Pupils came to school today dressed all festive in their Christmas jumpers as part of Christmas Jumper Day – and didn’t they look wonderful! We had all sorts – shiny, glitzy jumpers; fluffy jumpers; and jumpers that light up and flash!
At lunch time, we put the Christmas tunes on, pulled our crackers and tucked into a delicious meal of turkey with all the trimmings, kindly served by Tracy and Mrs Henry.
We’re all certainly in the Christmas spirit now and looking forward to more festive celebrations next week!
On Monday, Jingles decided to build the boys and girls a ‘ginger’ bread house. We think he had a munch as he was working on it.
Jingles leaves a present
How do you like my ‘Ginger’ Bread House?
On Tuesday, Jingles teamed up with the Elvis the Elf who is visiting Class 1. Together they decided to enjoy some winter sports. They headed for the slopes for a spot of skiing.
Winter fun
On Wednesday, Jingles left a treat for the children courtesy of Rudolf. I don’t think they were too keen to sample his offering of Free Reindeer Poo 😉
On Thursday, Jingles Elf and Elvis Elf from Class One left some learning challenges for the children.
A clue was hidden under one of the golden cups placed ALL OVER the hall floor. It was a fun, free-for-all with Alfie finding the winning cup to reveal our activity.
The message said that we were going to bake Christmas Butter Cookies. The elves had left us all the ingredients we needed. The children had to follow a basic recipe to make cookies. Each group was required to apply their knowledge of reading weighing scales to measure butter, flour and sugar in the right quantities. They had to interpret and follow an instruction text in the right sequence to produce their cookies correctly. Everyone practiced their employability skills of problem solving, numeracy skills, teamwork, communication and organisation.
problem solving
Helping hands
weighing and measuring
negotiating
communicating
Teamwork
Our finished cookies
Yum!
The boys and girls used the baking experience to practice their instruction writing skills to recreate the recipe from memory.
The next challenge was to make a 3D kitchen scene for Jingles using 2D maths nets. The children had to figure out how the net would be folded and shaped to create an oven and flour bags etc. They created a diorama for Jingles to use as his kitchen. We think he likes it!
Jingles leaves a challenge
Can you make me a kitchen?
Our instructions
Our 2D net templates
Preparing our 2D nets
Look what we made!
Jingles enjoys his kitchen
Snowy scene with digital photo art
On Friday, Jingles spun a spell and created a magical shrinking machine. How he managed to shrink the Oreo biscuits remains a mystery. We hope he behaves himself over the weekend whilst we are not in school!
P 4-7 saw the return of Jingles the Elf on Tuesday 1st of December. Jingles is our very own elf who visits us every year for mischief and mayhem.
Meet Jingles
This year, his arrival was a little different. Jingles was delivered in his own self-isolation chamber to make sure he kept the boys and girls safe. He had to fill in an Official Elf Symptom Tracker and Travel Clearance Record to allow him to travel from the North Pole. Thankfully, it looked like he was feeling okay and was just being careful. He had already completed 10 days of a 14 day isolation as he started self-isolating in the North Pole sealed in his chamber, so he only had 4 days to go. Ms. Whorlow was hoping he had to isolate for the full 14 days to give her peace, but it was not to be 😉
Jingles arrives
A note for the children
Travel clearance record
Keeping safe
4 days to go!
We expected things to be quiet for a few days as he stayed in isolation, but on Wednesday, we arrived to find this letter from Jingles.
Just look what he did to our classroom blinds!
That’s gonna take some cleaning!
The children created some lovely elf pictures to brighten Jingles up.
Maya
Alba
Ruby
Ava Lily
Tilly
Izzy
Lillie
On Thursday, we arrived to find another note from Jingles. He brought candy canes to decorate our tree.
Jingles leaves another noteJingles brings candy canes
The children practiced their letter writing skills and wrote Jingles a letter to tell him a little about themselves. They know that if they want to tell Santa about any Christmas gift wishes, they have to write to the jolly man himself back at the North Pole workshop.
On Friday, even though Jingles was still stuck in his isolation chamber, he had just enough magic to organise a candy cane treasure hunt with the canes he brought the day before. Each child had to seek out the candy cane with their name on it and got to keep it as a wee treat from our elf.
Every year to help celebrate Book Week Scotland, P1-3 pupils are gifted with a Book Bug (P1) / Read, Write, Count (P2/3) bag as part of a government initiative to promote literacy and numeracy at home. And despite Covid ruining most things this year, thankfully it didn’t ruin this (albeit it was a bit late since Book Week was technically 2 weeks ago!!!).
On Friday afternoon, pupils were presented with their gift bags and got the opportunity to explore the contents. They enjoyed reading the books and playing some of the games contained inside the bags. There was much hilarity with the ‘This is a Dog’ book – if you have a P1 Bookbug bag, have a keek for yourself!! Although this year we were missing the parents (who usually pop in to share in this wonderful event), the pupils were thrilled with their bags.
Please look out for your child bringing these bags home for you to enjoy together. If you’d like any further information or suggestions on how to use the bags at home, check out the Scottish Book Trust website:
Pupils at Portpatrick Primary had a wonderful new addition to the playground this week. After watching the construction work in awe all of last week, pupils were delighted to be able to cut the tape around the new playground equipment and get stuck into the new inclusive outdoor gym. Back in January our wonderful Parent Council applied to the Kilgallioch Community Benefit Company grant and was awarded £7664 to go towards a new outdoor gym. The fund supports projects that engage and empower young people and improve the quality of life, health, and well-being of those in the community. In a year where health and wellbeing has been a priority for all, the new equipment couldn’t have arrived at a better time. A huge thanks to all those involved and who helped to put the application together. The children are absolutely delighted with the new equipment and it looks set to be enjoyed by many for generations to come.
Below are some photos of the children enjoying the new equipment. Big smiles all around! 😀
As part of Book Week Scotland activities, P4-7 have combined their digital technology skills with literacy to create their very own nativity story books.
They have used software called Book Creator to organise, write and record audio voice-overs to retell the Christmas story in their own words. They have even created their own front cover illustrations for each of their books.
Alba
Atticus
Ava Lily
Izzy
Jack
Lillie
Lewis
Maya
Robin
Ruby
Tilly
Our younger pupils will enjoy accessing the books and having them read automatically to them with the ‘read to me’ option. Click on the links below to enjoy reading and listening to our interactive story creations.
The boys and girls recently entered artwork on the theme of Remembrance Day to the Morrisons Poppy Day competition. We are delighted to announce that Miss Lillie Baker is a winner in the primary 7 category and has been presented with a goodie bag as a prize.
You may have enjoyed looking at the children’s creations when shopping in the store. All of the entries were of a high standard from primary schools across the Stranraer cluster, which makes Lillie’s achievement all the more noteworthy.
Portpatrick Primary are demonstrating that we are responsible citizens this week. As part of Anti-Bullying Week, we are discussing and sharing ours views on the subject of bullying.
The boys and girls came to school dressed in odd socks to celebrate difference. We designed our own odd socks and chatted about how all of our differences made us unique and special.
Both classes held virtual assemblies, as provided by the Anti-Bullying Alliance, hosted by BBC presenter Andy, with special guests including Mo Farah and Anne-Marie!
P4-7 carried out a scrunching paper activity to demonstrate the impact of mean behaviour towards others. We started off with a smooth sheet of blank paper, representing our unblemished feelings. Each child then wrote down examples of mean things that someone might say to another. For every comment, we scrunched our paper a little bit. By the end of the task we had a crumbled ball. We then tried to smooth our paper to get it back to the way it was before all of the mean words. We realised, that the paper could never be returned to the way it was after its experience, just in the same way that hurtful words and deeds can cause lasting upset to a child.
What might a bully say?
Our damaged paper feelings
Hurt feelings stay hurt
P4-7 moved on to define what is meant by the term bullying. We identified strategies to tackle this issue. We then used this knowledge to create our own anti-bullying advice posters and displayed them in our hall; along with our fabulously colourful odd sock artwork.
Wow! Portpatrick Primary pupils have gone that extra mile to support this year’s Children In Need.
Our day started with a parade of all our wonderful onesies, pj’s and spotty attire. Don’t the boys and girls look fabulous?
Next up, we jumped into action to participate in the final session of Joe Wick’s 24 hour workout. It was hot work, but we gave it our all.
The children then enjoyed decorating Pudsey’s face, hand crafted by Kim, with small change that our families very kindly sent in. It makes a pretty picture. Mrs Ross brought in her penny jar to add to our loose change collection. Thank you!
Class 1 get creative
Our finished Pudsey
We opened our Pudsey shop for the final time. The children generously bought Pudsey ears and Pudsey badges. They also had a final go of guessing the name of the penguin. The boys and girls also used their maths skills to estimate many cubes were in the jar.
Class one get their ears on.
Have a go!
Conor and Scott won our cute penguin by selecting the name Icicle. There were 264 cubes in the jar. Ruby was the winner with her closest estimate.
Meet Icicle
Ruby estimates to win
We then used our maths skills to sort and count up all of the coins and notes we had collected. After our fund raising efforts, £174 will be going to Children In Need, which is great result for a wee school.
We received many kind donations and contributions from our fundraising team -the Pineapple Squad, our families, the wider community and even the King Slayer move crew at Dunskey. Thank you very much everyone. Your kindness will help change children’s lives.
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