Gardening

The school are continuing to improve the school grounds and encourage pupils to bring Science to life. The Primary 1s have enjoyed an outing to the garden centre and are now busy planting their purchases to grow vegetables to eat.

The children have planted;

  • cress and sunflowers in pots to watch the life cycle
  • nastursiums in peat pots to enable pupils to see the pots decompose into the soil
  • peas, runner beans and broad beans in recycled washing tubs to watch the seedling sprout
  • lettuce, radishes, rhubarb and parsley as plants to harvest prior to the summer holidays
  • carrots, lettuces, beetroot, mustard and corriander from seed in our outside planters

   

Finally a variety of flowers in our tyres to add some colour after our late blooming daffodils have died away.

Lets hope the summer weather is kind to us and the children get a bumper crops.

The Primary 6, 6/7 and 7 pupils are undertaking their John Muir award and are looking ot enhance the grounds. After much debate ot was agreed that this is along term project and the first task had to be to clear existing bushes and plants that had grown old and woody.

This has not been an easy task and hard work has not escaped our pupils  – I think they appreciate that gardening is not a sitting down job!

Walk to School Week

This week is East Ayrshire’s Walk to School Week, so please don’t be alarmed if you see our pupils at the roadside on the pavements wearing some strange and colourful items this week. A daily theme has been created to encourage the children to walk:

Monday – wear a funny hat

Tuesday – wear odd socks

Wednesday – wear brightly coloured accessories

Thursday -wear  school colours

Friday – wear sunglasses

We all know that walking is good for us. Walking to school is not always easy, but it is a great way to exercise and keep fit. Walking to school also helps reduce pollution, and can boost pupils’ social skills and road safety awareness.

We are hoping that as the week goes on we will gain your support for the campaign and that everyone will join in the fun.

If the pupils are unable to walk we will still make sure that they reach their daily walking target by walking in school.

Rainforest – Amazonia

Our Pr.6, Pr.6/7 and Pr.7 have been working on an interdisciplinary theme that incorporates Science and Health & Well Being. The theme is supported by our Health & Well Being Development Officer in East Ayrshire and the Scottish Crimne & Drug Enforcement Agency.

The project is based around a shared responsibility which is a Columbian Government initiative supported by many international partners. It focuses on making individuals think about the impace of drug misuse, drug demand and drug production, in paricular cocaine misuse.

It is a creative and innovative project, utilising the police, health officials, Choices for life online event and pupils opinions to try and generate an attitudinal and behavioural change in a fresh way giving pupils the tools they need to make the right choices.

At Kirkstyle we have welcomed the Police taking about drugs and the law, we have scheduled a visit from health officials and Kilmarnock Academy staff to look at emergency first aid and safety and pupils and staff from the Modern languages Department to introduce our pupils to a little Spanish, the official language of Columbia.

The pupils have also explored and investigated substance misuse through an educational programme and have learned about the impact of the environment caused directly by deforestation, as a result of cocaine production.

      

The project is designed to be shared across our Learning Community and in turn with parents at Kilmarnock Academy’s welcome met for our parents. (Scheduled for 4th June – Pr.6 & Pr.7 pupils’ parents) A display of the pupils work and also some of their Powerpoints of research work will be on show at Kilmanrock Academy.

As part of the project our pupils visited Amazonia and got the opportunity to have some hands on experiences and see the animals they have been studying.

    

        

The Circus 2013

Primary 2 are currently learning about the circus. They have all been busy making circus mobiles as an enterprising homework challenge. The results are all very impressive! The mobiles are bright and colourful, can move, can make a noise and some even light up! Emily was first to meet the challenge so hers went up on display at the middle of our big top. Now that everyone’s mobile is hanging up, room 4 looks great! We were learning about symmetry so we all made and painted some clown faces which are displayed in the corridor next to our clown self registration wall. We read the story of Dumbo and then made our own cute elephants from paper plates. This week we are writing our own Dumbo stories. At gym we have been practising circus skills. We have some excellent jugglers, knife throwers(well beanbag throwers), tightrope walkers and acrobats. When “The Big Kid Circus” came to Kilmarnock, primary 2 were their best customers! This week we are going to use shoe boxes to make a circus train full of animals. Hopefully Maya or Carmen will remember to bring in some of their rabbit’s bedding for the train carriages!

Continue reading The Circus 2013

House Captains and Vice Captains

We are pleased to announce the election of the Sports House Captains and Vice Captains.

GLENCAIRN HOUSE – Red

  

Taylor Gordon                          Megan Donnelly

    

Jamie Manus                             Ling Liao

CARPINGTON HOUSE – Green

  

Samantha Campbell               Sam Corson

 

Aaron Brown                          Connie O’Brien

BELLSLAND – Blue

    

Tyler Campbell                         Liam Johnston

 

Shannon Christie                  Jordan Barclay

KAIMSHILL – Yellow

   

Jade Cunningham                  Aaron Mason

   

Cerys Marshall                        Jmaie McKinnon

Nursery Transition

We have started to introduce our new starts to life at school; Miss. Boyd, Mrs Walls and Mrs MacKinnon have been for some visits to Shortlees, Riccarton and Hillbank to visit the pupils and have taken along some special visitors for the pupils to meet.

Kirky and Kirsty are our special Kirkstyle monkeys who help the new pupils meet and join the school. But we are also pleased to weclome Flat Stanley who is on holiday from Beechwood Nursery and Family Centre.

Miss Boyd and Mrs Walls to Riccarton afternoon session – 09.05.13

Mrs MacKinnon to Shortlees morning session – 14.05.13

Miss Boyd to Hillbank and then off to the Dean for Forest School – 15.05.13

Miss Boyd and Mrs Walls to Riccarton and then off to Caprington Woods with the morning session – 16.05.13

Miss Boyd to Grasshopper – 20.05.13

Mrs Walls to Beechwood – 21.05.13

Mrs Walls to Puddleducks – 21.05.13

Ava at Shortlees Early Childhood Centre

   

                   

Cerys, Demi, Emma, Callaigh and Olivia all met Kirky our monkey.

Did you spot who Ava met, as well as Kirky?

All the parents and carers have been sent leaflets which list the dates for visits to school and you can also view them here on the blog on the Nursery transition leaflet page.

Stair Garden Centre

Primary 1 have started to look hard for the signs of Spring and Summer in our school grounds and are ready to start to plant. The upper pupils cleared last year’s old bedding plants and vegetable garden ready for the new seasons growth. Therefore the pupils needed to replenish their stock so a trip to Stair Garden Centre and Nursery was needed.

Walking in twos to choose.
Are these the vegetables?
Parsley or chives for the herb garden?

The pupils got the chance to plant some seeds with the helpers.

   

The pupils planted nastursium plants which grow edible flowers for salads.

Who's in the flower beds?
Here he is again in the compost!
He even had milk and cookies.

 If you haven’t already guessed ‘Flat Stanley’ joined the Pr.1 pupils at the Garden Centre. Stanley arrived in an envelope on his holidays from Beechwood Nursery in Kilmarnock. I think he has had a great time see if you can find him elsewhere in the blog.