A huge congratulations to Blair in P2 who is the winner of our sunflower competition. Back in June every pupil planted a sunflower seed as part of our Family Fun Day.  They nurtured them over the summer as they tried to grow them as tall as possible.  You can see by the photo that Blair’s was the tallest of them all.  Blair said, “Me and my papa planted it in the garden when it was too big for the tub. It’s still alive!”

Blair will receive a special prize next week.

Well done!

We are delighted to share the news that our school has  received the John Muir Discovery Award.

An amazing 132 pupils participated in the award (74 boys and 58 girls),  as well as more than 60 parents/carers and family members who supported our outdoor days.   An incredible 2982 hours were invested in conservation activities for the Award in the school and village.

It’s been an incredibly busy year, here are some of the things we have done as part of the Award:

•  Explore areas of the village
• Den building
• Minibeast hunt
• Dolphin House Residential
• Big Sleep Out (Camping)
• Litter pick (with Catrine Community Action Plan)
• Plant sunflowers
• Weed school gardens
• Make bird feeders
• Clean Crew within school (litter picking)
• Autumn leaf mandalas
• Plaster prints of animals tracks in the woods
• Areas of interest bingo
• Loose parts play in the outdoors with family members
• Certificate celebration
• Deliver a whole school assembly
• Form a pupil lead Committee

The feedback from parents/carers and family members was super, take a look at their highlights:

• “Watching the kids be excited about each activity and doing them alongside parents “
•  “Seeing the enjoy their day with parents at school with them “
• “Spending time outside with my child”
• “Getting to spend time with my child doing activities with her at school”
• “Seeing kids develop imagination and engage in meaningful play. “
• “Staff are awesome and friendly
• “It’s good to see the efforts the school goes to and invited parents to take part “
• “Really enjoyed my day today. Loved the activities and spending time with my kids in school “
• “A great idea and a great day had by all “
• “Seeing all the kids working together and the staff interacting “

A special thanks to every parent/carer and family member who turned up to support our Award days, come rain or shine! It is greatly appreciated.

What a brilliant day we had for our whole school John Muir Outdoor Day.  Thank you to every single parent, carer and family member who turned out to help make our day a huge success. Each house took part in four fantastic activities,  including  den building, litter picking, gardening and making bird feeders.

Our John Muir Committee have worked hard this session to make sure that all of our Outdoor Days have been valuable for the children and community.  As a school we have explored, discovered and conserved the school and local area as part of the four challenges of the John Muir Award.  To find out more about the award click the link: https://www.johnmuirtrust.org/john-muir-award

A special thanks to Catrine Community Action Plan, Timbermills and Tesco for supporting our day with various donations.

Keep your eyes peeled for information on our final Outdoor Day in May!

Our committee had a busy day preparing for the whole school John Muir Day next month (April 24th). We created posters and invites as well as arranging who will be doing what. It’s set to be a fantastic day so keep you eyes peeled for more information.

BA68F014-7709-43CD-B26C-1DD61CFC4188We had a great day den building. Click the link to check it out.

We made the most of the beautiful frosty weather and got outside to explore. We collected ice from the playground and decided to use water paints on them. It created lots of lovely colours when the sunlight hit them.

We also chatted about the last John Muir Day and what went well and what we might add next time. Everyone loved the picture bingo and got very creative.

Avalon had great fun yesterday exploring the village for their second John Muir Day. The ‘John Muir Committee Group’ had organised a fun scavenger hunt and photo bingo task for us to complete. For the scavenger hunt we had to find a pine cone, autumn leaves, acorns, conkers and sticks/twigs. We were delighted to find them all!

For the photo bingo task we had to make our way around Catrine to get a House photo at each place on our bingo board. We had to get a photo in the woods, by the water, in a shelter, at the park, with an animal, with flowers, at the square and in a special place. We chose the nursery as our special place as it brings back lots of memories for us.

It was a fantastic morning!

We had great fun exploring Catrine today on our Scavenger Hunt and Photo Bingo. We managed to explore lots of interesting areas of our village…

For our second John Muir Outdoor Day, Marneil had lots of fun  completing a nature scavenger hunt. The pupils enjoyed exploring their local environment and were able to find pine cones, leaves, acorns and sticks.

They also enjoyed participating in photo bingo. All pupils took pictures with different things in their outdoor environment such as in the woods, by the water, with an animal and much more!

The pupils picked the woods as their special place as they had so much fun playing there with other members of their house.