiz with 10 questions which involved using clues in the village; doing some mental calculations and working out the % required. We worked with our Talk Partners to do this; and we all started at a different question too.

We also popped into the shop to tell Kim what we were up to. She told us how percentages are used in the shop too; for special offers and ‘money off’ deals.

Back in class, we compared answers and all agreed it had been a fun and different Maths session today!

 

OOOOOH! If you were to pop into Leswalt Primary this afternoon, you might have got a bit of a fright! From witches to Egyptians; Batgirl to Cruella de Vil, vampires to zombie brides…. there wasn’t a Leswalt Primary pupil in sight!

This party was organised by Phoebe and Auryn the House Captains – and what a wonderful job they did of it!

The costume winners were:

P1 – Colin

P2 – Ela

P3 – Kaiden

P4 – Alexander

P5 – Breagh

P6 – Andrew

P7 – Auryn

The pupils enjoyed a game of Tramp’s Tea-party, followed by ‘Pin the Stem on the Pumpkin’. There was lots of giggling as they played Pumpkin Bumps, followed by a game of Scary Corners.

Finally, everyone enjoyed some cool disco-dancing and had the chance to ‘Dook for Apples’ if they wanted a shot – there were a few wet faces!

Joshua, Kaiden and their mum Natasha had very kindly made up Halloween goody bags for every pupil, so these were handed out as everyone was leaving.

What a wonderful afternoon! Thanks Auryn and Phoebe!

 

 

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!

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)

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!

P1-3 enjoyed a fabulous time at the Wigtown Book Festival today! The author of One Button Benny, Alan Windram, had the boys and girls (and adults!) up dancing and singing at what has been hailed as “the BEST Wigtown Book Festival yet!”

Ellie and Ela formed a new girl band ‘El’ and wowed us with their performance!

A great time was had by all! Many thanks to Sue Caunce for accompanying us.

That’s the Book Festival kicked off for another 10 days of literary fun this year. Go and check it out!

Today, P.C. Wilson visited P4-7 to give them an insight into her job as a member of the Emergency Services. The pupils heard about a normal day in the life of a police officer (there really is no normal day!)

P.C. Wilson explained that the main aims of the Police force are to guard, watch and patrol. They work to ensure communities are kept safe. Our area has a Road Traffic Unit to deal with accidents, speeding and any other vehicle issues and a Port Unit which deals people’s safety when going on/off the boat.

The youth section of Police Scotland (P.S.Y.V.) do lots of work locally and this is open to children from the age of 13.

She reminded them of the emergency number 999 and the non-emergency number 101 and the times when each would be used.

The children asked lots of great questions. This visit really helped their HWB understanding of Emergency Services.