Welcome to your latest IDl Blog. We have now completed Learning  Journey 3 – Scottish Foods. Our Learning from now until the Summer Break will focus on the RSPB Wild Challenge Bronze Award. We will achieve the award if we complete a series of challenges to support nature. With all of the children’s prior learning about Climate, Food Chains and Habitats, they are more than ready to rise to this challenge.

We kicked off this challenge by making bird feeders to mark World Earth Day. We used recycled cardboard to make hanging shapes, coated them in fat and then added bird seed. We then observed the grassy area in front of the school over time to see if the feeders attracted more birds to the area.

Our next challenge was to conduct a BioBlitz survey. It took real patience to sit and see what changed in our Bioblitz circles as we observed. It’s just as well we’ve been working so hard on our Focusing Meta Skill!

We are looking forward to moving on with our nature challenges – let’s hope the weather holds for us.

Hi there and welcome to the first IDL Blog of this year. It’s Mrs Dougall here, as you may know, I have a different role this year and I am now responsible for Inquiry Based Learning across P2, P3 and P4.  This means that I complete Learning Journeys with the children, starting with a problem/question and working towards them finding a solution using teacher and child led learning across different aspects of the Curriculum for Excellence.   I now teach P3a for 3 periods each week and it is so lovely to be part of their continuing Learning Journeys.

We started this year investigating how plants and animals depend on each other for food. We learned about food chains, developing this learning into food webs and then focused on environmental changes across the Great Barrier Reef.

We then began to focus on seasonality and the challenges of growing and planting in winter in Scotland. We created terrariums (mini greenhouses) and carefully monitored the temperature in them while watching what happened to our plants growing inside the jars.

We have also fitted in two short blocks of learning about Meta Skills, these are the skills that we use everyday in our learning and our Meta Skills Lessons help us to investigate the skills, apply them in practical situations and recognise the importance of them in our daily learning. These Meta Skills will help equip the children  for the World of Work.

Our first Meta Skills focus was on Creativity and Curiosity and we are currently focusing on Communicating and Collaborating.  The class teachers work with us to apply these skills in all of our learning.

I am sure the children will be as excited about their new learning journey as I am – they will be able to tell you all about it over the coming weeks.

Mrs Dougall