This year’s Knex Challenge was to build a wheelbarrow, that could carry a book 5 meters.
The children worked in groups of four and I’m sure you’ll agree that they were successful in achieving their remit.
Scottish Parliament Trip
We had an interesting and informative morning at the Scottish Parliament today.
The children explored the Parliament Building, including the Debating Chamber, 
questioned an MSP and were able to discover more about the history of the Parliament through the exhibition that was on show.
An enjoyable day overall.
We had a mention on the Scottish Parliament Twitter feed too.
Lari Don Visit
P5-7 had a visit from children’s author Lari Don today. The children listened to her read some snippets from her new trilogy of Spellchaser novels and were able to ask lots of questions, gaining some useful hints and tips. The first question I was asked as we were leaving the hall was, “Mr. Logan, are we doing story writing now?”, which was an indication of how much the pupils enjoyed the visit! Lari Don’s website is included below if you would like to find out about some of the other books and stories she has written.
Mr. Logan
JRSO
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 18th April and the 29th April 2016.
- Superhero fund raising day 29th 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.
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.
David Martin’s Visit To Primary Six
On Monday the 11th 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
MEP letter response
Last term P6 wrote questions to a M.E.P called Catherine Stihler, we had to put our address and the date, and a lot of detail to our questions there were many question but Catherine didn’t have time to answer them all so she answered the 16 most said questions.
Here are 3 questions and there answers
1:Q: How long have you been a M.E.P? A: Since 1999 and I was the youngest MEP elected that year
2:Q: What suggestions have you made that have become legislation A: there are two things in particular I have campaigned for and I am very proud to see become a reality, firstly Braille on medicine packaging which is very helpful to blind people and the pictorial health warnings on cigarette packages that show the damage to your health that smoking causes.
3: Q: What don’t you like about your job A: I don’t like being away from my Husband and children 3 nights a week as I miss them very much. I do keep in touch regular contact with them using Face-Time and Skype.
We were very excited to hear back from her and now she has got back to us.
By Aidan and James, P6
P6 are going to be learning about…
P6 are delighted to announce that they are going to be learning all about Europe and then going on to a literacy based study.
