This week we have been having fun and learning tessellation in maths. Clara’s mum even came in to do a mindfulness workshop! In P.E we were learning Scottish dancing and we were playing games.🙂
Category Archives: Classes
Tricky Tessellation
Primary 6 have been learning about 2D shapes and putting them together to make tessellations. We also learnt that the artist, M.C. Escher used tesselation to create his art works. We have some feedback from our classmates and they said:
Molly said “It was fun but challenging.”
Rebbecca said “To try to tessellate a cross is really hard.”
Beth said “You can see tesselation in everyday life including slabs,tiles,fabric design,pineapples and many more things.”
This week’s bloggers are Isla G and Ruby
Bestie in a bauble!
Primary 6 have been busy making snow globe baubles with their bestie inside. These glittery decorations are on trend and will be available to buy at the Christmas Fair next week. What a lovely keepsake to have for years to come.
P1 Bookbug Reading Afternoon!
P1 had a fun afternoon today reading stories and playing all the games from their bookbug bags. It was lovely having our families and P7 buddy’s come along to help us read!
Primary 6 are using their logic !
Primary 6 were having fun using our new ‘Logic Cards’ to complete some tricky problem solving tasks.
Ethan said “It was challenging but really fun. My task involved finding the solution to a drawing problem with shapes where I couldn’t take the pen of the page or repeat drawing a line.”
Harris continued, ” The advantage of working with a partner on this task was that we could share ideas and piggy back to find a better solution.”
Primary 4a’s Week of Learning
Primary 4 have had a busy week!
In Writing we had to describe a picture. The picture was a setting for a story. We had to include adjectives, nouns and adverbs. Next week we will begin to write character descriptions.
On Tuesday we walked to Broxburn Academy for the Benchball Festival. We were sorted into teams and we played some rounds of Benchball against other schools. We really enjoyed this even though we had to use mats instead of benches!
In Numeracy we have been learning about Money. We can convert pence into pounds and pounds into pence. We can also add sums of money together to make totals. Some children brought in different currencies for us to look at. Cole brought coins from the Czech Republic, Michael showed us some euros, Adam brought in Algerian money and Kyle introduced us to the Indian rupee.
In Health and Wellbeing we have begun to learn about the importance of keeping ourselves clean and healthy. Miss Doolan brought in two pieces of bread for us to use in an experiment. We all touched one piece without washing our hands, and Cole touched another piece AFTER washing his hands. We put the bread in separate bags, labelled them and hung them up in our classroom. Our aim is to see which piece gets more mouldy in the next week or two.
Twelve Disciples
In P4, in preparation for our assembly we learnt all about the 1twelve disciples. In no particular order, they were : Peter, Andrew, James, John , Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, (son of Alphaeus), Thaddeus, Simon and Judas. However, we learnt that Judas betrayed Jesus so he was replaced by Mattheus.
We learnt that these men followed Jesus and continued his good work here on Earth. We too are being followers of Jesus and following their good example by : praying for others, helping one another, reading the Bible and by looking after our world.
P5
Since returning from the summer holidays we have been very busy. We have been learning about shale mining in Broxburn and we looked at the Burngrange mining disaster.
Max – the Burngrange disaster happened 71 years ago.
Lucas – the disaster happened in West Calder
Mirin – 15 men lost their lives.
Daniel – one of the men died at the exit to the mine.
Connor – 2 of the men were brothers.
Paula – a giant explosion and fire caused the disaster and parts of the mine to collapse.
We have learned lots of information and created art work, job adverts, PowerPoints, mind maps and newspaper reports all about shale mining and the disaster.
We are now going to be learning about natural disaster. We can’t wait!
School News
Hi everyone,
Please find our latest school newsletter here: School_News_-_Sept_Oct_2018
Copies of our newsletter will now be accessible online, rather than in paper version. They can also be found on our new school website: http://stnicholasprimary.westlothian.org.uk/
P1 Young Writers
A huge congratulations to Mara Wishart and Logan Morrison who won a prize in the P1 category of West Lothian Young Writers’ competition. They go with their families to an Awards Ceremony on the 16th of June. Well done on this excellent achievement. We are very proud of you both.
Gymnastics Champs!
Huge congratulations to gymnasts, Abbie Thomson, Anna Keogh and Chloe Laing – members of the St Nicholas Team – who scooped the award of 2nd place in the Scottish Gymnastics Primary Schools Finals in Perth last weekend, where they competed against schools from all over Scotland! Well done also to Anna Keogh who took the award for 2nd Place for her individual performance.
We are all so proud of you girls – well done to all of you!
Presentations
The presentations today were very interesting – Zara
Some of the Power POints were really eye-catching – Maisie
Well done Weronika, Archie, Natan, Emily, Liam and Kordian! Your presentations were fantastic 🙂
Litter posters in P2.
Here are some of the boys and girls from P2 with the anti – litter posters that they have created. We are proud to be an Eco school and want to remind everyone to keep St Nicholas free from litter.
Spring in P2.
Spring has sprung in primary 2! Look at our beautiful Spring pictures, aren’t they pretty ? We used watercolours and wax to make our daffodils and paint to create our cherry blossoms.
Fantastic Presentations!
Well done Chloe, Alicja, Julia, Victor and Myles. We really enjoyed listening to your presentations today and learnt a lot about dogs, Poland, Red squirrels and Pokemon!
Thanks for your donations! P4-5 enjoyed their very successful Bake Sale today!
We also had some great presentation from James, Nia, Zara, Marta, Summer, Aisha and Lilya. Well done!
Here are some pictures of our day.
Presentations, coordinates, writing and Lent
We’ve had a very busy week in P5b. We have written a persuasive letter to the owner of the Scot-Mid to get him to sell more Fairtrade products, we have been learning about coordinates, practised the weather in Spanish with a dancing game and found out about new facts about the Loch Ness and Nessie! Some of the children also enjoyed doing their presentation: Well done Megan, Maisie Freya, Adil and Natalia! We also had time for some fun Lent activities like the skipathon the pinata and the snail trail!
Is your child a budding Darcey Bussell?
Is your child interested in ballet? Auditions for Scottish Ballet are in Glasgow on the 23rd of April for children who will be in P6/7 in September 2018. No dance experience necessary and the audition is free. Every child who applies will be offered an audition. Please click below for application details…
Broxburn Academy Transition
A huge thank you to Broxburn Academy pupils who came to run a lunchtime debating group with some of our P7 and P6 pupils today. The children enjoyed the opportunity to work with S5’s from Broxburn and are looking forward to seeing you again next week.
Talking about learning…
Thanks to everyone who came to our curriculum cafe today to discuss their children’s learning with them over tea and a biscuit. Our St Nicholas children were very proud to show their families evidence of all their hard work and effort. Our cafe was very, very busy today – thank goodness our Pupil Council and parent partners were on hand to help. Thanks also to Avril Fitzpatrick and Agnes Boyle – ladies from the local community who organise our teas and coffees and who we couldn’t do without.
Our next curriculum cafe will be on Friday the 4th of May.
Den building P4 continued
More photographs of our adventure yesterday.
P4 den building
We had great fun at Almondell Country park today building dens. We worked cooperatively in small groups to design and then construct our dens. It was great fun.
Stephen – Den building was fun because I enjoyed gathering all the materials and resources
Connor – I learned that some sticks are heavy and need two people to lift them.
Iga – I had fun building the shelter so that it was rain proof.
Finn – I enjoyed making smaller things inside the shelter. We made a fire escape, an arm chair and a kitchen.
Milo – I enjoyed testing out the dens at the end. Ours was big enough for all of us to fit inside.
Cian – I liked gathering the wood because if you went far away from your den, it tested your navigation skills.
Carson – I liked working with others in my team.
Aaron – I learned that there are different shapes to be made from the sticks.
More photos to follow if Mrs Cannung can work out how to download them!
Today Primary 5 took part in some shelter building activities in Almondell Country Park. In groups children had to find suitable resources to create and cover their shelter. Children work collaboratively to design and build shelters that were fit for purpose and some even decorated them! As you can see from the photographs I think they have developed quite good survival skills!
3D shape poems
We made 3d shape poems/raps and presented some of them to the class.I made one about a sphere and I enjoyed writing it and reading it to the class. We all tried our best and all enjoyed it.
Tongue Twisters in French and Spanish
Primary 5b have been trying some tongue twisters in Spanish and French. We thought it was challenging but really fun!
Spanish tongue twister
Cuchara, cucaracha
cucharita, cucarachita.
French tongue twister
Mon père est maire, mon frère est masseur.
P5b’s Titanic adventure
Natalia – I liked when we dressed up and played a character on the Titanic
Adam – I learned that workmen had to be at 6:00 am sharp or they would be sent home by the time keeper.
Maisie – I learned that when the Titanic left Southampton it almost crashed.
Lilya – I learned that the people that worked in the Titanic had 6 minutes to go to the toilet. Once one of them fell asleep and the time-keeper started banging on the door.
Adil – I learned that the smoke from the cooking went through the fourth funnel to make it look like it was working.
Archie – I enjoyed dressing up as a purser.
Marta – I learned that the carpenters who worked on the Titanic took spare pieces of wood home to show their families how nice the wood was.
Primary 4 Celebrate Robert Burns Day
Primary 4 have been learning about the very famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns. We now know lots of facts about him!
Milo – Robert Burns is sometimes called ‘Rabbie’.
Erin – He is a famous poet and songwriter who lived in the 1700s.
Tatenda – He started writing poems when he was younger to impress the ladies.
Finlay A. – He lived in a cottage in Alloway.
Alex – Robert Burns grew up on a farm. His Dad died when he was 25 so Rabbie had to take over the farm with his brother.
Ellie – Robert Burns died when he was only 37 years old.
On Robert Burns Day we celebrated in class by tasting some Scottish foods and celebrating our Scottish culture.
Neve, Neve, Fallon and Carson entertained us with some Highland Dancing. Finlay F. treated us to ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and both he and Connor played ‘Scotland the Brave’. Matthew read one of Burns’ famous poems called ‘Address to the Haggis’.
We got to taste haggis, shortbread, oatcakes and Irn-Bru. Yum! We took a vote to see which was the most popular of the foods. Irn-Bru had the most votes, while haggis had the least number of votes because it was ‘too spicy’!
P5 Titanic Topic
Primary 5 have been using their creativity to record their learning about The Titanic. All pupils created a pencil drawn image of the ship on her maiden voyage and also used fantastic vocabulary to describe the sinking of the ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Tomorrow we will be using the medium of drama to extend our learning during our Titanic Workshop.
http://www.titanichonourandglory.com/
Burns Day
Primary 6 did a bit of research on Rabbie Burns today, finding some more unusual facts about him and presenting it to the class on a ‘Sway’ presentation (a programme similar to powerpoint). Did you know that Robert Burns had 12 children? Or that he almost moved to Jamaica? Or that he was the first person to appear on a bottle of Coca Cola? Neither did we until today. We then had a wee Scottish treat – some shortbread and a thimble full of Irn Bru.
Adventures with Paddington Bear
Primary 5a have been learning how to draw Paddington Bear and were successful in learning from their mistakes. We wrote interesting Paddington Bear stories from scratch. Miss Morgan brought in her Paddington Bear. He was very old because Miss Morgan got him when she was 5 years old !
We watched three very old, original cartoons about Paddington Bear and discovered he was a very polite bear but also got up to a lot of mischief ! We used this information to write our own adventure stories. We enjoyed learning about Paddington Bear and will enjoy our memories of this time in the future.
Written by Amie-Lee, P5a
STEM – Elf House
Primary 5 have been developing lots of skills whilst designing their Elf House.
Ethan – ” We had to make a house for an elf. The house had to provide him with a place to sleep, somewhere to eat, it had to be safe and cosy with lights.”
Grace – “It had to have a Christmas theme and look like a place where an elf would stay.”
Clara – ” We had to measure our elf so that we could design and make furniture to the correct size.”
Skye – ” We had to give our elf a name. We called them: Fifi, Merlin, Nick and Ellie.”
Isla G – ” We started off sharing all our ideas on a piece of paper and then planning the design of our house.”
Hubert – “We worked as a team. We had to listen to each other and encourage each other.”
Maya – ” We used boxes, straws, pompoms, fancy paper, tinfoil, lollipop sticks, cotton wool and electric lights. We used these things to create furniture, rugs, chimneys and plants.”
Harris – “It was great fun working together to make our Elf House. Each house is unique.”
Our elves are looking forward to moving into their new homes this week.
The Gingerbread House Challenge
P6a revisited an old classic today – the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. We listened to this traditional tale, but then took it to another level by discussing possible hidden meanings, metaphors and symbolism in the story. We now know that traditional tales were passed down from generation to generation to warn children (and adults) of potential dangers in life. Hansel and Gretel will never be the same again! We then took part in a challenge to see which group could build the best gingerbread house, using essential teamworking skills of: good communication and listening; effective cooperation and negotiation; and hard work!
Blether stations, Subtraction and Christmas art
In Maths we have been learning how to subtract 4 digit numbers with and without regrouping using the column method. We have used Dienes blocks to help us to understand what regrouping means.
We have also learnt about the past tense and how to spell different verbs in the past tense. E.g. asked, carried, etc. We have been learning basic greetings and feelings in French and organised a P5 puppet show to practise this.
It was also exciting to discuss our favourite books in ‘Blether Stations’ for Scottish Book Week. Finally, we have started getting ready for Christmas; we’ve been practising our Christmas carols and also made really nice Christmas decorations to sell in the Christmas School Fayre.
Well done and congratulations!
A huge well done and congratulations to St Nicholas Primary School girls who took part in the West Lothian Schools Gymnastics Competition last week at Craigswood Sports Centre, Livingston. Our Level 3 team came first across the whole of West Lothian and were awarded best individuals too. All our girls were a credit to themselves, their parents and St Nicholas Primary School. We are all very proud of your achievements!
Parent Council Meeting Minutes
Please find minutes from the last parent council meeting on Monday 13th November.
Broxburn Science and Technology Event
Primary 6 had a fantastic day yesterday at the Broxburn Academy Science and Technology event. Pupils had the chance to learn about structural engineering and took on the paper table challenge. We learned that things are strong in threes and triangles are the strongest shape. Primary 6 also worked with some 3rd year pupils to explore some scientific experiments, our favourite experiment was the ooze.
Trip to the castle and first week back
We had a fantastic trip to Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace where Primary 5 learned more about Mary Queen of Scots and the history of Scotland.
Every morning this week, our whole school has been working together to focus on our positive values with Rookie Rockstars. The children have been working towards a final performance were they will be singing and dancing songs about bullying and being kind to others.
Primary 5b have also worked on their multiplications skills, spelling patterns, reading skills and also investigated bridges. P5b then had to work in groups to design a strong structure that would support Nia’s pencil case for 10 seconds using materials such as paper, cards, straws or spaghetti. All the groups worked incredibly well, showing great cooperation and working as a team. Well done!! Most groups also managed to build structures that were fit for purpose 🙂
BBC ‘s Author Live – P2 and P3.
The children from primaries 2 and 3 really enjoyed watching and listening to the author Wes Gray reading a selection of his stories. Our favourite one was ‘Oi Frog’. We watched a live broadcast of him and learnt a little about his life. It was great!
STEM – Bridge Building
Today P5 were designing and building bridges using strong shapes. We had investigated famous bridges from all around the world and looked very carefully at the shapes used to make them fit for purpose.
Team Straw managed to support 4 cars on their bridge. Team Paper managed to support 7 cars and Team Spaghetti supported 3 cars.
Great team work all round.
Dentist visit!
We were so lucky to have a visit from a real dentist today- Louise’s mummy! We had a fantastic time learning how to take care of our teeth. Margarita even let us have a go at looking into Dinosaur Colin’s mouth with a special mirror.
We learned that it is important to brush your top teeth downwards,your bottom teeth upwards and your back teeth in little circles. We also sorted the food into ‘happy teeth’ and ‘sad teeth’ baskets. We learned that sweets, lollipops, fruitshoots and cakes are very tasty but they should be eaten as a little treat and not everyday.
We would like to say a huge thank you to Louise’s mummy for coming into our classroom and for giving us all a fantastic goody bag!
Portrait Portfolio
Primary 5 have been using various media to create portraits. Over the past few weeks we have drawn large self portraits and ended up drawing teeny, tiny portraits of Greyfriars Bobby. They were the size of a teabag.
Adventures in Primary 5
My goodness P5 have had a busy few weeks ! We have been looking at historical aspects of the curriculum through a number of events. We participated in an ‘archaeological dig’ where we discovered various parts of a skeleton and then had to re-construct the formation of the body and complete a tricky calculation to work out the height of the person.
We took a trip to Edinburgh where we saw the various locations that we had been studying in class and even went back in time to meet Mary, Queen of Scots. She provided us with costumes from 1566 so that we could attend the christening of King James VI of Scotland who also became King James I of England. He was the King that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up at the Houses of Parliament on the 5th November. Mary taught us the ‘Dance of the Washerwoman’ and we also examined the food that would be served at a Royal banquet and used oranges and cloves to make pomanders. There were some unpleasant odours around in the 1500’s ! On our journey we explored the Royal Apartments in the Palace of Holyroodhouse and saw the spot where David Rizzio was murdered by Lord Darnley. We walked up the Royal Mile passed The Museum of Edinburgh where the collar and bowl of Greyfriars Bobby are kept. We spotted the distinctive Tolbooth building that served as jail in the days of Old Edinburgh. We passed John Knox’s house and admired the architecture and spoke about the window tax which resulted in the ‘wee windaes’. Further along the High Street we saw the Mercat Cross where the residents of Old Edinburgh would hear the news and passed the impressive St Giles Cathedral. We saw the location of the infamous Deacon Brodie’s workshop. Finally we arrived at Edinburgh Castle and saw the many defence features of the building, the one o’clock gun, Mons Meg and the statues of Wallace and Bruce. We managed to visit St Margaret’s Chapel which is the oldest building in the Castle. We were exhausted but had a wonderful time.
In art we have been exploring a new technique where we created autumnal art. We blended oil pastels to create the leaves and then blended paint to create a water effect around them. They were very impressive.
P2′ Visit to Purves’s Puppet Theatre
As part of our learning about ‘Toys, Now and Then’ P2 had a very enjoyable trip to Purves Puppet Theatre earlier on today. It was great seeing puppets in action. We got to see how the puppeteers moved the puppets using black gloves and clever lighting ! It was so cleverly done that it was impossible to see the puppeteers behind the stage.
Here are some pictures of us !
‘Toys, Now and Then’ in Primary 2.
We have been very busy in Primary 2 learning all about toys from the past. This week, we have learnt about the history of teddy bears, tricycles and hobby horses. We also made our own hobby horses.
Visualising in Primary 6
Primary 6 have been learning and revising lots of different reading strategies. This week we have been working on visualisation. We were very surprised to find out that our own background knowledge effected how we visualise things. We read a story about a Bus Stop and had to draw each character in the correct order. It was very difficult! We all worked very hard and now feel more confident in visualising when we are reading! We can’t wait to try it out in our own reading books.
Fantastic week in P5
This week we have been learning about the different food groups and how to keep a healthy diet. – Megan
We have also learned about Greyfriars Bobby and have been making Power Points and posters about him. – Freya
We’ve done research and found out some interesting facts about Mary Queen of Scots – Lilya
We were doing a Newspaper Report about when Jesus healed the blind man – Marta
We learned how to multiply by 100 and 1000 and also multiplying by multiples of 10 (eg. 40 X 3) – Daniel
In Art we drew Greyfriars Bobby – Julia
I enjoyed making the powerpoints and learning about Greyfriars Bobby – Maisie
I enjoyed tasting Edinburgh Rock – James
I enjoyed drawing Greyfriars Bobby – Emily
A special visitor in P1
Today, one of our Primary 1 Mums came into school to tell us all about her very important job. The primary 1 children listened so carefully to what Lindsey was saying and then got to try out all the equipment that Lindsey brought with her. It was very exciting. Here are some of the things that we learned:
There are different types of nurses.
Neonatal nurses look after little babies.
Little babies have different cots to sleep in.
Nurses use a stethoscope to listen to the babies heartbeat.
You have to be kind and caring to be a nurse.
Sometimes nurses wear a special hat and mask.
Here we are having a go at being neonatal nurses.
Visitors in P2.
As part of primary 2’s topic, ‘Toys, Now and Then’ we have had some visitors who came into our classes to talk to us about the toys that they had when they were a child.
Who has visited ?
Our first visitor was Mrs Macdonald. She showed the children a doll that she was given when she was just two years old ! The children learnt that the doll is one of her most prized possessions. She has some memories of playing with it and dressing it and washing it in the bath. Santa gave her the doll.
We also welcomed Mrs Davies from our school office. She brought in her clockwork toy teddy bear to show us. She has taken very good care it as we learnt that it is over 50 years old. She has even kept the box! She thinks that her mum and dad gave her this.
Matthew’s mummy came and showed us the silver cross pram and doll that she played with when she was a little girl. We were most impressed with how new it looked. She must have looked after it very well.
Finally, Mrs Hesketh who is one of our Pupil Support Workers, came in with three toys from the past. She showed us her ‘Dressy Bessie’, a doll named Peter and her mummy’s doll , which we found out is 70 years old and made out of china.
What did we enjoy ?
Isabella – I liked having a shot of Matthews mummy’s doll.
Leo – I liked finding that Matthew’s mummy’s doll had eyes that opened.
Eleanor – I liked holding Peter the doll.
Damian – I liked holding Dressy Bessie because it has lots of things on the dress.
Lucia – I liked Dressy Bessie because you could learn how to do laces and buttons.
Lovisa – I liked Mrs Macdonald’s doll because it was soft.
Patryk – I liked to hear that Mrs Macdonald’s doll had it’s own bath.
Andrew – I liked Mrs Davies’ bear because their was a magnet on it’s paw to open the pages of the book.
Haziq – I liked Mrs Davies’ bear because you could wind it up.
Thank you to our special visitors for helping us with our topic.
Minutes – Parent Council Meeting 11th September 2017
Minutes from our last parent council meeting are below:
St Nicholas Primary School Parent Council – 11Sept minutes
Archaeologists for a Day
Today we became archaeologists for a day. We did some excavations in teams and found bones and evidence from the past. We also learnt how to tell the age, height and gender of of skeleton! This is what we thought about The Archaeology workshop:
Lilya-It was fun!
Marta-It was very educational. I learnt many things today.
Meet the Teacher – Curriculum Evening – Wednesday 27th September
We would like to invite all our parents/carers to attend our yearly Meet the Teacher evening on Wednesday the 27th of September at 6pm. Teachers will run sessions at 6pm, 6.20pm and 6.40pm, allowing parents with more than one child in the school to meet all their children’s teachers. At these sessions, teachers will outline the children’s curriculum for the coming year. You will also be able to look at some of our resources and see your child’s learning environment.
We look forward to welcoming you to St Nicholas Primary School next Wednesday evening.
Maths Minions in P6
This week Primary 6 have been working hard during Maths Week. We’ve participated in lots of fun activities here are some things we enjoyed, learned and want to do more of!
Anya – I learned your 11 times table.
Ava – I learned some of my other times tables (2 digit number ones).
Eve – I learned a lot about problem solving.
Stella – I enjoyed doing the maths hunt.
Hollie – In the maths challenge we got a sheet of paper with lots of letters and numbers. We had to try and find the letter that connected to numbers hidden around the playground. To crack the code we had to solve times table problems.
Adrian – I enjoyed the problem solving task because we worked in groups of 3 and we had 10 problems to answer.
Anna – In the problem solving we were given a maths question. We were given three minutes to discuss and find and answer and write it down on our sheet. We had to write down how we worked it out and if we found it hard or not.
Some of us found the problems harder to solve, some of us found it easy!
Eve – I enjoyed the times table challenge when we had to beat the time.
Riley – I enjoyed the blether stations because it was challenging and I enjoyed working in a group.
Thomas – I enjoyed the times table challenge because I learned my 12 times table.
Agata – I found the blether stations tricky because the word problems were hard to work out.
Hollie – I found the time table challenge hard because we all raced to see how fast we could work it out.
Sophia – I found the times table challenge hard because I don’t know them all yet.
Anya – I want to do more of the finding answers in a group.
Ava – I would like to do some more times table challenge getting timed and beating my own time.
Leo – I found the number of the day challenges hard because its was hard to work out if it was prime or composite.
Cameron – I enjoyed learning the compensation strategy.
Sarah – I enjoyed learning about near doubles.
Stella – Overall, we all enjoyed learning about different things in maths. We now know different strategies to use!
Scottish Maths week in P5b
This week we have been working on multiplication. We have practised our times tables and also used concrete and visual materials to support our understanding. Here you can see some arrays and groups made using different materials like animal counters and Numicon shapes.
Primary 5b also went outdoors for Maths; we used different elements of nature to represent Place Value.
Roald Dahl Day in P3
Primary 3 have been enjoying listening to the story ‘The Twits’ by Roald Dahl and had fun creating their own Mr Twit beard. They drew lots of disgusting things on their masks like old apple cores, worms and mouldy pizza! Here we are wearing our beards!
Scottish Maths Week in P2.
Primary 2 have been working hard this week and especially so since it is ‘Scottish Maths Week’. We have been investigating how whole numbers are constructed by playing lots of place value games. We have also been exploring how groups of items can be shared equally, and learning how to half whole shapes.
Here are some pictures of us hard at work.
Celebrating ‘Roald Dahl Day’ in P2.
We had lots of fun today as part of ‘Roald Dahl Day’. This special day falls on the 13th of September each year as that is the date that he was born. During this day, schools up and down the country celebrate his life and his wonderful books. So, what did we do ?
As part of the celebrations we heard the excellent story, ‘The Enormous Crocodile’. We all enjoyed the story so much, (giving it a rating of 5 out of 5) that we wrote book reviews, drew our favourite part of the story and retold the story in our own words.
Keilidh drew and painted the Enormous Crocodile which we used on our frieze, (this is in the main corridor).
As well as looking at this book, we also spoke about some of Roald Dahl’s other famous books including, ‘The Twits’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, and ‘The BFG’. Thank you to Leo for bringing in his box set of books for us to look at. In the afternoon we joined the rest of the school to watch a theatre company perform ‘Matilda’. As Roald Dahl himself used to say, ‘It has been a whoopsy-splunker day’. This translated means, ‘It has been a fantastic day’.
Some book reviews.
Our frieze so far …
Check out the after school sport clubs available in our local community!
Scottish Maths Week
Scottish maths week challenges started today in p7b. 
Primary 5 – Apple Science
Primary 5 have been investigating Chemical Changes using apples.
We used various liquids to try and prevent the oxidisation of the apples. We discovered that lemon juice was the best liquid to use to prevent the process due to the citric acid, however vinegar escalated the process. We created a grid to show our predictions for each solution.
We also discussed the life cycle of an apple and harvested a few seeds so that we could grow our own apple trees. We watched a time lapse video of the process and now wait with bated breath to see if we will have any success with our green fingers.
We watched the chemical changes that happened when we created ‘apple volcanoes’ using vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.
We had fantastic fun with our group challenge to build a strong tower to support an apple. One group was so successful with their design that it actually supported seven apples !!
Our buddies came to visit!
Today our Primary 7 buddies came to our classroom. Some of us listened to our buddies read a story that we chose from our library. We then had a chat about what happened in the story. Our buddies were fantastic readers!
Some of the buddies played number games with us too. We enjoyed learning about dot patterns and playing dominoes. We played other number games using ten frames, numicon and number lines. It was great fun! Here are some photos of our afternoon…
Apple-canos in Primary 5
We have been really busy in Primary 5. We have continued to explore chemical reactions with our apples topic – this time we made an apple volcano using only apples, food colouring, vinegar and baking soda!
We have also started our new topic (old Edinburgh) and learnt about some of its landmarks.
In Maths we have been looking at Place Value: how to read, write and order numbers up to 5 digits while continuing to work on our mental strategies with our daily Number Talks.
We have also discussed and practised using a wide range of connectives to improve our writing and wrote a letter to Willy Wonka telling him about our inventions.
Budding Artists in P2 !
Primary 2 will be learning all about lots of famous artists over the course of the year and will make their own representations of the chosen artist’s work. Our first artist of the month is Piet Mondrian.
What did we learn today ?
Tyler – ‘His dad was a painter and then he grew up to be painter’.
Patryk – ‘His job was a teacher’.
Lennox – ‘After he taught his children at school he went back home and painted.
Andrew – ‘He was born on the 7th of March’.
Dermott – To start with he didn’t paint what we did today, he painted fields and things’.
Shahzaib – ‘When he first started painting he painted houses’.
Sofia – ‘He decided to make different pictures’.
Ava – ‘He started to paint squares and rectangles’.
Justyna – ‘They were red, yellow, white, black and blue’.
Thomas – ‘He used five colours altogether’.
Piper – ‘He never mixed the colours in his paintings, he only used those colours.’
Chloe – ‘He was very famous’.
(Pictures of our art work to follow soon).
Library adventure
Primary 3 were very lucky to have a visit over to Broxburn library to listen to an Egyptian story read by Dianne the librarian. However, Dianne was in character when we popped over and was dressed as a pharaoh! She read us a story about Charlie Stinky Socks who was searching for gold in the desert. He came across different Egyptian things on his travels. Dianne let us borrow some books to learn even more about Ancient Egypt. So far we have learned:
Matthew – Ancient Egyptians used a tool called a shaduf to bring water out from the River Nile.
Niamh/Tavia – Pharaoh is what we call their kings and it means house/palace.
Santiago – The most popular drink in Ancient Egyptian times was beer!
Grady – There are wooden boats called ‘felucca’s’ that travel along the Nile.
Zofia – Only boys who had a lot of money got to go to school.
We have loved learning about Ancient Egypt so far and can’t wait to learn more!
A Historic Day – P2.
Today the boys and girls in P2 were super excited to be given the opportunity to watch the official opening of the Queensferry Crossing. We saw the Queen cutting a ribbon and we also saw the Red Arrows flying over the bridge. How cool !
What did we learnt today ?
Lovisa – It took 6 years to build the bridge.
Joshua – 15,000 thousand people worked on the bridge.
Lucas – I learnt that the bridge is called the Queensferry Crossing.
Haziq – We saw three bridges on the TV.
Sofia- A new bridge was built because the other one is getting old.
First school lunch!
Our new P1s have really enjoyed staying at school for lunch this week. Here they are having their very first school lunch!
Fantastic First Week!
Primary 1s have had a fantastic first week of school. They have been very busy exploring their new environment, taking part in different activities, learning new routines and making lots of new friends. Here we are in action…
Exciting mail
Primary 3 were intrigued when Mrs McGuire asked if she could have a word with them this afternoon. She had received a letter from the National Museum of Scotland saying that they had had a leak and some of their Egyptian artefacts had been damaged. They were asking if she knew of any children who would be up to the job in helping them out.
Primary 3 were very excited when they realised that she that thought that they were up to the job and they were happy to accept the challenge!
P3 Dojo reward afternoon!
Well done to P3 for meeting their dojo points target! They had a great afternoon celebrating watching a film in their pyjamas. 🎥
Hip, hip, hooray for St Nicholas’ Sports Day!
A great time was had by all today, and the sun shone to make it perfect! Thank you to all our children for being such great sports, their families who came to spectate (and take part in the races), staff for their hard work and to our PE teacher, Mrs Smith, for putting such a big effort in to a very well organised, fun day for the whole community.
St Nicholas Sports Day Tomorrow
Everyone is very welcome to join our St Nicholas Sports Day tomorrow. Please remember to put sun screen on yourselves and your children and keep fingers crossed for a nice sunny day. A copy of the letter going home with children tonight is attached.
ts Day LetterWider Achievements in P1b.
Well done to Isla and Matthew for their super sporting achievements outside of school.
Isla was recently awarded a medal for her great skills in gymnastics , whilst , Matthew was awarded not one , but, three medals for his wonderful skills in Tae Kwondo. Great stuff Isla and Matthew!
A Grand Day Out!
What a great day we had at Glasgow Science Centre! We saw so much, including displays about renewable energy, our senses, organs of the body, optical illusions, aerodynamics, air pressure, electricity, light and sound to name a few! We also raced our own cars to see which were the most aerodynamic and with a complete circuit. An amazing experience! We’ll put pictures on Class Dojo.
Destination Science in Primary Six
Primary 6 are off to Glasgow Science Centre today to take part in a “Car-azy” Workshop. We will be learning about circuits, recycling and problem-solving.
Fitness Fun in P1!
We have had a fantastic fitness fortnight! Here are some of the things we have enjoyed:
James H – I liked when we made a healthy snack using a cone and fruit and chocolate.
Keilidh – I liked when we made fruit kebabs with P7.
Thomas – I liked doing our daily mile.
Haziq – I liked doing Zumba. I liked the music.
Lovisa – I liked Judo because I was Marv’s helper. I go to the Judo club.
Matthew – I liked doing fencing because I liked holding the cutlass sword.
Jie-Rui – I liked when we went to the Sports Centre. I liked doing the running races.
Daniella – I liked when we did dancing because we did a dancing competition.
Megan – I enjoyed playing football.
Today we finished off our fitness fortnight by enjoying a chocolate milkshake at story time. It was delicious!
We have worked so hard by taking part in different activities, working as part of a team and learning about how to stay fit and healthy. We all received a certificate today to celebrate our learning
. 
More updates on Primary 6
This week P6 have been working on their comprehension skills; interpreting and inferring from a text. They have been learning about Father’s Day and worked on decimals in our daily number talks.
In Spanish we have been learning to describe someone’s appearance. P6 made powerpoints describing their favourite celebrities or characters and presented them to the class.
Primary 6 have also worked hard with their P2 buddies this week. They have been teaching them how to use a search engine and write in Microsoft Word.
We are looking forward to next year and preparing for it already. We will soon be meeting our new buddies (P1 next year) and we have been making a poster so they can know some things about us 😀
We are also making excellent progress with the Oliver production and would like to thank Mr McCallum and Mrs Denholm for their work on the stage and costumes respectively. We really appreciate your effort. Thanks!
Origami Master in P7
Thank you so much Calvin for helping us with our origami models this week. We have had lots of fun.
P3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo Art
P6 request- raffle items
Hi there,
Primary 6 will be staging their performance of the musical “Oliver!” on the afternoon of Monday 19th June and the evening of Tuesday 20th June. Tickets will be offered to parents of classes other than Primary 6 next Tuesday. We are hoping to raise some money for school funds.
We would like to draw a raffle after our Oliver Twist Show on Tuesday 20th June. We will have a children’s hamper filled with sweets/chocolates and an adults’ hamper filled with pamper items, food items, wine, etc.
We would be grateful for any donations of these items. Please give these to your child so they can hand them to the P6 teachers. If you would like to donate any bottles, please hand these in in person to the school office (marked for P6 raffle).
Thank you for all your support!
Kind regards,
Primary 6 staff
Fitness Fortnight – Fencing and Zumba !
Today , the P1s were veeeeeeeery busy as part of ‘Fitness Fortnight’ In the morning, the boys and girls learnt all about fencing. It was so much fun! We learnt that long ago everyone was taught how to fight using swords as there were no police officers to keep us safe from harm so when people fought they used to do so using swords ! We were shown lots of different kinds of swords that were used long ago including a knight’s sword, a pirate’s sword and a long sword. We even got to have a shot of holding them. They were might heavy !
We also got a shot at sparring with the practise swords. We learnt how to stand properly, how to hold the sword in safe mode and how to keep ourselves safe whilst wearing the protective equipment. A special thanks to Gordon from ‘Fencing is Fun’
In the afternoon, we welcomed Nina from ‘Zumba Kids Nina’. She showed us some cool moves and we danced the afternoon away with a dance off and other dances. It was fantastico! Thankyou to Nina for coming along to help us. Dancing certainly keeps you fit !
Hooray for the Galaday!
Our last winning float ! First Prize !
We are really looking forward to entering a float for Broxburn ‘s Galaday, ( Saturday, 26th of August) . This year’s theme is ‘Gaming/Board Games’. Having put a few options to the vote in each class we have a clear winner , ( all will be revealed very soon !).
We are looking for :
Emulsion paint of any colour.
If you can help with this please contact the office and ask for Mrs Macdonald/ Mrs Evans. Alternatively, Mrs Swinney, Mrs Skeldon or Mrs Neilson should be contacted. These ladies have very kindly volunteered to be the parent representatives on our school’s ‘Galaday Committee.
As always, we will be needing children to sit on the float and lots of walkers to accompany our float. Your child will receive a letter in the next day with more details. If you wish your child to be involved in any way, please return the slip before the cut off date.
Fitness Fortnight – Week 2.
Today we travelled to Craigswood Xcite in Livingston for more fun fitness. We practised our throwing , catching , jumping and running whilst working at different stations. It was so enjoyable ! Massive thanks to the staff at Craigswood for organising today and to our helpers for accompanying us.
Spelling Carousel
Today Primary 5 were completing a carousel for their spelling words. Their tasks were:
Make the word with playdoh
Make the word with string
Write the word in chalk
Trace the word on your partner’s back.
We are now confident that everyone will achieve 12/12 on their spelling check up on Friday !
Fitness Fortnight Day 4!
Today we had a football session with James Pegg and a younger volunteer, Ethan from Broxburn Colts. We warmed up by running in and out of spaces and by following a leader. Next we had a go at dribbling with a football and scoring into the goals! We were very good at celebrating our goals!!
We finished our session by playing a mini game of football with our friends. We had great fun!
Here are our thoughts :
Thomas – ‘We had two players against each other’.
James F – ‘We played a game and you had to jump over hurdles and score a goal and get a point’.
Keilidh – ‘You had to get the ball off your partner’.
Lucas – ‘First of all we were put into teams and had to score a goal’.
Isabella A – ‘We had to do some exercises before we played’
Daniella – ‘These excercises are called a warm up’.
Jie – Rui – ‘We had to get the ball to the goal’.
Piper – ‘I liked the bit when I scored a goal’.
Buddy time!!
Today Primary 1 children went to the Primary 7 classrooms and paired up with their buddies to develop their ICT skills. We practised switching the laptops on and off properly and then played some maths games. Primary 7 boys and girls were excellent digital leaders!
Political Parties in Primary 7
This week Primary 7B have been developing their knowledge of political parties in the UK and the 2017 General Election. They have used evidence selectively to research current, social, political and economic issues. They can describe what a manifesto is and its purpose.
We are looking forward to tomorrows Election Day in Primary 7 where we will all be given the opportunity to cast our votes.
Fitness Fortnight – Day 3 !
- Smoothie Tasting !
Today we spent time learning more about fruits, why it is important to eat them and what they do to help keep our bodies healthy. We then got to try two different smoothies that were made from strawberries and bananas and mangoes and passion fruits. We got a mixed reaction. Some of the boys and girls loved them, some didn’t. One thing that we did all agree on was how important it is to eat healthily.
What did we think about the smoothies ?
Isla – ‘I liked the smell’.
Max C – ‘I really liked the mango and passion fruit one’.
Matthew P – ‘I liked both of them but I didn’t like the smell’.
Brooke – ‘I liked the strawberry one’.
Joshua – ‘I liked the smell and the taste’.
James H – ‘I didn’t like the smell or the taste of them’.
Shahzaib – ‘The orange one was delicious’.
Haziq – ‘The mango and passion fruit was sweet’.
Thomas – ‘They were scrumptious’.
Cheers everyone !
Nice and Simple!
This week, Primary 6 have been revising some more mathematical concepts. We started yesterday with both classes discussing the best methods we could use to simplify fractions. We found that we liked this method:-
Divide both the top and bottom of the fraction by the Greatest Common Factor (you have to work it out first!).
Example: Simplify the fraction 8/12 :
The largest number that goes exactly into both 8 and 12 is 4, so the Greatest Common Factor is 4.
Divide both top and bottom by 4:
÷ 4
right over arrow
8/12 = 2/3
right under arrow
÷ 4
That is as far as we can go. The fraction simplifies to 2 /3.
We practised these together and are going to create our own this week in our home learning.
Today, we completed our revision of written methods for solving division calculations and challenged ourselves to solve some particularly difficult calculations with decimals too! We found that some of our methods for solving multiplication calculations helped us.
We also learned about the General Election in Newsround and heard some pupils from St Margaret’s singing songs from their “Little Shop of Horrors” production. They were really talented!
Fitness Fortnight – Day 2.
Today we did judo, walked our daily mile and tried lots of different fruits including, pineapple, watermelon, oranges, blueberries and raspberries. They looked delicious ! We also listened to the story, ‘Keep Running Gingerbread Man’. We particularly enjoyed this as this story was a twist on the original fairytale and helped us to learn about the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
P1 Fitness Fortnight
Our ‘Fitness Fortnight’ got off to a great start today! We did our daily mile walk and then took part in some team building activities. We had great fun.
A Puppet Show in P1!!
This week Primary 1 created their very own puppet shows based on The Three Little Pigs. The boys and girls made fantastic sock puppets and other props so that they could retell the story. We then presented our shows to our Primary 7 buddies and the boys and girls from the nursery. We really enjoyed showing off all our hard work!! The nursery children enjoyed visiting our classroom!
Run, run as fast as you can !
What a lovely surprise we got this this morning ! Another letter from our friendly dragon and a clue for the next fairtale that he wanted us to read. What did he leave us ? Well, he left us a little gingerbread men so we listened to the fairtyale ‘The Gingerbread Man’ . We then decorated our own little gingerbread men with sweeties and icing, (we can’t wait to eat them) and retold the stories in our castle books.
Caught reading !
We read to our P7 buddies today. They were very impressed us, especially as we can now read lots of big words!
Algebra, Dramatic conventions and Ascension Mass in P6!
This week Primary 6 have been learning about Dramatic conventions. We have used the script of the Lion King to understand what are the features of a playscript (cast, stage directions, scenes, etc) and why they are important.
In Maths we have been looking at algebra: how letters are used in Maths and solving algebraic expressions with a missing number.
P6 have done their daily number talks to practise adding decimals, learned about the feast of the ascension and had our school mass with Fr Jeremy.
Here are some pictures of P6b playing some algebra games
Oliver Preparations
Oliver preparations are well underway in P6 this week. We have been rehearsing well. The children are making us very proud!
We have also been looking at the areas we felt needed some work in maths and started revising some of our mathematical knowledge and strategies.
Fairyland in Primary 1.
Once upon a time …
The boys and girls have been super busy these past few weeks ! Well, we have turned our classrooms into Fairyland ! You may ask yourself why ? What has been going on ? Well, sit back and we will tell you.
First of all we returned one day from lunch to a trail of glitter, a burnt out letter and a ‘D- Mail’ box. Upon investigation, we soon realised that we had been visited by a Friendly Dragon. He left us a letter telling us how sad he felt and left us with a challenge. He asked us to rebuild Fairyland, (as the real Fairyland has disappeared leaving our favourite fairytale characters with nowhere to go) and read lots and lots of fairytales. As you can imagine, we said ‘YES’ straight away. And so, we have been spending time making beanstalks, a giant castle, making little castles in groups, reading fairytales including: ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ‘The Three Little Pigs’, ‘The Princess and the Pea’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood, ‘Chicken Licken’, and ‘The Ugly Duckling’. We have rewritten these stories in our special castle books and cannot wait to see if the dragon returns with more letters for us.
Street dance champion!
A huge well done to Ollie in P6 who came first place in a street dance competition at the weekend. Ollie spoke to the whole school today at assembly as he shared the secret of his success – practising every night! At St Nicholas we know that the key to mastering anything is to practise and persevere and keep that positive growth mindset at all times. Well done Ollie – everyone is very proud of you. A great achiev
ement!
Primary 3 breathe easy!
As part of our Health and Wellbeing, Primary 3 have been learning about different strategies that we can use to help us deal with our worries. We were very lucky to have a visit from Ellie’s Auntie Trish who is a mindfulness instructor. She showed us how to breathe properly and gave us a couple of strategies to use when we are feeling particularly worried about something. We know that there are lots of people we can talk to and that a problem shared is a problem halved!
Fluttering Beauties
Today Primary 2 went outside to release our butterflies. We were very excited!
Anna – My favourite part was when we let them go.
Lucia – My favourite part was when they landed on flowers to drink the pollen.
Brooke – My favourite part was when a butterfly landed on me.
Martyna – I liked when the butterfly went on Miss Boyd’s finger.
Matthew – I liked it when I learned that the butterfly ate nectar.
Luca – The butterflies had to open their wings a few times to warm up before they flew away.
Michael – When the butterfly opened its wings I saw orange white and black.
Mya – When the wings were closed it looked grey and white.
Alicia – Some of them didn’t want to come out.
Umaima – The last butterfly flew really high to the trees.
Butterfly Cycle Song
As our caterpillars continue to grow, this week we decided to write songs explaining the butterfly life cycle.
We then had a ‘Eurovision’ style song contest and the winning song was penned by Cameron. He set his words to the tune of Jingle Bells.
Butterfly Cycle Song
Caterpillar, caterpillar in the tiny egg.
Soon there’ll be a tiny caterpillar, all ready!
To gobble up the milkweed and create a chrysalis,
And he’ll be in that state for weeks, and weeks and weeks.
Then hatching through the chrysalis will be a beautiful butterfly,
It will fly off to go and feeeeeed and lay eggs again and again.
The cycle starts again x 2.
Numeracy… it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3
We’d like to invite all our parents to a Numeracy Workshop run by Peter Valentine on Wednesday the 24th of May. Click here to view the letter that will be in your child’s bag tomorrow: 2017_05_19 Numeracy Parental Workshop
We look forward to seeing you next week.
