Kirkcolm Primary School

Primary 7 enjoyed their first day at Stranraer Academy in the company of all the other Primary 7 pupils from the cluster.  The day had an enjoyable focus of Music, with members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra travelling down to Stranraer to conduct a workshop with all the pupils.

Our pupils were singing, dancing, playing games, composing and learning about the orchestra and their music in a fun filled day.  After lunch they were joined by older pupils from the Academy who came along to listen to the final performance from the musicians.

All returned to Primary, more familiar with Stranraer Academy and informed and entertained by the orchestra.

On Tuesday this week the upper class were lucky to be given the opportunity  to visit a local farm along with P5-7 pupils from Leswalt and Portpatrick. We did this as part of our Health and Wellbeing topic this term which involves investigating where our food comes from and where better to find out this information than learning about local produce!

We started off the trip by making sure we  were dressed appropriately, so many layers were applied and welly boots at the ready to brave the elements. Thankfully we have a beautifully clear and dry day for our visit. We boarded the bus at Kirkcolm and then went onto to pick up our Leswalt neighbours before meeting Portpatrick at Balgracie.

We met up with the RHET leader – Isobel Milroy and Mr Drennan – the owner of the farm, and were given our gloves and an introduction into just what the farms purpose was and what Mr Drennan produced.

Balgracie has a range of produce from milk to beef to some crops. We focused on the production of milk and all the hard work involved and found out his milk does a very essential job in helping o make the chocolate for Kit Kats at the Nestle factory!

We learned about a range of different things; from how all cows have their own paper passport and how the calves are kept warm and safe. Learning about how they milk the cows, how long it can take to finish the milking and the steps the farmers takes to make sure the cows are kept safe from infection. Looking at where the cows sleep in the winter and how its kept clean and comfortable for them. Then onto the silage pit to see how they are fed and efforts it takes to make the silage.

We went on to look at the different types of feed for the animals and the different ingredients that go into them and saw where the milk was stored and how it was carefully cooled to keep it fresh. We went inside to see the crush and thankfully Mr Drennan was careful not to stuck while demonstrating (maybe we’ll catch him out the next time?!) and we saw how the cows were weighed and received medical treatment.

Finally we finished off the day with a seat on the tractor and quad bikes for those of us who have never had the chance!

Overall, we had such a great day out and learned so much about how farms work and were amazed at the hard work which goes into keeping things running and keeping the animals well looked after, happy and healthy. We can see first hand how resourceful farms can be in using their muck to slurry the fields and how many different people are needed to keep things working from the lorry drivers to the vets (one of which had quite the morning ahead scanning over 70 cows!)

We are so thankful for the RHET team and Mr Drennan for letting us have this experience and the day was even topped off with a bonus Kit Kat at the end!

This afternoon we had the Fire Brigade and PC Wilson pop into school to talk to the pupils about staying safe on bonfire night. They gave the pupils lots of useful tips, such as: putting a sparkler into a carrot so you have something safe to hold onto; contacting the fire brigade if you are having your own bonfire to inform them so they don’t get a call from a worried neighbour and are taken away from a real emergency; avoid wearing loose clothing and tie your hair up to it doesn’t catch fire; and finally we learned about which materials are safe to put onto a bonfire to burn.

Pupils volunteered to demonstrate the stop, drop and roll – have a keek at some of them in action in the photos below!

Huge thanks must go to the Fire Brigade and PC Wilson for taking the time to come into school – we are looking forward to a fun but safe 5th November!

On Tuesdays, Kirkcolm opened its doors to all the parents of pupils to come in for an afternoon of Numeracy and STEM games with the children! It gave the pupils a chance to challenge their parents to complete different Math tasks and to have a peek at just what the pupils are getting up to in school.

We all split into 6 different mixed groups and at each station we had a P6/7 or teacher leading the activities and our resident photographer (Mrs Warwick) went around snapping some photos of the day!

We challenged parents to complete a Big Math Beat That, played some of the snazzy 3D Sumdog games, had Lego building challenges, outdoor brainteasers, marshmallow towers (and nobody tried to eat any!) and finally guiding the Coding Mouse through a variety of mazes!

Here’s what the pupils thought about the afternoon;

Luke (P5) – “Very fun!”

Olivia (P5) – “The Frog challenge was good!”

Abbie A (P7) – “Seeing everybody have fun was the best part about it!”

Arla (P6) – “The Frog Challenge was hard but fun…”

Daniel (P6) – “MY favour part was doing the marshmallow cocktail stick tower challenge”

On the ninth of October, Miss McNicoll’s  P.5-7 class (joined by Leswalt’s P5-7) walked up to the village hall to learn about the history of the local Kilmorie Stone, and about the Vikings!

The children had four rotations to go round at the event including; moulding spear heads or axe heads using polyester like a blacksmith would have, looking at what a blacksmith would have did on a day to day basses, looking at the Kilmorie stone and learning about the story behind it and last but not least, taking three icons from a basket and writing a story about it!

The children also played a game called settlers, ( a game where you get a sheet of paper and try to get icons from a basket that you will need to survive!) and were shown battle weapons and a shield wall!

Danny Lyon said that he enjoyed using symbols to make a story but said it was also very challenging.

Overall the children very much liked learning about the vikings in a fun and involving way!

Written by Ivy Richardson (P.7)

If you want to see additional photos and video footage of what the children got up to, keep your eyes peeled in the Freepress for coverage of the day and online for the videos and interviews the children participated in!

The Kilmorie stone itself can be found to the right hand side of Kirkcolm Church for all to see and try to find the distinct images carved into it and if you want to know what they mean – just ask the pupils at Kirkcolm!

-Miss McNicoll (Teacher)

Today P4-7 from Kirkcolm followed in the footsteps of the younger pupils and took a jaunt out to Wigtown to experience some of the fun activities the Book festival has to offer!

We started our day by eating our lunch on the bus before exploring the streets of Wigtown to locate the Church Hall for our Shoo Rayner Event.

First ones there, we settled down right at the front with our clipboards, paper and pencils and got to meet Shoo and see some illustrations before the rest of the schools joined us and we all got to partake in a mass drawing session!

We got to see how Rayner builds up all his illustrations from simple shapes and through simple instructions we got to make our own illustrative designs and find out a range of different techniques for drawing.

We also learned that Math is key! (Geometry to be specific) in creating people and animals using simple shapes and lines (…which gave us a handy reminder of how much Math is truly everywhere during Math Week Scotland!)

Here is some of the photos of our time there.. 🙂

P 1-7 went to Stranraer Academy on the 2nd of October to learn about maths for Maths Week Scotland. But it was not ordinary maths, it was Bubble Maths! The children measured the hall in balloon meters which they very much enjoyed! P 4-7 also learnt about volume, Area, doubling and halving. The children also got the joy of massive bubbles which some lucky children got to go in!

Noah Thompson (P.4) said that he enjoyed measuring the hall in balloons.

Alistair Swan (P.2) said he loved going into the bubbles.

Daniel Hall (P.6) also said that he found it very funny. Overall I think that the children very much enjoyed it and thought it was a fun way to learn maths!

Written by Olivia Turtle (P.5) and Ivy Richardson (P.7)

If you would like to try and create your own gigantic bubbles the recipe is:

Good Luck! 🙂

Free resources to learn together

Kirkcolm Primary is happy to support families to learn more about digital technologies.  Senior pupils are using Office 365 through Glow in school.  If you would like access to this software at home, it is available free to use through the children’s Glow accounts.  The children have added the ‘app’ tile (shown below)  to their launch pads to make it easy to locate.

Should you need to locate it for yourself, once your child has logged in, simply click on the black flag on the left hand side of the screen and type Microsoft into the search app box in the top right hand section of the screen.  This image can be enlarged  by clicking on it.

Free online tutorials are available from the Microsoft Training Centre at the following address:

https://support.office.com/en-gb/office-training-center

Click on each software icon to reveal instructional videos by task.

We hope this is useful for you.

# Successful learners together

On Friday, P5-7 were visited by PC Wilson once again! A regular in the class, PC Wilson comes in to give the boys and girls first hand recounts and information regarding how to keep themselves and those around them safe.

The boys and girls had their opportunity to ask PC Wilson a wide range of questions to better understand why we have the emergency services and how her role as police officer is key in keeping us safe and protected.

We learned about how tough it can be to be a police officer, mentally and physically!

We learned about situations where you need emergency help and situations where you don’t and where the police come into that!

We learned all about the different departments of police work there are!

Here are some photos and comments from some of the boys and girls;

Creepy Mask!!!

P1-3 had a fantastic day today at the Wigtown Book Festival. Wigtown book festival aims to provide opportunities for young people to enjoy and learn through writing and storytelling and we most certainly did !

Alan Windram talked to us about his award winning book ‘One Button Benny’. He explained that Benny is a special robot. A single red button sits in the middle of his stomach. Benny has never known what the words “Only Press in an Emergency” mean until one day he is forced to find out.

The boys and girls then enjoyed participating in Robot Karaoke which included elements of dancing, singing and even some guitar. What a brilliant afternoon !