P3/4 had a taste of STEM learning today. Last term the class were learning about houses and homes. They were set a challenge to design and build a house that the specified toy person could fit into. The criteria were that it had to be only made from the provided pasta and playdoh and that it had to stand unsupported. This gave the pupils creative freedom to try lots of different techniques and methods to design and build their houses. In their small groups they set about the task. Many quickly found that it wasn’t easy to do and had to try different ways to get the pasta to group together to make walls and other parts of the houses. Some had good ideas but the buildings then collapsed so they had to start again using things that had worked well and changing the things that didn’t. When the time was up we went around all the groups to inspect their work and assess how it did to meet the design problem and follow the criteria. They found only one house that was fully successful but all the other houses had areas of improvement that they could give ideas for. They learnt that the process was where they learnt the most by working together, trying things out, discussing their ideas and working to improve their work.

On Tuesday pupils in P3 and P4 spent the day at Polkemmet Country Park. We walked there and met the boys and girls from Stoneyburn there as they had to get the bus. The P3 pupils started the morning with the Park Ranger. They learnt about the different trees in the park. The P4s started with den building and creating nature cocktails. For the dens they could use any materials they could find. They had a play at the park over lunch and then the groups swapped over.

We spent a brilliant day yesterday at Polkemmet Country Park learning about trees and building dens.

We walked from school to the park and split in to 2 groups- Primary 3 and Primary 4.  We spent one half of the day with a ranger who taught us about different kinds of trees, how they spread their seeds and the names of different types of trees we can find in Polkemmet Park.  We also looked at different types of animals that would live in the woods, where they  might live and the types of things they would eat.

We spent some time at the park during lunchtime- we were all starving after spending a busy morning out in the fresh air and we had lots of fun playing with our friends from Stoneyburn at the play park.

In the afternoon, we swapped over and we went den building with Mrs Gibson.  First we made forest cocktails using lots of different leaves, sticks and things we found on the forest floor.  After this, we spent time in teams building some amazing dens!  We had a really great time and were sorry to have to stop building our dens as we were having such a great time.  We hope that we can come back at another time to build dens again next term.

Kaitlin, Ellie and Natalie won a recent dance competition with their dance group Wild Kaous (we think that is how it is spelt). Well done girls!