Leswalt Primary School

P1-4 enjoyed an excellent visit from Kathryn Purchase with her History Alive presentation! A whole morning was spent finding out all about Vikings and the children gained a real insight into what life was really like back then.  We found out who the Vikings actually were (the good and the bad ones!), where they came from and where they travelled to.  The children found out about what they wore, the types of food they ate, what their homes were like, how they travelled and the hierarchy within the Viking community.  This was a real hands-on experience for the children.  They got to try on costumes, weave on a loom and even re-enact a Viking battle.  A fun day was had by all!

“This was a really fun visit and I enjoyed acting out our battle scene!” Finlay P4

“My day at school was exciting and I liked getting the chance to dress as a Viking and hold all the weapons!” Jack P3

“It was really cool getting to see all the Viking stuff like the swords!” Breagh P2

Wow wow wow! Once in a lifetime opportunity just happened to come our way this morning (ok there had been a great deal of groundwork done in preparing for this by Ms Whorlow, and Mrs Henry had used some of her Easter holidays and an evening to make this happen). Four members of the filming crew of ‘Keepers’ agreed to come into Portpatrick Primary and meet with them and Leswalt for an extra-special, ‘never experienced before’ Careers in the Community chat! Unfortunately, cast members were busy filming on set in Stranraer (but we were presented with original posters signed by the main stars!)

Joe and Kel are screenwriters and actors, Andy and Ade are both producers and they shared with the pupils some of their experiences in the very interesting hour long chat. The pupils asked some fabulous questions, keen to know more. You never know; perhaps the next generations of screenwriters, producers, makeup artists and actors are to be found in our pupils!

 

The sun shone for Leswalt Primary’s trip to Logan Botanic Gardens this morning. Every year the Gardens hold an open week for schools and two of their Rangers, who are based in Edinburgh usually, come down to lead some nature-based activities. We were excited at the prospect of meeting Kath and Kate again and enjoying the Gardens.

P1-4 headed off with Kath. First of all they enjoyed a mini nature walk. They then needed to do a Texture Hunt, working in small groups to look for 3 things which were spongy, firm, shiny, dull, hard etc.

They then used microscope slides to take a closer look at the leaves of the giant rhubarb plants. The underneath of those leaves are so spiky! We think that’s to put off any little creatures who fancy snacking on them!

Next they worked to make a 3D map of Logan Gardens in little groups using twigs, leaves, ribbon provided by Kath and lots of other bits and pieces which they found. Some of the groups got very arty with this!

Finally, and very excitingly, Kath had a sponge which had a ‘Magic Potion’ on it! Each pupil used a little piece of sponge to dab some of this potion on their nose, which Kath said would help them to smell much easier! The boys and girls then went on a Smell Hunt finding lavender, eucalyptus

and something very peppery. The potion worked its magic!

P5-7 were led by Kate. Initially we headed to a clearing and discussed different types of maps. Kate used a compass to set North on the grass and we filled in the other compass points. We were then set the task of re-creating a visual 3D map of the quadrant we were standing in using sticks, leaves, flowers from the ground. The finished article was very creative.

To head to our next activity base, we used a compass in pairs to set our bearings. We needed to locate North with the compass, then set the bezel to the bearing given and follow the direction shown by the arrow and no one got lost!

Finally, we talked about scale using maps and ways in which we could recreate our own maps of the area using our artistic and scientific skills. Kate let us choose whether we wanted to use the Art or Science resources. We then needed to stick our recording on the correct position on the scale. Some of did bark and leaf rubbings, leaf prints, used bug viewers to take a closer look at snake and flat-backed millipedes, tested the PH of soil and took a weather recording – a varied response!

We all had such a lovely morning together. Looking forward to April 2018 already!

P1-4 were learning all about personal hygiene as an introduction to their dental health topic in HWB.  We learned about how easily germs can pass on to other people, particularly after sneezing and coughing.

We looked at how tiny germs were and if we don’t wash our hands regularly, the germs build up and spread easily to other people.

Mrs Henry pretended she had not washed her hands after the toilet and after sneezing! We then played ‘catch’ using pretend glitter germs.  The glitter germs went on everyone’s hands that caught the ball.  This was a really visual way of seeing how germs spread and how important it is to keep our hands clean.

We then used an ‘Airzuka’ which shoots blasts of air.  This was to simulate a cough and see how far cough germs can travel.  We were shocked that the cough still hit us up until we were over 8-12 steps away from each other!!

Take a look at us exploring the yuckiness of germs! 🙂

What a wonderful morning Euan, Alistair, Ethan, Jack and Jamie had! Accompanied by Mrs Smith, the boys travelled into Stranraer Academy to take part in a mini tournament organised by  Stranraer FC  organiser Allan Jenkins. The Leswalt boys joined forces with Rowan, Rhian and Lachlan (their Portpatrick team-mates) and played 3 games; winning 3-0 against Sandhead and drawing 1-1 with St Josephs and 0-0 with Glenluce/Castle Kennedy. The boys then got to have a closer look at the SPL trophies and read the inscriptions and everyone there was awarded with a commemorative medal. A great morning out! There was an official photographer there too so keep your eyes peeled for the next Free Press!

 

On Friday the 21st of April, p5-7 went on a service bus to Stranraer Museum. They had planned this trip by themselves using a bus timetable and museum exhibition information poster. Once we got there we went to St John’s Castle first – it was very interesting. Did you know that St John’s Castle was once a house, prison, a World War 2 look out and was also used for storage! After we’d had a good look around and asked lots of questions, we went up a steep, stone flight of stairs to the roof where we took lots of photos. We could even see the Agnew Monument! There was a great view. After that, we went to the museum. There, Jaime our tour guide took us round all the exhibitions- it was awesome!  Then we headed to the bus stop and took the service bus back to school! What a great morning!

On Thursday the 30^th of March P5-7 went to Green Valley. P5 had to run half of a mile and P6 and 7 had to run a mile. We ran around Green Valley golf course and flags guided us on where to go. It was very tiring but everybody did exceptionally well.

 

As part of their topic on Easter in RME, P1-4 have been learning all about Easter traditions.  They learned the significance of the Easter egg as a symbol of the rock that was rolled away from Jesus’ tomb which was empty as Jesus had risen from the dead!  They consolidated learning on symmetry and how both sides must be the ‘mirror image’ of each other!  Everyone chose the level of difficulty for their symmetrical egg and gave it a go – they did a fabulous job making both sides the same!

And since it was Mrs Henry’s last Monday with the class before the holidays, she asked the boys and girls what they wanted to do for Easter.   They voted for a Maths Easter Hunt and egg rolling!  So… the p7’s hid a selection of maths challenge cards around the playground and P1-4 worked in pairs to find the cards and answer the questions.  The sun was shining so it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon!

At the end of the day, the children rolled their fabulously decorated hard boiled eggs to see who could roll the furthers and stay intact (as much as possible!).  Murray’s travelled the furthest distance so he was egg rolling champion! 🙂

What a great day Leswalt Primary had on Red Nose Day (Friday 24^th March). Pupils came to school dressed in all manners of fabulously silly outfits; think inside-out, back-to-front, pyjamas, crazy combinations… and you’ll get the idea! The boys and girls took some time to find out about the great work that Comic Relief does all over the world and consider the importance of digging deep and going the extra mile to help others when and where we can.

In the afternoon, we welcomed our esteemed judging panel of Gillian Murdoch from Leswalt Stores, Mr Harold McCracken and Mrs Mary Buchanan who had the unenviable job of trying to find a winner of our ‘Leswalt’s Got Talent Show’. An amazing thirteen acts performed – ranging from p1-p7, individual entries to group ones. The assembled pupils, parents and friends enjoyed an afternoon of songs, jokes, poetry, dance, comedy sketches, story-telling and piano playing and lots and lots of laughter!

Each act listened to their ‘Britain’s Got Talent-esque’ judges feedback and, after all had performed, the judges took a little time to confer. Unanimously, they had agreed upon the Gaw family as worthy winners with their original poem about the meaning behind Red Nose Day and the most fabulous prop of a mega-sized tin of beans from which Noah (dressed as a chicken) appeared! The judges agreed that every act had been absolutely fabulous and really shown of their talents well. Well done to those Confident Individuals!

All in all, we all had a fun afternoon and raised well over £132 in the process!