St Andrew's Primary School Blog

Primary 7 were split into two groups last week to spend 2 days each at Carlingwark.  While they were there the instructors took them up Screel hill, orienteering and mountain biking in Dalbeattie Forest.  The children all worked well in their teams, supporting and encouraging one another.  They learned many new skills and faced some challenges – particularly the weather! At night we had teddy bear competitions, dinner out, drama games as well as some crazier activities involving jelly babies and flour!  The children were all a real pleasure to be with and had brilliant manners and listening skills with the instructors.  Well done everyone! It certainly was an action packed week and I’ve really enjoyed reading your recounts on the experience in writing this week.  It sounds like you all had a great time and took so much from it.

“It’s  beginning to look a lot like Christmas…”

The P4 classroom was transformed today as the children entertained their families with some beautiful singing, and a memorable presentation of the nativity story.

Next, in scenes reminiscent of a Christmas market (or the Boxing Day sales !), Malteser and Hot Chocolate Reindeer Cones, Truffles, Christmas Cards, Reindeer Food, Sweetie Raffle, Knitted Friends and Nativity Stories flew off the shelves, as the children confidently bought and sold their wares, calculating change from £1, £2, £5 and £10.

The ‘selfie with our elfie’ proved a popular choice, with Mr V joining in the fun too!

Thank you so much to everyone who came to support the children, we will calculate our profit and let you know as soon as possible!

On Friday 30^th November we had a very busy day in St Andrew’s RC Primary  celebrating St Andrew’s Day.  This is a very special day for us as St Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland, Our Parish and Our School.

Our celebrations started before the school bell rang with our talented past pupil, Lauren Kerr from St Joseph’s College, piping us in to school.

Once we were all in and settled we started the day with a St Andrew’s Day Assembly. We then split into groups and had the chance to do different activities including; baking, woodland fun, arts and crafts and football.

In the afternoon we had an extra surprise when we were lucky enough to have the amazing Magic Monty visit us and do a special Magic Show for us all.

It really was a fantastic day and a great way of celebrating Our Patron Saint’s Day.

 

hello we are the publicity crew our names are Alister, Jokubas, Argyle, Marley and Jack.

We will be updating you on what’s happening with the Primary School Christmas Musical, which will be performed on the 18th and 19th of December in our school hall at 6.30pm. All of Primary 6 and Primary 7 will be taking part in the show even if its backstage. The show will be about some school pupils that do not want to do  a Christmas musical and drive the teachers mad. there will be a raffle on the night, and lots of songs. The pupils will be acting as some of the teachers and children (not children from the actual school, however the teachers will be from the school!).Hope you come to our amazing show and bye from the publicity crew. here are some pictures of us rehearsing.

Today Primary 1 welcomed their grown ups in to share some of their learning.  As this is Book Week Scotland the children decided to share some of the work they had been doing on the books in their free book bag.

First the children sang a French song about the colours then it was the grown ups turn to do some work too.  They had a go at three different activities:

•   creating bats for the book ‘I am bat’ by Morag Hood
• using go animate on the computer to create a film for the book ‘One Button Benny’ by Alan Windram and
• experimenting with floating/sinking for the book ‘Eric Makes a Splash’ by Emily MacKenzie

Finally we thanked them all for coming and each child got their book bag to take home!

Primary 6 visited Crochmore Farm near Crocketford this morning as part of their topic about the journey of food which had been organised through Fiona Jamieson from RHET. I will post more photos next week but thought the class would like you to know that during our visit, a cow was giving birth and the calf arrived shortly after we had left. Angus Kerr, the farmer, asked the children to name the new calf and they chose Andrew. Here are the photos Angus sent us this afternoon.

 

 

As part of our mini topic on WW1 commemorating the 100 years since the end of the war Primary 7 visited Dumfries Museum to meet characters from WW1  (The Colonol and Mrs Stackpool) and to learn about being a spy.  They took part in different group activities which encouraged them to look at World War 1 critically. They also found out lots about propaganda when looking at the photographic exhibition upstairs realising what is real and what is “fake news.”  The children were all a credit to themselves and the school and seemed to have a great afternoon. Maya remembered learning that custard powder was highly explosive from the true/false quiz she did.   Shea remembered that the football rattle was used to warn the men that the gas had been released as it was a very loud noise all would hear and recognise!

.

We had a busy term 1 in Primary 5 and the children certainly earned their October break. Of particular enjoyment for the children were the exceptionally engaging gymnastics lessons kindly provided by Mr Sharp.

Towards the end of term the children were learning about the properties of materials. A highlight of this topic was working together in teams to design and build models of flood proof houses. All of the children worked industriously to ensure these models were completed and their determination was impressive. There was weather warnings for floods on the day that these were built as Storm Callum wreaked havoc outside which undoubtedly added to the atmosphere.

During art lessons the children have been focusing on weaving with textiles and their work has generated an inspiring wall feature in our classroom. Well done Primary 5!

A huge thank you to everyone who attended the concert at St Andrew’s Parish and to the many people who donated clothing, including school uniforms for the children and their families/peers back home.  It was an exhilarating evening, the children sang with so much passion and love for each other and for those supporting them.  An incredible 54 suitcases of clothes were collected for them overall whilst on tour and 16 of those where from our school alone!  Well done also to P7 who did a great job with the publicity campaign.  It was fabulous to be on Border news and WestSound radio.  Lucy, George, Lewis and Niamh spoke so well.  Hopefully some people may consider sponsoring a child (only £20 a year) or being a host family when they come next time.

Thank you once again.

Today in P4, the children were set an Energy Challenge!  They had to use their imaginations and develop their problem solving and team working skills, to build a Solar Powered boat, an air powered car, design and build their own 3D wind turbine using k’nex, and test a hydro turbine to see if it could power a light! All on the last day of school too!!

Huge thanks to Mr Earle, Mr Sharp, Mr Orr and Mr Valentine, really appreciate you help!  Continue reading “P4 Energy Challenge!!”