Author: Mrs Ferguson

This morning we had seven very welcome visitors; Sophia, Sean, Ella, Ellie, Ewan, Hamish and Amelia came to spend an hour with us. They will be our new Primary one pupils in August and we are very much looking forward to having them. Their visits will build up over the next few weeks so they will get to know us, and we’ll get to know them! By all accounts, they seemed to enjoy themselves – look out for some photos to follow next week when they are not quite so camera shy!

P4 pupils made the BIG step through to the P5-7 classroom too. They all headed outside to take part in a Maths Treasure Hunt. Working in teams, they were all very busy 2d and 3d shape spotting, calculating area, finding angles and working with numbers found in the environment.

A very busy morning for all!

New P1 update – check out the snaps of our youngest visitors to Leswalt Primary. We are really enjoying their Tuesday visits! Hope they are too.

As part of their Money topic, P1 have been running their playtime tuck-shop every day this week. This will run for this week and next. They have lots of yummy goodies for sale and, with just a little help from Mrs Smith, the P1 pupils are taking turns each day in manning their shop, taking orders, calculating amounts and giving change. Real-life maths and no mistake!

P2-6 love visiting the P1 tuck-shop and P1 seem to be relishing their jobs! They will use their hard-earned cash to treat themselves later in the term.

 

P1-4 were thrilled to welcome back Kathryn Purchase with her History Alive presentation of ‘Knights and Castles’. This was a perfect way to launch our Castles topic and the children were fascinated with all the interesting facts and gory detail.  We can’t wait for the chance to have Kathryn back again!

 

“ I can see that when the Vikings were defeated, lots of castles were built.” Fraser

“It was interesting to find out about all the different parts in a castle.” Breagh

“ Early castles (motte and bailey) were made of wood and I didn’t know this.” Luke

“The church was overall ruler in medieval times.” Malcolm

“The walls of a castle could sometimes be as thick as our classroom!” Struan

“I liked finding out about the weapons used in a siege.” Murray

 

P1-4 are learning about babies and life cycles in HWB. We had some special little visitors into class to help us learn about how to care for a baby.  Kerr (4 months) and Olivia (13 weeks) popped in to see us with their mums, Alexa and Sarah.  The girls and boys had the chance to ask the mummies lots of questions and will now be taking on the challenge of caring for our own class baby, Baby Annabelle.

“I’m not looking forward to changing a nappy. I don’t really want to do it!”  Noah

“I now know how to hold a baby.” Brandon

“Washing the baby might be tricky!” Cara

“I’m not very keen on getting up in the middle of the night!” Malcolm

The whole school travelled to Logan Gardens today for a ‘Lost Word’ experience.  After enjoying a yummy picnic lunch in the gardens, the children joined Kate, our ranger from the Royal Botanical Society of Edinburgh, who used poetry as exploration of our local natural environment and biodiversity in different ways.

The focus was on the book, The Lost Words, which is a collaborative project between writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris.  The Lost Words celebrates the relationship between language and the living world, and of nature’s power to spark the imagination. Robert Macfarlane has created a series of spell-poems – one for each lost word – while Jackie Morris, inspired by her lifelong passion for Britain’s landscapes and wildlife, has painted  watercolours and used gold leaf to take the viewer on a visual journey of nature.  Every school in Scotland will receive a copy of this book as a result of a Crowd Funding project.

The children went for a poetry walk around the garden where Kate shared examples of work describing nature using figurative language.  They were then set the challenge of using their senses to discover the nature around them, creating a word bank to share with the group of what they found.  The boys and girls also created natural sculpture artwork using foraged materials to represent their particular plant of study.

Everyone enjoyed a lovely afternoon in the sunshine!

 

 

P1-4 jumped on a bus to go and visit a bus on Wednesday afternoon! The Wild about Scotland double decker bus has been parked up at Stranraer Academy this week, and children were invited to hop aboard and find out a bit more about Scotland’s biodiversity. The children got to look through microscopes to view tiny animals in more detail, match bones and skulls to animals, look at antlers and feel different animal skins. It looks, and sounds like a whole lot of fun! What a lovely way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.

 

 

Primary 1-4 had a blast of a time on Tuesday morning when the team from Generation Science came to visit to explain a bit more about the sun, moon and stars in a really fun way!

They used giant models of the Earth, sun and moon to show how they orbit and explain the concept of day, night and time (days, months and years) in child-friendly speak.

Judging from the giggling which could be heard coming from the hall, and the enthusiastic pupils who were full of interesting facts after the show; this was a tremendous success!

“The suitcases were from different countries and we learnt what people across the world are doing at the one time!” explained Malcolm.

“I had to stick the crocodile on Africa!” Isla said.

Aidan felt that it was a “really fun way to find out how the earth and moon orbit the sun.”

What a fabulous morning; full of fun and learning! The perfect combination. Take a look at the photos below…

What an active morning P5-7 had at Green Valley today. All Stranraer Academy feeder schools were invited to take part in the annual cross country event. Primary 5 pupils were set the challenge of a 1/2 mile race, whilst P6 and 7s had a mile route to follow.

A fast-paced aerobic warm-up got everyone in the zone then it was time for the runs.

Well done to everyone for their fantastic effort; every Leswalt pupil gave it their all. There were some rather pink cheeks at the finish line! Phoebe won 2nd place in her group and received a medal – go Phoebe go!

This afternoon, the whole school headed outside into the Spring sunshine. The Eco-group’s recent meeting has discussed any litter issues and, as this month highlighted The Great British Clean-Up, we decided to do our bit for the community by doing a litter pick.

Boys and girls worked together in small groups to go on the hunt for rubbish which really should have been put in a bin. We’re delighted to say the playground was reasonably litter-free, so we headed off into the village, towards the park, picking up any rubbish as we went.

Some boys found a pair of gloves in the park which belonged to the Aldouran Wetland Watchers team, so we returned these to them. Soon our bin bags were rather full and so we headed back to school.

All of the rubbish picked up has been disposed of in our bins at school. The children worked very well together; being careful not to pick up any glass by themselves. They showed themselves to be very Responsible Citizens.

It was a nice way to spend an afternoon; making sure our wee village of Leswalt stays looking as lovely as it is!

Today two representatives from Scottish Power Energy Network came to visit our P5-7 class to give their insider information about Electricity Use.

The children were brimming with questions about how electricity gets from the power station to their homes, Scottish Power Energy Network’s use of renewable and non-renewable power sources, how can birds sit safely on power lines (!) and electrical safety questions.

The pupils looked at some examples of underground cables and the ones which we use in the home, recreated a series electricity circuit using themselves as conductors and a wooden spoon as an insulator, tried on some electrical safety clothing and took part in a quick-fire quiz at the end to check their listening skills.

It was a very interesting morning and came with one very important message: BE SAFE WHEN USING ELECTRICITY! Just because it cannot be seen, smelt or heard does not mean that it is harmless.

Many thanks to Kenny McKinstry and Ewan Cameron for coming into our class. We learned lots!