Author: Ms Whorlow

Our boys and girls were treated to a visit from our local Stranraer Coastal Rowing Team today.  The team members proudly displayed their hand built skiff, The Lady Bay, and explained the construction process to the children.  We were all surprised to learn that not a single nail had been used.

During the building phase, members of the local community volunteered their help with no previous knowledge of boat building.  We all agreed it was a fine craft, painted in the colours of our local Stranraer Academy.

The children were invited to sit in the skiff and try their hand at ‘on-land’ rowing. Lewis, Ruby and Maya took up position as coxswains to guide proceedings.

Wendy Cuff explained that the week long Stranraer SkiffieWorlds rowing festival in July (7th – 13th) will see competition entrants from around the globe come to Loch Ryan. There will be up to 1500 competitors and as many as 70+ skiffs are expected to participate in the World Championships for the St Ayles Skiff class of Coastal Rowing Boats. There will be a wide range of family based events on offer during the week.  It is definitely an event not to miss!

The children took the opportunity to get their design heads by designing and decorating their own skiff back at school.  These are to be displayed around Stranraer during the festival.

The whole school put on their community spirits today as part of their Eco School responsibilities.  We all carried out a litter pick in the village with the support of family and friends.  The children got stuck in making the place spike and span.  They used their eagle eyes to spot and safely collect litter using the litter pickers provided by Kelly Monteith of the local council.

The boys and girls then applied their maths skills to calculate the weight of litter collected.  We problem solved by weighing a willing pupil before and whilst holding the litter collected.  The children then found the ‘difference’ by taking away.  We found we had gathered 5kg of litter on our clean up.  We talked about what fraction the litter weight was in relation to the pupil’s weight and converted the figure to a percentage.

This clean up is part of a wider trio litter action event organised by Mrs McHarg.

#Effective Contributors.

 

Parents and pupils were treated to a musical recital by the P4-7 class yesterday.  Over the term, they have been working hard on their Scot’s musical compositions with Claire Mann from Feis Rois. The children have learned songs in Scots and Gaelic and have composed their own instrumental arrangements to accompany their singing.  We were all delighted to listen to a wide range of instruments that the children played independently.  They showcased their talents on violins, flutes, tin whistles, a guitar, African drums and Xylophones!

Everyone agreed that it was a very entertaining morning.  Our thanks go to Claire and to the pupils for all their musical efforts, and also to the parents who came along to share the experience.

#Successful Learners

 

P1 – 3 have been beavering away in the outdoor environment as part of their farming topic this term.  They have been working collaboratively to prepare and plant a selection of vegetables in our  vegetable patch.  The children will nurture and care for potatoes, carrots, turnip, onions and beetroot. Ewan Little and Barsolus kindly donated the potatoes, carrots and turnips.  The children are all looking forward to harvesting their crop and tasting the ‘fruits’ of their efforts.

# Effective Contributors.

The pupils of P4-7 have rose to the challenge of producing a WWII related resource of their own choosing.  The children made models, posters, podcasts, rationing recipes and more!

A range of STEM skills were utilised in the tasks.  Here are just a few of the applied skills they have used:

• measuring
• weighing
• cutting
• sawing
• sticking
• combining
• decorating
• researching
• Using IT sofware

The standard was so high that Barbara had a hard time judging the winner.  She selected:

3rd Place – Maya McNeill for her Anderson Shelter

2nd Place – Isabella White for her Anderson Shelter cake

1st Place – Lee Gaunt for his dug out battle scene.

Everyone received ‘highly commended’ recognition for their sterling efforts.  Thanks go to willing family members who helped, supported and encouraged the children to be independent learners.

As a class, we used Papier Mache to produce our own Anderson shelter model.  We also worked with Balsa wood and cardboard to produce our fleet of WWII fighter planes.

# Independent Learners

As part of P1-3’s topic of Ancient Egypt, the class have been learning about the diet of the Egyptian people.  They discovered that they, in the main, had a very healthy diet and that the most important food staple was bread.

The boys and girls decided to make some using a traditional recipe to see for themselves how good it was.  They had a discussion on why yeast was needed.  The skills they used to complete this task were:

• Following a pictorial instruction recipe
• Weighing and measuring
• Mixing
• Cooperating
• Food hygiene
• Tasting
• Evaluating

The bread was deemed a resounding success by everyone!

#Successful Learners

 

As part of this term’s WWII topic, Primary 4-7 created some authentic rationing recipes today.  P4 made fruity buns using a range of dried and fresh fruit ingredients.  P5-7 created carrot biscuits.  Each group had to select ingredients and use equipment hygienically and safely.  Maths skills were required through weighing and measuring activities.

We used the stimulus to write our own instruction text recipes, using ‘bossy’ imperative verbs and key language features.

The class tasted both recipes and evaluated them for taste, presentation and appeal. We were about 60/40 on the fruity buns, but it was a resounding thumbs up from everyone for the carrot biscuits.

To add to our creative flare, we undertook a challenge to plan a party dish from limited wartime ingredients.

Throughout it all, the class enjoyed listening to wartime songs.  There was even a little sing along to Run Rabbit Run 🙂

# Successful Learners

A trio partnership science morning was the order of the day at Portpatrick Primary today. Pupils and family in our  P4 – 7 classes from Kircolm, Leswalt and Portpatrick came together to participate in a wide range of STEM based activities (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) as part of British Science Week.

The showpiece of the event was a mobile planetarium provided by the Galloway Forest Astronomical Society, organised by Mrs Ferguson.  Mr Antony Berretti, Dr Douglas Snell, Mr Hunter McCall and Mr Brian Rice, gave up their time voluntarily to bring a night sky experience to the children.  We were taken on a journey through the planets and moons of our Milky Way, learning fascinating facts on our travels. P1-3 were also treated to a session as an added bonus.  This resource has been kindly funded by the Kilgallioch Community Fund and is being made available to schools within our region.

The planetarium will be part of the attractions on offer to all ages on Saturday 9th March during the weekend programme for the Wigtown Big Bang Weekend event. (11-4pm, £5 per entry).  There are visiting astronomical dignitaries scheduled to attend the weekend.

When not in the planetarium, the pupils were given a carousel of hands-on challenges to select from; ranging from electrical circuits to tower construction and from pin the organ on the body to parachute making.  For example, they had to design an electrical circuit that would sound an alarm in the event of a flood.  Our little engineers didn’t let us down and were up to the challenges of all the problems presented to them.

There was even an opportunity for social time during break, which the children made full use of.

P1-3 will not miss out as they will have their science event this coming Friday.

#Successful Learners

 

P1-3 donned their archaeological hats for the morning when they travelled back in time to Ancient Egypt with Kathryn Purchase from History Alive.

The session began with a bang as Kathryn arrived in a full ‘Howard Carter’ style costume with a giant hieroglyph display.   She took the children through the location and background of Ancient Egypt and asked them to think about how we can possibly know anything about people who lived 5000 years ago.

She introduced archaeological evidence left behind by the Ancient Egyptians and encouraged the children to think about what this tells us about the lives of those people so long ago.

The boys and girls learned about the social hierarchy of Egypt from slaves and peasant to Pharaohs. There was much discussion about the lives they led and how they compare to our own today.  Homes, jobs, games, clothes, food and worship, and much more were all explored.

The children were particularly fascinated by the ancient Gods, tombs and mummification process!

Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to dress up in Ancient Egyptian costumes and to have a hands-on exploration of artefacts.  There was even an opportunity to carry out an archaeological dig using a sand box to reveal treasures. The boys and girls carefully scraped and brushed sand away to see what they could uncover. There was an opportunity to write their names in hieroglyphs and complete puzzles.

The children had a fantastic morning and learned lots of new information to help with their topic.  The class now say that , “Many of us want to be archaeologists when we grow up!”

#Successful Learners

 

P1-3 have been busy exploring inventions of the past today.  They have learned about how the ancient Egyptians built shadufs to help them lift water from the River Nile to water their crops.

The boys and girls constructed their own shaduf models using rods, Plasticine, string and containers. The children applied the principle of pivot points to lesson the force required to move water from one point to another.

The children used their engineering skills to create their concept designs, constructing and modifying through experience to ensure sufficient drop and counterbalance.  The stability of free standing design was tinkered with and a conclusion reached that the tripod method was the most stable for this purpose. Hands on learning, developing soft skills of cooperation, discussion and idea sharing was the order of the day!

#Successful Learners