Well done to you all for taking part in our first virtual Sports Day. There was a huge amount of creativity shown and lots of energy! Mrs Reid will be busy totalling up all the house points. Here are just some of your photos and videos.
Its great to see what you have been up to – baking, exercising, dying hair, exploring and sports day. This is on top of the more formal work set by the teachers! Well done everyone!
I hope you are all trying to keep up with your reading and if you are in P4 to P7 make sure that you are going onto Accelerated Reader to complete the quizes – this way we can aim to reach 1,000,000 words in May! I have just read “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” by Charlie Mackesy. It’s really enjoyable – I hope you like the pictures from it on this post.
The Holmston staff were in the hub yesterday supporting our key workers that do not have any childcare. It is very difficult for children to socially distance and going forward these are challenges we will we all have to think about.
Growth Mindsets
It is really important during these challenging times to make sure that we are still trying to promote thinking with a growth mindset with the children. Especially when it comes to curriculum areas like maths. Please don’t say to your child things like, “I found maths difficult” or “Maths is hard”. This can have a huge impact on children for the rest of their lives. Please have a look through the section on ‘Growth Mindsets’ on the school website for ideas and vocabulary to further support your child to think positively about learning.
Parent Maths Workshops
We will be organising some parental workshops very soon with Mr. Scott Morrow. These will be via ‘Zoom’ and open to our parents in P2 – P7. Scott will demonstrate the strategies and tools we use in school and answer any questions you may have. Scott is setting Maths challenges each Friday and if you need any support with any area of maths you can tag him though the class Team page. Look out for further information about this either by email or text. There will be a separate P1 sesssion later on.
Sports Day
This Friday would have been our Sports Day – so it will probably rain! Please upload your sporty photos along with your house colour into your class Team so that we can score and add to the House Point totals. We look forward to seeing you in action!
One of our pupils, Katie has made it through to the Talent Lockdown for Musical Theatre Final. Please click on a link and vote for her!
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Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_jz2_Ilxho/?igshid=1h4w5lk3ux82r
Next Monday is Star Wars Day – so the challenge for next Monday is to get creative with the theme of Star Wars – you could cook, act, sing, re-create images from the films – use the force of your imagination! We look forward to seeing your photos and videos. House Points for creative entries!
What a term it has been but we have made it to the Easter break! I would like you thank all the staff. They have worked so hard to learn new skills and suppport each other to ensure that the learning continues at home. They are an amazing team. Thank you for your patience and co-operation too at this very challenging time. I know the holidays this year will be different but there are lots of links on the home learning section of the website and work on the teams sites to help you keep occupied. Emails will still be monitored over the holiday period although teachers will not be uploading new material onto teams during this time.
As we missed our Spring Serice here are a couple of our Easter songs you can join in with.
Spring Chicken Song
The Chocolate Song
…and we are missing our friends from Southcraig too!
You Will Be Found – Southcraig Choir #wecanchangetheworld!
We all hope you have a safe break – try not to eat too much chocolate – and we will be back in touch soon.
What a fantastic way to start Tuesday – due to the hard work of our Fairtrade committee and the committment of Mrs Bate and Miss Johnston. We have achieved the FairActive award which builds on our FairAware award from last year. Thank you if you also helped by coming along to our recent coffee afternoon.
Our P3s had a fantastic time today performing their scripts on the Gaiety stage, exploring the theatre and finding out about the different jobs and skills needed to put on a show. A huge thank you goes to Gordon and Robbie for developing this project. We have really enjoyed taking part.
We have had a great week finding out about the STEM subjects including experiments and challenges in the classroom; visits to Culzean and workshops with the rangers; workshops in school from engineers and Belmont teachers and visiting Ayr college. We finished off our week with our STEM Fayre. Here are a selection of photos further photos can be found on the twitter feed.
P5, 6, 7 had great fun today rehearsing and performing 1719! with the Scottish Opera.
1719! travels back to a key moment in Scottish history to tell the story of the Jacobite Scots locked in a desperate struggle to restore the House of Stuart to the throne of Great Britain, while the Hanoverian King George argued with other European rulers over the lands and riches of the New World. King Philip of Spain sent troops and money to help the Jacobites in an attempt to distract the British government from this dispute.
Pupils went back in time 300 years when the Jacobites and their Spanish allies gathered in Glen Shiel for battle with King George’s forces, in what was the last close engagement of British and European troops on British soil.
It was an amazing way to learn about one of the most dramatic and exciting periods in Scottish history.
Our P3 are taking part in a project this term with Southcraig School. Our pupils are working together to play a variety of inclusive games and challenges and learn from each other. They had lots of fun as you can see!
Yesterday, our Primary 6 visited Dumfries House. They found out all about satellites and then worked in teams to design and create their very own. Each group tested how far their satellite flew. There was even time for a play in the snow!
Earlier this week our P7s went to visit the Sky Academy to find out how a news report is put together. They had the opportunity of putting their creative and collaborative skills into action to produce an information report about the damage plastics are doing to our oceans and what we can do to help this.
Primary 5 and Primary 6 entertained the parents and families at ‘The Big Sing’ this morning. They performed a selection of rock anthems and festive songs. Thanks to Ms Nelson for all her hard work.
P4 were fantastic at leading today’s Christmas Service at the Auld Kirk in Ayr. The service was a joint service with Southcraig School. The pupils re-told the Nativity story and we all sang a range of Christmas songs. Our P4s also learned to sign ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’ so they could join in with the Southcraig Choir. Christmas is definitely here now!
Well done to our Digital Leaders for taking part in the Lego Mindstorm competition at Kilmarnock College. The team built and programmed their Lego robot to perform challenges related to the theme of ‘Space’. The also delivered a presentation on the effects of isolation on astronauts. The judges were impressed with their teamwork.
As always, this time of year is very busy. Last week, our P7s enjoyed their Christmas Party with all the P7 classes from across the cluster at Belmont.
Our P1, 2 and 3 Nativity, ‘Prickly Hay’ was thoroughly enjoyed by parents and families and the pupils enjoyed themselves too!
Meanwhile, members of P5 and P6 went to Bellevue Nursing Home to perform a selection of songs for the residents.
Earlier this week, Holmston hosted the final of the Primary Engineer competition. Schools from all over Ayrshire participated in partnership with GE Caledonia and we had two successful teams. Our P5 team achieved Best Communicators at the Engineer Level and our P3 team were runners up in the Apprentice Level. The cars they made had to go through a series of challenges. The engineers also arranged a visit from a jet engine for us to look at.
Primary 7 are very excited to be learning with pupils from Southcraig School to experience inclusive Sherborne Developmental Movement Therapy. Sherborne is based on natural movement play activities inspired by the philosophy and Theory of Human Movement by Rudolf Laban. It offers all participants the inclusive opportunity to develop body and spatial awareness skills. As the children work through the Sherborne Movements each week they will learn to build positive relationships through demonstrating sensitivity as a responsible partner, an awareness of communicating and working together and a shared enjoyment of the movement and play.
I am very pleased to announce that the school was successful in achieving our Gold Award from UNICEF. Everyone worked very hard and the assessors were impressed with the work that is happening around rights at the school. They identified particular strengths of the school as:
