On Wednesday 1st February the Royal Navy came to carry out STEM challenges with different classes. There were 3 different activities for us to try. – Iona

For one of the activities we used iPads to programme little mechanical balls called Spheros. We made them move in different directions and spin really quickly! They also lit up with animations we could choose.  This helped us develop our programming skills. It was really interesting.- Moaz

Another activity involved us working with hydraulics. We worked in pairs to see how quickly we could build a sequence of pipes for air to pass through. This then powered a pump. We had to see were stronger than air! We developed our teamwork skills. I thought it was really fun and challenging! – Leah

The final activity was to create a circuit. This was to allow electricity to pass through in order to make a propeller fly.  The bigger the circuit had the lower the propeller would fly and the smaller the circuit was the higher the propeller would fly. We developed our problem solving and creativity skills. I thought it was hard but also really fun! – Jailyn

We created currency converters using Purple Mash on the iPads. We were then able to use these to complete our maths work on converting foreign currencies!

It was very fun to make the currency converter and it made maths a lot easier! – Reuben

I enjoyed changing pounds into different currencies. – Ava

P7 Newsletter – Term 3

We wrote stories about a naughty elf that tries to ruin Christmas. The resolution to our story was that Christmas was saved. – Ethan

Once everyone had finished their stories we went to visit P1 and P1/2 to share our stories.  It was great fun sharing our stories. – Arran

On Tuesday 20th December we had our Christmas Party. We all had lots of fun and some people won prizes. – Corey

We played lots of games including Santa and Rudolph and musical corners. – Grace

The upper primary held a Christmas Fayre. P7 had lots of fun games and nice treats for people to buy. – Aila

We made snowman sweetie cups, melting snowmen biscuits and top hats for people to buy. – Archie

We also made a few games such as hoop a reindeer antler and throw a snowball. Children had a chance to guess the name of the elf so they could win it. _ Chloe

The Christmas Fayre was really fun as we got the experience of buying and selling things. – Reuben

Health and Wellbeing day!

On Monday 14^th of November, P7s from lots of different schools including – Georgetown, Calside, Noblehill, Locharbriggs, Brownhall, Amisfeid and Caerlaverock visited Dumfries High School for a Health and Wellbeing day. During the day we were all in different groups with people from all of the different schools. We visited 6 different rooms, in each room we were doing something different.

In the first group, we created an all about me shield, we wrote what our ambitions were, who we live with, what we like and dislike in school and more. In the middle we drew a self-portrait and some words that describe us.

In the second group, we visited PC McKerlie who is the Dumfries High School Police Officer. We were put in to 4 rows of 8 and those were the groups we worked in. We wrote how to be safe in school, in the community, in public events, and more.

In the third group, we went through to the staff room with Mrs Hogg and we did things about MVP. Mrs Hogg started to read us a story about a girl name Kitty. Kitty got stabbed and killed. During Kitty’s stabbing there were 38 bystanders who did nothing, we were talking about what we would have done if we were one of the 38 bystanders.

In the fourth group, we did some orienteering with Mr Park, there were many points in the outdoor grounds of Dumfries High School. After we were put into groups of 4, 2 from one school and 2 from another. Helping us were 2 senior pupils.

In the fifth group we visited the drama studio and we wrote things about different types of abuse, we did how to be respect full and what not to do. We also played a couple of games.

In the last group we went to The David Keswick Centre to do some P.E, we did Basketball and Dodgeball. We did this with some senior pupils who are sports leaders. We did this with Mr Smith and Mr Douglas

Some of the teachers we did this with were: Mrs Hogg, Pc McKerlie, Miss Holmes, Miss Kilmurray, Miss Bryce, Mr Park, Mr Smith and Mr Douglas.

During this wonderful opportunity I used loads and loads of skills but some of the great skills that I used were, determination and respect!!

By Ria

At Heathhall Primary School in P7 we have been taking Glasgow science lessons over the past 8 weeks.  We have been learning about lots of different gases like coal, oil and wood. Today, we all met Ross from the videos and Ailean. Both of them came all the way from Glasgow to come meet us. To start off with they were talking about fire and how the fuels burn to create energy. As an experiment they used some sort of toxic liquid called methanol and poured some in a clear bowl. Once Ailean had poured it in, she lit a match and threw it in. The combination between fire and methanol created a mini fire explosion. The bottom of the fire was blue and the top was orange/ red. After the small bowl Ailean upgraded to a gallon bottle and it made a massive explosion. The next experiment she showed us was on solar panel cars. CJ and Nathan had a torch and a car, on each side there was a car track. They had to shine the light on top of the car where the solar panel sat to make it move. In the end Nathan’s side won and cheered. After the car race she got one volunteer to come to the front and help her. Finlay had to drop a ball in a box on top of lots of mouse traps with ping pong balls. As a result all the balls went flying across the clear box until it settled down after a couple of seconds. This showed us a nuclear reaction. Last but not least Anya had to spin a handle to separate water and fuel oils to make a rocket take off. It looked like it was hard work because it was a stiff handle, and she had to spin it for a long time.

After the descriptive show we were allowed to try out all of the experiments in a group of three. I got grouped with Ria and Jess! When we were going around everything I liked this one activity where you had to spin a stiff handle for as long as possible to power the town. I got to the power of 30 but that was not the top score. Mrs Brown gave it a try and got a high score of 55 but not for long. Wilson gave it a try for one last time and bet all of us with the score of over 60!

The class really enjoyed the visit from the Science Centre and learned lots about how we need to power the future!

By Isla

Primary 7 have been writing in Scots! We took the story of The Three Little pigs and rewrote it using Scots dialect. It became The 3 Wee Grumphies! We had great fun sharing our stories in class and some of us decided we would like to share our stories with Primary 1.