Willowbank School, KilmarnockIn the Oak class we celebrated Diwali, the festival of lights. We were confident individuals creating our very own rangoli patterns. We enjoyed listening to the story about Dipal and how his family celebrates Diwali. We were all keen sample some of the food that Dipal spoke about in the story.
We were presented with a certificate for taking part in the Willowbank Rangoli competition.
* SUCCESSFUL LEARNERS, CONFIDENT INDIVIDUALS *
The Daisies class enjoyed making cards to send home to their family wishing everyone a Happy Halloween. The boys had a choice of whether they made a witch or a ghost design and used their hand and foot prints to make their creations.
The Beech class had a really fun morning experimenting with percussion instruments and playing along to a spooky Halloween song on the board. We were confident individuals as we followed the music notes on the board and played our instruments at the right time by recognising our percussion symbol and playing our instrument when our symbol appeared on the board.
The Beech class had really good fun this week celebrating Diwali! We were successful learners as we explored the religious festival of Diwali by making traditional Hindu items.
We made Diva lamps out of salt dough, rangoli patterns out of spiced play-dough and dyed rice and we also made special lanterns as it is a ‘Festival of Light. ‘
Responsible Citizens Effective Contributors
The Snowdrops showed lots of interest in eco pumpkin activities. Everyone contributed to scooping and exploring pumpkin textures with our fingers. Once our pumpkins were empty, we filled them with bird seed to help feed the birds when the weather gets colder. We are going to hang and place our pumpkins in our school garden.
* SUCCESSFUL LEARNERS, EFFECTIVE CONTRIBUTORS, RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS, CONFIDENT INDIVIDUALS *
The Daisies class enjoyed creating erupting pumpkins this afternoon. We used baking soda, food colouring and vinegar to make eruptions which looked like our pumpkins were feeling a bit sick! We loved observing these changes!
Confident Individuals and Effective Contributors
The Sunflower class celebrated Diwali yesterday by listening to the story of Rama and Sita. Each child practiced pencil control by following the maze to get Sita home. We then made our own Rangoli patterns using rice and matched numbers to complete patterns too.
*Successful Learners* *Confident Individuals*
As part of the Snowdrops outdoor learning, we have been exploring and having fun with kites. Everyone has had the opportunity to observe a kite flying and feel the tension on the strings. Some pupils have also been able to fly the kite independently as well.
In class we also enjoyed designing our own kites to make a lovely class display.
*Confident Individuals* *Successful Learners* *Responsible Citizens* *Effective Contributors*
This term, the Snowdrops have been discussing what make a good friend. They enjoy identifying their class friends through photographs and written names labels. During choosing times, pupils are given the opportunity to choose a friend to play with and enjoy an activity together. This has encouraged good friendship skills such as sharing and turn taking.
We have also made lovely posters with pictures of what makes a good friend.
The Asteroids did a super job of using potatoes to make and mash and create a potato autumnal hedgehog.
We all tried peeling our potatoes and chopping them into small pieces ready to cook. We also helped peel a carrot and then the teachers chopped them into small pieces to make eyes and noses. Next job was to chop our sausages into small pieces to make hedgehog prickles. We all enjoyed this job the best and some of us couldn’t resist a wee taste! 
We used our mashers to mash the potato and enjoyed seeing the potato squeeze through the different shapes in the mashers!
When the mash was ready, we helped make a hedgehog shape then began to arrange our sausage slices to make prickles. Last job was to pop on the chopped carrot eyes and noses. Job done!
Don’t they look great?
Some of us were confident individuals and tried them. Yum! The sausages were by far the favourite part.
