Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School

March 4, 2016

Book Week at Bonnytoun Nursery

This week , every child has had the opportunity to share their favourite book in group. We’ve been amazed at the the selection of books chosen and the confidence shown by each child when retelling the story. We’ve also had some children sharing non-fiction books, we’ve certainly learned a lot from these books, especially about vehicles, space and dinosaurs.

On Thursday we came dressed as a book character.

We’ve also had opportunities to create our own books and on Wednesday and Thursday we visited school to see the books on offer at the Scholastic Book Fair.

February 18, 2016

P1A Growth Mindset

Today we have learnt lots of interesting facts about our brains as well as discovering what the different parts our brain control. We created ‘our own ‘dot’ art work inspired by the wonderful book, ‘The Dot,’ by Peter Reynolds. They will remind us of the message in the story; to know that when things seem impossible, we just need to make a start. To know that we can help each other achieve and to know that each one of us, with practise and determination can achieve. We hope it makes you smile and want to get creative!

February 10, 2016

Nursery News

Over the last few weeks we have been really busy in Bonnytoun Nursery.

We have been very interested in “Birds.”

We found out penguins were birds too but that they couldn’t fly. We also discovered they came from the Antartic. We added penguins to our water tray but in order to make it a very cold place, we froze the water. We also painted pictures of penguins. Next time you are in nursery, have a look at our display, i’m sure you’ll be impressed.

We have also been looking at non-fiction books and have used the pictures in these books to create our own drawings and collages of birds. Isabel created her own non-fiction book.

Last week we made bird cake and then observed the birds in our garden eating this food. We took part in the RSPB birdwatch and spotted many birds, including a blue-tit and robin. We recorded the birds in our garden on a chart.

February 3, 2016

JRSO

Good morning. This is Springfield Primary School’s Junior Road Safety Officers Lucy Roy and Euan Boyes. Today we had a meeting with Mr. Gillespie, outlining our duties and responsibilities for the year ahead.

P6 JRSO next steps:

Survey in all classes to determine how children

Travel to school.

Options for survey- bike, walk, car or park and ride.

Ask pupils if they feel they are more likely to cycle to school after they had taken part in last year’s big pedal event.
To make a competition for the best poster to promote road safety.
Inform all classes that this year’s Big Pedal event will take place between 18^th April and the 29^th April 2016.
Superhero fund raising day 29^th April
To create a PowerPoint for assembly after finding the “Big Pedal” results and share these with the school.
Contact local traffic warden/lollypop man and see if they can share any information with us.
To interview P5/P4 for new JRSO’s.

We are greatly looking forward to the year ahead!

By Lucy Roy and Euan Boyes.

February 3, 2016

Primary six’s Cosmic Classroom Experience 2.2.2016

Tim Peake talks To Us

Tim Peake was in space and managed to talk to schools in the United Kingdom on the ISS (International Space Station.) The first question was “what can you see out of your window in space?” by Harry. Tim replied that he can see the Atlantic Ocean and also saw the tip of Africa. He told us that he loved the colours of the Sahara desert from space.

The second question he was asked was from Chloe: “why doesn’t space have any gravity?” Tim replied, as gravity pulls them down they are travelling so fast they can’t hit earth and the gravity pulls them but the speed still keeps them in space.

Next up Tim took part in a space task.

Tim had to crouch down for everybody and when he did he did a forward roll! It was extremely funny! Soon he stood up he looked like a super hero flying in the city and he really was flying standing up! Next he was spinning on the spot, he was flying on the spot and then he curled up and he couldn’t stop. He touched his toes too and did a backwards roll- it was very impressive.

The next part of the broadcast was showing us what tricks he can do in space. He disappeared and came down again.

The next question he was asked was “is your heart faster in space?” but their heart is slower because it’s more relaxed but they must do more exercise to keep their heart healthy.

So water time Tim showed us water comes in spheres and floats around but there are these special bats that push the water where he wants it to be and if you put a fizzy tablet in the water it grows but still fizzes up in its sphere also it turns white.

His favourite button is the hatch button which opens a door into space in case he wants to do experiments in space.

We all really enjoyed tuning in to the broadcast in the afternoon and learnt lots of interesting facts about life in space.

By Lily, Neve and Lennie, P6.

January 26, 2016January 27, 2016

Numeracy Open Afternoon

On Tuesday 26th January, over 140 parents, friends and family members attended an open afternoon at Springfield Primary School. Miss Wallace (and several pupils) shared a numeracy presentation followed by classroom visits. Partners who supported this event included West Lothian’s Numeracy Development Officers and Linlithgow Academy.

The pupils were super at sharing their learning and explaining Big Maths strategies too! We are so proud of them.

Mrs Tulloch was able to share the work she has been doing with pupils for the Scottish Mathematical Challenge.

Parent session Jan 16 – click this link for the presentation

Link to Big Maths online: http://www.bigmaths.co.uk/

Link to Andrell website for Beat That tests and further information

BMBT Learn Its Tests

Presentation from West Lothian Numeracy Development Officer – Click here: 2016_01_26 Springfield PS Parent Session

Useful numeracy and mathematics apps for the i-pad – click here: Maths Apps

January 21, 2016

Book Week

We are delighted to announce our Book Week will take place from Monday 29th February until Friday 4th March 2016. We have lots of exciting events organised for this week including:

The author Stuart Reid will be starting our week off with a whole school assembly, followed by writing workshops with P4 and P5
Linlithgow Library will be visiting hosting story telling sessions, Britannica Online and voting for the Scottish Children’s Book Trust Awards
7 pupils will be visiting the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow to participate in the Scottish Chidlren’s Book Awards ceremony
Dressing up as a book character (Friday 4th March)
Scholastic Book Fair will be here selling a super range of books
Mrs Manlove will be hosting special library story telling sessions for all

Further details to follow!

January 20, 2016January 20, 2016

Fun and Games in P.E!

P1 – P3/4 donned their gym rubbers and put their creative hats on for P.E today.

The P1’s and P2’s continued their Better Movers and Thinkers work today, with the aim of moving and thinking in a more cohesive way. So far this year, they have been working hard to develop their kinaesthetic awareness and coordination through a variety of ball games. We have seen a huge improvement in the children’s skills over the first few months and have had lots of fun in the process!

Further up the school in P2/3, P3 and P3/4 we were designing new games and sports today, and teaching our peers how to play them. Each team worked collaboratively, communicating effectively and sharing their ideas to create an original game that could be easily taught to the rest of the class. The children took advantage of all the equipment from the P.E cupboard and came up with some amazing ideas for new games. I had to refrain from jumping in and playing them!

Well done P1-4! Have a look at the pictures from today below!

Mr. Logan

January 18, 2016

What’s going on in P2?

Primary 2 have been very busy since returning after the holidays!

We have been continuing our Big Maths work; counting and sequencing numbers to 100, trying hard to remember our Learn It’s, dividing and sharing equally and consolidating our learning of our 2, 5 and 10 times on Sumdog.

It’s all go with our Thinking Reader work to develop our six different reading strategies. Our class novel this term will be Grandpa’s Great Escape by David Walliams. We have enjoyed reading about Jack and Grandpa’s adventures so far, but aren’t quite sure what’s going to happen next. Ask the children for their predictions…

Our new topic is China and we will be learning lots more about it in the lead up to the Chinese New Year on the 8th February. This year will be the year of the monkey and we have been hearing some legends and tales about this animal of the Chinese zodiac. Did you know, the monkey was believed to have been born from a stone egg and carries a staff which he uses to fight? If anyone has anything they would like to bring in for our China display, please feel free to do so!

Mr. Logan & P2

January 12, 2016

David Martin’s Visit To Primary Six

On Monday the 11^th of January Primary Six got a visit from David Martin, an MEP. David answered a few questions asked by the pupils vice versa. The pupils were asked questions about the EU challenging their memory and listening skills.

The children asked questions like why the terrorists chose to attack Paris which was swiftly answered back by David saying they wanted to stop ordinary people going about their normal lives in their normal homes. The terrorists knew that they could attack the parliament but they didn’t. Children also asked, did you think bombing Syria was the correct decision. He avoided saying his opinion in case it hurt people, though in the end he did say it wasn’t a good idea.

David then asked the pupils how many Scottish MEPs there are and we said 8, 22 and 34 but there are only 6!

David asked the pupils how many MEPs are in the EU altogether and we said 72 and 84 but there are actually 751!

David asked the children which foreign cities he worked in. Every hand shot up because everyone in the class knew that one of them was Brussels, in Belgium. The other one took many guesses until finally one of us said Strasbourg, in the borders of France and Germany. After this visit we will look forward to our trip to Scottish Parliament even more.

The pupils of primary six enjoyed his visit and we hope you enjoyed our blog entry.

By Lucy, Ross and Cara P6