Today we welcomed Mr Sutherland (Daniel’s Dad), Dr Hume (Caleb’s Mum) and Mrs Grant (Holly’s Mum) who came to talk to us about their jobs.

Mr Sutherland told us he is a lawyer or advocate and he even dressed Mrs Wilkinson up so she could pretend to be a judge!

Dr Hume is a doctor and she brought her friend Bertie Bones to help explain all about different parts of the body.

Mrs Grant is a vet and she also brought in some friends – her real pets Tess the dog and Jazz the cat.  They were impeccably behaved and very tolerant of all the children – we think they deserved a few house points!

Thanks to Ms Wilson who came in today to speak to Primary 7b about her role as a Community Mental Health Nurser.

We heard about what it takes to be a mental health nurse, the types of conditions that are classed as a mental illness and mindful ways to relieve us of every day pressures and stress.

We promise to practice brushing our teeth in a mindful way!

We had a good time listening to Fire Fighter Scott as he told us about his job as a Fire Fighter.

Alfie C – thought it was really funny seeing Mrs Scott in the fire fighters uniform.

Firemen wear steel toe capped boots and Rana tested how strong they were and jumped on Mrs Scott’s feet.   Mrs Scott reports that it did not hurt!

Sam said that it felt really heavy and really hot wearing the uniform.

We learned about different jobs in the Fire Service – Aimee.

Lewis said that he learned what happens when a 999 call is answered.

Thomas found it interesting that once a 999 call was received, the control room then sent a signal to the fire station giving details of where  and what.

William Mac liked to find out about the uniform and how quick firemen can put it on.

Oliver J felt that the information about Retaining Stations and firemen in Peebles was interesting as they had to keep their pagers with them at all times and no matter what they were doing they would have to drop everything and get to the station as quickly as possible.

Thank you so much to Mr. Cunningham for his explanation of his job as a heating engineer to P2A this morning.

He really made the boys and girls think about the fact that the jobs we have today may be very different tomorrow when they are ready to choose a career.

We especially liked cracking the metal in the packet and watching the clear gel turn white. Then it heated up our hands. When it began to cool down again it became rock solid. The heat pack could work over 40,000 times. This is a type of battery and is more energy efficient than many batteries we use in our gadgets. It is more sustainable.

We thought that it was amazing that the ingredients pumped into the heat pack batteries were salt and vinegar!

What will we be using when we grow up to create Sustainable Energy?

Primary 5 were writing letters in Block 3.  One letter was to be written to our favourite author.  Today there was a flurry of great excitement as three letters arrived in school.  One from J K Rowling to William with two excellent stamps on the envelope.  The other  letters were from Laura James the author of the Pug books answering Tara and Freya’s questions.

The children read out their letters and the whole class loved hearing from these authors.

Let’s hope that we have more replies.  Primary 5 are waiting with anticipation.

Andrew was the lucky winner of the Golden Ticket in Primary 5.  It was found in a Jacqueline Wilson book – Double Act.   Andrew was very happy and surprised when he opened the book today.  Andrew will meet with all the other winners tomorrow at the Book Fair for a VIP tour and will get to choose a book.

Next Door Numbers: Use numbers 0 to 9 Numbers that are next door to each other (consecutive numbers) can’t be next door to each other; along, up or diagonally!  Have FUN!

This week we have been learning about the ou sound. We have been taking part in a number of teacher-led activities including dictation, magnetic board work and ‘Read, write and draw’ activities. The children have also enjoyed exploring the play activities below:

Match the words to the pictures

Sort the round shapes

Put the ou words in the mouth

Make a kangaroo with a pouch

Suggested ou words to make, say, write or draw:

out, ouch, sour, loud, pout, shout, couch, about, proud, cloud, ground.

In science we have looked at different body systems. Choose one of the following body systems, and research about their parts and what each part does. Include any interesting facts that you find too.

• Digestive (P6A)
• Skeletal (P6B)
• Nervous
• Respiratory

You can present this information in any form e.g. a fact sheet, PowerPoint, labelled diagrams, a labelled 3D model, an animation etc…

Please bring this in for Monday the 25^th of March when we will have a sharing time with both classes.

Today Hamish’s mum who is a physiotherapist visited us to tell us all about our bones and muscles. She brought in lots of bones and we had to guess which part of the body they were from. We also found out how to keep our bones healthy.

Thank you Mrs Ackerman we really enjoyed your talk