Category Archives: Whole School News

Class 3 news

This week some class 3 pupils got creative with vegetables. Josh had the challenge of making a scenario that demonstrated co-operation.

Josh – I made cooperative carrots that were building a robot together. One had the body and the other was putting the head on.

Aidan took inspiration from our upcoming Health and Fitness Fortnight.

Aidan – I made some sporty sprouts and a partying pea from tissue paper. I named the pea Party Peate.

During these activities we were developing skills such as problem solving, working with others, sharing resources and fine motor skills.

On Wednesday morning we joined all the other classes in the school for the Giant Walking Bus. We walked beside the road and displayed our road safety posters. Lots of other people were walking at the same time all over Britain.

Our message to drivers:

Aidan – 20’s PLENTY! SLOW DOWN AROUND SCHOOLS!

Geordie – KEEP US SAFE AND SLOW DOWN

An enjoyable week for p2lg

This week we have been very busy and have enjoyed a variety of things. On Tuesday everyone attended the Golden Club event. We had lots of fun. Below you will see some pictures of us doing the Conga!

 

On Wednesday afternoon we were invited to join p5 for their party. We had fun hour playing games with our buddies in p5.

Another enjoyable activty this week was our art lesson. We looked at Aboriginal art from Australia and created our own pictures of turtles in the style of Aboriginal art. We enjoyed using the cotton buds to paint instead of paintbrushes.

Pupil of the week this week was Rory. He made Mrs Gallagher smile at Circle Time when he said that if he had a wish from a genie he would wish for flowers for his mum. Mrs Gallagher thought that was really kind. He also did a super piece of aboriginal art work too. A great week for Rory 🙂

Next week is Fitness Fortnight, remember to be dressed for sports activities Monday -Thursday. Sports day is on Wednesday, let’s hope ths sun comes out for us.

A very special café visit.

On Tuesday Class 3 had a very special trip to Lanna’s café. We were saying goodbye to Jason and wishing him good luck at his new school. Before we went we each made him a good luck card.

Josh – I made my card to look like a Creeper because I know Jason likes Minecraft.

Geordie – I made a Cineworld card, Jason really likes cinemas.

Aidan – My card was designed to look like Steve from Minecraft with a diamond axe mining a tree. It had an emerald on the inside.

At the café we were all very pleased to see Jason. We each ordered a snack and a drink.

We all sat round the table together and chatted.

Aidan – It was really touching to see Jason and I would like to do it again sometime.

We talked about what we’d been doing since he left.

Geordie – I am really sad that Jason left to go to another school. It was good to see him on Tuesday.

Josh – It was nice that we were together with Jason again.

After we had eaten we each went to the counter to pay Lanna.

Miss Waddell and Mrs Stewart were very proud of us for being such good friends and giving Jason a great send off.

Primary 2/1 had fun in the sun!

Wow! What an amazing day we all had at Beecraigs…

First of all the ranger took us into the woods to look for Scottish Wildlife.  We were animal detectives and found rabbits, hedgehogs, moles, badgers and bats (all cuddly animals that were hidden in their homes).  We learned that a squirrel lives in a drey, a rabbit lives in a warren and a badger lives in a sett.  The ranger was very impressed when we told her that animals that come out at night are called nocturnal.

We swirled our nets in the water...

Then we had nets and we went pond dipping.  We used a chart to help us identify the pond animals that we found.  Our favourite was the tadpoles but we weren’t so keen on the leeches.

Ellis caught lots of tadpoles!

The sun shone on us as we ate our picnics and watched the mummy duck with her eleven ducklings swim past on the pond.

James climbed to the highest point!

In the afternoon we all had lots of fun playing in the play park.  Some of us were very brave and tried the flying fox and some of us even climbed the giant web! 

All of the boys and girls would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Stewart, Mrs Jamieson and Mrs Little for coming with us.  We hope you had a fun day too!

P2 are looking at patterns

This week we have been looking at patterns in different areas of the cuirriculum. In numeracy we have looked at shape and number patterns and have been making some patterns of our own. In literacy we learned about alphabetical order and learned how to put letters and words in alphabetical order. We have also been looking at patterns on lighthouses. All lighthouses are different, some have a few stripe, some only have one and some have none. We made lighthouses of our own this week too.

Next week we are looking forward to the Golden Club event. 28 of us are in the Golden Club now, Mrs Gallagher thinks that’s great 🙂

Procession Day Fun

We had a fantastic day participating in Bathgate’s Procession. Thank you to everyone who helped create the school’s float – it was absolutely outstanding!

Thank you also to all the children and parents who came along and took part with the school.

Class 3 prepare for the procession!

Class 3 boys have been very busy this week with their paint brushes. Today is the last day of May which means that tomorrow is a very special day for Bathgate! Procession Day is almost here! Balbardie’s theme this year is Madagascar 3.

We have been making pictures to decorate the windows of the school for when the procession comes past.

Liam – I was painting Alex the lion. I painted his whiskers black and his nose brown.

Aidan – I had loads of fun painting because it was like putting life into the characters.

Geordie – Awesome, it was wicked fun! The pictures look cool.

Josh – I did a great job of painting Alex the lion’s ears. We worked  together to make the pictures.

Mrs Stewart had a sneak preview of our float on Wednesday night. She was helping to paint it and says that it looks phenomenal!

We hope that everyone who comes along to the Bathgate Procession and John Newland Festival tomorrow has a great time :).

Primary 2/1’s Visit to the Police Station

Yesterday after playtime we walked to the police station with PC Arnott. We learned about pelican crossing and zebra crossings and we learned how blind people cross the road safely. PC Arnott told us to look for CCTV cameras in the town centre.

We went into PC Arnott’s police van and we had lots of fun and were ver excited!

We looked at the TVs with the cameras. On the way we found 8 cameras.

Report by Charlie, Tom, Rowan, Logan, Freddie and Abbie

Survival Of The Fittest!

At the beginning of our topic the naturalists from P5ms each discovered a new species. We have written fact files about these creatures and some of us have created animations about them. This week they were faced with the ultimate challenge as we found out if our species would survive in the natural selection process.

Natural selection is a theory of evolution where species adapt to cope with the environmental pressures they face. Only the species that adapt well to the changes go on to make babies and their species will survive.

We created three different mutations of our species. Some were furry while others were hairless. Some were stripy, some had long legs and long necks. We made them as different as possible because Charles Darwin taught us that ‘diversity was the key to survival.’  Then the fun began! Our species were hit by a number of environmental pressures. There was an ice age which caused a problem for our hairless mutations. Global warming badly affected our furry creatures. The creatures with long necks thrived when new, taller plants grew but the short ones suffered. Dangerous predators roamed the landscape and a meteor wiped out all species that only had one mutation left!

In the end only three species were left standing:

“I believe Hotdog survived because his stripes helped him hide from predators.”    Adam

“My Dolphinhorse’s fur kept it warm while its long legs stopped it from overheating.”   Lauren U

“Tosa’s long neck helped him reach the tall plants.”    Finlay

We had great fun as we learned about something as tricky as Natural Selection. It truly was the survival of the fittest!

From the Blog Post Box:

This week we had a great time at the Sky Sports Community Games. Well done, Fitness Crew,  for winning the team competition – we are very proud of you. We tried out lots of sports and many of us have been inspired to join a new club or practise a new sport at home.

The sport I would be interested in trying is…

…basketball because I scored a net and it was fun.      Declan

…handball because I was good at catching the ball.    Olivia

…streetdance because it looked really cool what the boys were doing.   Antonia

 

Swimming to Glory!

Congratulations to our swimming team who won the Bathgate Procession Inter-schools Swimming Gala. You all swam fantastically well and did the school proud! The winning team members are Jennifer, Natalie, Sian, Maia, Abbie, Aidan, Adam, Andrew and Euan. Well done!

The Enormous Turnip

In Primary 2/1 this week we have read the story of the enormous turnip.  We loved the ending when the tiny, little mouse helped to pull out the enormous turnip.  We all agree that working together can be a great way to solve a problem! 

Please add any comments about a time you worked together. 

In class we made a wordbank of words that mean the same as enormous and also a wordbank for words that mean the same as little.

We painted pictures of gigantic whales, towers and ships and then we painted pictures of tiny butterflies and bugs.

P2lg end of topic reflections

This week we finished our Houses and Homes topic.  We did some reflective thinking about what we had learned and what we had enjoyed. Here are some of our responses:

“Houses in Spain have flat roofs.” Zoe

“I liked going on a walk to see the houses in Bathgate.” Amber

“I enjoyed painting houses.” Caitlin

“I didn’t know what a wasp’s home was called before.” Harvey.

“A squirrel lives in a drey.” Dasha

“I enjoyed learning about houses around the world.”  Sophie

We are going to finish this term by reading about a special person who lives in a special kind of house, more about that next week!

We are looking forward to the Teddy Bear’s Picnic on Friday. Remember to bring along your teddy for some stories, songs and snacks in the garden at 10.05am.

Outdoor fun in the sun!

P3lm have been learning about Division in maths this week. They have been learning the basic concept and enjoying learning the Division rap which goes with the x tables raps we have been learning. It has been such lovely weather, we took our Division lesson outdoors and enjoyed some fun in the sun. We were playing the Division game which meant we had to apply the taught strategies very quickly to get the answer and then run and find the hoop with the correct answer in it! Everyone did really well and enjoyed the fresh air and the Division competition. Well done everyone!

An Author in Residence

Lewis Gemmell in Primary 5a has had his own book published.  The book called, “The Shrinking Boy” is all about the adventures of a boy who finds himself shrinking.  We are very proud of his achievement.  Lewis commented, “It was great fun writing the book and I hope you all enjoy reading it”.

The book is available to order for £3 with profits going to the school fund.  If you would like to order a copy then please send £3 with your child to Miss Henderson who will order the book for you.  Lewis will personally sign all copies, if requested.

Goldilocks and The Three Bears

Primary 2/1 girls and boys have been reading the story of Goldilocks in class and are looking forward to performing the story at our assembly on Friday 31st of May.  Check school bags for invitations!

For home learning this week children have been asked to think about the story:

  • Do you think Goldilocks should have gone into the cottage?  Why?
  • How did the bears feel when they came home and found someone in their house?
  • Do you think Goldilocks will go into a stranger’s house ever again?

 

Another busy week!

This week we did many interesting things!

On Tuesday we all took part on ‘building’ our own tent, creating our own space and feeling we have an active role in forming our school environment.

Also we really enjoyed Celebrating Success on Thursday and we were very happy for all our good friends who got a distinction.

And P.E. was fantastic! We run, had fun and worked on coordinating skills!

More news coming next week.

BATHGATE ACADEMY BLAZERS

The company supplying Bathgate Academy with their new blazers – ADADEMY UNIFORMS MPC- will be at Bathgate Academy on Tuesday 4th June for the dispatch of orders. They will be there between 3pm and 6pm.

If you require any more information about ordering or collecting, please contact the Academy directly on 01506 653725.

Active maths in P2lg

This week in numeracy we have been learning about how to find the area of shapes by counting in squares. Today we took some squares outside and made some shapes of our own that all had an area of 10 squares. The playground ended up being too windy for us so we moved to the dining room where Mrs Gallagher set us some challenges. The first challenge was to make a square using more than 10 of our small squares. Harvey and Cameron were the first pupils to complete this activity, you can see them in the picture below. Our next challenge was to make a letter of the alphabet. Cole and Kate did a great job of making a letter E as you can see below too.

This week we have also had some special visistors in our classroom. Mrs Jamieson brought in some tadpoles for us to see. We are looking after them for a few days to see how they change before they go back to the pond. We have been very keen to learn about tadpoles and have enjoyed reading about them and drawing pictures.

Today at Celebrating Success assembly we were proud of Megan, Lauryn, Katie, Lewis and Caitlin who all received certificates. We all did very well singing our songs too.

Next week will be library visits on Thursday so remember to bring books and cards along then.