Here is a clip of primary 5/6 trying out the new skills they learned during the Taekwondo input.
Fun, Fit Fortnight
Over the past 2 weeks we have been enjoying Fun, Fit Fortnight. We have had the opportunity to take part in lots of different sports and activities which were great fun!
Our first activity was rugby. We learned how to pass properly and we got to try playing a game where we had to make 5 passes without dropping the ball or the ball being intercepted by the other team.
Jordan: “I liked the rugby and working in a team.”
We also got to try out our skills in badminton. We played games with a partner and tried to get as many rallies as we could.
Ellah-Louise: “It was fun to work with a partner but tricky to keep a rally going.”
As part of Fun, Fit Fortnight, we had a visit from 2 people who worked at Fresh Ayrshire. They work with people who are trying to quit smoking. They talked to us about the different ingredients that make up cigarettes and this was really effective because we got to see the ingredients and smell them mixed together – it was disgusting!!! We also learned about the effects that smoking has on the body.
Lacy: “I think it was a good lesson to help us not smoke when we are older.”
Jordan: “When I’m older, I’m not going to smoke and I’m going to keep my lungs nice and red.”
We even got to try out Taekwondo as part of Fun, Fit Fortnight! This was great fun and we learned how to punch and kick using the pads. We then combined our punches and kicks together. We absolutely loved this workshop because it was completely different to anything we have had before and lots of us were keen to try some more!
Adam: “I loved the taekwondo because it was fun and you got to learn new skills. It was fun getting to try out punches and kicks in our teams.”
As part of Fun, Fit Fortnight we also took part in Sports Day and a Fun Day. Sports Day was great fun and we all enjoyed getting to race in front of our parents. The Fun Day was also very successful and we got to try out different games and activities throughout the day.
STEM Week
We have recently enjoyed taking part in STEM week. We had lots of interesting activities to take part in and we had some great visitors in.
One of our favourite activities was working with Jade from Robertson Construction to build a tower. This was really interesting because we had to consider the cost of the bricks, how tall it was and how long it took to build. Each of these categories had profits linked to it and we had to work out how much money our tower would make.
We also had a visit from Craig who talked to us about his work using computer aided design technology. He showed us how a drawing can be made into a computer design and how this is an important step in many manufacturing processes, including fashion. We even got a chance to draw our own designs for tshirts or a whole outfit. Craig then took them away and picked a few to be made into the computer design.
We had a STEM Fun Day at the end of the week where each teacher planned a STEM activity for us to try. We got to play with cornflour gloop, try to stick a kebab skewer through a balloon, made glitter tornadoes inside bottles and take part in K’Nex Challenges! This was a great day and we learned that STEM is all around us.
We got to take part in a Maths Roadshow which challenged us in our problem solving skills. We worked in pairs to try and complete as many challenges as we could around the stations. Some were easier than others and sometimes we needed a little bit of help along the way. It was great fun though and we really enjoyed getting our hands on the different activities.
Spring Fayre
On Thursday 4th May we had our spring fayre. Primary 5/6 had painted glass candles jars to sell and we had set up a tennis ball toss into a bucket. This was great fun and we loved getting to sell our crafts! We had a great turn out and we managed to sell more than 30 candle jars! (Thanks to everyone who bought one!)
Finance and World of Work Week
We recently enjoyed Finance and World of Work Week with lots of interesting guests who came to talk to us. We had a visit from Mr Wood who came to talk to us about his work in the Navy. He told us that he was a submariner and a bit about his work on board the submarines. Mr Wood has been to lots of different countries and lots of us didn’t realise the opportunities that the Navy can offer. This was very interesting and we had lots of questions to ask him!
We also had a visit from volunteers from RBS Bank who came in to work with us on a budgeting exercise. We had to plan a party for a certain child and consider their likes and dislikes. We were trying to plan a party within a given budget and present our ideas on why we thought it was good value for money. Most groups managed to plan a party under the budget and could explain why they thought theirs was the best value for money. It was interesting to hear what the bank workers thought of our parties because we aren’t used to working within a budget.
Finally, we had a visit from a man who worked at the local Post Office. He told us about his work and the work that the Post Office do and he also told us about how the Post Office work with money such as exchange rates, mortgages and insurance. This was very interesting because most of us didn’t realise that the Post Office could offer so many different services.
World of Work and Finance week was great fun and we learned lots of valuable skills which will help us as we get older.
Sharing With Parents
We had sharing with parents session on Tuesday 21st March. This time, we focussed on ICT. We showed our parents how we use Code.org to help enhance our learning in ICT, Maths and Literacy.
Coding is a very valuable thing that we can learn because we are surrounded by technology every day. We thought about all the different types of technology that we use in a day and how all of these are run using code.
Coding is a part of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) which we are trying to do in Mayfield.
Jordan – I think that this was really good
Holly – It was good that our parents could get to see a new website we were using.
Adam – It was really fun because we got to teach our parents how to use Code.org
Kaytee-Lee – I liked Sharing With Parents because I got to learn new things with my mum because we didn’t know how to do this before.
Murray – I think my gran was surprised at how good I was at remembering the steps I was doing on Code.org
Here are some photos of our coding session with parents:
World Book Day
We enjoyed World Book Day on Thursday 2nd of March. Everyone got dressed up as their favourite characters and we thought that we looked great!
The whole school got together in the morning and listened to the story of Cinderboy told by Mrs Breen. This story was great and we really enjoyed listening to Mrs Breen telling it to us!
“Mrs Breen was great at telling us the story of Cinderboy – it was really funny!” – Demi
“I really liked Cinderboy because it was the story of Cinderella with a twist!” – Jenna
After we listened to Cinderboy, we all got into groups and read with each other. We brought books from the class and there were big books that we got to read too! This was really fun and we enjoyed getting to read with children form other classes.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Our focus for our Scottish topic was Scottish artists and designers. One of the most famous Scottish artists is Charles Rennie Mackintosh and we spent lots of time learning about his life and his art. We learned interesting facts about him such as:
- He was one of 11 children!
- His art was inspired by shapes, Japanese symbols and European art of the time
- His work gained popularity in the years after his death
- He designed some buildings in Glasgow such as the school of art, Willow Tea Rooms and House of an Art Lover
We designed our own Charles Rennie Mackintosh stained glass window art using black paper and tissue paper. We drew out the design first using white colouring pencils. Then we cut out coloured tissue paper shapes to fill in the picture and glued them down. We think they look really good!
Oor Primary 5/6
As part of our Scotland topic, we focussed on the well known Oor Wullie Scottish comics. We looked at the Scots language that is used in the comics and how effective they are at telling stories. We decided to make our own comics. We had to use our own names as the title for the comic and then use Scots language to tell our stories. We then illustrated our comics and left them black and white in the style of the Oor Wullie designs.
Here are some examples of our comics.
Library Visit
We visited our local library to learn about the Scottish Wars of Independence. This will be our topic this term and we have been excited to start finding out about the history of Scotland. This trip was great fun and gave us lots of interesting facts to build on.
We took part in a treasure hunt around the library to find out facts about the Scottish Wars of Independence. We also had the opportunity to use the books in the library to find facts about our topic. We finished off our trip with a great team quiz!
