Portpatrick Primary

The whole school got sprightly outdoors today as part of the Active Schools initiative to encourage walking in our local community area.  The activity also fits in with our Fresh Air Fridays.

The children selected local landmarks and sites to photograph to spell out a set of words.  Can you work out what the message is from the photographs below? Scroll down to reveal.        : )

We had such a fantastic afternoon in the sunshine.  Have a look at the photos to admire the pretty wee place where we live and go to school.

# Creative and Healthy!

The Boys and Girls at Portpatrick Primary have enjoyed a wonderful week of Easter Fun. Below is a list of activities and some final photos. Please browse the posts from earlier this week to see all the action that has taken place.
Happy Easter Holidays Everyone!

• Easter Bonnet Making (see below)
• Easter collaborative art project
• Maths Easter Egg Hunt
• Easter nests as part of our Easter baking activity
• We tried some Hotcross Buns (see below)
• Annual Easter Egg Competition
• Class 2 made a zip-wire capable of transporting Cadbury’s creme egg as their STEM activity this week.
• Class 1 made and painted easter eggs before rolling them down the hill in the playground as part of their STEM activity. (see below)

Bonnet Making 

Easter Bonnet Judges – Mrs Henry and Mrs Rankin
Class 1  winner- Freya
Class 2 winner- Ava Lily

Hot Cross Buns – YUMMY!

Lets Race
Making and then rolling our Easter eggs down the hill in the playground.
Some eggs survived better than others… Great fun had by all!
We spoke about how the egg changed state and was irreversible and then outside we brainstormed and discussed how it was the force of gravity that made the egg roll down the hill.

Continuing with our Easter themed learning fun, the children enjoyed making chocolate Easter egg nest cakes today.

We discussed how the chocolate changed state from a solid to a liquid. We observed how this was a reversible process.  As the chocolate solidified we could then re-melt it using heat.

Donning our aprons , we worked hygienically and collaboratively to create lovely wee Easter treats to enjoy at home.

The whole school got creative today with a fabulous response to our egg-ceptional Easter egg competition.

This year, we opened up the brief to allow the children to use any material they liked to craft their Easter themed designs.

Mrs Henry had a very hard job to judge in each primary category.  The winners are as follows:

• P1 – Harry
• P2 – Rebecca
• P3 – Erin
• P4 – Conor
• P6 – Ruby
• P7 – Lillie

As the standard of standard of entries was so high, each entrant has received a Highly Commended certificate.  Thank you to everyone for the fabulous entries.  We all enjoyed them very much!

# Effective Contributors

During remote learning, P4-7 participated in a music project with Feis Rois.  The children met together on Teams each week to explore traditional Scottish music and to experiment with sound.

As part of the project, the children wrote comments on what they love about Portpatrick. They also created artwork to represent our local area.  Feis Rois have produced digital sound postcards using the children’s work. We will soon have paper versions that we can post to family and friends.

Click on the links to enjoy the children’s local artwork and to read the positive comments they have written about our village. Scan the QR code to listen to a musical sound snippet.

56 – Portpatrick 1

57 – Portpatrick 2

58 – Portpatrick 3

59 – Portpatrick 4

# Successful Learners

When we arrived at school this morning, we found that the Easter Bunny had been in early to set up an Easter Egg maths hunt for us.

The children had to work collaboratively in pairs to seek out colour coded eggs to solve four operation maths questions.  There were ten eggs to crack in all.

Everyone had great fun, hunting out their eggs and running around in the fresh air and sunshine.

# Successful Learners

P4-7 got stuck in to an egg-cellent STEM problem solving challenge this afternoon.  The children had to design a zip wire basket capable of transporting a Cadbury’s creme egg on a zip-wire run using just pipe cleaners and a key ring loop.

The boys and girls worked in small groups to problem solve using rudimentary materials.  Every group designed a basket that securely held the egg in place.

Trial and error led to our changing one variable:  The angle of the zip line.

We found that the egg would move down the zip line if it was at the correct angle. If the zip line was at a lesser angle , gravity would not move the egg down the zip line demonstrating inertia.  Inertia is a law of physics that states an object will stay at rest until some kind of force acts upon it. Hence, we increased our angle from our initial position to allow the egg to reach the final travel point.

# Effective Contributors

# Successful Learners

Last week Primary 1-3 at Portpatrick were celebrating British Science Week. The theme this year was all about innovation and future inventions. We started by having a little review of some of the fantastic inventions that already exist and how they have made life easier and in some cases better. To kick start British Science Week, we had a little look this super cool video showing an amazing and creative design, called the Rube Goldberg Machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

Pupils then took part in a range of STEM activities including a marble run, balloon rocket and the tallest tower competition.

Meanwhile, P4-7 were busy celebrating the Science Week from home, on their final week of remote learning. They had lots of different challenges to choose from, including: putting their STEM skills into action to design a solution to a real-life problem linking to the Global Goals; various science experiments and engineering challenging such as designing a marble run, making a pom-pom launcher, powering a boat using a chemical reaction and creating an underwater volcano; learning about stereotypes and exploring the world of work in relation to STEM careers; and exploring innovations that changed the world.

Have a keek at the photos below – we all had a brilliant week thinking about and exploring problems like real-life scientists and engineers!

Portpatrick Primary were full of fund raising spirit today to support Comic Relief.  We all enjoyed a busy day of fun-filled Red Nose Day activities.  First up, the boys and girls arrived in style, making a donation to dress either casually or as a superhero.

The children purchased the new eco-friendly, plastic free red noses and bought super hero masks to decorate.

Next, we got stuck into baking Red Nose Day  cakes.  We applied our maths skills to measure and weigh the ingredients carefully.  We cooperated, taking turns to blend the mixture.  Everyone enjoyed decorating them with cherry noses and jelly lips & teeth before devouring them – yum!

As if that wasn’t enough fun and games, we then created our own ‘Super Hero City Scape’ scenes by recycling newspaper to make our artistic city skylines.

As an afternoon treat, we were entertained by our North Rhins’ Got Talent show.  The boys and girls entered videos of themselves showcasing a personal talent.  Among the skills on show were Alba and Izzy performing a beautiful dance duet routine and Atticus demonstrating his table tennis prowess.  Our pupils at Portpatrick,  carried out an in-house vote and these were amalgamated with the votes across the partnership. There were joint winners for our own school category:

• Harry with his impressive golf swing.

• Ava Lily with her skillful gymnastics display.

All our boys and girls are talented in so many ways, and it was lovely to view a selection of these skills.

More fun photos for you to enjoy!

To date our wee school has raised an impressive £110 for worthy causes.  Thank you all for your generosity and well done everyone!

# Effective Contributors

# Confident Individuals