Author: Ms Whorlow

Primary 5 – 7 have linked up with the Glasgow Science Centre to take part in a Renewable Energy project.

Today, we constructed model wind turbines and experimented with different blade designs, some flat and some with folds.

We then tested our models and found that putting a fold into the blade made the blades turn much more easily.  Have a look at Lewis demonstrating the efficiency of the flat blade first.  He then placed a fold in his blades.  Look at the difference in how the blades rotate!

 

Conclusion by Lewis:

The wind turbine blades with a fold has more drag which causes it to catch the wind current.  It has a higher, more efficient rotation rate than the blades that are flat.  That means the folded blades will go faster than the ones without flaps.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education.

P5 – 7 enjoyed some baking linked to maths this morning.  The children calculated ratios for a recipe to make half and double the quantity for a recipe for Courgette Muffins. We also used our knowlege of fractions to reduce and increase portions of fruit in the recipe.

We chose this recipe as it had healthy fruit and veg in the ingredients:

• courgettes
• apples
• oranges

Once we had worked out our amounts for each ingredient, we got stuck in following the recipe method.  We weighed and measured the items and used hygienic food preparation methods to make our muffin batter.  After a quick spin in the oven, they were ready for eating.

Everyone in school gave them a big thumbs up and agreed it was an easy way to get those fruit and veg in our diet. 🙂

UNCRC Rights of the Child -Article 24 Health, Water, Food, Environment

As part of our delayed Maths Week Scotland activities, we joined with Morna from My World Of Work today.

We learned about the differences between hardware and software. We now understand the function of components such as the CPU (Central Processing Unit), PSU (Power Supply Unit) and ROM/RAM memory (Read Only Memory & Randon Access Memory). We also learned more about software, which are basically our apps.

We used our metaskills to design and play our own maze game. Skills we used are:

• Self Management
• Social Intelligence
• Innovation

The children created a maze using a range of design functions and coding blocks.  Have a look at their great success!

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education

 

 

Using our lovely, fresh vegetables we picked at Barsolus, we participated in the Royal Horticultural Society’s Big Soup Share today.

The boys and girls chopped, peeled and grated the vegetables and added it all to a big pot of broth mix with vegetable stock cubes.  Sourcing local, seasonal produce minimises our carbon footprint as part of our Eco Schools target of taking Climate Action.

Having learned about cleanliness, hygiene and safety, the children applied  these principles to food preparation using equipment safely and sensibly.

Everyone enjoyed tucking into a delicious bowl of our homemade soup this afternoon.  Never mind seconds, some had thirds and fourths! It’s a great way to socially enjoy a healthy meal choice.

UNCRC Rights of the Chilod – Article 24 Health, Water, Food, Environment

Primary 5 – 7 from Kirkcolm and Portpatrick came together to take part in a Bonfire safety talk with Robert McCrorie from our local fire station.

Robert advised on how to behave responsibly with fireworks such as sparklers. Did you know that they can burn 15 times hotter than a kettle.  Robert told us to wear gloves, and safety glasses if we have them, tie hair back and don’t pick a sparkler up.  He said to put used sparklers in a bucket of sand or water.

We talked about what we can and can’t put on a bonfire.  We know not to put aerosol cans on as they can explode. Although we can use newspapers, we can’t burn magazines as they give off damaging gases.  We also can’t use straw bales as the lit stems can blow away and start a fire elsewhere. Robert told us what to do if our clothing catches fire. Ivan ably demonstrated how to Stop – Drop – Roll.

We are creating entries for the Firework Safety Competition to raise awareness of how to keep ourselves safe during the Bonfire celebrations.

Our thanks to Robert for taking the time to help us stay safe. 🙂

Thank you Robert!

 

We learned about how to be safe, be kind and be smart with fireworks and bonfires. Thank you Robert!

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education

What a great trip we had to Barsolus today! Primary 7 were kindly invited to visit Gillian and the crew to learn how plants benefit humans and how farming practices work from field to fork.

Gillian explained about the seasonality of different crops and how Barsolus need to time planting of vegetables such as Brussel Sprouts perfectly so they are ready to harvest for our Christmas dinners!

Our pupils also found out how different varieties of vegetables impacts on soil health over time. As a result farmers are required to rotate crop growing on field every three years or so. We also talked about taking care not to release too much carbon from soil through the use of NPK fertilisers.

We learned about cooperative arrangements with Girvan Early Growers who rent fields from Barsolus for carrot growing.  They don’t have enough land around Girvan, so hire fields to grow and harvest their own crops.

Barsolus talked about working in more environmentally sustainable ways through the Government’s ‘greening policy’. Barsolus have chosen to interpret their green action by leaving areas to grow and develop naturally. Farmers have options on what solution they choose. Gillian also chatted about reducing the chemicals added to soil through the need to change to using less damaging types of fertiliser.

We had a game of ‘identify the veg’. The children were very knowledgeable. We then had a carrot pulling competition to see who could pick the biggest carrot. Scott chose three category winners:

• Biggest carrot – Cara
• Fattest carrot – Atticus
• Longest carrot – Stephen

Cara was declared the supreme carrot champion.

Gillian very generously let the children fill a bag of veggie goodness to take home. There’ll be a few pots of soup on the go tonight. 🙂

Our thanks go to Wilma Benson for very ably escorting Leswalt and helping out our group.

We can’t thank Barosolus enough for a fabulous learning experience right on our doorstep!

 

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 24 health, food and the environment

 

Today, our North Rhins Partnership Digital Leaders came together to take part in a digital literacy training workshop. To ensure that everyone has the required skills to support their fellow pupils, the children undertook a series of training activities. Here are the skills we practiced and developed as part of our training:

Logging In:

• Logging on to our computers and logging into our Glow Accounts

Websites:

• Setting our favourites bar to display at all times
• Adding a web address to our favourites bar for easy access

Blog:

• Creating a new blog post as a contributor
• Saving our draft ready for approval for posting

QR Codes:

• Creating and downloading a QR code for a website (BBC Bitesize – Computing Lessons)
• Accessing our download folder to retrieve files

Emails:

• Accessing our email account
• Adding a recipient to an email
• Adding a subject and attachment (BBC Bitesize Computing website) and sending an email
• Creating folders in our email account
• Flagging and pinning an email in a folder

Although Scott couldn’t be with us today, we are sure he will be keen to support us as soon as he is back.

Our leaders are now busy planning Digi Skills clubs and events to help improve the whole school community ‘s digital literacy.  Look out for  the minutes of our meeting to find out more about what we got up today. Watch this space!

UNCRC Rights of the Child:

Article 15 Setting Up and Joining Groups, Article 29 – Aims of Education

After the recent water damage caused by Storm Agnes, Portpatrick Primary headed off to Kirkcolm Primary for our temporary school adventure. We expect to be at Kirkcolm for about a week.

The boys and girls were very excited on our bus trip and everyone is looking forward to learning and playing with our Kirkcolm friends.

The children enjoyed tucking into a decicious lunch courtesy of Michelle’s fab dinners.  It was great connecting with our partnership friends again. Lots of fun was had in our mixed game of rounders. All in all, a very positive day!

Thank you Kirkcolm Primary for being our kind hosts!

UNCRC Article 29- Aims of Education

 

Maths Week Scotland 2023

The children of the North Rhins Partnership Schools got their calculating brains in gear to participate in Maths Week Scotland. Each school took part in a fantastic array of maths related a…

Go to this Sway

Why not see what we’ve been up to?  Click on the link then select play. 🙂

UNCRC Rights of the Child:

Article 29 – Aims of Education

We’ve kickstarted off our Sphero robotic and coding club!  After the fabulous news that we were the successful recipients of a £5000 Digital Xtra Grant, we’ve been so keen to get started with Sphero that we’ve borrowed a kit from our South Rhins Partnership school friends until our equipment arrives – Thank you Sandhead and Drummore primary schools!

What is a Sphero, you ask? Well, Sphero robots have many different internal parts that make them work such as motors, LEDs, encoders, processors, a CPU and Bluetooth communication module for connecting to phones, and a gyroscope that keeps it oriented. A small, wheeled robot inside the shell climbs up the walls and pushes them forward, causing the ball to roll.

Sphero programmable robots help kids learn fundamental STEM concepts through play-based learning and educational STEAM activities. You can use Sphero robots to play games, create programs, or complete challenges.

Our first extra-curricular club activities focussed on using Bluetooth to pair our devices, orientating our Spheros and using direction and speed to control the travel of our devices.  The children quickly mastered the balance between speed and control and were then able to navigate obstacles with increasing accuracy.  There was some fun racing the Spheros in figures of eight round cones in  pairs.  We even had a play with adapting the colours of the led array.

Feedback from our pupils asked for more ‘tinker time’, so the second session gave the boys and girls the opportunity to do just that.

Our next activity will bring in the skills of selecting and using a range of coding blocks to ‘draw’ 2D shapes.  This will incorporate thinking about angles, delays and loops.

Watch this space!

UNCRC Rights of the Child:

Article 15 – Setting up and joining groups

Article 28 – Access to Education

Article 29 – Aims of Education