Meldrum Primary School Blog

Primary 6 are studying what life was like in the 1800’s. We researched some of the toys that children played with and decided to reconstruct them.

Here are some of our finished products!!

“We have made a Victorian doll’s house. We used cardboard boxes and doll house furniture, fabric and paints.”

This is a hobby-horse. Poorer children would have owned this instead of a rocking horse.

We made a toy race car. “We used wood, hot glue gun, wooden wheels, dowel and paint.”

We made a toy soldier. Most soldiers were carved out of wood or made out of tin. The uniforms were the battalions colours.

“This is a polar bear reversed grizzly bear.” “Stuffed animals were popular in the 1800’s.”

We made a wooden boat. It is modeled on a toy boat that we researched. We used wood, hot glue gun, saw and paint. The boat’s engine is a rubber band propeller.

“This is a shipwreck. Children would play with boats and pretend they were fighting in naval battles.”

“We made a Go-kart. We wanted to make a full size model but we did not have large enough wheels.” “We used wood, hot glue gun, saw and paint.”

This is the cup & ball. “I’m really good at it. I can get the ball in the cup in one shot!”

“We made a zeotrope. It was the first attempt at moving picture.” “You put pictures which slowly change position and look through the slots and spin it. Then you’ll see the picture moving!”

“This is our steam locomotive. We made it out of cardboard, dowel, wooden wheels. We added fluff as steam and paper clips to join the carriages together. We filled the carriages with scrap dowel as logs.”

We made an automata. We turn the handle to move the images. It was the first type of mechanical toy.

Toy gliders were popular amongst boys and men in the 1800’s. Aviation was been studied more an d more.

“We made a marionette. We hand sewed the fabric and filled it with stuffing. We chose to make a panda with a monocle because we both like pandas and it adds class to toy.” “The most famous puppets were Punch & Judy they were hand puppets.”

“This is a new board game that we created. It uses dice and counters. The first one to the end of the trail wins!”

Primary 5 and Primary 6 were very enthusiastic during their time learning Streetdance recently. As well as learning different dance moves it was also a very good fitness session.

What a great assembly we had on Friday celebrating the winners of our Scottish Poetry competition. The standard this year was very high and it was a difficult job selecting overall winners.
Well done to all of our pupils in school who learned their poems.

The National Parent Forum of Scotland have produced a leaflet with useful information about the National Improvement Framework which we are now sharing with you.  We have also included some additional links which you may find useful. Please click on the link below:

nif-info-for-parents

Primary 6 are enjoying their Mugen Taiko workshop which is running for another 6 weeks.

“Mugen” means limitless and “Mugenkyo” means limitless reverberation. Mugenkyo’s aim is to develop taiko drumming as a contemporary European performing art, both in its pure form, and in collaboration with other artists & disciplines.

The pupils are excited for their parents to come and watch their showcase at Howden Park on Tuesday 28th March.

A special delivery came to P6. It was a sealed box. The class were asked to guess what could be in it. Once opened they noted the objects and then used their imaginations to do something inventive with the items.

Inside the box were: Sunglasses, bottle of water, a maraca, 2 foam balls, dice, bulb, seashell and a mango.

Luke used the bulb to make a simple circuit

Aidan and Aiden rolled the dice to see how many times they had to bounce the foam ball off the water bottle bat.

Luke then went on to see if he could light the bulb using the mango to create a fruit circuit.

Harris and Abigail wanted to know which would roll better; the wooden wheel or the Kinex?

Johnson and Nathan made a table tennis game using the other foam ball which turned out to be very popular with the other pupils and soon a  competition was set up with Shane keeping the rally scores.

The pupils in Primary 6 had the technical challenge of making a kite. They then got the chance to go outside and fly their kites in the playground to celebrate Chinese New Year. It was a lovely afternoon activity.

Something very exciting happened in Primary 5 last Thursday afternoon. A sealed box was delivered to the classroom. We looked at it, passed it around and all had a shake. Then we had a good think about what might be inside. When we opened the box we discussed each object. There was an empty bottle, a plum, a wooden circle, a gold belt, two white balls, a dice, a shell, a small light bulb and a whirling drum!

The children discussed the first object that they noticed in the box.

”The first thing I noticed in the box was the plum because it’s a darker colour. It looks soft as if it has been in the box for a few days.”

”The first thing I noticed from the objects was that they are objects we might see or use around our school.”

”The first thing i noticed from the box was that you may find a bottle and a shell at the beach”

We thought about different ways that we could use each item in the box.

A group of children suggested we make a racetrack with the belt. They used the small and big white ball to race down the track.

Others suggested we use the empty bottle and some stones to make a musical instrument.

A few pupils made a slingshot with a few other items and the small ball.

Some of the children thought they could make some new jewellery with the belt and shell.

It was a very fun and creative afternoon! What would you do with the objects in the box?

Primary 7 participated in some kite making last week and took advantage of a windy Wednesday to go outside and see if the kites would fly.

They had fun seeing how high they could make the kites go and experienced frustration when they got their kite mixed up with another one!