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.
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.
Conor & Lewis -Masked Crusaders
Ruby Sporting New Eco-Nose
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!
Lewis, Conor and Atticus
Delicious!
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.
Fully focussed
Messy work
Up, Up and Away!
Pegasus
Superhero Crime Fighter
Is it a bird, is it a plane?
City Scape
Sky Scrapers
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.
Confident AND Talented
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!
Weighing and Measuring
Working with grams
Taking Turns
Spooning the Mixture
What a likeness!
To date our wee school has raised an impressive £110 for worthy causes. Thank you all for your generosity and well done everyone!
It was so lovely to have the boys and girls from Primary 4 to 7 return to school today. The children had so much fun reconnecting socially with their friends. We took advantage of the good weather to have a ‘walk ‘n’ talk’ around our village. It was a real pleasure to see their smiles and listen to them chatter away as they were all able to play together once again.
After a busy morning engaged in active learning building Gingerbread houses and making Christingles, it was party time!
Our House Captains, Robin and Izzy, organised a fabulous party for the boys and girls in P4-7.
The running order of fun and games was as follows:
Musical Statues: Winner – Maya
Christmas Corners: Winner – Conor
Pin The Nose On The Reindeer: Winning Team: Lillie, Ava Lily, Conor & Alba
Pass The Present: Winner – Alba
Reindeer Relay: Winning Team – Lillie, Ava Lily, Conor & Alba
Musical Chairs: Winners – Conor and Ruby
Best Disco Dancer: Winner – Tilly
Everyone got a treat, a snack and a drink to enjoy. When we returned to our classroom, we were surprised to see that we had had a visitor. Santa had popped in to leave presents for the boys and girls.
Portree received their reward for achieving the most termly merits for their house team today. The children elected to have a Christmas themed movie session. The boys and girls picked Nativity Rocks. They cozied in and relaxed to view a modern twist on the classic story.
Dunskey joined in with their own Christmas themed activity for the afternoon. The children worked collaboratively to design and build a sleigh for Santa to deliver his presents. They had to select a range of materials that would fit the construction task, then plan and build their model.
There was great evidence of applying the skills for work and life (employability skills). Everyone was able to use teamwork to problem solve, organise and adapt as a group. The results were impressive. The children even considered aerodynamics, capacity storage and accessibility for the jolly man himself. Well done to all for successfully achieving the desired outcome. Mrs Baillie judged the winning entry – Robin Alfie, Rebecca and Carter!
After they had completed their challenge, Dunskey was invited to join Portree to enjoy a bit of the movie too.
The boys and girls had a VERY special visitor arrive this afternoon…
Santa appeared in our playground in his motorised sleigh, complete with antlers, no less!
Everyone was surprised and delighted to see him. He said a socially distanced, “Ho, Ho, Ho!” to all the children. Santa chatted to the boys and girls and told us all that he was getting ready for the big day. He said that we have to be tucked up in our beds, sleeping, on Christmas Eve so he and his elves can work their magic.
We sung some Christmas songs out in the fresh air to entertain Santa. He very kindly gave the children a big sack of goodies as an early Christmas treat. It was then time for Santa to leave to carry on with his preparations in his workshop.
Thank you to Santa and his Elf for their kindness. We all appreciate it very much.
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.
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.
