Kirkcolm Primary School

On the 26th of November, P.5-7 got a visit from Lauren  who works to keep bridges maintained and secure for the D&G council. She also designs bridges and the children had a go of their own.

They  designed their bridges in groups of 4/5 and then had a go at building their own with paper straws. The bridges were tested with a full water-bottle. some of them worked, while others not so much!

Overall the children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would happily do it again!

By Olivia Turtle (P.5), and Ivy Richardson (P.7)

The pupils also learned about the different types of bridges and what purposes they served, how strong they were and whereabouts in Scotland they could be found. Some of these included Beam, Trussel, Arch, Tiled, Suspension and Cable bridges.

Pupils were limited in their design too – they had to be sustainable and try and use as little materials as possible and figure out how to combine their materials to make their bridge as structurally sound as possible!

Here are some photos of the day;

I am delighted to say that following a process which we have been undertaking over the last 2 years, as part of our School improvement plan, our partnership of trio schools has achieved National recognition in the Digital Skills Scotland awards.

Today, in honour of Book Week Scotland, the boys and girls of Kirkcolm came together to enjoy a Live Authors session of The Gruffalo!

The pupils were able to listen to James Robertson and Catriona Lexy Campbell read out renditions of The Gruffalo in both Scots and Gaelic as well as listening to proper Scots and Gaelic words from all over the country.

It was amazing to see such great Scottish Culture embraced in this session and the boys and girls were over the moon to add some fab Scottish Vocabulary to their word bank – ‘Bahooky’ was a real fan favourite!

To launch the start of Book Week Scotland (which runs from 18^th-24^th November), P1-3 parents were invited into school this afternoon as part of the Bookbug (P1) / Read, Write, Count (P2-3) initiatives. Parents spent time exploring the contents of the bags and discussing ways in which the resources could be used to develop pupils’ literacy and numeracy at home. We also had a look at the ‘Parent Club’ website which gives further examples of activities to do at home using the resources.

An excited bunch of P1-3 pupils then joined us and were gifted with their bags. Pupils were desperate to get into their bags and see what it contained! Having sat patiently, we then headed to the classroom where pupils explored the goodies they were given – some were reading books; others were playing games of rockets & meteors or top trumps; and some were using story cubes to create imaginative silly stories!

Later in the week to continue the Book Week Scotland celebrations, P4-7 pupils will be doing some paired reading with P1-3, as suggested by the Pupil Council, and some pupils will be watching the Authors Live event which tells the story of the Gruffalo in Scots. We are all looking forward to getting together to enjoy some stories and share in our love of reading!

Well done to Ivan Turtle (P2), Noah McGory (p4), Daniel hall (P6) and Ivy Richardson (P7) who’s charming, bright, festive and fun Christmas card designs were selected to be printed on the Kirkcolm Church Community’s Christmas Cards this festive season!

Check out the winners with the final card design and their prizes! What a team!

Our Winners!

This year for Children in Need, the pupils from the upper class stepped back and allowed P1-4 to organise the fundraising activities for the school and I think we can all agree, what an amazing job they have done! From Quiz sheets to Pudsey Colouring in competitions to ramp up excitement and raise money amongst the boys and girls in the school.

Winners of the quiz and colouring competition are as follows;

Quiz Winner – Marie Turtle (we sent buns home with the team!)

P5-7 Pudsey Colouring Winner – Danny Lyon

P1-4 Pudsey Colouring Winner – Pheobe Manson

Leading up to their huge enterprising project of selling the plate of buns to order to the boys and girls in the school as a way to raise money. We have to extend the biggest thanks to Anne Marie, Mrs Turtle and Mrs Manson for their hard effort in baking these buns for the boys and girls to decorate and sell. Also to Mrs Richardson who kindly came in and dedicated her time to helping ice and decorate the buns with the pupils. It was a real team effort and what a delicious result from it all!

The boys and girls (and staff and mums!) have worked their absolute socks off and have had an amazing day to show from it. Have a look at the photos to see all the fantastic ‘When I Grow Up’ costumes and decorating fun!

Stay posted to find out the total raised….

The 7^th of Novembers marks the first of 2 outdoor learning days to take place within the school year and since we are all working together to try and make more use of our fabulous playground and all it has to offer, we did not let these grey skies deter us!

Arming ourselves up with lots of layers and bracing for the muddy playground – both the lower and upper classes took part in some outdoor learning challenges.

P1-4 are learning about money so replaced coins with natural materials and made up different sums of money. As well as this they also used measurement to work out the length of the netball court and added up how much it would cost to paint.

P4-7 attempted to measure a tree without anybody being required to stand on shoulders or climbing to the top… We used a variety of different methods but found that using our pencil, a partner and some ‘one eye closed’ perspective worked out the best!

Moving onto literacy this after P1-4 and P4-7 created their spelling words outdoors using natural materials and then P4-7 foraged for some natural ingredients to write down instructions for some home-made remedies! (There was a lot of hand washing after this!)

Overall, the boys and girls had a fab day running about outside, getting some fresh air and didn’t even mind the odd drizzling on!

The Groups Success!

P7 had a grand time this morning as they were given the chance to layer up and head out to the North West Castle for a morning of curling. They got an opportunity to glide around, sweep the ice and slide the stones along and then got straight down to business for a mini session of games!

Finally all the boys and girls mixed up for a finally game and although Kirkcolm gave a noble performance , it was Leswalt that took the title!

The P7’s had a great time and some of them are even considering taking it up on a weekly basis… Watch this space!

To celebrate all things spooky this Halloween Kirkcolm Primary came together with the nursery for a morning of ghostly games and a fabulous costume parade to showcase all the hard work the boys and girls put in to making themselves look terrifying!

The morning kicked off with our costume parade and judging session by our lovely Kirkcolm Pupil Council (with teachers occasionally called upon to make a deciding vote!) for the most ghoulish costumes that showcased a great effort from the pupils. The winners were;

P1 – Lyle McCulloch

P2 – Ivan Turtle

P3 – Sally Drummond

P4 – James Turtle (with some help from Olivia!)

P5 – Emma Drummond

P6 – Ruth Turtle

And finally,

P7 – Danny Lyon

Well Done Folks!

Then we set about some playing some Halloween themed games like; Pass the Pumpkin, Creepy Corners, Musical Arms and we finished it all off with a wee Dook’ for Apples.

We have our super duo House Captains to thank for the planning and organisation of the day and keeping things running smoothly! Well Done Danny and Abbie!

I’m sure you’ll agree from looking through the photos that Kirkcolm may have the spookiest children about…