Author: Miss Douglas

Continuing our Book Week celebrations, Primary 1-7 ventured to Stranraer Library this morning for some book related fun. The library staff had planned a book scavenger hunt for us to enjoy with our friends from Kirkcolm. Afterwards we were let loose in the library’s collection, free to explore, wander and choose any book we like to cosy up and enjoy! 📖 📚

We enjoyed our packed lunches then braved the wet and wild walk to the Ryan Centre cinema to watch ‘The Wild Robot,’ a movie about Roz, a shipwrecked robot who ends up stranded on a remote island🤖.

A super way to spend a rainy day! ☔️😁

UNCRC Articles

Article 31 – Rest, play, culture and arts

Article 29 – Aims of education

Article 17 – Access to information

Meta Skills

Curiosity Carlos

Communicating Cate

As part of their healthy eating learning P1-4 made some delicious lentil soup! They planned the meal by thinking about the Eat Well Plate and trying to incorporate foods from each group into their recipe. With the help of Mrs Warwick and Mrs Kyle, they set to work, in groups, to carefully peel and chop their vegetables, putting into practice their safe food hygiene learning.

Once all the veg was prepped and ready to go, they added some stock and left the soup to boil away for the afternoon⏲️. On Wednesday morning, they enjoyed their healthy soup –  the perfect way to warm our tummies on a cold wet day!

Well done Primary 1-3!⭐️

UNCRC Articles

Article 24 – Health, water food and environment

Article 31- Rest, play, culture and arts

Meta Skills

Focussing Fergus

Creativity Cassidy

Collaborating Cora

Curiosity Carlos

Leading Li

This morning P4-7 ventured to Kirkcolm for a Dairy Framing workshop, hosted by Donna from ‘Smart STEMs’. First off, we were given the opportunity to show off our farming knowledge with a game of ‘Moo or false’ (get it!😏), which really got us thinking about some weird and wonderful dairy farming facts! Afterwards, we split into groups to design our very own Smart Stem to be used on a farm – which will then be entered into a competition to have them made into a real 3D printed model! We had some very interesting and impressive agri-tech designs, including drones which have cameras, feed the cows and even make music to encourage cows to produce a higher quantity and quality of milk🥛🐄 (you heard it here first). Next up.. Dragon’s den?!

A super opportunity to learn more about dairy farming and for a fun wee get together with friends! 🏫❤️

Today the whole school joined together in a celebration of Book Week Scotland this week to partake in some paired reading. 🦉Primary 1-3’s chose some of their favourites to read with their Primary 4-7 buddies! A super opportunity for the little ones to listen to a story and for the big ones to read some of their old favourites! 📖

In the afternoon, we buddied back up for a scavenger hunt! Around the playground, pupils hunted for some well-known cropped book covers! They worked together to work out what the full book cover might be. Miss Douglas and Mrs Mcknight chose their favourite books to be ‘star prizes’. Mrs McKnight’s favourite book is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ which was found by Colin and Noah and Miss Douglas’ favourite is ‘Room on the Broom’, which was found by Phoebe and Aria! Well done to everyone and our 4 star prize winners!🍫

Next Wednesday, we continue our Book Week celebrations by venturing to Stranraer library for some book fun and on Thursday P3-5 will be going to Sheuchan Primary with Miss Douglas for a BIG DOG Author visit!✍

Today P1-3 buddied up with Kirkcolm’s Primary 1-4 class for a trip to The Planetarium in Kircudbright, as part of their science learning this term! 👽🌍 When they arrived, they were greeted by the Planetraium staff, who were just as excited about space as us! They then enjoyed an interactive live show inside the  dark dome theatre- a dark room with a huge curved ceiling! When the lights dimmed, they were looking up the planets, moon and stars! ⭐📽 

Afterwards, they got  a feeling of what it would be like as an astronaut in space as they had a wee look around the exhibits – looking at planet models, meteorites and they even got to try a virtual reality headset they took them on a journey through the solar system. 👨‍🚀👩‍🚀🔭

A huge thank you to the Planetarium staff for such a fantastic trip! 🚀

Today  Primary 4-7 took part in their first Sound Trap input and wow- what a fantastic digital learning experience! 💻Pupils were working in partners to develop their sound engineering skills, with the guidance and help from Mr John Dinning and I, for one, am truly in awe at their DJing skills already🎶. Children can access and share their music at home on www.soundtrap.com

Watch this space for the next Calvin Harris!😆

Today some  witches, clowns, vampires, cats and even Kevin the Minion took part in the Parent Council’s first ever Halloween Hike around the Wetlands – and what an un-boo-lievable time we had! 👻🧛‍♂️🦇🙀

Our walking trail started in the Wetland’s outdoor classroom and took us up over the bridges, down the Kirkland hill and back to school (a big walk for little feet)! Along the way, we stopped at 5 check points and completed some spooky challenges – dancing the Monster Mash, mixing a cauldron and climbing through a Spider’s Web! 🕸🧟

Back at school, we were treated to some hot chocolate (with cream and marshmallows of course) and some sweets from the Parent Council! 

A huge big thank you to Lauren Paton and the volunteers to gave up their morning! 🕷🎃

This term, Primary 4-7 have been learning about renewable energy sources and ways we can save energy and make eco-friendly choices! After the October break, we will be learning about Sustainability and what we can do day-to-day for a better future! To make this big topics seem relevant to us in little Leswalt we had asked to visit the new housing development to find out how they make sustainable choices in their new land development. 🏘

This morning, we buddied up with our friends from Kirkcolm as well as site manager Ross and his colleague Sophie from McTaggart Construction and made our way across to the building site in our snazzy hi-vis vests! We were given a tour of the plot, where Ross explained all the adaptations they make to their houses to ensure sustainable living; from foam insulations, to wood identification trails to make sure they know exactly where the timber frames were grown.🌲🏘 ♻️

Afterwards. we invited Ross and Sophie back to Leswalt to show us how the experts do it and build some houses of our own! 🏡 We used cardboard boxes and MakeDo kits to build a sustainable house of our own and absolutely loved using the bolts and tools to do it! So much so, that McTaggart Construction have kindly offered to purchase for us to use in school! 🎁📦

*Disclaimer, the Leswalt housing will be much sturdier, and will include roofs

We had an absolutely super morning, and love every opportunity for the upper classes to get together for fun projects! A big thank you to Sophie and Ross from McTaggart Construction for taking the time to show us around the housing development and their very generous donation of the MakeDo kits for us to keep working on our building skills in school 🙂!