Month: September 2017

This week in Primary 1 we have been learning about symmetry.  We made symmetrical patterns on butterflies and with Mr Parkhouse we used our hands to create symmetrical crab pictures.  Today we went out to the playground on a ‘Symmetry Search!’

Today P3 had two special visitors.  Mrs Jamieson and Mrs Goldie from RHET ( The Royal Highland Educational Trust) ran a farming workshop for us prior to our trip to a beef farm tomorrow and a dairy farm next week. We learned about the different kinds of farms there are, and the food products we eat from them. After identifying and handling different crops all the children took turns to grind some flour from wheat. They used a traditional stone quern or portable grinder first and then sieved the product to produce lovely fresh flour! Next it was on to butter making. In teams the pupils shook cream in a sealed tub really quickly while counting to ten in French (great multi-tasking!). They then passed the tub to the next pupil in their team. After 5 minutes had past with much laughter,  our shookly lot saw that they had made some fresh golden butter. We couldn’t resist tasting our product with some tasty Scottish: bread, oatcake or crumpet with a side helping of cheese and tomatoes. All washed down with lovely fresh milk!

We are very lucky to have two S6 boys from St Joseph’s College running an after school basketball club for us.  Mr Millar and Mr Kirk are giving up their free time to do this. The Primary 5 and 6 boys and girls who attended this week had great fun.

 

Primary 6 welcomed Mrs Flora Burns, a trustee from Moat Brae Trust, to talk about J.M. Barrie. The class learned about his early life, why he came to live in Dumfries and how his time in Dumfries influenced his writing of Peter Pan. We all learned something new about J.M. Barrie and heard about how the people of Dumfries made his time here enjoyable and informative. The class were also keen to hear about the plans for Moat Brae house when it opens in 2018. The children asked lots of interesting questions and took the opportunity to take notes to use in their Big Writing later in the week.

 

On Monday 25th September, Primary 6 took part in Curling’s Cool at Dumfries Ice Bowl where they were coached by students from Dumfries College. They learned about safety on the ice, had a go at some techniques and took part in activities to show off their newly learned skills. A great, fun day was had by all. Thanks go to Mr Kirk and Mr Miller from St. Joseph’s College who accompanied us.

 

 

 

We have been learning about sound and how we can change the pitch of the sound. We have decided to explain pitch as how high or low a sound is. Today we had lots of fun making our own music, we filled glasses with different levels of water and found that the more water in the glass the lower the sound, the less water (or no water) the higher the sound. We added coloured counters to the glasses and had a go at making our own tunes after we had ordered our glasses in lowest to highest pitch.

 

The Primary 5 children have been learning about Changing Materials in their Science focus this term. Initially they tested different solids to see if they would dissolve in water, next they experimented to find out if it was possible to separate those substances again.

The children were set a “Kensuke’s Kingdom”, Desert Island Dilemma, where, just like Michael in the novel, they found themselves stranded with only sandy or salty sea water to drink – could the children plan ways to clean the water so that it was safe to drink?

We called on the expertise of 10 science ambassadors from St Joseph’s College, and last Wednesday, transformed our classroom into a science laboratory to test out the children’s theories.  Here’s a snapshot of what they discovered…

This week we went on our Beat the Street walk, we headed over the hill to Georgetown and Calside. This time we had 2 very important people with us, PC Ruairidh Matthews and PC Simon Gleave, they were helping us cross the road safely and had a chat with us as we walked. Thanks again to all the parents/grandparents/helpers.

 

On Wednesday 20th September budding K-Nex experts in P7 launched a K-Nex Club.  Luca and Toby came first in their school competition last year in P6 and in the regional competition they made an impressive fourth place.  Inspired by this competition and thinking ahead to the event for next year, they have used their own initiative to establish a club for P5-7 to practise their skills.  Along with Mikey, they organised resources and set a challenge this week for the pupils to design a car with steering.  An amazing 33 pupils attended the first round and had a great time.  Well done to Tomas and George in P6 who were named engineer champions of the first session!  Good luck to the 18 who have gone through to next Wednesdays challenge!

Our new Primary 4 topic is renewable and non-renewable energy, as well as doing lots of research the boys and girls have created super Wind Turbines using K’nex. For their challenge they had to build a model which stands on its own without support, it had to have blades attached which moved when blown and it had to be up to the height of the teacher’s knee. All the children successfully completed this challenge and were proud of their effort, they enjoyed showing the end product to the parents at soft finish.