Daily Archives: November 12, 2013

Facts of the Week

Did you know!

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1. Although your dreams seem to go on for a long time they only last 7 seconds.

2. You can stab a bubble with a knife and not pop it.

3. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants!

4.  Dolphins sleep with one eye open

5. Pinocchio is Italian for ” pine head ”

6. Sharks have outstanding hearing. They can hear a fish thrashing in the water from as far as 500 metres away!

7. If a shark was put into a large swimming pool, it would be able to smell a single drop of blood in the water.

8. Wolves have two layers of fur, an undercoat and a top coat, which allow them to survive in temperatures as low at minus 40 degrees Celsius! In warmer weather they flatten their fur to keep cool.

9. Female elephants are called cows. They start to have calves when they are about 12 years old and they are pregnant for 22 months.

10. Elephants can swim – they use their trunk to breathe like a snorkel in deep water.

11. Sheep have very good memories. They can remember at least 50 individual sheep and humans for years.

12. A jellyfish is 95 percent water!

13. It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.

14. Ever have a craving for a peanut butter sandwich? That thick, yummy, and creamy goodness. In one pound of peanut butter, it typically can contain up to 150 bug fragments and 5 rodent hairs.

15. Enjoy a nice cup of yogurt? You might want to double check the ingredients again. Some yogurts and jelly sweets contain beef or pork gelatin.

16. On average you eat 8 spiders in your sleep.

Dates for the Diary

Dates for Diary November

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November

14th              Open Evening 6pm -7pm All welcome

18th              Inservice School closed to pupils

19th              Inservice School Closed to pupils

20th              Bags2School Collection

December

11th              Panto at Eden Court

12th              School Christmas Lunch – info to follow

18th              Christmas Concert 6.30 for 7pm followed by festive fayre All Welcome

19th              Children’s Christmas Party – all children home at 3.15pm

20th              Christmas Service at Inveravon Church with Glenlivet Primary School 10am

                   All welcome

                   School closes usual times for pupils.

January

6th                Term Starts 

News Letters

November 2013

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November 2013

 

Dear Parent and Children

 

What an awesome autumn we are having and although cold, these last few days have been really crisp and bright. My daily drive up Speyside has been breathtakingly beautiful, especially when “The Ben” has been white in the background. Yet another reason for me to feel so privileged to be working at Inveravon and I feel truly blessed.

The life and work of the school is as busy as ever and the “sleepover” seems so long ago. So far approx £270 has come in so if you have any sponsor money still to collect then please make sure it gets in to school as soon as you can. We had a grand night together and have such happy memories. As we expected the children were an absolute delight (even the few who were still awake at 2am) and were a real credit to themselves and to you. Well done everybody.

Our midnight walk was exciting and the sky put on a marvellous display of stars and light for us……we did indeed gaze up at it in awe and wonder. The midnight feast was well received and once again I was impressed by the ability that children have to chomp their way through mini sausages, crisps, pizza, juice, biscuits and sweets at a time when they would normally be asleep. However I expect that their digestive systems got a bit of a shock. We rounded off our evening with hot chocolate and a digestive as they snuggled into their sleeping bags. It wasn’t too long before we heard some sleepy noises zzzzzzzzzzzzz but my lips are sealed on that topic!

Last term the children visited  Glenrinnes Estate to see the work of a farming / estate community and to compare and contrast the values and needs of a community which is very similar to our own. The visit was something of a highlight of the term and the children were particularly interested in and delighted by their conversations with the game keeper who explained what his job entailed. They also got hands on experience of how to handle ferrets which was really exciting for them.

The Rugby and Orienteering taster session at Mortlach Primary at the beginning of October was a huge success and the children felt a real sense of achievement by undertaking some activities which they may not have been too sure about. It is always such a pleasure to see them having a go and then to see the look of satisfaction that spreads over their faces as they succeed. Such a commendable attitude!

Since we have come back to school Miss Smith and the class have launched right into their new topic which is exploring the concept of “Creativity.”  I know that some exciting work will come as a result of this and that stereotype thinking about what being creative means will be blown away. I can’t wait to see and hear what the children will come up with.

I have also got stuck into the Eco Group work and we are busy re-designing our Notice board to make it more user friendly for the children. We use part of our Tuesday afternoon to undertake some tasks to move our Eco agenda forward as we hope to apply for our third green flag before the end of December. The rest of the afternoon is used to carry out a “John Muir Mission.” At the moment this involves observing and recording what they see, hear, smell from their “own spot” in the school grounds. This gets the children observing and talking about the nature which is around them in much more detail.

Our green Ambassadors have been working with Mrs Lawson to plant bulbs and sweep up leaves from the playground to extend our leaf wall.

Parent Evening  Thursday November 14th 6-7pm 

Once again the children are inviting you in to school to share their learning with you. They are planning activities and quizzes which will help you to experience some of what they do on a daily basis. We are all very excited about this and are really looking forward to seeing you. However if you can’t make it then we will try to fit in a time when it is convenient for you to come in.

Inservice

Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th the school will be closed to pupils. On the 18th Miss Smith and myself are going to be attending a Moray conference on assessment while Mrs Reid and Mrs Duncan are going to take the opportunity to sort and organise resources.

On the 19th we are having a joint learning day with the staff from Knockando and will be hearing from an Education Psychologist about  “growth mindsets and the use of praise.” 

Bags2School

There will be a collection for this on Wednesday the 20th so feel free to bring the bags to school on Monday 18th or on the morning of the 20th.  With the season of giving and receiving about to descend upon us I am sure we all need to clear some space and get rid of all those clothes which have shrunk in the wardrobe!

Weather etc

Unfortunately forecasts for November are a bit gloomy and snow is predicted. I hope they are wrong but in the event of bad weather Mrs Bassett issued information earlier this week about the phoneline and the Moray Council website for you to keep in a safe and obvious place for the next few months. I always aim to update these by 7.15am although occasionally this is not possible for a variety of reasons (none of which involve me still being asleep in my bed!) so I ask you to bear with me.

Now that the weather is getting colder please make sure the children come to school with warm jackets, hats, gloves etc (all named of course) as we like to get them outside in all but extreme weathers. It is just so good for them to be outdoors.

I will close by saying that Inveravon is a buzzing and happy school where children are learning and progressing well. Along with the rest of the staff I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the rest of the school community for allowing us to share your children’s learning journey.

I look forward to seeing you all next week and hope you are well and happy.

School Events

School Sleepover

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On the 11th October  Inveravon Primary school held a school sleepover to raise money for school funds. Below is two recounts about it. 

 

 

 

School Sleepover        

It was the date of the school sleepover. For weeks I had been waiting for this to happen, and now, finally, the day had arrived. Quickly, I put my uniform on and scoffed my breakfast up like a hungry monkey. I couldn’t wait!!    

At school, the day flew by just as I hoped it would, and before I knew it the bell ran for home time. When I arrived at home, I jumped around impatiently, waiting for the hands on the clock to reach eight-o-clock. Finally, it reached eight-o-clock. I franticly packed my sleeping bag, pillow and my teddy, Barney, as I can’t sleep without him! It was going to be AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

Excitedly, I leaped across the playground and burst into the doors. There, Mrs Smith welcomed Rowan and I into the school. We dumped our baggage and ran into the classroom. First on the agenda, Golden Time! We were supposed to have half an hour of Golden Time. That was at eight-o- clock. It was quarter-to-nine when Golden Time finished.                                                                                                                         

Next were games in the hall. My favourite game was musical statues. I like doing the funny dance moves and then stopping, like time had stopped. One of my other favourite games was musical bumps but the disadvantage in that game is that in the end your bottom is very  sore!      

Walking, torches and stars are what describe the next paragraph. Can you guess what it is? It was a midnight walk. If you guessed right, you must be able to read minds. If you didn’t, well never mind. We were walking to a field were we sometimes play Rounders. When we got there we turned our torches off and looked up. It was beautiful. The stars were twinkling above us and, boy, there was lots of “Ohhs” and “Ahhs”. I think I will treasure that moment for life.

 Back at school we read The Dinosaur Pooped Christmas. It was very funny! I didn’t notice that while we were reading, the teachers were preparing some food for us. I had some pizza, crisps and cocktail sausages. Yum, Yum! 

 Then we put our PJ’s on and put the crash-mats into the active-playroom to sleep on. We watched Rise of The Guardians for a few hours and when it finished we tried to get to sleep. I think I got to sleep at about one-o-clock in the morning, thanks to OLIVIA!!      

When we all woke up we put away our sleeping things and had breakfast. Then we got changed into our normal clothes and went home. I was very tired!! 

written by Fraser MacDonald

 

 

 The School Sleepover

“Mum, Mum” I shouted as I came home from school and ran into the house and gave my mum the note saying that we were going to have a sleepover, not just any sleepover one at school with all my friends and the teachers. I was so excited to go to school and have a sleepover with everyone that goes to school with me. Usually I only have a few friends over for a sleep over but this time with fourteen people and the teachers.

Finally the 11th of October came round and that day of school seemed to go by very slowly because I was so excited. I was watching the clock hoping the bell would ring so I could go home and start packing for the night ahead of me. The bell rang eventually. Mrs Smith gave everyone a list for what to take to the school sleepover. I tidied up my mess and shot out of the room and got on my shoes and rushed to the door.

On the bus we all couldn’t stop talking about how fantastic the school sleepover was going to be. We all told everyone what onesies we were going to take and described what they looked like and how fluffy they were. When everyone was off the bus I was the only one left I was so excited I couldn’t keep still for one single minute. When Colin got to my house I said “bye” and ran into the door just like I did on the day when I told mum about the sleep over.

I started to pack, I got the list I was given at school and was ticking of the things I had in my bag, onesie, my teddy, torch, sleeping bag, book and pillow. I had everything to go to the sleep over. I had my supper and I grabbed everything I needed to go. And mum said “time to go Ali” I grabbed my bag and said bye to my dad and my sister and walked out the door and got into the jeep. I had never been so excited to go to school before in my whole entire life! Me and my Mum went to pick up Sinead and she was waiting at the road already so she must have been as excited as I was.

We got to school, the school seemed very different at night because I am usually there in the daylight. We only had the lampposts for light but not forgetting the bright moon and the twinkling stars.

I walked into the school and saw all my friends having fun and the teachers talking to the parents coming in. I put my bag down and went to the classroom and started to play with the knex that was all ready out and I made a family of different sizes with different connecters and rods. Mrs Smith came into the room and said “let’s go do some dancing in the hall.” We tidied up our mess and went into the hall to do some dancing.

First, we played musical statues and musical bumps it was funny with musical bumps because everyone landed really hard and they kept on saying “owwwww” and we all laughed and had fun. We did a dance called the Macarena and we managed to stay on time with the music as we never do.

Next, we went on a midnight walk it was quite cold and dark but we had torches with us so it wasn’t really dark. We had to be quite because we might disturb the wildlife and we had to listen to all the things around us. When we got down to the field we had to look up and see the stars. The sky was really clear so we could see millions and trillions of them witch was really cool.

Then, we walked back to the school and we got our jackets off and I got my cosy slippers on and we all went to the hall and had a midnight feast with, biscuits, sausages, crisps and juice. It was all very yummy and we finished our midnight feast.

After, we went to the active play room and I helped everyone get their sleeping bags out because they were all in very tight bags. A movie came on but I only got to see a little bit because my mum came to get me to go home. It was a very good sleepover and I had a good time with all my friends at night. Although that was my second school sleepover I think I enjoyed it the most.

Written by Alyce Farquharson P7