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We had the pleasure of a visit from Gerald from the Munro Madnezz Bhoys Challenge this morning.

He told us all about the 282 Munros in Scotland (there used to be 283 but one shrunk (!) and is no longer counted as a Munro!). They are named after Sir Hugh Munro who discovered and categorised them all – though he didn’t climb them all.

Gerald has climbed many of these and told us of his love for doing this. He has raised lots of money for Macmillan Cancer charity through his climbs.

He showed us all some of the equipment that he uses and explained how to keep safe when climbing. It is something which he adores doing.

Laura and Alison from Active Schools were with Gerald. They have set primary school pupils the challenge of doing sports activities to equal the time it would take to climb a Munro. Who is keen to take up this challenge?

Recording sheets are available in school. How many Munros do you think you could ‘climb’? Come on, give it a go!

 

On Monday 7th September, P5-7 joined lots of other pupils from local schools to participate in an event run by Triathlon Scotland. The children had lots of fun swimming, cycling and running. It was a great taster session to get a feel of what a triathlon involves – but on a mini scale! Well done to everyone involved – the pupils had a great time!

Today P2-4 had great fun measuring outside. They worked in small groups and recorded their results on their clipboard.

Each group worked out how many giant steps, fairy steps and how long a people chain they needed to measure from one part of the playground to the other. But everybody was ending up with different answers!

There had to be a solution… Then we came up with the answer – a metre stick! This was a standard size and so our measurements were the same.

We also had a go at using a trundle wheel too. We really enjoyed measuring using metres.

P1-4 have been learning lots about farming in their local area and how farmers use different types of land for different farming purposes.

The morning began with a trip to Kirkcolm shore to look around the landscape and test the soil.  The fields were nice and green and were in great condition for sheep and cows to graze.

Afterwards, the class went to Stranraer Museum to explore farming techniques and machinery from the past and compare this to modern day machinery and methods of farming.  The children soon realised how much technology in farming has developed!

The fun continued on to meet local farmer, Mr Ian McKnight, at Dalhabboch.  The children saw that the soil there was quite boggy and was less green than Clendrie at Kirkcolm.  Only black face sheep can survive on that type of land.  After here, the pupils travelled to Pularyan to see much greener grass where texel cross sheep are kept.  More soil samples were taken from both areas to compare the next day at school.

After all this exploring, bellies were rumbling so the class headed to Glenluce Park for some lunch and a well earned play.  The class then moved on to Galdenoch Farm to meet up with Portpatrick Primary School.

The class were taken a tour of the farm including the dairy parlour, the newly born calves shed, the ‘maternity’ shed and also the ‘kitchen’ where all the food is kept and prepared for the cows.  Lots of fun was had by all and many thanks go to Fergus, Gary and Fiona for making the trip so educational and fun!

Yesterday, Leswalt School travelled to their local beach of Larbrax to take part in a beach clean as part of their Eco-Schools development in caring for their community and local surroundings.

Pupils were prepared with their wellies, gloves, black bags and litter pickers.  A huge amount of litter was bagged up and some very random items were found including a car bumper, odd shoes, tyres and many more weird and wonderful items!

After an hour and half, over 30 bags of rubbish were filled and the beach was left looking beautiful for the community to enjoy.  Well done boys and girls! 🙂

As part of their ‘Food and Farming’ Topic in Social Studies and Health and Wellbeing, P1-4 visited Tesco for their ‘Farm to Fork’ workshop.  Pupils were taken a tour around Tesco to explore where food comes from and even got to taste some of the lovely items on offer!  The children took part in an activity to use food labels and packaging to discover where food came from.  They were amazed at the distance some fruit and vegetables travel from around the world, including from Cameroon, Columbia, France and Spain!

A selection of local cheese was offered to the children including a smoked applewood (which wasn’t very popular among the group!) and the daredevils tried a chilli and lime cheese, which was more popular than expected!

Pupils then explored downstairs in Tesco, which they were amazed at as they didn’t know Tesco had a ‘downstairs!  They enjoyed testing out how cold the deep freezers and fridges were and learned about how important it is to keep temperatures at the correct level to keep the food safe from going bad.

It was a great educational trip and was enjoyed by all!

Due to the school camera taking a mad turn, some photos have been lost of the trip – we will try hard to get these back on get some more on to the blog!

The fundraising group of Leswalt Primary recently organised a fete, which incorporated Cream teas, on Sunday 24th May.  At the event there was delicious home baking, face painting, nail art, a hairdresser, bottle stall, barbeque and much, much more.  The event was on for 2 hours and managed to raise over £800 in that time – a fantastic amount ,

 

Apologies for the lack of photographs – they were accidently deleted from the camera, after the event!  if anyone does have any pictures, please send them in and we will share with all.

The pupil council of Leswalt Primary recently asked if they could do something to help the children of Nepal, following the recent Earthquake.  Merryn in Primary 7 had sent away money from her piggy bank to help the disaster appeal, and this had prompted others to see if they could also assist.  The pupil council decided to have a non-uniform day and combined with face painting and a bake sale they raised the grand total of  £135.70 for Nepal, showing they are truly responsible citizens.

Attached is a picture of the pupils of Leswalt Primary on their non-uniform day.