Wow! What a week, filled with success after success.
Monday dawned with our choir performing in The Glasgow Music Festival in The Royal Concert Hall. We were delighted with our Choir’s fabulous singing earning them a very well deserved 1st place. Absolutely brilliant. Thanks also to the great number of parents and other family members who came along to support our super singers.
Here are the choir and our super solo singers:
The success continued on Tuesday morning with our courageous cross country runners heading off to the Finals in Coatbridge. All of our runners tried their very best and won great accolade amongst all spectators for their endurance and determination. Liam McQuaid earned a Silver Medal in his individual class and our Primary 7 girls came 3rd in their Team Event. The Team consisted of:
Diana Feenan, Beverley Mackin, Megan Kelvin, Amanda Quinn, Abbie Freel & Ellie Paton.
Huge thanks to our Cross Country Crew: Mrs MM Murphy, Mrs Harrison & Mrs McCarthy.
Wonderful photographs courtesy of Mr John Quinn can be found at:
http://johnquinn.zenfolio.com/p173127587
Here’s a wee taster:
Tuesday also marked our second Parent Evening of the year. We had a fabulous 86% turn out on the evening. Thanks to all who took the time to come along and celebrate their children’s success and hear of their progress. Thanks also to our fabulous fundraisers who took the time to launder all of our left over clothing and sell it on at a much reduced price. This ‘New 2 U’ is a great way to re-cycle out grown clothing.
Throughout the week our pupils have continued to enjoy educational visits to Tesco to learn of the journey of our food from Farm to Fork.
Friday morning we celebrated the feast of St. Joseph with a beautiful Mass in school, expertly lead by our Primary 4 pupils. Our grateful thanks to Mgr. Millar and Deacon Tom who came along to celebrate the Mass. As always our children’s participation and behaviour was exceptional. They are a credit to you as parents and to us here in the school. This Mass was slightly different. Throughout the last couple of weeks we have been focusing on Mass responses during our daily Religious Lessons. At our Mass on Friday we opted to say the responses instead of singing them. This provides opportunity for a deeper understanding of the Mass and an appreciation of the relevance of the responses. Once again, our children were excellent.
Also on Friday 25 of our P7 pupils entered the final heat of Handball Competition, ably led by Mrs Nicola McLaughlan our pupils proved themselves to be multi talented sports personnel. The team were great ambassadors for our school and those who went along to support did their job beautifully. Well done to all concerned. Here’s the team.
Rehearsals for our forthcoming school show The Lion King are now in their final (frantic) stage. All children performing should ensure they are available on the evenings of Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31st March for our evening performances. Ticket letters have been issued to all of P5. P6 & P7 with the remaining tickets being placed on general sale on Tuesday 22nd March. Show times are:
Wednesday 30th at 1.30pm and 7.00pm
Thursday 31st at 1.30pm and 7.00pm
This is show NOT to be missed; our 5th school show since my appointment and definitely our best yet! Get your tickets whilst you can.
Meanwhile, our little nursery friends have been very busy…
Outdoors this week the children were busy weeding and tidying up the garden in preparation for the completion of the Jungle den/forest/outdoor classroom, it’s potential for imaginary play is endless. With the help of Mr Little the large roots were removed to enable the Jungle groundsheet to be put down. A big thanks from all staff to Mr Little for his hard work. You can see from the photograph that the children are exploring the den. Also outside the children used the big wooden numbers to match the number to the dots on the wooden stepping stones. The stumps from recently fallen trees continue to be popular with children helping their friends to complete the Jungle obstacle course.
A Jungle den has also been created indoors with a variety of wild animal costumes for role-play. The children painted a Jungle jeep and made binoculars from junk and role-played going on Safari with the props. In snack they made their own Jungle juice using Jungle leaves (spinach) and a range of tropical fruit. Each group chose their own fruit and after tasting they were asked thumbs up if they liked it and thumbs down if they didn’t. A chart showing the outcome of this is displayed in the snack area. The Jungle theme continued throughout the week in snack with the children having Lion pasta and Jungleroni.
In numeracy the children have painted a family of elephants which are displayed on the wall they are using these to compare sizes. They have recorded their findings which you can see displayed. “The baby elephant is the smallest and the daddy elephant is the tallest” The children are measuring themselves up against them to compare sizes. On the SmartBoard they have been watching clips of real life animals in the wild getting up to some funny situations. The children have really enjoyed these clips which are full of facts and information.
The children continue to bring in facts about their group animals and soon these will be displayed for everyone to see.
In literacy the children have been writing all the character names from the Lion King for the big display. They have been singing Jungle songs and reading ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ a popular story with puppets and a Jungle scene for interaction.
They have also been making a variety of Easter crafts for the forthcoming Easter Fayre.
Over in Expressive Arts the children have been busy painting the Hienas from the story. By the end of the week they had started to recreate the Elephant graveyard scene from the story. This is a work in progress and will continue next week. The children have also explored Junle playdough and Jungle gloop where they disovered some surprises hiding in it.
Our enrichment activities for our pre-school children are well underway. The children had fun identifying and making their names from the alphabet cards. They used an Easter egg cutting activity to improve their cutting skills and had fun trying to spot the missing number in the memory game. A busy week for all.
Our Annual Easter Fayre will take place on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. There will be a raffle, guess how many eggs in the jar, name the bunny and a range of Easter crafts that the children have been making.
As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment…or two…or three…
Mrs Shields
Congratulations to all involved in organising and participating in the P4 St Joseph’s Mass, it was a pleasure to attend and hear the wonderful responses and singing of our school community.