Author: Mrs McIntyre

P7 enjoying using the apparatus and creating sequences of moves in PE this week.

For the first time St Andrew’s joined St Joseph’s College in entering a team into the Salter’s Chemistry Fair.  A team of four were selected to go, they included Lauren McLean, Tony Vetters, Bernardas Svirplis and Josh Allison.  Unfortunately Lauren could not make it on the day so the boys had to go on their own.  They had a great day and did really well considering they were the only primary school team and had only 3 members compared to others who were S1 and had 4 or 5 people. They watched scientists doing demonstrations and they themselves had a crime scene investigation to do in lab conditions.  They said it was a really great experience.  Well done boys!

   

  

Primary 7 had a super time at the Dumfries Table Tennis Club, playing some crazy, fun warm up games and learning some of the basic skills for holding the bat, taking different shots and playing in a round the table rally to see who could be the last man standing!  Thank you to Shannon Brown and Mrs Brown, experts in the field, for helping to organise the day for us.  There was a lot of enthusiasm for the sport and there are opportunities for anyone interested,  to join the Summer table tennis club that is running in the holidays. Please get in touch to find out more!

 

On Thursday 31st May P7 travelled to Whithorn  accompanied by P7 children from St Teresa’s, St Joseph’s, St Columbas and St Ninian’s Catholic Primary schools for a very special pilgrimage and mass at St Ninian’s Cave, Whithorn.  The weather was perfect, thankfully not too hot to have to worry about sun burn, but nice enough for a paddle in the sea after mass.

The mass conducted by Father Jim and Father Gerald was very special.  Many of our pupils took part in the prayers and readings and the mass itself began just along from the car park and finished with communion at the cave.  It was really nice to have Father Jim accompanying us on the guitar and sharing some very special moments of prayer with us.

The final treat for everyone was a well-deserved stop at the café in Whithorn where the children were kindly treated to a hot filled roll and a can of juice.  A few people needed a good sleep on the bus on our journey home after all that fresh air and heat. All the boys and girls were a credit to themselves, I was very proud of their excellent behaviour and the way they conducted themselves.  We all had a lovely time together. Here are a few photos of the day!

On Friday 25th May the Dumfries Rowing Club visited P7 and gave them a fantastic hour learning some of the basics about rowing.  The children had a great time going around the three activities which included a very informative presentation about the history of the club as well as facts to do with rowing.  Did you know that a rowing boat at the club cost £15,000 for example or that the person who steers the rowing boat is called the coxswain? The children learned that sweeping is the term for using only one oar and sculling is when each rower is controlling two oars.  The other groups outside played some fun warm-up games and completed circuits, whilst the third group had an exhilarating time competing in a one kilometre relay challenge.  You may have heard the screams of encouragement and excitement towards the final 50 metres!  It really was a super morning, so well organised and the class worked hard, some winning medals for particular skill and effort.  Saturday was the rowing club open day so I hope some of the class went along to find out more.

 

P7 have been working with their O.S.C.A.R buddies this week helping them to make puppets of the characters from their favourite books.  In class P7 are turning these story books into scripts with stage directions and are creating the scenery for the backdrops.  The children are working so well together in the planning and preparation of the shows.  Both the nursery children and P7 are having a great time on this project as you can see and are learning so much from one another.  In a couple of weeks we will be able to present our fantastic productions so watch this space!

On Wednesday the 21st of March P7 invited their parents and grandparents into class to find out about the learning they have been doing this term.  It was a super afternoon ran by the children and we were extremely happy so many people could attend.  We entertained everyone with some music from our Charanga Music scheme, the song we chose to do was Happy by Pharrell Williams.  A good choice as it was one everyone seemed to know.  We also had 4 Scottish poems to share.  After that the children ran various activities to share their learning.  We had a game of Guess Who in French as well as French animal Bingo and a colour by numbers activity.  In maths we had parents creating pie charts and calculating the decimal fraction, fraction and percentages of coloured skittles in a packet as well as timing our parents on the Strong Maths mental challenges.  Outside some P7’s were running hockey and rugby drills and games as well as organising a World Book Day treasure hunt in the forest.  It was nice to see how well the children could teach others new skills including how to play Bridge and also to weave on paper plates.  The children were glad to hear your feedback it was all really positive and we will certainly aim to improve next time – I believe a bigger space and tea, coffee and cakes would be appreciated! We will see what we can do! Thank you again and well done P7

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Primary 7 finished off their unit of work on angles with a maths challenge in the forest this week.  They were to come up with a 2D shape or 3D structure which included at least one triangle showing angles adding to 180 degrees.  They had to use 20 sticks and include each type of angle a right, straight, acute, obtuse and reflex angle. Some of the children were even able to identify some corresponding and alternate angles too.  I think we all enjoyed the task as well as some nicer weather for a change!  Back in class we are printing out our designs so that we can estimate and measure the angles we created.  Well done to Tony, Luca and Josh who make a really interesting, huge  angular frame in the trees, fabulous teamwork and also to Nicole who created a fascinating angular mobile.  Jake, Mikey and Tony were able to use a coloured cube code to show all their angles and worked extremely well together on task finishing ahead of everyone! Super work P7.

Please follow the above link to check our podcast from the hill walk.

 

P7 took on a real challenge on Wednesday 14th March and climbed to the very top of Criffel, the route we were on was very steep and muddy in places so it was certainly not easy.  Everyone showed great determination and team spirit along the way. Well done P7!

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