Portpatrick Primary

On Friday 9th of June, the whole school set off for a day of learning and fun at Dumfries House in Cumnock.  We were joined on our journey by P5-7 from Leswalt Primary.  On arrival, the groups split off to participate in different activities.  P1-4 went on a bug hunt, exploring creatures in the habitats around them.  The children helped to construct a ‘bug hotel’ and visited the garden area to pot plants of their own.  P5-6 explored the conditions plants need to grow.  They then moved on to plant rapeseed in pots in the potting shed.  The pupils also considered what materials are biodegradable before creating their own compost gardens in a bottle to take home.

Both schools came back together to have free time in the adventure playground.  The boys and girls then enjoyed an ice-cream before returning journey.

Primary 5 and 6 were treated to another great session with Pitch, Pulse and Magic today.  The Spencer Strachan duo performed a range of classical pieces on the violin and cello.  The children were asked to identify the tempo and the musical concepts in a selection of famous pieces. For example, the pupils had to guess the animal being depicted in the Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens.

There was opportunity to explore inter-disciplinary learning links with science (sound).  The pupils were asked to identify how sound is produced and how it travels.  They also carried out a water pitch experiment to identify which glass of water, when tapped, produced the highest/lowest pitch sound and why.

We also linked to our Language and Literacy work of poetry this term.  The pupils used their Higher Order Thinking Skills to Create movement to music that was matched a poem read aloud by Jenna.

This session was followed by our continuing Feis Rois Ukelele workshop.  Primary 5 and 6 are  becoming very proficient in identifying, reading and playing musical chords on this instrument.  They are able to work collaboratively to play very pleasing group compositions.

Successful Learners – Effective Contributors.

P1-4 went on a journey through time today as part of their ‘Life Long Ago’ topic. They experienced a History Alive workshop exploring the Roman Era.  Kathryn delighted the boys and girls by dressing up as a Roman Centurion.  She displayed a range of authentic artefacts and weapons for the children to explore.  Our Roman visitor then shared many facts about Roman traditions, culture and lifestyle.  The children were given an opportunity to be hands-on by dressing up and engaging in role play.  There was much discussion on what life must have been like and how it compares to life today.

Here are some quotes from the girls and boys recounting their experience:

“I asked a lot of questions about lots of different kinds of things.   My favourite thing to do was dress up as a rich Roman lady.   After dressing up I went to hold a sword and it was really heavy!   Ava Lily.

“The Roman visitor brought some Roman weapons like swords and spears and some armour. After that, we got to play because the Roman visitor brought Roman costumes and some Celts costumes. We play- fought with fake spears.  It was very fun. We got to try lift very heavy armour.”  Finlay Schofield

The joint partnership football team from Portpatrick and Leswalt  Primary schools took part in the first fun day tournament of this term – with great success.

The boys and girls played at Rephad fun night and progressed unbeaten to the final.  This competition was open to all schools in the Stranraer cluster.  In the final they played Belmont Primary, who eventually won. 

Well done to all who played – there was great team work and sportmanship displayed throughout.  Special thanks must go to Ewan Dodds for coaching at Leswalt and Alec Ross, from Portpatrick,  for managing the team at this tournament.

To celebrate Scotland’s national outdoor learning day, Ms Whorlow and Mrs Henry planned lots of fun activities to take place outdoors throughout the whole day.  There were great links to numeracy and maths, literacy, technologies, science, social studies, art and much more!

P1-4 ventured in to the playground to play a huge game of battleships!  They had to read co-ordinates on each other’s grids to try to sink each other’s battleships!  They picked up co-ordinates quickly and were soon sinking the crafts!

Before lunch, P1-4 also went a walk down to the harbour for some imaginative writing.  The used the beautiful setting in Portpatrick to describe what they could see, hear, touch, taste, smell, feel and then used this for inspiration for a story.  In groups, the pupils created characters (some included an ‘evil mexican’, a ‘dragon’, a ‘royal sea pup’ and a unicorn!) and used their imaginations to create a story with an introduction, a problem then a solution to the problem.  Lots of locals and visitors in the village enjoyed listening in to all these wonderful ideas and commented on how well the children were engaged in their learning!  The class then wrote up their stories once back at school after lunch before ending their outdoor learning outside with Mrs Edwards, our PE specialist for some fun with patterns and skipping!

 

In p5/6, they focused on identifying angles within their environment.  They had to find compass point bearings for local land marks and made birds eye view sketches of these from their excellent elevated view from the playground.  They also marked out compass points using cones and recorded the angles.

After this, to link in with their current Science topic on ‘Plants’, the children went around their environment observing the variety of flowers on show.  They also used magnifying glasses to observe the different insects who travel to these flowers which led to great discussion on food chains.  The magnified view allowed the children to view the intricate details of leaves and the components of flowers e.g. petal, leaves, stem, anther, stigma etc.

The learners then used what they had observed to create intricate sketch drawings of the flower, really focusing on attention to detail.  This provided opportunities to discuss symmetry and compare and contrast features of flowers and plants.

In the afternoon, the class ventured in to their local village to explore which areas provide rich tourism for the local community.  They visited the putting green, family play park, local walking paths, fishing trips, golf club, local restaurants and bars as well as the beautiful sandy beach and rocky cliffs.   For being a wee village… Portpatrick certainly has a lot to offer the rest of the world! 🙂

On their way back to school, p5/6 bumped int o p1-4 who were out collecting data on the locals and visitors favourite things.  They questioned passer by’s appropriately then recorded their responses in a table and used tally marks to record totals.  They will turn this information in to a graphical display next week!

We were so lucky to have 2 gorgeous sunny days to extend the outdoor learning 🙂

Next week, p1-4 will be learning how to be journalists and reporters by creating their own newspapers and articles.  To help with this learning, Mrs Henry took them all in to the local Free Press Office in Stranraer to meet the production and reporting team and see how a newspaper is created.

The staff were fantastic with the children and really got them involved in the process from start to finish … they even made it on to the front page of the press in a mock up paper on the editors computer! 🙂

Class 2 have been learning about the foods we produce in Britain.  We have studied farming calendars to identify which foods are in season and when.  We have also been exploring the journeys certain foods make to come to our supermarkets out of season from abroad.  We have been considering the ways in which food is preserved to extend its life.

To apply this learning, we have made fruit tarts using preserved and fresh strawberries that are out of season in Britain at this time of year.  As it is May, our fruit has travelled from Spain, which is approximately 2,300Km away.  We are able to identify the impact that this can have on the environment in Food Miles.

We applied our Language reading skills to follow an instructional recipe.  We also used our food hygiene practices to work cleanly and safely.  Throughout this task the class we employed our soft skills of cooperation, teamwork, sharing and negotiating to complete our task.  We all agreed our tarts tasted delicious!

 

On Monday 15th of May, P6 attended Operation Safety at Stair Park as part of an annual education and awareness service operated by our emergency services.  The boys and girls participated in workshops on a range of areas to help educate them on some dangers and risks they might face and how best to deal with them.  The workshops attended were:

• Coastguard – keeping ourselves safe when rescuing someone drowning
• Ambulance – assessing the situation and recovery position
• Police – alcohol and its effects
• Fire Brigade – Dangers in the home
• Police – Vandalism
• Scottish Power – Electricity and its dangers
• Police – Social media safety
• Police – drugs

The children developed a deeper awareness of the potential risks and discussed strategies to help them cope sensibly with them.

As part of their Health and Wellbeing topic on the importance of good dental hygiene, Janine Maxwell was invited in to P1-4 to talk about the best ways to keep your teeth clean.

The boys and girls learned lots of good tips about toothbrushing, mouthwash, best time to eat a sugary treat, what sugar does to teeth and what happens when you don’t brush your teeth!  The children were horrified at the model which showed a nice set of healthy teeth compared to a set of rotten teeth!

On Wednesday 10th May, the whole school took part in lots of numeracy, literacy and other fun activities linked to the Buddhist festival of Wesak.  This important festival marks the Buddha’s birthday and celebrates the birth, enlightenment and death of the very first Buddha.  The children were allowed to come to school dressed in white to follow a popular Wesak tradition.

The day began with a whole school assembly about Buddhism.  The children took turns to ‘bathe the Buddha’ by pouring water over his head, to celebrate his birth.

To explore what ‘enlightenment’ meant, 2 pupils (Jenna and Mia in P6), were blindfolded and asked to stuff as many marshmallows as the could in their mouths in 30 seconds.  They thought 2 other pupils (Ava Lily and Liam) were doing this too but when they took their blindfolds off, they realised they were the only two doing it and looked particularly ridiculous with their mouths stuffed with marshmallows unable to speak!  When we explained that Ava Lily and Liam were in on the trick and did not actually eat any marshmallows, Mia went ‘Awwww, I see now!’.  This was Mia being ‘enlightened’ to what was really going on – like lifting a blindfold off and seeing the ‘bigger picture’,just like the Buddha.

The children then learned about the eightfold path and the ‘Dharma Wheel’.  Lots of numeracy and maths activities were explored with the wheel including, fractions, symmetry and angle work using a compass and protractor.

In literacy, the themes of ‘greed, hate and ignorance’ were explored as Buddhists believe you cannot try to achieve enlightenment until you stop being greedy, hateful and ignorant.  The children took part in antonym and synonym work for these terms as well as role plays to explore these. The P1’s looked at familiar stories such as Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast which show some of these themes in their books and films.  This led on to some writing on how we could all be more generous, loving and tolerant.

In the afternoon, learners took part in real celebrations of Wesak, including making gifts for the Buddha.  2D nets were turned in to fantastic 3D gift boxes, paper lanterns were made and Happy Birthday Buddha cards were written.  Some learners also painted the very colourful Buddhist flag too.

To end an exciting and wonderful day, the school got back together to share everything they had learned.  The children took turns to talk about their learning and then they presented the gifts they had made to the Buddha statue, as this is what Buddhists do during Wesak.