Category Archives: Primary 6

DANCEMARATHON!

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Here are some photos from our Dance Marathon yesterday!

We all had a wonderful time and hopefully raised lots of money for our Lenten Appeal!

5, 2 or 1 hour of non stop dancing can be pretty challenging! Well done everyone!

A special THANK YOU to the dance leaders from St Margarets Academy for running a session with us, and the girls from JHM who taught everyone an amazing dance!

Highlights were definitely the class dance off, lip sync battle and best dancer competition!

Remember to bring in your sponsor money by FRIDAY!

Book Week Update.

Today was a super day with lots of great things happening.  What did we do ?

Lots of classes completed their book themed  wall/classroom door.

We brought in books to swap with a friend in our class.  We all went home with a new book.

A different teacher read a story to us.

P5 played ‘Book Cluedo’.  We now have an idea who took Mrs Brown’s books ! All will be revealed tomorrow.

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Book Week Update

 

We have been having a fantastic week this week, celebrating book week.

We have been engaging in lots of activities all week, and still have plenty to go.

This week we have been enjoying lots of paired reading (reading to others in the school). Primary 1 particularly enjoyed the primary 7 boys and girls reading to them.

Primary 4-7 have been going on a ‘Cluedo Quest’. Someone stole all the books from Mrs Brown’s office! They have been answering clues, leading them all around the school, to help them work out who did it!

We have been receiving some amazingly creative photos for our Extreme Reading competition. They are all on display in the gym hall. We have had children reading whilst hula hooping; upside down; in the dogs bed; on the moon; standing on top of a giant peach; on a horse; in a tree and many more!

Our teachers have been challenging us this week as well. There is a display in the gym hall, with lots of teachers hiding behind their favourite books. It is really tricky to work out who is who!

We have all been working as a class to create an imaginative display based on a favourite book, or a number of favourite books.  We can’t wait to see which class wins this competition on Friday.

 

We still have many more activities to do as well!

Tomorrow (Thursday) we are participating in a book swap in the classes. Every child has been asked to bring in a book they no longer want, or read, and it will be swapped with someone else, meaning we all go home with a new book to enjoy.

Also tomorrow our teachers are all swapping classes to read a story to another class.

But the thing we are most looking forward to is the chance to dress up as our favourite book character on Friday (Nursery is on Thursday)! We have been discussing costumes all week. There is a prize for the most imaginative costume from each year group.

Keep checking back for more updates!

 

 

P6 EGGSPERIMENT!

IMG_0747Primary 6 have been completing our health and well being topic about nutritional values of our food and drinks. We learned about the sugar in our drinks and were amazed to see the amount in some of our favourite drinks! We created a ‘think before you drink’ display to remind us just how unhealthy these drinks are and to make us think twice about buying them regularly!

This week we completed an experiment with eggs to find out what these drinks can do to our teeth! Mrs Thomson boiled us some eggs and we put them into cola, coffee, tea and water. We left them for 5 days… not only did they smell bad, when we removed them they looked disgusting! The tea, coffee and cola all stained the eggs… the coffee was the worst; it stained the inside of the egg when we cut it open! The egg that we left in water was perfect, it was not stained at all. We got some toothbrushes and and tried to see if any of the staining would come off but it didn’t! The egg soaked in cola was slimy and solid to cut! Yuk!

We also looked at calcium in bones and teeth! We soaked some bones from chicken drumsticks in vingear, the acid made the bones very easy to bend, this showed us the importance of drinking calcium based drinks and food!

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Happy Campers!

Fun at Night!
Fun at Night!

Last month the children of primary 6 had a wonderful time at school camp!

We were put to the test with many challenges and we all learned lots of new skills! Have a look at some of our photos!

My favourite activity was the inflatables, we were battling against each other – Mandipa

I loved the trail bikes because we went on an adventure – Finlay

I loved going up Jacobs ladder, it was really hard! – Francesco

I liked bungee run, it was so funny seeing Miss King and Miss Miller against each other – Nicole

I liked the lowropes, I went down the mineshaft! – Sami

Lendrick Muir has nice food, pizza was great! – Madison

I loved doing the rocket launch challenge – Caitlin

 

P6 Christmas Homework Challenge!

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*Christmas Alphabet – write an A-Z list of all things Christmas!

*Invention – invent a toy for Christmas that every child in Scotland will want!

*Q and A – the answer is Christmas Day… what is the question? Create 10 questions!

*Prediction – write an imaginative paragraph about your Christmas day… 10 years from now!

*Disadvantages – List 10 disadvantages of being an ELF!

 

ALL TASKS WORTH 5 DOJO POINTS IF COMPLETED BY FRIDAY 11th DECEMBER!

Primary 5 and 6 Building Bridges

Today the primary 5 classes and some of the primary 6 classes worked together to complete a “Build a Bridge” challenge.  Together we learned about different types of bridges and then used our knowledge to create a load-bearing bridge of our own – Some designs worked well and others collapsed.  However, even if we didn’t succeed this time we learned a lot about our designs which will help us succeed next time.  Well done everyone – A fantastic collaborative effort!

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A huge thank you from Primary 6!

Primary 6 would like to offer a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to our Syrian Refugee Appeal. We are overwhelmed with the generosity of everyone at St Nicholas. As you can see from the pictures, the van could not have stored any more of your donations. All of your donations will have reached Calais and are helping refugee’s right now! We are all very proud.

We would also like to thank all of the parents and children who attended our assembly. We worked extremely hard to put together the appeal, the videos and the assembly overall. We loved sharing our hard work with you all and we hope you enjoyed it too!

 

Primary 6 Assembly

Friendship Spot

Mrs Hesketh has very kindly been busy making a new friendship spot for our playgrounds.

This lovely sign is already up in the infant playground and will soon be introduced into the other playgrounds too.

Children whose friends are off school, or are still eating lunch, can go to the spot, and can find new people to play with.

The primary 1’s have particularly loved this. They have all been keen to share stories of finding new friends or playing with someone who didn’t have anyone.

We are looking forward to hearing many more lovely stories.

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Primary Six are SHAPING up to have a super year!

This week primary 6 have been working on shape in maths! Some of us have been looking at properties of 3D shapes and some have been focussing on how 3D objects can be made up of 2D shapes. We’ve been embracing active maths in the classroom and choosing our own learning tasks to make sure we are all being challenged in the areas we are confident in and supported further in areas we’re not!

Have a look at some of the great things we’ve been getting up to…

 

Gold, Silver and Bronze for Saint Nicholas in Broxburn Cross Country

On Wednesday the children of primary six took part in a cross country race against Holy Family PS, Uphall PS, Broxburn PS and Kirkhill PS.

We raced around the back of Kirkhill, the track was about 1 kilometre long. First all the girls raced and we were so pleased to see them all trying their hardest and keeping on going! The first girl from our school to cross the finish line was Madison Clarkson, she just missed out on a medal position but finished in the top 10 of around 100 girls in total!  Well done Madison and all the girls who did us proud!

In the boys race Saint Nicholas had a ‘clean sweep’ of the medals winning Gold, Silver and Bronze!!! First to cross the line out of all 100 boys AND taking the gold medal was our very own Logan Beagley, he was closely followed by his brother Michael Beagley in 2nd place and Eoin Sword in 3rd!

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We are extremely proud of all the children who took part and represented our school in our local community!

 

Perfect Popping in Primary 6!

Last week we were practicing using ‘an’ and ‘a’ in sentences based on words with vowel sounds. Some of it was quite tricky because we thought it only mattered if the next word began with a,e,i,o or u, but ACTUALLY be discovered that words with any vowel sound would have ‘an’ for example….

‘An honest man’ would have an instead of a because the h is silent and the word starts with a ‘o’ sound!

Once we finally got to the bottom of it we worked in teams to complete a quick assessment of what we had learned. We worked in 2 teams in a race against time! We had to read a sentence with ‘a’ or ‘an’ missing then put it into the correct category… sounds easy? Well the trick was the sentences were inside balloons! We had to pop the balloon first! As soon as Miss Miller and Miss King said ‘Go!’ the classroom turned into a frenzy of cheering and excitement! At the end we made sure everyone had placed their sentence in the correct category and it showed us that most people had really grasped using a and an properly! We are looking forward to using this game to assess our learning in other areas soon!

 

 

Wonka Opens his Gates

Primary 6 opened their doors this afternoon to share their learning with parents, grandparents, aunties and friends.  They were all very enthusiastic and throroughly enjoyed telling everyone about the links they have made with so many different curricular areas through the Storyline of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We have looked at characterisation in-depth, gone through the process of designing and carrying out the classroom transformation, found out about the journey of chocolate and how important Fairtrade is to those involved in the cocoa bean trade, invented our own sweets, created some fantastic acrostic poems and learned to illustrate in the style of Quentin Blake.   It has been a great topic and this is just the tip of the iceberg – there has been a lot more learning involved.

Beat the Expert

Each week we evaluate our learning – this week we decided to try and beat the expert.  One of us sat on the chair at the front of the class, put on the special hat and shared our knowledge and understanding of a subject/topic given by our teacher – we had one minute to do it!!  Our classmates then got the chance to quiz us further to confirm what we knew.  It’s a great way to reflect on what we have learned and make connections with different curriculum areas and the everyday life.

This week Klaudia was the expert on the life cycle, Lukazs – making leaflets and Oliver shared all his knowledge of acrostic poetry.

Very clever guys we have in our class!

It’s the Cycle of Life

Primary 6 ventured out of the classroom to pay a visit to the zoo in order to learn all about the life cycle.  We had a great day and found out all about the male monkey’s blue bottom, the amazing way a panda can stop a pregnancy and got to see lots of little baby penguins being looked after by their parents.  It was a great day and fabulous learning experience.

“I think the penguins are cheeky because they steal each other’s pebbles for their nest”.

” The apes are really clever being able to swing from branch to branch without falling very often.  It’s cool how they change colour when they grow up to make it easier to tell males from females”.

“The panda’s poo was yellow and he did over 40 of them a day!”

Europe in a nutshell

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We have a right to an education

Last term Primary 6 learned all about Europe.  We split into different countries, so we could find out about one country in depth, then share our findings with the rest of the class.    We then decided to open up our classroom as a Trade Fare and present to other classes.  It was all very interactive, with exploding volcanoes, board games, language lessons, songs and even cake and chocolate!

Wonka has arrived!

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Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full. It must encourage the child’s respect for human rights, as well as respect for their parents, their own and other cultures, and the environment.

As you can see, Willy Wonka has made a bit of an entrance in Primary 6.  The class have been working very hard with Mrs Buchanan-Coutts and Mrs Macauley (our student teacher) to complete design briefs, learn how to draw in the style of Quentin Blake, understand how Roald Dahl used various techniques to introduce his characters and keep their values and traits running throughout the story and convert our classroom into the factory itself; complete with Oompa Loompas.  The latter involved technology and art as well as A LOT of trial and error, problem solving and making amendments – all traits of a good inventor!!

There’s much more learning to come and our topic will culminate in Golden Tickets being sent inviting parents to an open showcase to see it all.

“Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination”

Medals Galore

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Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Finlay and Rachael both had something to celebrate this week and brought in their medals to prove it!!  Rachael won a medal for her swimming, beating her own PB in the process and Finlay received his for participating in the Forrester Rugby Festival.  Well done to you both.

P4, P5 and P6 Homework Club!

Today we started the homework club in Miss Crease and Mrs Quin’s classrooms.  We gathered together and came up with some important rules!  We made a good start to our homework and enjoyed listening to music in the background too.

Ollie P4 – It’s fun because we got to listen to music and get our homework started.  I got help from the teacher and I worked well at the table.

Lukas P5/4 – I worked with my partner and we helped each other do our maths homework.

Kirsten P5 – It’s fun because you get to talk to your friends and do your homework too.

Faith P6 – It’s good to do homework in school rather than panic about it at the end of the week!

Rachael P6 – I got some of my homework finished and then played games on the netbook.

 

The Eclipse

Perfect timing!

Primary 6 recently learned all about light and shadows and along comes a partial eclipse to help us understand it all.

Primary 6 witnessed the eclipse (safely) last week through various means.  We watched it live on the interactive board, saw it through special glasses that Noah brought in and also by using a pin hole camera made by Mrs Buchanan-Coutts; Rachael brought one in too.  It was absolutely fascinating, but also quite eerie when all the birds started to get confused!!

 

Rewards Cashed In

Primary 6A collect Dojo points on a daily basis for lots of things, such as attendance, following instructions, working hard, participating in discussions, completing homework, being prepared for lessons and teamwork.

There are several ways to spend our points – we can use the teacher’s chair for a day, have extra netbook time, give some of our points to a friend and ask them to be a personal assistant for the day or get a homework pass.

Recently, some of the class cashed in their points for a reward by having lunch with the teacher.  We put on some tunes, sat round the table chatting, enjoyed some yummy doughnuts and had a boogie.  It was great fun.

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Annie – a memorable performance

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Our education allows us to share our talents.

This week the school has been ringing out with music, as the stars of the school production of ‘Annie’ were able to share their hard work with their friends and family. The cast, who have been working hard on the show for only seven weeks, performed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week to packed audiences.

Set in 1930s New York, Annie tells the story of an eleven-year-old girl, who has been living in the horrid Miss Hannigan’s orphanage for girls her whole life. She has the dream that one day she will be reunited with the parents who left her a letter and a locket so many years ago. Annie’s quest to find her real parents and the adoption by the billionaire businessman Oliver Warbucks is what provides dramatic plot for this spectacular and heart-warming musical.

We would like to thank all the parents, grandparents and friends who have donated their time, props, costumes, and for supporting learners in their learning of lines and dance routines.

Every single performer gave everything they had, helping to make this production so successful.

Thanks are due to all the staff who helped with auditions, rehearsals and backstage. Of course, the entire performance could not have happened if it were not for all the brilliantly talented actors, actresses and chorus who helped to make the event so memorable. Well done everyone!

Here’s just a few photos with lots more to come. Please leave a comment about your thoughts on the production…

Quality Discussion

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You have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously.

Primary 6 have been demonstrating their quality communication skills.  As part of our new Social Subjects topic, we are all working in groups to learn about different countries in Europe.  In order to complete the challenge, we have to share our ideas, listen to each other and make sure that everyone in the group has their say and is participating – the discussion tokens help us do this.

We visited the library this week to get some books to help us and are looking forward to persuading our parents to visit out country during our open exhibition after the Easter holidays.

Broxburn Football Tournament!

Well done to all the boys playing in the Broxburn Schools Football Tournament at the Albyn last Friday.

The Yellow, White and Green teams all had a great time and came back with some fantastic results!

A huge thank you to Mr Gorman and Mr Devlin for their continued support with the football teams!

Look out for pictures of our brand new strips- coming soon!

Annie Jnr

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Our education should provide us with the opportunity to share our talents.

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Well,  our Annie rehearsals are really coming together.  We certainly have a fantastic bunch of enterprising entrepreneurs, creative artists and budding actors.   We will be having a full dress rehearsal on the afternoon of Monday 23rd March, in which we will invite the rest of the school to watch.

The show dates have been finalised and tickets will be on sale soon.  They are as follows:

Monday 23rd March – 6pm

Tuesday 24th March – 1pm

Thursday 26th March – 6pm

We have begun to issue costume details to individual cast members and have requested that all chorus orphans bring in dull (grey, black or brown), old, ill-fitting clothing that you wouldn’t mind being ripped or dirtied a bit.  If these could be brought in in a carrier bag with their name on it, it would make it easier to keep a track of costumes.

Further information will be issued soon, but in the meantime, if you can help with other props or costumes (listed below), please just let Mrs Buchanan-Coutts know – we would be extremely grateful.

Flat caps, trilby, waistcoats, tweed style jacket, long coats (men and woman), feather boas, pin-stripe suit (men/woman), old tattered small suitcase, old style radio, camp bed or sun-loungers. 

 

Euroquiz 2015

After studying for the last 2 months, four of our Primary 6 pupils attended the Regional round of this year’s Euroquiz.  Georgia, Jasiu, Alexander and Finlay had prepared extremely well and managed to get full marks in the first round on languages!  Against 20 teams from schools all over West Lothian, our team came in 4th overall and should all be very proud of themselves – we certainly are!  Here they are showing off their certificates.  Well done.

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Sound Proofing Primary 6

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We have a right to learn new things

Primary 6a have been learning all about sound and the classroom was buzzing (literally) with the sound of bells as we carried out some tests to see which materials make the best sound-proofing.

Each group wrapped an alarm in different materials, placed it in a box and then measured how far they could go before the stopped hearing the alarm.  We discovered that although bubble wrap is pretty good, foam is the best muffler of sound.

Next, we have been given a challenge to find out how different animals communicate with each other through solids, liquids and gases.

Time, please…

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We are able to learn and develop our knowledge at school

Primary 6 have been developing in their knowledge and understanding of time.  Some of us have been learning about how to calculate the amount of time that has elapsed on timetables and some of us have been working on converting analogue time to digital in one minute intervals.

In one activity, we were all given an analogue watch and we had to move around the classroom to see who had a watch with the different digital times on it that were on our sheet.  This was a great way to practice and confirm our understanding before we move on to 24 hour time.

Primary 6 Winter Ready Activities

If for any reason, the school is unable to open (Boo!!), here’s a few activities to keep you occupied.

Literacy

  • Think of words to describe the snow and use them on the following page to create your own text snowflake.

http://www.neoformix.com/Projects/TextFlake/index.html

  • Create a poster showing how to keep warm and safe in Winter.
  • Write a newspaper recount of an event that happened while you were off.
  • Continue to read your Accelerated Reading book then carry out one of the activities on your literacy sheet.

Maths

  • Keep up with the challenges and quizzes on Sumdog.
  • Measure the depth of the snow in the garden and record it on a graph.  Is the snow deeper at the front or the back?  Try tracking it over time.
  • Make something in the kitchen that involves measuring cups
  • Draw a map of your house and work out the area and perimeter of each room.

Thinkers Key Activities

  • Different Uses – find 10 uses for an odd wellie
  • The Invention – design a new method of getting around in the snow
  • What if? – What if the snow completely blocked you inside your house? what would happen (1/2 page)
  • The Ridiculous – All the children have the flu and can’t make it into school (10 lines).

Camptastic!

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Our education should encourage us to try new things and challenge ourselves.

Primary 6 have just returned from a fantastic three day trip to Lendrick Muir and yet again, the staff made sure we had a fun-filled, action-packed and full-on range of challenging activities.  These included everything from working as part of a team to develop our search and rescue skills to overcoming personal challenges such as climbing jacob’s ladder and learning to ride a bike.  We even managed to squash in a bit of inflatable and circus fun and get the staff to dress up and act out a murder mystery for us to solve.

Here are just some of the photos taken to give you a flavour of what a great time we had.  Hopefully, in the very near future, a CD will be available with all the photos on it.

Amazing Author Visit

Primary 3-7 were extremely lucky to receive a visit from a fantastic Australian author yesterday… Jaqueline Harvey.

Jaqueline has written a series of books about girls called Clementine-Rose and Alice-Miranda. She entertained the children with exciting excerpts from her books and had everyone laughing in their seats!

She even had two very eager and willing participants in Ellie (P7) and Finlay (P6) who had to act out a very funny scene!

We would like to thank GlowWorm books in Broxburn for organising this very special event for us.

Food for Thought

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We should use our skills to the best of our abilities

From CSI to The Great British Bake-Off in 24 hours…

With money week upon us, Primary 6 thought it would be the perfect opportunity to raise some funds and buy some new books for our classroom.

We began by looking at some Victorian recipes and working out how many we would need to make in order to supply the whole school before deciding the amount of ingredients would be required.   It took us a while to compare and cost up the ingredients, using different online shopping websites.

Friday came and it was all hands on deck with 200 victoria sponge cupcakes and 200 empire biscuits to make in just 1 1/2 hours!  Success – we managed to sell all items and raised a whopping £120 for each class to spend on valuable reading resources.  Well done everyone.

Who Dunnit?

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We should feel safe and protected at all times

There was shock, horror and sheer disappointment in Primary 6 when they discovered that their classroom museum had been broken into, but with the help of PC Manning we would get to the bottom of it.

The forensic team arrived at the crime scene and all evidence was bagged up, fingerprints were taken and clues investigated further.

Suspects would have to be interviewed…  in came Miss Toner, Miss Irvine, Miss King and Mrs Deas for their interrogation!  Nerves were evident – hands were sweating,  voices were shaky and excuses were plenty.  We would have to look to CCTV to confirm a few issues.

After a very long morning, the culprit was found – MISS KING!!!  She was duly read her rights, handcuffed and escorted out of the classroom, leaving tearful and angry children and staff behind her.

Thankfully, it was all a staged, real life venture involving lots of learning.  Not only did we experience how we would feel if this really did happen to us, but we also learned about the process taken by the police when they arrive on a crime scene, forensics and the law.  A huge thanks to all our fantastic actors.

Healthy Options

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We need access to nutritious and health food

MMmmmm, delicious!  That was the call of Primary 6 when they tasted their own smoothies on the Lidl Health bus.  Whilst one group were blending their creations using the fresh ingredients available with their own apron and name badge to take away in their very own smoothie shaker cup, the other group were learning about the importance of exercise and the resultant effect on their hearts. Every pupil was given a heart rate monitor watch to keep for the duration of this part of the session.  they were all be asked their heart rate and told to keep an eye on it throughout the game – solving clues about types of fruit and vegetables and racing to the basket to collect the correct item of fruit or vegetable before returning to read the next clue. At the end of the game everyone were again asked for their heart rate and 2 of the specially trained Health Factor Team will took them through why their heart rate has increased and the importance of exercise.  Then, all change round!!!!

The Time Machine

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We have a right to an in-depth education

Primary 6 took a step back in time when they visited New Lanark to learn all about life back in the Victorian era. Led by a costumed teacher, learners experienced school days in Robert Owen’s time. Lessons included drill, hand-writing, arithmetic and dancing. As you can see, everyone had to dress up, write on slates and act and answer appropriately. We also got to explore textile machinery in a mill and find out about home life and shopping 200 years ago!

“I don’t think I’d want to live then because you had to work really long hours for hardly any money.”

“Bed bugs – yuk!”

Lewis goes the Whole Hog!

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We can meet with friends and join different club and groups

During the Summer holidays, Lewis attended a huge Scouting Jamboree with the Cubs in Hampshire, England.  Throughout the week long camp, he was set a number of challenges and in order to achieve the unique ‘ Hampshire Hog Challenge’ badge, Lewis had to show that he had got involved in the fantastic range of activities available at the camp by participating in at least five of them.  These included washing up before leaving the site at least twice, getting wet at least once, flying a model aircraft at least 5m, playing a game with another pack and visiting three ‘Continents’ on the site.  Within the Continents there were some more challenging activities to conquer such as caving, water sports and tree climbing.  The picture shows Lewis proudly showing us all the badges that he managed to earn during this extremely adventurous week.  Well done, Lewis.

Soweto comes to Broxburn

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We can share our talents and abilities.

What a truly inspirational start we all have had. The Soweto Melodic Voices, a 30 piece youth choir from South Africa, visited the school to carry out workshops with us. After treating them to our version on Shosholoza, we were split into groups and taught a song using different harmonies as well as some dance moves.

In the afternoon, the whole school were invited to watch an absolutely amazing performance by the choir – they even asked us onto the stage to perform with them in front of everyone!

Click on the links below to see some snippets of the singing…

Soweto sings with st nichs

Primary 6A

Primary 6B

Soweto Melodic Voices

The choir are performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and have asked if some of us would like to join them during their last show. How lucky do we feel?

2014 St Nicholas Commonwealth Games!

What a fantastic day at the St Nicholas 2014 Commonwealth games! Primary 5,6 and 7 came together in an opening ceremony to celebrate their chosen Commonwealth country and preformed some wonderful cultural displays of song and dance from South Africa, Malaysia and Canada.

After a short break, for a BBQ lunch, pupils then took to the courts to display the skills that they had learned in their chosen sports of rugby, netball and hockey.  Each country played their final games in a play off format and the winning teams were presented with their medals in the closing ceremony.

Primary 5,6 and 7 would like to say a massive thank you to all the parents, grandparents and friends who turned out to cheer us on and share in our learning today. We would also like to say a huge thank you to James Pegg and everyone at the Albyn Park who helped make today such a success.

Netball Frenzy!

Over the last couple of weeks, Primary 6 have been learning the skills of Netball. Each member of the class has been divided up into 10 teams and each week they have to play a netball match against all the other teams. In these teams, everyone has been working together to make T-shirt designs, writing newspaper reports, writing up scoreboards for the netball games and doing a lot of research for their regions of Malaysian, so we all been extremely busy!
Mr. Gorman has been working with the primary 5, 6 and 7’s to show us the process of creating our team tops. A few people from every class got a chance to see Mr. Gorman make the designs with a big printer. First, he got special material and placed it into the printer. Then he collected our designs and set them to the right size on his computer. Lastly he sent the design to the printer and it printed out five copies in 6 minutes. To get the designs onto the T- shirts, Mr. Gorman placed the design onto a T- shirt, then he put a piece of special paper to stop the design from burning. Finally, he placed the T- shirt into a heat press. After 15 seconds the T- shirt was done. Everyone enjoyed watching this process, as we got to see how Mr. Gorman spends most of his days.

Stay tuned for pictures of our teams in their new fabulou

s uniforms!

Fantastic Football: Final Farewell!

Well done to all the primary 6’s and 7’s who played in the final Broxburn Schools Football Tournament on Friday after competing in many games, tournaments and festivals this year, they, as always, made us extremely proud and did very well. For the last set of fixtures we played in a mixed team from both p6 and 7, everyone recieved plaques for participating in the tournaments.

A huge well done and thank you to the wonderful Primary 7 pupils who played their last game for us and will move on to high school after the summer. They always represented the St Nicholas Primary School wonderfully, showing excellent sportsmanship and teamwork, talent and skill.

Primary 7 Team 2013/2014

Dominik, Luke, Jack, Chris, Gary, Mark, Byran, Liam, Aiza, Sean


Flagtastic!!

On Sunday the 15th of June a really exciting event is happening in Broxburn, the Queen’s Baton Relay will be passing through. In order to make the town look really festive Primary 6 have been busy making a staggering 125 Commonwealth flags to be displayed throughout the local community.  Some of the flags were really hard to draw and it took loads of time to get them just right, however we all enjoyed the challenge and are looking forward to seeing to finding them in the local community.

After we had finished all our hard work we took some pictures to show off just how many flags we had made. Below are some pictures of our work.

Stirling Triathlon

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You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sport, music and drama

On the 1st of June Louis Matheson and Caitlin McCafferty finished the Stirling Triathlon. They both trained very hard for the event alongside the West Lothian Triathlon club with some other competitors.

The event included a 150meter swim, a 2.3km cycle and a 1.2km run.

Both Louis and Caitlin enjoyed the event very much and are looking forward to giving it another go next year.

Gold in Gymnastics for Ava!

Article 31

You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sport, music and drama

On Saturday 7th June, I did a club championship gymnastics competition. I won two gold medals, one for participating in the competition and the other one for coming 1st in my age group. For the competition I had to do a floor routine and a vault routine. I got a score of 24.5 for both floor and vault. I was quite nervous at first but then I got a bit excited. We had a warm up then a practice on the floor, then on vault. I was against one of my friends called Darcy who came 2nd. I was chosen to do a level 3 routine which is one of the highest levels. It was a bit hard but because I had been practising I found it easier than I would have. I enjoyed it because I love gymnastics. It is one of my favourite sports. I am hoping I do more competitions soon.

Ava McFaulds

St Nicholas Swimming Champions!

Article 15

We can join clubs and choose our friends as long as it doesn’t harm others.

Super Star Swimmer Hannah Spence!

A huge well done to our amazing talented swimmers here at St Nicholas Primary School! Many of them competed in the Broxburn Swimming Club Gala last week.

We are delighted to tell you that the pupils from St. Nicholas not only had a great time and tried their very best, but three of them came away with medals winning bronze, silver and GOLD!

Louis Mattheson came in 3rd, with Rachel Kendall just in front taking 2nd place and Hannah Spence the fastest of the lot winning 1st prize- A HUGE TROPHY! What a wonderful achievement!

Congratulations and a huge well done to all the boys and girls who took part in this event! We are so lucky to have such hard working and talented pupils in our school, and everyone at St Nicholas is extremely proud! Keep up the hard work!

Some Upper Area Swimmers!

Sporting Achievements

Article 15

You have the right to be with friends and join or set up clubs, unless this breaks the rights of others

Primary 6 would like to say a massive well done to Fraser Morris who competed in the Scottish Schools Primary School Cross Country on Saturday 19th of March.  He did extremely well and finished 5th out of 113 P6 boys who were entered for the race. Also Fraser competed 2Km Easter fun run at Beecraigs and won that race! All of Primary 6 are very proud and look forward to hearing about future races.

Primary 6 would also like to say well done to Rachael Brown who passed her Musical theatre dance exam!

Primary 6 Visit Edinburgh Zoo!

Article 17

Adults should make sure that the information we are getting is not harmful and help us to find and understand the information we need.

On Thursday P6A and P6B went to Edinburgh Zoo to learn about different life cycles of animals. We saw loads of different animals, from monkeys and apes to the giant pandas. We visited the education centre where we meet Kirsty who talked to use about the differences between mammals and fish and how they bring up their young. We also talked about the different stages in each animals life cycle.

In the afternoon we got a really treat as we visited giant pandas and to our surprise they were awake and moving about. One of the keepers told us that over 2000 people came to see them every day. We also got to visit the new meerkat enclosure and hiked up the big hills to see the Lions and Zebra.

My highlight of the day was seeing the monkeys and the pandas. In the pandas enclosure there was a TV showing the pandas doing different things, at one point it even showed one of the pandas doing a forward roll. The trip to the zoo was very fun and it was interesting learning about all of the different animals and how they live.

By Mirren

Judo Taster!

On Tuesday 22 of April p6 had a taste of the commonwealth sport Judo. The Judo teacher was very funny and the activities were really fun. We learned that speed and strength are very important in Judo and we even got to throw our partners.

Ellie thought it was very fun and different.

Gregor thought the judo was epic and awesome.

Rachael Brown thought it was fabulous.

Some of us are even thinking of joining.

Personal Account of Glasgow Science Centre

As promised primary 6 have written some personal accounts of our visit to the Glasgow Science Centre.  Below you can read what Caitlin and Ciara got up to when they visited the Science Centre.

Last Thursday me and my class went to the Glasgow Science Centre. The main purpose of the trip was to visit the planetarium as our topic is about Space.

As we arrived, we were told to put our coats and jackets away in the cloakroom. After that we were brought up to the first floor. When I first stepped in I gasped! The whole room was full of different experiments. I tried the young to old computer. First you had to take a picture of yourself, and then it turned you old. I got a fright because I looked a lot like my Gran!

Next we went to floor 2.My faverioute thing in floor 2 was the singing bowl. What you had to do was you wet your hands in the water they had put in the brass bowl. Then you rubbed your hands up and down the handle and the bowl played a tune!

Floor 3 was all about the human body and physical health. The best thing for me was the hamster wheel. It was so cool. First you stepped into the wheel. Then you started to run and the wheel would start to move!

Last of all was the planetarium. That was awesome because we stepped into the room and sat down in our seats. I got a fright because the seats were nearly as far back as a bed. That was because the screen was all over the roof. Suddenly the lights dimed and the woman hosting the show started talking about all the different constellations and how there are 88 recognised constellations. Then we went over the order of the planets. The most interesting facts she told us was that no woman has ever been to the moon. The last one was that in the streets with all the bright lights you can only see 300 stars. In the pitch dark countryside you can see over 3,000 stars! Then the lights went on and we all went back to school.

By Ciara.

As we walked through the colossal doorway I started to get extremely excited about our planetarium visit in the afternoon. Slowly we trudged through into the science centre and made our way up to floor 1.

Once we were all upstairs we were allowed to explore. First I looked at big glass box and there were little particles. The particles were made of alcohol. It was amazing I didn’t know how they formed! Next I looked at a blurry picture of a calm woman but when you looked at the picture in the mirror the picture looked like an angry man!

Then we moved on to floor 2. First I went and looked in a glass box then turned the knob. The ink moved! Next was my faveroiute activity the plasma ball so if you put your hand on the top then gently touched someone else’s finger you could see a spark! Using two keys it was possible to make thunder and lightning!

Then we went onto floor 3 it was all about the human body. We learnt all about arthritis and different disabilities

Finally what we had all been waiting for, the planetarium. It was amazing because right in the centre was a big metal ball it looked just like a giant disco ball! Once we were all seated the lights dimmed and the woman hosting the talk walked on to the small stage, as we all gazed up the woman explained the different constellations. Then she went on to give us lots of different amazing facts, like no woman has ever to the moon. The time flew by and soon we were on our way back towards school.

By Caitlin Mccafferty

Ryder Cup Coming Up!

2014 will be a fantastic year for sport in Scotland with the Commonwealth Games coming to Glasgow and the Ryder Cup coming to Gleneagles!

Throughout the year we are looking forward to many opportunities to try out  different sports and activities at school.

This week golf coach Macrina Crawford visited the school and ran fantastic taster sessions with Primary 5a, Primary 5b and Primary 6b. We were learning all about different types of clubs (putter, driver etc) and when is best to use them. We were playing group games that involved different golf shots and Macrina was very impressed with the promising talent from St Nicholas! Next week Macrina will be visiting primary 6a, 7a and 7b, look out for the photographs!

If you are interested in learning more skills Macrina will be running a 7 week Clubgolf programme for children aged 6-12 at Binny Golf Club, for more information parents can contact macrinacrawfordgtf@hotmail.com

Meet St Nicholas Football Team!

Meet the Primary 7’s from the St. Nicholas Football Team!

So far the team, along with Lewis and James from primary 6, have competed in 2 tournaments at the Albyn Park organised by the Broxburn United Sports Club. We have been playing against Broxburn Primary, Uphall Primary, Kirkhill Primary and Pumperston and Uphall Station Primary.

Our first tournament was on 29th November and we won every game.

Our second tournament was on 21st February and we won 5 of the games we played and lost 1.

On Friday 4th April we will be playing again at Albyn Park at 1.3opm. All are welcome to come and watch! We would love to see some supporters cheering on the school team!

HUGE THANK YOU!

A huge thank you from everyone at St Nicholas to Neil Gorman at Piggy Print for providing us with the fantastic football strips for the team and being our sponsor!

PRIMARY 6 TEAM

We are hoping to recruit a second team to play in tournaments from children in Primary 6! If you are interested in joining the Primary 6 football team please see Miss King or Mr Valentine as soon as possible!

Primary 6 Science and Technology Day

Yesterday Primary 6 were invited along to Broxburn Academy for their annual Science and Technology day. We were all very excited as the hall was packed with loads of children from other local schools and some strange looking experiments and stations.

The first station we visited was called Hovercraft CD. To make these we had to blow up a balloon and attached then to CDs with a closed bottle cap on it. Next we put them on the floor and opened the bottle cap. Since we had opened the bottle cap, the air from the balloon escaped which made the CD slide along the floor.

Next was Outrageous Ooze. First we were asked whether we thought the ooze was a solid or a liquid, we all thought it look like a solid.  The third year pupils asked us to make a snowball out of the ooze but as soon as we scooped some up it melted away. Next we were asked to hit the ooze and amazingly it didn’t splash but if we gently put our hands into the ooze they sunk.  After trying out different experiments with the ooze we found out that it was a solid and a liquid! This is called a colloid.

The third station was called Fizz Pop Rockets, for this one we were given safety goggles. We had to fill a little tub with water and stick a fizzy tablet with onto the lid. We then placed the tub upside in a tray and started our timers. After a few seconds the tub flew up in the air with a pop! This happened because the tablet dissolved in the water releasing a gas called Carbon Dioxide.

The fourth station was microscopes. First we had to pick out some pond weed and put it on a glass slide. Then we looked through the microscope to see the plant cells. After that we were given another strip with brain cells to have a look at.

The second part of our day was all about CDT (craft, design and technology). We had to design and build a skyscraper. First we all planned out a design and then used the straws and tape to build our structure. It was a competition to see who could build the highest structure. The highest tower was over two metres!

After lunch we had a big quiz. Most of the questions were to do with what we had learned throughout the day. The other questions were to do with science and technology. Sadly, St. Nicholas didn`t win but we had a great day!

By Ciara and Kirsty.

Solar System

Primary 6 have been busy transforming themselves into space experts.

We have been using our Space topic to cover lots of areas of the curriculum including; mathematics, science, art and design, technology and language skills.  

Over the past few weeks Primary 6 have been busy researching our Solar System using computers and information books. We used the information we had gathered to create different posters, make 3d models and design our classroom doors.

To make our 3d models of the Solar System we had to use lots of problem solving skills, maths skills and our knowledge of the planets to ensure our model was accurate. Before we could begin making the planets we had to work out the size of each planet. To do this we learned about the diameter and radius of a circle.  We then set a compass to different measurements to draw the circles so that the planets were different sizes, like they are in real life. The next step in making our models of the Solar System was to scrunch up lots of newspaper and stick it onto the circles of cardboard to make it 3d. Then we had to layer our models with mod rock so that they were smooth, but the rocky planets were a bit bumpier than the gas giants. Finally when the mod rock was dry we painted our 3d models which the Janitor helped us to put up on the wall. Once the planets were up we started to make posters to go along with our planets.

When designing our classroom doors we used our math skills to measure the length and the width of our door and then used these measurements to cut our paper. To make our door design we had to draw out our design on a4 paper at home and then we put a bit of different peoples’ ideas together to make our final design. In the end we decided on having an astronaut on the smaller door and on the bigger door we split it into 3 sections. On one section we put the earth and all the phases of the moon around it, on another section we put a comet saying welcome to p6 on it, on the last section of the door we painted the moon then drew famous spacecrafts.

By Mirren and Caitlin

Impressive Floor Work!

In P.E primary 6b have been learning about Gymnastics. Mrs Smith has been teaching us about different jumps, balances and floor work.

In teams Mrs Smith challenged us to make a routines to show off our learning. These routines had to be original, show creativity and good transition. Over the course of two weeks we used all our knowledge about jumps, balances and transitions to put together our ideas and create our routines.

Now you can view the finished product for yourself!

By Amy and Gregor

Gymnastics P6

Puzzling Mental Maths

Primary 6b have been very busy this week working on their mental maths skills. 

Lots of us find mental maths tricky so we wanted to find a fun way to develop our mental strategies.  To help with this we worked in groups to practice our fraction, multiplication and division skills.  To make this more fun, we worked in small groups to try out some new mental maths puzzles.  These included loop cards, tarsia puzzles and jigsaws.  We found this fun because we are working together and discussing different ways of solving problems.

Over the next few weeks we will continue practicing these skills and have some fun along the way!

Primary 6 Rap Stars!!

Primary 6 have been working together to learn about our solar system and have become rap stars in the process.

We have been working in groups to research each of the planets and decided that we wanted to show our knowledge of the planets through music.  Each of our groups took on the challenge of writing our own rap song about each planet and becoming rap stars. 

Please click below to have a sneak peek into what we have come up with. 

  Space Raps

Stay tuned for the full version coming to a stage near you soon!

Phases of the Moon Homework Challenge

Mrs Heather and Miss Watson have set us a challenge to record the phases of the moon.

Each night for the next two weeks, we have to draw or take a photograph of the changing shape of the moon.  Remember each night to date your picture and note the time the picture was recorded. 

We are looking forward to seeing what phases of the moon we were able to record over the two weeks. Once we have the results we can begin to investigate the patterns arising from the phases of the moon.

Click the link below if you need some help.

Phases of the Moon tig-tag

Have fun recording!