Tag Archives: responsible citizens

Art and Craft, Listening and Talking, literacy, Science, Social Skills, Social Studies

Life Cycles

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A few weeks ago we all went for a walk up the Strom Road to find frogspawn and tadpoles. The bairns were so excited to see them and wanted to bring some back to school.

They loved watching the tadpoles swimming around and using the magnifying glasses to get a closer look at the frogspawn.

The frogspawn and tadpoles were returned to the outdoors to grow into froglets and then frogs.

The primary 1’s made these collages demonstrating their understanding of the life cycle of a frog.

Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, Science, Social Skills

Voar Redd Up

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Today we went down to clean up the Taing Beach as part of the annual  Voar Redd Up.

The children found lots of rope and netting tangled in the seaweed and amongst the rocks. There were also a few bottle and cans and some food packaging amongst other things.

The children did a great job and were very proud to be helping look after the local environment.

Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, Science, Social Skills, STEM

Planting in the Polycrub

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The children have been out a few times getting the polycrub started for the growing season. So far they have planted tatties, radishes, sunflowers, parsley and some flowers.

If anyone has any spare pots, compost, seeds or plants they would like to donate to the school polycrub that would be fantastic.

I shall keep you updated with the progress. Just a lot of soil and digging at the moment!

Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, literacy, maths, technology

Pancake Day

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The children learned how to make pancakes for Pancake Day. They measured, sieved, poured, cracked and mixed all the ingredients themselves. They learned the names of the utensils and how important it is to read a recipe correctly.

They watched for the bubbles in the mixture to know when to flip the pancake over and cook the other side.

They had great fun having a go at flipping a pancake in a pan. 

The best bit was choosing their toppings and eating them at snacktime.

The primary 2’s wrote out the recipe so they can make them at home. This is Ollie’s beautiful writing.

Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking

Baby Photos

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As part of the children’s HWB lessons this session they have been learning about looking after a baby. They have really enjoyed discussing what they can do now that they couldn’t do when they were a baby.

They have really enjoyed doing Show and Tell with their baby photos. The children in all the other classes have loved guessing who is who.

Do you recognize all these cuties?

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, Social Skills, STEM

Go Furt Fridays

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Most Friday mornings in Term One have been spent outdoors in our Loose Parts Zone. This gives the children opportunities to develop so many skills like co-operation, problem solving, teamwork, collaboration, etc.

Each time we go out there are different ideas, children go into different groups, different friendships develop, they get more confident using the materials available and allow their imaginations and creativity to take over.

The parent council provided us with some new resources, including half round guttering pipes and some very sturdy stands to support the pipes at different levels. This has led to some amazing problem solving and water courses in the playground.

The tree area is great for the children to learn about taking risks but being safe. They love building Dens and climbing in the trees.

On these mornings we usually have our snack outdoors which has been lovely while the weather has been good this term.

And we get to play too………

Health and Wellbeing, Science, Social Skills

Taing Beach

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The children walked down to Taing Beach on Friday and had fun exploring in the ebb.

They found lots of shells, whelks, crabs and even a sea cucumber. It was so great seeing how curious and excited the children were about their finds.

Health and Wellbeing, Science, Social Skills

more polycrub produce

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The beetroot is amazing this year. The children pulled it up and it has been picked and put in jars. They will get a taste after the holidays.

The carrots – not so amazing. They didn’t get the attention they needed and didn’t get thinned out as the seeds had been sown too close together. The children enjoyed laughing at how small they were but did manage to crunch a few of the bigger ones.

All the children got a sunflower and tomato plant to take home and there were plenty for some of the other classes too. More peas have been eaten and the other plants are getting cleared out before the end of term.

The children thought that next year they would like to have a plant sale and raise money to get some new trowels and tools for the polycrub.

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, literacy, Social Skills

Emergency!

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the children have been learning about the Emergency Services and how to get in touch with them.

In small groups they created little plays about an emergency when they needed to dial 999 and ask for the Police, Ambulance, Fire or Coastguard.

They have loved playing with Emergency vehicles in class, especially the ‘Oscar Charlie’ helicopter.

Health and Wellbeing, Science, Social Skills

Sunflowers and Peas!

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Huge excitement today in the polycrub as the children discovered several of the sunflowers had opened up.

A lot of the peas were also ready to be picked. The children tried a few and Conan brought a tub back to the school canteen. The cooks were delighted and will serve them up with the picnic lunch on Wednesday.

Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, Science, Social Skills, STEM

On Our Doorstep

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Another Monday afternoon exploring our amazing local area. A walk in the Strom Road and down to the little beach to complete  todays task…….’what can you make?’

Some groups decided to do dam building…….

Others diverted the water flow into new channels….

the children came up with so many different ideas………..

There was also time to explore the shoreline and find out what lives there.

 

 

Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, maths, Science

Polycrub Progress

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The radishes were the first thing to be ready for harvesting. They have grown really fast. The children got to take some home and the cooks at school chopped somefor the children to try at lunchtime.

The sunflowers are getting very big. The children have re-potted them and are keeping an eye on the flowers at the top to see which ones bloom first. They are measuring Laurie’s one everyday as it is the tallest at the moment.

 

They have also cleared out all the spinach. They got a little bag of leaves to take home and try and the rest has been frozen ready to add to a recipe soon.

Willum did a great job of tying up peas onto the canes. It is really exciting seeing the peapods growing now. The children are desperate to start popping them open.

The children finally got to try some peas today. So many growing now.

The polycrub looks amazing and the children work hard to water and look after the plants daily.

Art and Craft, Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, Science, Social Skills, STEM

Colour in Nature

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As part of our On Our Doorstep IDL we went to explre the areas nearby the school and find different colours of plants.

The children were vary careful and only picked what they needed to work in their IDL groups to create Colour in Nature pictures. They talked about and named different types of flowers and plants they found.

The results were beautiful…….and fun!

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, literacy, maths, Social Skills

Hills and Parks

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As part of our IDL topic this term the children have been out and about again………

Today the children set off up the hill to explore and appreciate the amazing views which are just ‘On Our Doorstep’.

Once at the top they found ‘First Base’ and then they went into their mixed groups to complete their task. They had to find all the markers with letters on them and put them together to solve a puzzle.

It was great to see the children helping each other and working in their groups. There was time for a little rest at the ‘second base’ before heading back to school.

Going down the hill was much easier than going up.

Last Monday the children all went over to Strom Park. This time in their groups they used some sports equipment to practise some activities for Sports Day.

in their groups they had to decide what activities to practise and set it up themselves. It was amazing to see the inclusion of all pupils of mixed ages.

 

Listening and Talking, Science, Social Skills

Sowing Wildflowers

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At the end of last term the children sowed wildflower seeds into pots. These have been looked after in the polycrub and were now ready to be transplanted outdoors in the wildlife garden.

Every child in the school helped to sow seeds and many of them helped to plant them out amongst the trees in the afternoon.

Art and Craft, Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, Science, Social Skills, STEM

On Our Doorstep

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The children are learning about what is ‘On Our Doorstep’ this term so every Monday we are heading out to explore.

Our first trip out was down to Taing beach. 

During each trip out the children have a little challenge or activity to do in mixed age groups of four pupils. For this first visit the children had to collect 10 shells each and work together to create a design.

it was great to see the pupils of different ages working together on this task.

Health and Wellbeing, Listening and Talking, literacy, maths, Sciences, Social Skills, STEM, technology

Go Furt Fridays

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Go Furt means get outdoors………It was a chilly 3 or 4 degrees on Friday morning but the children were still keen to get outside to build shelters and play together.

We will be heading out every Friday to make the most of our wonderful outdoor space at Whiteness. There is a shed full of loose parts which the children use to develop so many important skills including problem solving, cooperation, teamwork, etc.

It is fantastic seeing them having so much fun together and there imaginations are just the best!