Leswalt Primary School

Primary 5-7 have been really busy this term working on their HWB topic about Food Miles and Labelling. They have been using maps, working out distances using scale, calculating portion size and cost, working within a budget and pricing products to ensure a profit is made – all life skills I’m sure you’ll agree!

After lots of planning, this morning the pupils set to making their Healthy Snacks to sell at break time to their school friends. It was a busy classroom, with everybody working together to make sure they were following food hygiene rules whilst creating yummy snacks for everyone’s tummies!

The pupils calculated that £8.10 had been spent on ingredients and a profit of £11.40 was made! Excellent work by a very hard-working team! Now how will we spend our hard-earned cash….

What a treat parents, family, friends and P5-7 enjoyed this afternoon! P1-4 presented their original production of ‘Dr Who and the Vikings’ – a time travelling expedition which showcased all the learning which had taken place in their class this term on this exciting topic. Mrs McKnight scripted this (hidden talents Mrs McK!) in collaboration with the boys and girls. Dr Who (Finlay) was ably assisted by his glamorous assistant (Phoebe) as they travelled back to the Viking era, meeting characters along the way who told them lots about the Viking way of life. The P1 boys had made their own helmets, swords and shield to wear too. We all learnt something new this afternoon. A highlight just has to be their fabulous song about the Vikings and their pillaging to the tune of ‘One Way or Another’.

Have a look at the photographs above to get a taster of the fun! It looks like the cast really enjoyed themselves too!

 

Mrs Henry introduced the ideas of chance and uncertainty in real life and why it is important to think about the probability of things happening.  For example, Mrs Smith had to wait for a day which she thought it was unlikely to rain so she could take the p1’s into Stranraer for their day of fun.  They learned about vocabulary such as likely, unlikely, certain, impossible, sometimes and never.

The older boys and girls used numbers to record the probability of an event e.g. 1/5 chance, even chance etc.  They played a dice game where they considered the probability of getting a certain number e.g. a 5 or a 6 in 6 rolls then compared this with what they actually got in real rolls.  They realised that probability can help to think about the likelihood of events but it is not always right!

With their Tuck Shop earnings in their pocket and the sun shining, Mrs Smith and the Primary 1 boys headed off to Stranraer on the bus yesterday. They all had a blast as you’ll be able to see by the fabulous photographs! Playing in the park, munching sweeties and enjoying ice-cream – a perfect way to start the week!

Many thanks to Karen Anderson for coming in to see P5-7 today and telling us about her job with Alzheimer Scotland. We all found the afternoon really interesting and know much more now about what is meant by dementia, what help is available locally to people who have dementia and their family and friends and ways in which we can help ourselves and others. There simply wasn’t enough time for all of the questions and chat the class were enjoying. We look forward to being able to follow this up at some point in the future to help us find out even more.

Thanks Karen for an informative and interesting afternoon.

We had hoped for glorious sunshine but made do with a cloudy day with just a few showers for our annual Leswalt Primary Sports Day.

Mr Brawls and his band of helpers got all equipment moved over to the village park, the pupils got their sporty togs on and we were go, go, go!

The boys and girls enjoyed a fun afternoon of Sports, having their very best shot at every race and cheering on their friends. Not even the occasional shower was able to dampen their enthusiastic mood. True sportsmanship.

After participating in the flat race, sack, egg and spoon, skipping, obstacle, distance and a hotly contested throwing competition, the boys and girls encouraged their mummies and daddies to try out the obstacle course. Six brave daddies gave it a shot and so many mummies were keen to have a go that we needed to run this over two races! Much excitement from the children shouting their parents on! Finally, the pre-schoolers took part in the flat race.

Teamwork got every last piece of sports equipment back to school and the boys and girls rounded off a fun afternoon by enjoying a tub of ice-cream provided by Gillian from Leswalt Stores. Who needed the sun anyway?!

 

 

Well this trip destination was a new one to us – but we’ll most definitely be visiting here again in the future! P5-7 from Leswalt joined the staff and boys and girls of Portpatrick Primary for a day out to Dumfries House in Cumnock. Thankfully the weather was in much better fettle than it had been for intended sports day!

P5-7 headed to the Morphy Richards STEM Centre – a purpose built building which deals with all activities Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths related. Sounds a bit dry? It was a resounding hit with the pupils. Initially we got to assemble our compass keyring, before getting a Geo-caching kit and a Garmin GPS. Our activity leader explained how to use GPS and we were off. We had 8 way points to find and each had a hidden box there. Using our maps and GPS, we followed the route to the numbered way point, hunted for the ‘treasure’ and completed the Science based task which was in there. We also found a letter in each box which was unscrambled at the end to spell ‘NATURE’. Great fun and in such stunning surroundings too!

Back to the STEM centre for a bite of lunch, then waaay too much fun playing in water in the engineering waterpark – apologies parents as there may be quite a few bags with soggy socks in them! Our activity leader then led us up to the garden maze. After a few wrong turns and baffled faces, everyone found their way into the middle. To round of the fun, we headed to the adventure playground – you are never too old to enjoy a park! The boys and girls then enjoyed a yummy ice-cream from the cafe courtesy of the Parent Council (thank you Parent Council!).

All in all it was a great day out and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Check Dumfries house out for yourself – there’s something for everyone there!

On Wednesday the 31^st of May, P5-7 went along to Leswalt’s local wetlands at Aldouran. We were looking forward to finding out lots more about wild flowers, plants and trees. We headed up through the woodland paths, listening to the sounds of nature. Here are a few quotes from our class about the wetlands.

“You can learn a lot more when you’re not in a class room,” Jamie.

“It was an exciting adventure and I hope to go back soon,” Arden.

Cherry and Eve were our tour guides for the afternoon and they shared with us their vast knowledge about plants. Also we learned about how plants do not flower so much in woodland because the trees block the sun in Summer.

As we were walking down from the woods, we looked towards the pond and saw baby ducks. There was eleven ducks in the pond when we went to the wetlands. Also we saw the dinosaur’s nest but unfortunately no dinosaurs!

We enjoyed our visit and will return again very soon!

By Arden and Jamie