We have all enjoyed a great week in school with lots of different learning activities taking place in each class and in the playroom.

However, it has to be said the highlight of the week was most definitely P6 assembly. Their focus was on discrimination where they explored gender discrimination, class discrimination, skin colour discrimination and finally the right to education for all. This was an assembly which delivered an extremely emotive subject in the most unique style. Primary Six has shown everyone the importance of being aware of living history and how our current world still has to change. I cannot praise this assembly high enough, it was simply outstanding, I was mesmerised, as was everyone else in the audience. No daft jokes, no frivolities but what an epic learning opportunity, truly memorable. A HUGE thanks to all in Primary 6, the children and their teachers; Mrs Murphy, Miss Green, Miss Lafferty & Mrs Carr. Thanks also to Mrs Campbell for her help with musical input.

Photographs below were taken by John Quinn, Amanda’s dad. Thanks to Mr Quinn for his wonderful portrayal of P6 assembly.

 

We aim this week coming to record the assembly and place it on our website for all to see. I also intend to alert Mr Andrew Sutherland, our executive director to this as he is very keen to learn how we approach citizenship in our schools.

Throughout the rest of the week we have enjoyed lots of additional things happening in our lovely school. Monday we met with the management team of St. Teresa’s Primary as they were keen to hear of our success using our new approach to writing; Big Writing. Mrs Campbell kindly facilitated this meeting, and St. Teresa’s staff were most impressed by what they heard and saw.

Tuesday we hosted a workshop for P3 parents of those children preparing for Reconciliation, this was very well attended and I was delighted to be able to offer some practical assistance for parents and grandparents as their children move towards this next step in their journey of faith and learning.

Wednesday, after school, we hosted an In Service for Motherwell Diocese focussing on preparation for the teachers of P4 classes preparing to receive Holy Eucharist. As always, all visiting staff were overwhelmed by our beautiful building and the wonderful displays all around the school. Thanks to Miss Stack for hosting this In Set in her classroom.

Unfortunately, due to weather conditions we had to cancel our Friday Football Tournament.

On Friday Miss Mooty took some of her children to visit Avondale Nursing Home where one of her young pupils, Emma Gaudenzi, was the proud winner of a Burns Picture Competition, set up by the nursing home. Well done Emma, a wonderful achievement.

Meanwhile, our littlest ones are, as always, busy, busy in the playroom. Mrs Margaret Mary Murphy tells us all about it….

 

Our theme of Winter continues and some of the group activities reflected this.

Outside the children carried out a water to ice experiment. They filled cups with water and a variety of different materials such as feathers, sparkles and sequence. They put them outside to see if they would freeze. The next day they looked at the results and of course because of the low temperatures they were all frozen, they put them in the water tray to see how long they would take to melt and they pretended the sequence etc was treasure.

In Expressive arts each group filled a rubber glove with water and added different food colourings and some of these were placed outside, in the freezer and in the playroom to see which one became frozen first. Again the results were placed in the water tray and children explored them as they started to melt this caused great hilarity as fingers fell off one by one.
In snack they made their own slushy drinks using crushed ice and their choice of food colouring. They put ice cubes in the smoothie maker and blasted the ice cubes to make them slushy.
In numeracy they made snowy footprints with their wellies and looked at the different patterns they made.
In the literacy area they explored the alphabet bags looking closely at the bag that their first name started with. They quickly realised that the i bag had an igloo in it. The children really enjoy these activities with their group members.

During the rest of the session the following opportunities were available.

The children continued with the ice castle that they are making by painting icy bricks, the castle was completed by the end of the week and can be seen in the far end of the playroom in the construction area.

Our recycled igloo is taking shape and we now have enough milk cartons to complete the project. A big thank you to everyone who brought in milk cartons. The children took turns to assist Mrs Little and Mrs Imray to start the new build and this is a work in progress and will continue into next week.
In expressive arts they made icy peppermint playdough and created their own igloos with it.

They read Winter stories and discussed the events and the characters in the stories some children then created their own characters and stories.
In music they played pass the parcel with an ice cube to see how long it took to melt.

In numeracy they have been looking at patterns in everyday things such as scarves, their socks, clothing and their wellies. They played a snowflake number game where they could also see the different patterns of snowflakes.
The timer has been introduced to help the children manage their time on the Ipads.

The children showed an interest in the dinosaurs and “Ice Age” so they created their own take on “Ice Age” on the wall of the construction area.

Can you spot the cross country runners in amongst the nursery photos?

 

 

As always, thanks for reading, please feel free to comment.

Mrs Shields