Beginning with our pre-holiday weekend week. In school, throughout the week, we celebrated Catholic Education Week. This was launched on Sunday 31st January at our P4 First Holy Communion Enrolment Mass, a wonderful way to welcome Catholic Education Week and to celebrate the official preparation for our P4 pupils (60 in total) who will receive Jesus in this special way during the month of May. The church was packed full with pupils, parents, staff and supporting families, it was lovely to be part of such a special occasion. Thanks to Mgr. Millar and all who attended. Please remember our P4 pupils in your prayers.
Throughout the week each class has been working hard on the theme for Catholic Education Week –Learning to Be Merciful. Our Good Work Wall this coming week will be filled with the fruits of their labour, please come into school and have a look at all the work on the wall in the foyer. Here’s a wee sneeky peak at some of Primary 2’s work. There’s also more from Primary 4 on SCES website CEW Display Wall. www.sces.org.uk
Meanwhile throughout the school and local community our children continue to learn so many different skills in so many different places. Classes are currently going twice weekly to Tesco to track the journey of many of our food items from Farm to Fork. Primary 5 are becoming expert swimmers with their weekly visits and P6 are now all enjoying session at curling, a shivery new sporting experience. As always a HUGE thanks to our parents who volunteer to accompany the children on these outings, we could not do it without your help, never underestimate our gratitude.
Following a very relaxing February weekend staff returned to school on Wednesday for an In-Service Day, an opportunity for us, as staff, to come together, share good practice and plan for our children’s future learning. We also took time to attend 10am Mass in O.L.G.A Cathedral Church to mark the beginning of the season of Lent. It was lovely to see so many of our pupils there with their families.
Mass will be celebrated Monday through to Thursday each week during Lent at 8.15am in our school library. Please encourage your children to come along, indeed, bring all the family. We look forward to seeing you there.
Thursday and Friday were very busy days in school with children welcomed back to school refreshed and energized ready for the term ahead.
Friday heralded a fabulous event for our whole school campus, Constable Gary Cook had organised a full day of presentations and events for our upper school children (P5 – P7) and the children of Firpark Primary. Coupled with this he, and his colleagues, provided sessions for parents and carers. All was based around keeping our children and their families safe on-line. This is a very real and concerning issue for us at school. Our thanks to Gary for his work, all commented most positively on the input, a realistic and practical guide to what we can all do to ensure safety using the internet.
Whilst all this is on-going in school our youngest pupils have been very active in our excellent nursery…..here’s all the gossip from Mrs Murphy:
Over the last 2 weeks there have been a few visitors in the nursery playroom. First we had a visit from Sir Diddimus Lucy’s tortoise. The children were delighted to have a tortoise in the playroom and they looked closely at the pattern on his shell and then drew pictures of the pattern they saw. Sir Diddimus (named after a character in the film Labyrinth) enjoyed exploring the nursery floor too and even went to visit Mrs Shields in her office. Unfortunately he did not manage to get a head teachers sticker.
Next we had a visit from Angus a bearded dragon and you can see from the photograph Mrs Campbell thoroughly enjoyed her encounter with this pet who belongs to Zac and Leah. The children all looked closely at the pattern on his skin and listened attentively to Mr Nisbet telling them what he likes to eat and where he lives in their house.
A big Thank You to both dads for bringing in their precious pets for the children to meet.
Outdoors the children have been following the patterns of exercise and making their own exercises up. They have also been playing nursery rhyme ring games and exploring the huge pieces of ice that they have found in the tyres and elsewhere in the garden. They brought these indoors and put them in the water tray for all the children to see. They have looked closely at the patterns on the ice especially the ones they found in the tyres.
In literacy they have continued to use the ABC music programme listening for the rhyming words through a variety of nursery rhymes and had another opportunity to play the animal listening game. They read the Tiger who came to Tea and did rubbings of the Tiger’s pattern. They also made Valentine’s day cards for their loved ones.
In numeracy they played the Humpty Dumpty jigsaw game where they have to throw the shape dice to win each piece of the puzzle. This is always a popular game with the children. They also played the Huff Puff game which relates to the 3 Little Pigs story and did some caterpillar number ordering on the SmartBoard and followed the shape patterns on the shape sheets. These can be seen displayed in the numeracy area.
Expressive arts has been a buzz with a whole range of pattern activities. They used the animal playdough mats to create stripes, spots and scales for the animals. They explored the shaving foam using different patterned tools. They made their own pattern bubble pictures and they used a variety of patterned tools in the sand and they explored huge pieces of ice from the garden in the water tray.
Last Friday we also celebrated Chinese New Year. The children had group snack where noodles, chicken noodle soup and prawn crackers were on the menu. Yum Yum!
Kung Hey Fat Choy! The children re-enacted the Dragon Dance after watching Chinese New Year on the big SmartBoard and had the opportunity to write some Chinese words in the literacy area.
And here’s the photographic evidence:
