Pumpherston and Uphall Station CPS Blog
A place for news, information and sharing learning from PUSCPS
Primary 7 have been learning about fossil fuels. We researched Pumpherston Shale Industry to see what it was like back in the day. It opened in 1882 and closed 1926, it was not open very long. Now Pumpherston Golf Course is built on top and beside shale.
This term we have been comparing Scotland to Sierra Leone in Africa.  This topic has been linking to lots of our other curricular areas. In science we have been learning about ebola, the symptoms of ebola and how you catch it. It also links to ICT because we have been using the netbooks to carry out our research. It links to literacy because we have been reading,  taking notes and making poster. In art we have been painting a landscape picture of Sierra Leone. It also links to maths because we compared the weather and displayed this information as  tally charts and frequency tables. Our drama this term has an African theme and also in PE we are making up our own African dances. We have also learned how to work well in groups as we have completed a lot of these tasks through group work.
We had a FABULOUS Â Red Nose Day on Friday! We had a new well-behaved pupil added to our class and FOUR new teachers!
We had games and Maths with Mr Evans before break and then Drama with Mr Mairs after. You can tell from the photo that he really got into character! We then had Red Nose drawing fun with Miss McPhail and more Drama with Miss Toall.
Miss McLaughlin really enjoyed her day off! Now she has a bank of teachers who can take over from her when she needs them 😉
In Maths this week, Primary 1 have been learning how to order numbers within 20 from smallest to largest and largest to smallest. We have also been practising adding and our double number facts.
We learned how to write stories in writing this week. We had to choose our own character for the story and described what happened to them. They were very imaginative!
After our walk to the Post Office last Monday, we drew a map in class to show the route we took. We had to remember all the things we passed along the way and make sure that we drew it from a bird’s eye view. We used the photographs taken on our walk to help us. Our next challenge is to make a 3D model of the route!
We had lots of funny faces in school today, as part of our mission to raise money for Comic Relief on Red nose Day.
Both Bake sales ran out of stock before they ran out of customers, raising almost £100 from the sale of cupcakes, macaroons and rocky road.  Here are some pictures of the new members of staff on duty today:
We’ll add more pictures and the final total of the money raised next week! Well done everyone, you looked very funny!
Last week, Primary 4 continued their farming learning and produced posters which told us about foods that are imported into Scotland (flown in).
We looked at coconuts, bananas, coffee, cocoa beans and citrus fruits. These products cannot be grown here in Scotland because our climate is just not right. That’s why we import them in. We are going to have a discussion about the effect that food miles like these have on the environment.
If you’d like to find out how far your food has travelled, the website below calculates food miles for you:
Our homework this week is to look at packets/food labels around the house and see where different products come from. Please, if possible, bring in the packaging so we can add it to our display. They can be products grown at home, or imported in.
Until next time…
Primary 4 & Miss M 🙂
Last week we watched some people doing an African dance on Youtube  and we used this as a stimulus for creating our own dances. So far we have put together a two step dance sequence. We will be building onto our dance routine this week. We are also doing dance with Miss Pender.  Shannon’s group got to share their dance routine ideas with the class.
Our Africa influence also went into our drama lesson this week as we used a short film about lions as a stimulus for our drama lesson. We were learning to take on the features of lions and demonstrate this by moving like them. Our next steps is to work as a group and show a pride of lions and how they react towards one and other.
In music we were learning to play the xylophones by ear. We were listening to the ‘Skye Boat Song’ and we were trying to work out what notes we needed to play to create the tune.
We received a lovely thank you card in the post from the Friends of St John’s Hospital, thanking us for our contribution to their fundraising. Our choir sang Christmas Carols in the foyer of St John’s on December 9th and £108.10 was raised during our singing! The charity is dedicated to promoting the comfort and welfare of patients, staff and visitors at St John’s hospital in Livingston.  Our support will help them to provide services throughout St John’s for the benefit of all patients, staff and visitors.
We are very proud to be able to help such a worthwhile cause in our local community. Well done to the choir for singing so well!
This week, Primary 4 were looking at farming in Scotland. We looked at a seasonal calendar and used our reading skills to find out what could be grown across different seasons. We then made these into calendars.
We have also started to look at what cannot be grown in Scotland and needs to be imported in, such as citrus fruits, bananas and coffee. We are currently using our ICT skills to make information posters about these products. Pop in to see how we’re doing!
Until next time…
Primary 4 and Miss M 🙂
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