“Tis the season to be jolly…” and Primary 3 and 4 were certainly feeling jolly today when they celebrated at their Christmas party.
We also showed off our dance moves, played lots of games, ate some delicious food and sang along loudly to our favourite songs. Everyone had a fantastic afternoon 🙂 Merry Christmas Primary 3 and 4!
Yesterday, the Technical Troopers organised a Digital Dress Down Day to raise funds to further support digital learning in Mid Calder Primary School. Our pupils were challenged to dress up as a character from an online or digital game, an emoji or a piece of technology.
Thank you to everyone who took part and donated. We raised a fantastic £175.05 and we can’t wait to share what we spend it on with everyone.
Primary 3 visited the Scottish Seabird Centre to learn more about our IDL context, Save Our Seas, and we had a fantastic time. We learned about the different food chains found within the ocean and even became some of the sea creatures ourselves to explore who eats who. We also took part in a ‘What A Waste’ workshop where we investigated the properties of waste and the impact that it can have on the marine environment. Then we took part in a beach cleaning activity to help to clean up the coastal environment and protect the local wildlife.
After looking at pictures and learning about the different habitats sea creatures live in, we went on a Rockpool Ramble to learn more about the different species that can be found in the rockpools. We even had a chance to handle some of them, making sure we did this safely while being careful not to scare the animals.
This trip has inspired Primary 3 to fight to Save Our Seas even more than before, and we will continue to spread the word in Mid Calder Primary School and beyond.
Despite a slight Scottish drizzle yesterday morning, P1-3 took to the field and gave it their all in a fantastic Sports Day. There were a range of activities on offer including football shoot out, welly throwing, obstacle races, hurdles, sack races and lots more. A big thank you to Mark, our Enjoyaball specialist, for organising such a successful and enjoyable Sports Day and thank you to all the parents and families who came along to support the event. Thank you to the PSA for providing ice poles as a refreshment, which we enjoyed despite the wet weather.
A big congratulations to Cunigar who were the overall winners!
On Tuesday 2nd May, we had a very exciting visit from Cosmos Planetarium, a state of the art, 360° theatre experience. We were transported on a journey through our solar system and beyond – from flying through Saturn’s rings to diving into Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, to search it’s vast ocean for signs of life. We learned about the first moon landing, as well as what life might be like on the moon in future and were able to share our knowledge of Neil Armstrong from the biographies we wrote about his life and experiences. We also took a virtual tour of the International Space Station and learned more about what life would be like in space. To continue this learning when we got back to class, we got to try astronaut food. Some of us loved it, others…not so much.
After that, Steven Gray from Cosmos Planetarium, who is also a STEM ambassador, led us in a rocket making challenge. You can check out what we got up to in this amazing video made by Rose and Zoe:
To top it all off, Primary 3 shared all of our learning through our IDL context, NASA Juniors: Mission X with our parents/carers, families and friends in our assembly. We also blasted our audience back in time to meet Neil Armstrong and some other famous astronauts from throughout history. So fasten your seat belts, check the oxygen levels and prepare for lift off….
Today we welcomed parents and friends along to our Celebration Assembly so that pupils could receive their STEM Super Star and Successful Speller awards.
Certificates and prizes were also given to the children who won our Bookworm, STEM and Fairtrade Junior Leadership Team’s challenges and competitions, and to the 5 pupils who represented our school at the West Lothian Burns Contest. We also announced the Top Scorers for each house, along with our house winner.
A big thank you to Hannah Rarity for inspiring us by sharing her interpretation of our school motto, Believe, Achieve, Succeed, and for sharing her journey of hard work and determination to become the successful singer she is today. Thank you also to Leah, P6, who impressed us with her own musical talents and played ‘Clowns’ for us on the piano.
Well done to all of our award winners!
Over the last two weeks we have been celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight by taking part in various activities, competitions and experiences. The children have embraced learning about Fairtrade and enjoyed sharing their learning.
Each class was assigned a Fairtrade product to find out about. Have a look at what each class got up to!
Nursery
Primary 1: Bananas
P1 learned about Pablo the Banana. He taught the P1’s about what Fairtrade means and also about the journey of the banana. We then designed our board games for the competition.
Primary 2 and 3: Coffee
P2 learned about coffee and other Fairtrade products. They were able to colour and label Fairtrade products from around the world and then draw a Fairtrade product that they have seen or tried.
Primary 3 learned about what Fairtrade is and why it important before researching their Fairtrade product, coffee. We used the netbooks to find out interesting facts and shared them with a partner. As we have been learning about fact and opinions in our reading lessons, we then using the Glow tool Forms to create a fact and opinion quiz about Fairtrade.
Primary 4 and 5: Brazil Nuts
P4 and P5 learned about the Brazil Nut. We found out about the story of the Brazil nuts by:
Primary 6: Tea
P6 had a great time looking at a tea planting community in Malawi as part of Fairtrade Fortnight. We learned about how Fairtrade pays their workers fairly and also provides money to benefit the whole community. Pupils worked in groups to decide how money should be spent within a community (e.g. Food, water, healthcare, education etc). They had to decide which needs were most important- a difficult decision!
Primary 6/7: Footballs
Primary 6/7 took part in their own competition to ‘Design a Fairtrade football’. The Fairtrade Junior Leadership Team had a look at the fantastic designs and picked 1st, 2nd and 3rd place! Have a look at some of the designs:
There was lots of other fun things happening around the school too!
Nurture group: Baking with Fairtrade products
The nurture group worked with Mrs Kellner to make a Fairtrade banana loaf. They had lots of fun following the recipe, measuring the ingredients and mixing everything together! A delicious smell filled the corridors of the school and it tasted delicious!
Fairtrade breakfast: Bananas and Chocolate!
This week during breakfast club the children had the opportunity to taste Fairtrade bananas and chocolate. The boys and girls enjoyed dipping their bananas in the rich dark chocolate and it was smiles all round!
Fairtrade competition
The Fairtrade Junior Leadership Team launched a competition to design a Fairtrade board game. Lots of children across the school entered the competition and the JLT had a difficult decision trying to pick a P1-3 and P4-7 winner. They played some of the games to help make their decision. Winners will be announced next week! Have a look at some of the fantastic competition entries!
Visit from Lush Livingston
Lush in Livingston kindly offered to hold an assembly for the school to talk about their fresh handmade cosmetic products and give pupils the opportunity to purchase some of their fantastic range! However, due to the untimely Spring snow the visit has been re-scheduled. We will update you with this visit soon!
On December 22nd, we welcomed parents and friends along to our Celebration Assembly so that pupils could receive their STEM Super Star and Successful Speller awards. We also announced the Top Scorers for each house.
A big thank you to Mr Welsh for inspiring us by sharing his interpretation of our school motto, Believe, Achieve, Succeed, and for presenting our Primary 3 pupils with their certificate for coming first in West Lothian’s Sumdog Maths Contest. Certificates were also awarded to our pupils who came in the top 50 in the competition.
Well done to all of our award winners!
