Author: Miss Douglas

Eco Ideas with Caitlin♻️🌳

We absolutely love when parents come in to school to share their ideas and experiences with us.😍 This afternoon Environmental Safety Officer, Caitlin Wilson (AKA Beathan’s Mummy) visited P4-7 to talk to us about ‘sustainability’ and help us with our project; to design and build a sustainable school.💧🏫♻️
 
When it comes to ‘Sustainability’, Caitlin told us that the word can mean lots of different things to different people and for kids, it can be a tricky concept to understand.🤔 She explained that ‘sustainability’ should be best thought of in 3 ways; protect the environment, make it nice and make it resilient. We loved this definition!😍
Caitlin was just the perfect person to come in and help with our ‘sustainable school’ project because, as part of her University degree, she focussed on making Leswalt School more sustainable, and what practices and renewables could be installed. She gave us some super recommendations and sparked some new ideas!💡
Simple, yet effective, she suggested that our sustainable school should have lots of trees. Trees are of course important for producing oxygen, but also to help with wildlife and give home to animals. Caitlin also recommended that a ‘micro hydro’ would be a super renewable source for Leswalt School to make use of the burn, which runs along the back of the school. She showed us a super cool website, called Neso, which shows us the main sources of energy production in our local area.
We saw that today’s lovely sunny weather meant that it was the perfect day for solar panels!☀️She also suggested that if we were to install a windmill, up on a hill, wind power would be another option to power our school too!🌬️
The P4-7’s had some super questions for Caitlin and were very keen to find out more about her job and her interests in the environment. A HUGE big thank you to Caitlin for coming to visit us this afternoon and giving us some great ideas for our project! 🏫🙂
UNCRC Articles 
Article 12 – Respect for children’s views
Article 12 – Health and Health Services
Article 28 – Right to Education
Meta Skills
Curiosity Carlos
Sense-making  Samira
Focusing Fergus

Getting to the Root of It – Taking Maths Outside!☀️🌳

This afternoon, P4-7 visited the Wetlands to measure the height of some trees. As part of their angles work in maths this term, we have been learning how to use a protractor to measure angles. This afternoon, we created our own tree measuring protractors, which we were able to use to measure the height of a tree. 🙂

We used half a paper plate, a straw and string to build our own special protractors and marked on  0°, +45° and -45°, and there we had it a protractor fit to measure the height of any tree! 🌳

In the Wetlands, each pair chose one of the many super tall trees to measure, person 1 looked at the top of the tree through their straw and slowly took steps backwards until their string dangled in front of the 45° line. Person 2, then measured the length from where their friend was standing to the tree trunk. This told us the height that the tree is! Cool right?! 📏

A lovely way to end a week of sunshine and fun outside!☀️🕶️

 

Meta Skills

Sense-making Samira,

Collaborating Cora

Communicating Cate

Focusing Fergus

 

UNCRC Rights

Article 28 – Right to a good education

Article 21 – Right to rest, play and culture

 

CPR – Cardiac Care with Lydia!❤️🚑

This afternoon, P4-7 welcomed a very special visitor into our classroom; Lydia Downie, the ambulance technician. We were all very excited when she drove into the playground in her ambulance!🚑
As part of our ‘body systems’ science topic, Lydia had very kindly offered to come in for a CPR workshop. With her, she brought the armless, legless Frank, the CPR dummy. Lydia started off by explaining how she responds to an emergency using the DR ABC technique. This involved firstly checking for ‘Danger,’ secondly checking for a ‘Response’. Afterwards, it was time for action, she showed us how to check a patients ‘Airways’  and the patients ‘Breathing’ and pulse by touching their neck. If the patients breathing, that’s when we would look at ‘circulation’ and the heart.❤️
Lydia showed us how to give Frank some beats with our hands to support his heart. We learned that the song ‘Staying Alive’ helps us with the rhythm of our beats. 🎶
Afterwards, she impressed us by showing us the AED, or the ‘defibrillator’ which would be used to shock the heart and help it to get back to its usual rhythm and where to place the shock pads on a patients body.
Then, of course, it wouldn’t be a visit from the emergency service without a trip into their vehicle- always a super crowd pleaser 🙂. We ventured out into the sunshine to have a look inside Lydia’s ambulance. We really enjoyed playing patient and paramedic and sitting inside the driver’s seat. Lydia showed us where the medicine is stored in the ambulance and what medication would be required when in different emergencies. We were challenged to put a bandage on our friend the quickest – we had lots of fun! And, I’m sure everyone’s had fun with these at home too.
We thought it would be nice if the P1-3’s could take a wee peek inside the ambulance too, which ties in nicely with their topic ‘medicine’.😷
A HUGE big thank you to Lydia for giving up her time this afternoon to visit us at Leswalt! We learned so much about the heart and the circulatory and raspatory body systems. Aria commented that ‘this afternoon has been so cool’ which we all agreed with too!😍

Leswalt’s Super 3’s Superstars⭐

This afternoon Alison Murray from Active Schools visited Leswalt to hand out some certificates to our super sporty runners!🏃👟

Rachael and Murray both took part in Alison’s 3 week running club to prepare them for the Cross Country at Greenvalley. Rachael and Murray joined Alison each of the 3 weeks and so were awarded ‘Gold’ for their fantastic commitment and effort! 🥇

It was great to see this hard work pay off last week at the Cross Country event where Rachael was 1st and Murray 2nd in their races. Great work team, you should be super proud of yourselves, I know we are! ⭐🤩

Meta Skills
Adapting Aleksander
Focusing Fergus 

UNCRC Rights
Article 31 – The Right to Rest, Relax and Play

World Earth Day 🌍🥰

To celebrate World Earth Day, we got together this afternoon for an assembly with Mrs Adams. We started off by having a think about what ‘World Earth Day’ might celebrate. Gregor wondered if it could be about ‘looking after the world’ and Cameron impressed us with his suggestion that it’s all about ‘stopping climate change’. 🌏
Colin was able to take Cameron’s idea even further, explaining that Climate change is when the world gets warmer – which effects ice and the ozone layer. WOW, we are a bright bunch!💡Afterwards, we watched a BBC live lesson and experiment which demonstrated the impact that Climate Change is having on our planet😧.
To finish off, we met in our assembly groups to decide which UNCRC children’s rights are involved in World Earth Day!🧒

Rugby Fun!🏈

Yesterday, we welcomed Niamh from Wigtownshire Rugby back for our final session of rugby this term. We warmed up with a fan favourite – capture the flag 🙂. Afterwards, pupils paired up with a peer of similar height for some contact practice. Niamh reminded us of the rules, foot in the hoop, eye to thigh, cheek to cheek, bands of steel, shoulder boulder knock them over.. and they did exactly that! It’s been so super watching everybody’s confidence build over the 4 sessions with Niamh 😄.
We finished off with a game of contact bull dogs, where pupils were able to combine their movement skills with their contact skills. 🏃‍♂️🏈
We have absolutely loved our rugby sessions with Niamh this term!🏉

Mud, Miles and Smiles 🏃

Today P5-7 braved the wild weather and headed to Green Valley for the annual inter-school cross country event.🏃Last term’s Friday afternoon ‘Leswalt Park Run’ practice has clearly paid off, all pupils repeated the school so well, with great determination, resilience and good sportsmanship. 
First up, was the Primary 5 girl 1/2 mile race. A big well done to Lily for her super effort!🤩
Afterwards, Primary 6 and 7 boys and girls took part in the mile long loop.
A huge well done to Rachael who was 1st in the Primary 7 girls race, her tactic to ‘pace herself’ really paid off. Also, to Murray who was 2nd in the P7 boys race!
All those Park Runs have really paid off 🙂! 
A huge big well done to everybody who took part today for all their effort, cheering and great Sportsmanship.🤩

An EGGCELLENT last day of term🍫🐣

Today was filled with Easter fun. Our fabulous House Captains, Rachael and Colin have been busy organising a day of Easter Fun.

P4-7 kick started the day with some Easter Baking. They had been saving up their class cash all term, and decided to splash the cash by purchasing some ingredients to make Mini Egg Cheesecakes. The perfect opportunity to put into practice the measurement skills we’d been developing as part of our maths work this term 🙂. Pupils worked in teams to weigh out their ingredients, follow the recipe and decorate their cheesecakes with some delicious mini eggs. Then it was time to wait, 4 hours for the cheesecakes to harden in the fridge- just in time for some tasty afternoon treats 🍰.

 

In the afternoon, they had the pleasure of announcing the winners of the Easter Egg decorating competition… It was a tricky decision, there had clearly been a lot of hard work that been put into these creative eggs. We had Simpsons eggs, Angry Bird eggs, Inside Out eggs and even a farm full of egg-animals. But in the end, Colin , Rebecca managed to choose our P1-3 winners and Mrs Baillie decided on the P4-7 winners. 

And the winners were… DRUMROLL 🥁

P1-3 

1st – Arthur’s Astronaut in space

2nd – Gregor’s Football Egg

3rd – Jorgie’s WickEggs  and Jack’s Inside Out Eggs (Joint) 

EGGcelent Effort – Beathan’s ‘Batman Baillie’s Cave’ and Ellis’ ‘Alien Eggs’

P4-7

1st – Lily’s Simpsons Eggs

2nd – Emma’s Farm

3rd – Rachael’s Banana Split

 

EGGcelent Effort – Eilidh’s Eyeballs and Keira’s Chef

A huge thank-you to everyone who participated – it was a fab effort from everybody and their families 😄

In the afternoon, pupils had fun egg hunting outside. House Captains hid 44 Easter Eggs in the playground. First of all everybody found 1 egg each and met back at the Outside Classroom. Once they’d proven themselves as Easter Egg Hunters, the final 13 Easter Eggs were fair game for anybody to find…🔍🥚

Thank you very much to our super House Captains Rachael and Colin for a fun-filled last day of term. 😍

We hope everybody has a relaxing Easter Break, and we look forward to welcoming everybody back on Monday 13th of April for a busy Term 4!😀

Leswalt’s Big Spring Clean🚮

This afternoon both classes took to the playground for a big spring clean before the Easter Holidays🚯🗑. Armed with litter pickers,  plastic bags and lots of energy, we worked in teams to collect as much rubbish as we could. Down the burn, across the football pitch, inside the willow dome, everywhere was targeted. A couple of bin bags later the playground is looking spotless, all started for a fresh start to Term 4! 🤩
Well done Team Leswalt!😎

Meta-Skills

Communicating Cate

Collaborating Cora

UNCRC

Article 31 – Rest, Play, Culture and Arts 

Costume Creativity for Comic Relief 😂🤑

Today, Leswalt school was filled with so many creative costumes and so much laughter🤭! Pupils were asked to dress as something beginning with the first letter of their name, and they certainly rose to the occasion! We had astronaut Arthur🧑‍🚀 , Emma the Elf 🧝, Leo the Leprechaun 🌈, Aria the Asda bag 🤭 and so many other hilarious costumes too! Staff couldn’t resist the chance to get stuck in with the fun too. We had Mrs Baillie as Batman, Mrs McKnight as a minion, Granny Gordon, Miss Dobbie Douglas and Mrs Kyle as Ken (beach Ken to be exact)..

After spending most of breakfast club time crying with laughter, we snapped some funny pictures to mark what we all agreed was “one of the best dress up days we’ve had” with some photos and celebrate all the amazing effort and hard work that has clearly went into planning and making the costumes. 😃

 


A huge big thank you to everyone for getting into the spirit and making such an effort with their costumes! We hope that all our fun, and red nose sales has raised awareness for the wonderful charity Comic Relief and the hard work they do for children living in poverty!

Well done Team Leswalt!❤️ Check out all our funny photos on our school’s YouTube;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrt5JJG6GYc

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