Primary 1 would like to send a warning to everyone at Kirkstyle Primary School and neighbours in the surrounding area. It all happened on Thursday 23rd February at 9am. Primary 1 arrived at school, strolled inside to hang up their jackets and witnessed this terrifying sight.
Who or what could it be?!?
We could hardly believe our eyes! “They’re massive” said Aiden. “It’s all muddy in here” remarked Anna. “Is that your shoes?” asked Miss Davers. “They’re too big” said Gemma, “It looks like a monster”. “I’m scared!” whispered Carmen as she looked around at all her friends frightened reactions. “It’s the Gruffalo!” shouted Bailey.
Primary 1 investigate the muddy footprintsIt's not my shoes Miss Davers! My feet are too small!It's not my feet either. It must be a monster. It must be the Gruffalo!
We followed the footprints from the toilet doors, down the corridor, to … … our classroom. “Oh no! It’s in our class!” screamed Connor. “I’ll go in first because I’m so brave” decided Joshua. The footprints went into our classroom, up onto the step then out of the side door. We had a look outside to see if we could find the Gruffalo but there was no sign of him. Primary 1 discussed what may have happened. Where the Gruffalo may have gone? What he was doing in our classroom? Then we decided to write exciting Gruffalo stories to let others know about our adventurous morning. Keep an eye on our blog for our super stories and keep your eyes peeled for the Gruffalo.
He's went out the door!He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes, and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. His eyes are orange, his tongue is black, he has purple prickles all over his back.
Another eggciting day with our eggs. This morning Brooke was first to notice that one of the eggs had a small crack. By lunchtime 5 eggs had cracked and whilst observing the incubator Jack B and Sophie heard the chicks chirping.
Our Primary 1 classes recently went on a trip to Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. When we arrived at the museum we participated in a tim’rous beasties workshop. This was ideal for building movement and language skills through imagination and performance and helped us work towards the following Curriculum for Excellence outcome:
LIT 0-07a
To help me understand stories and other texts, I ask questions and link what I am learning with what I already know.
Children explored the museum dressed up as Burns’ wee tim’rous beasties. They particularly enjoyed a game where they were to hide in a field and protect their homes from a hoolet (owl) that would chase them.
We enjoyed various role play activities with Hannah. Look at our cute wee fluffy ears and tails!
After our lunch break we were joined by Alison, a volunteer for the National Trust for Scotland. She took us on a guided tour of other Robert Burns Museum destinations. We visited Burns Monument, Brig O’Doon, Alloway Auld Kirk and finally Burns Cottage. We enjoyed finding out about Robert Burns’ past and looking at artefacts.
SOC 0-01a
I am aware that different types of evidence can help me to find out about the past.
We had to look for objects in the monument with links to the number 3
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On our walk we found a large statue of 'To a Mouse'We compared Burns Cottage with our own homes. Everyone liked the thatched roof.
The Junior Road Safety Officers work hard to promote Health Well Being in the school and community with a variety of schemes to tackle road and traffic safety issues.
New Recruits!!Doesn't ***look good!Looking good!
Our Wall Display
Our Junior Road Safety Officers continued on with their duties to improve school safety and travel. They also updated their display wall and submitted it into a competition being run by Travel and Roads safety Management. The updated wall encourages alternative travel methods to school and we hope to develop the next level of skills training in the Nursery with Scooter Skills. This wall earned them a runners up prize across East Ayrshire.
Sustran – Scotland’s Big Newsletter Story Competition
The J.R.S.O.s visited one of our Nursery feeder schools along with ‘Kirky’ our transition monkey to find out from the pupils of Riccarton if scooter to school would be of any interest to them. They surveyed 27 pupils and 19 scootered to nursery and would scooter to school, if allowed. However worryingly – more than half of them thought that pedestrians should move out the way to allow them to scoot on the pavements. I think the J.R.S.O.s have their work cut out for them.
Kilmarnock Academy pupils helped design and make a scooter rack which will be located beside the bike shed to allow storage and also we hope to encourage this as a playtime activity.
One of East Ayrshire’s Road Safety Team entered Kirkstyle into a competition to promote an ‘Active School Travel’ story for a Newsletter competition. The reason from submitting the article was because the school had an ongoing parking congestion and wished to promote sustainable active travel to try and offer alternative ways to get to school. The school developed a scooter skills programme using the expertise and skills of the J.R.S.O.s and used scooters purchased from Parent Council fundraising. The officers delivered the programme using Sustran’s scooter skills lessons; the pre training before cycling proficencey and also one part of the Ready, Steady Bike initiatives.
SCOOTER SKILLS WORKSHOPS
Kirkstyle Primary School in Kilmarnock organised and delivered basic scooter skills activity workshops at Primary 1 /Nursery induction days in June. The Parent Council raised funds to purchase scooters to promote scooting to school as one solution to help reduce the ongoing parking congestion at the school.
A member of staff and the two J.R.S.O.s in the school led the workshops. Small groups of nursery children, some of whom had never been on a scooter before, eagerly took on the challenge. None of the 25 children refused to take part and all the children received a certificate.
Great Driving.
The workshops consisted of short discussions and hands on activities so that the children developed an understanding of the need to ride safely and not cause a nuisance to others while scooting. We hope it might be a winner and get some goodies as prizes range from puncture repair kits and Frisbees to bike lights and slap bands.
The Big Pedal – March 2012
The pupils have registered for the BIG PEDAL from the 5th – 23rd March 2012 the school will participate in this event. In March 2011, over 800 schools helped to pedal 600, 00 school journeys by bike in just 15 days. In 2012 we want Kirkstyle to be one of those schools. But will you be one of the riders? Can you help us top one million bike trips? Once again, every trip to school by bike will count towards a “virtual “stage race round the U.K. We’ll keep you posted on how you can take part nearer the time.
The children in Primary 4 took part in their annual visit to Morrison’s Supermarket to sing Christmas Carols to raise vital funds for the Hansel Foundation. Their lovely singing voices raised the Christmas spirits of the customers while they shopped and all who attended complimented the children on their performance. The children and staff would like to thank all those customers, family and friends who donated money towards this worth while charity.
Both classes enjoyed their Science activities as part of their Birds and Beasties theme. The pupils worked together to sort objects looking for similar and different characteristics. The outcome listed below is the curriculum target within A Curriculum for Excellence:
SCN 1-01a I can distinguish between living and non living things. I can sort things into groups and explain my decisions.
The pupils work towards Learning Outcomes these are the main ideas the teacher wants the pupils to demonstrate and learn from the lessons:
Observe objects – colour, shape, size, material e.g. leaves, socks, shells, fruit, dinosaurs, minibeasts.
Sort objects into groups that are the same.
Say what is the same about objects in a group.
Say what is the same about objects in a group.
The pupils continually try to expand and build on their Science Skills these are listed for sorting as:
All of the pupils in Primaries 1 to 3 actively participated in this year’s performance of Little Angel gets her wings! The story came to life with the help of our budding actors and actresses and some superb solo singers accompanied by the choirs.
The Little Angel
The angel begins her journey without her wings and can’t get to Bethlehem in enough time for the birth of the baby Jesus. However along the way the angel stops to help others, her acts of kindness towards the donkey, the lamb and the dove earn her the most amazing set of wings you’ve ever seen.
Mary and JosephThe Wise MenThe CamelThe Shepherds and the SheepThe DonkeyThe NarratorsMary, Joseph, The Camel, The Donkey and The Dove
The Angels
Our thanks went to the parents for their support with the performances because; the costumes were purchased with the proceeds from the Rag Bag recycling clothes collections and the microphones from last year’s ticket sales. A special thanks went to all the staff who worked hard practising songs, adding movements and actions to the story and creating the scenery. But the biggest thanks had to go to the pupils who gave three outstanding performances for large audiences.
Primary 5 and 5/6 were researching the Vikings last term. They painted a Viking scene for the classroom walls, built a Viking Longship, visited Vikingar at Largs, presented in words and music Viking Life and that’s only a small part of their experiences.
The Walls
6 meters of Viking scene had to be painted on the floor - Wow!
Viking Longships
As enterprising homework the children were given 5 weeks to design and build – with adult help- a Viking Longship. The results were staggeringly good, as I’m sure those of you who were in school for parent’s evening will agree.
These pictures are just a small sample:
Vikingar the experience
If you are interested in Vikings then a trip to Vikingar in Largs is a must. The children split into 2 groups and while one was visiting the Longhouse and Halls of Valhalla the rest were meeting a Viking and dressing up as the poor and rich of the time.
Thora who took us through the LonghouseTake care that sword might be sharp!!
New Viking Warriors
They wore animal furs to keep warm.
Walls were decorated with carvings of the GodsAll dressed up!Gorgeous!Is that shield not a bit too big!!!!Our Viking teller of SagasViking artifactsP5 &P5/6 in front of the Needle
On the way home while dodging the torrential downpours we stopped off to look at the Needle. This monument marks the site of the Viking Battle of Larg which took place in 1263.
The Eco Warriors & Eco Committee met with Miss. Davers during Assembly time and have undertaken some auditing tasks to get us switching off and not wasting energy on standby. They have visited classes and corridors; adding stickers and signs to remind everyone to switch off – perhaps you could try this at home!
Rag Bag
We are pleased to announce that the monies raised by this committee through the Rag Bag recycling has been sufficient to pay for the Nativity costumes last year and in addition purchase the Pantomime costumes for this year’s upper school performance. Both sets of these costumes will be used year in year out, depending on performances so well done to the pupils involved and thanks for your old clothes donations, keep them coming.
