Pencaitland Primary Blog

Before Christmas the PTA bought us a new birdbox - but this isn’t just any birdbox, it’s a Marks and …. (sorry, got carried away there!).

Seriously though, this isn’t just any birdbox.  It’s got a built-in camera, powered by a solar panel, that transmits the pictures and sound wirelessly into the school where any of the classes can watch what’s happening.

Richard from the Ranger Service came out to put it up for us, ably assisted by Mrs McCall and members of P3/4.  So far there’s been nothing inside, but it’s still early.  Watch this space for news!

After a couple of weeks of nail-biting tension the big day finally arrived. The grand finals for the Douglas Allen trophy. It seemed only fair that the players who had succeeded in getting us to the finals had the chance to take their efforts to the next level.  The team started their first match in excellent form playing some lovely football and taking a 2-1 lead against McMerry. Indeed the team perhaps should have scored more hitting the woodwork three times and the opposition goalkeeper making some great saves. Almost predictably, these misses came back to haunt the team when, with just 20 seconds to go McMerry crafted an excellent equaliser. We then lost narrowly in our second game, which on goal difference put us into the 5th/6th play-off match. Unfortunately the team had put so much effort into the previous two games we ran out of steam and lost narrowly again, this time to a strong Law side. However the team had put in some excellent performances over the afternoon’s play and did the school proud.

On Friday Primary 3/4 presented our assembly “Robert Burns and All Things Scottish” to the whole school and invited parents.  The assembly, which featured poems, singing, dancing and jokes, was well received by all.

Well done!

Can you make the monster dance?

http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum20.html

Challenge:  How many times can you make the monster dance within one minute.

Have fun!

P3/4 today travelled over to Glasgow Royal Concert Hall for one of the Celtic Connections concerts.  Despite a traffic jam on the Edinburgh City Bypass we arrived just in time.   We heard The Hoose Band, Stooshie (a group from a school in Calander) and the Celine Donoghue Band.  We arrived back just in time to have lunch before our music lesson!  A good time was had by all.

Well done everyone. We are delighted to let you all know that following a visit by two assessors from Eco Schools Scotland on Friday 15th January, we have been awarded our THIRD GREEN FLAG. The visitors attended a whole school assembly led by the Eco Committee pupils who gave an overview of our work and plans for this session. We all sang along to some adapted eco songs with an original verse suggested by our own children. P4/5 accompanied the singing on their home made recycled junk instruments. The visitors were treated to a tour of the school, classes, grounds and of course our fabulous garden. The Eco representatives included Eilidh Wilson as a parent representative and Richard English from the ranger service. It was great to be able to show what fantastic support we have from parents and the community. Thank you. Watch out for the new flag flying when it arrives.

It is difficult for birds to find food during the winter months.  Primary 1 and Primary 1/2 decided to help by making bird seed feeders. We used a mixture of bird seeds, lard, raisins and grated cheese to make a sticky cake which we then put into empty yoghurt pots.  We hung up our feeders on the trees around the school and hope that the bird enjoy our creations.

The team enjoyed an afternoons’ football at Meadowmill today. With two games of football and some expert coaching thrown in it proved a very popular break from school. And what made it even better was that the team progressed into the finals day of the Douglas Allen trophy. So watch this space on the 25th January to see how the team gets on.

Mr Cain

Happy New year and welcome back to everybody. It was great to be back at school and hear everybody’s Christmas news. Before Christmas the children in school did a poll on whether to send each other Christmas cards in school or not. Despite their concern for the environment the children really wanted to celebrate with cards so opted instead for recycling Christmas cards.

Please send in your cards and we will gather them up and recycle them through the Woodland Trust whom we have supported previously with the Yellow Pages collections. Just a reminder you can now recycle your Yellow pages through the normal domestic collections.

We look forward to a bumper pile of cards-thank you!

On Wednesday afternoon and evening the infant department performed their nativity play.  The children worked really hard to learn their lines and the song words.  Everyone was fantastic - well done!

Poster by Natalie

Primary 3/4 have been studying A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  As well as looking at such things as plot, setting and characters, we also created a radio play version.

Click to hear our version.

[Note: the play is 20 minutes]

On Friday P1 and P1/2 had their Christmas party.  We played musical statues, pass the parcel, danced the Flying Scotsman and had some party food.  At the end of the party we sang ‘ Jingle Bells’ and we got a lovely surprise when Santa paid us a visit!

Yesterday P6 had the opportunity to showcase their scientific talents on a Glowmeet shown across schools all over Scotland. LTS had been so impressed by the scientific work carried out by the class this year that we were invited to the Museum of Flight to host a glider making challenge. We were tasked with building  gliders that could carry a payload of 50g plasticine. Schools that were watching us live could also do the challenge based in their own classrooms which made for an interactive afternoon. Before the challenge started in the afternoon  our class were able to try out some of the exciting new interactive exhibits in the Museum, visited the hangers  and saw the different planes, took a trip through Concorde and watched a film showing the history of this famous craft. All in all a very enjoyable day and one the children thoroughly appreciated.

Plans for our wild flower meadow to help conserve the declining Scottish bee population are coming along nicely.  We recently had a visit from Richard the ranger who told us all about bees, why they are becoming endangered and the types of flowers we should plant in our meadow.  Henry from P7 also came in and gave us a very informative talk about bees.  We even have our very own bee hive in the classroom now!  As well as this, we have been learning about the life of John Muir through dance and drama.  We enjoyed acting out ’skoochers’ and the ‘Dandy Doctors’ and we have been writing about all that we learned in a biography of John Muir’s life. 

As usual each of the classes, including the Nursery, have contributed to the display in the Hall.  The real letters are 1 metre high!  Make sure you have a look if you’re in the school.

Katie, Hannah, Connor and Alex were presented with the Dunfermline Building Society cup and a cheque for £100 for school funds, for their efforts at Haddington Agricultural show. Rachel ( morning nursery class ) also helped them gather the points, but she was too shy to be in the photo. The pupils made an edible necklace, a vegetable animal, decorated a stone, took photos of their pets and made chocolate crispies. Mrs Cook handed over the trophy and cheque to Mrs McCall and pupils at the assembly on 11th December. Well done everyone!

We all enjoyed our second day of craft activities with our parents. We made mini standing Christmas trees and sewed our own Christmas stockings. It was great fun. Thanks again to everyone who came to help!

With the busy football calendar in full swing and the recent inclement weather it was decided to fit in a small mini-competition with Pencaitland, Kings Meadow and Ormiston which would hopefully go some way to easing the fixture congestion !  Unfortunately we have no pictures to show since the class camera was unavailable!

However the boys did themselves proud both with their footballing skills and their sportsmanship.  The first game was between Pencaitland & Kings Meadow with the match going to and fro. However in the end it was the visitors who won a closely contested match.  Kings Meadow and Ormiston then played out an entertaining 2-2 draw before Ormiston finished off a hugely enjoyable afternoon’s sport with a comfortable victory over the tiring Pencaitland boys.

All the participants played in the right spirit and agreed it was much better than what they would have been doing back in their respective classrooms !

P2/3 invited their parents to an afternoon of fun with glitter, tinsel and sequins on Thursday as they made an array of Christmas decorations and paintings. We’ve completed hanging Christmas trees, shiny stars and angels and Santa magnets. Thank you so much to all the mums who came to help and to those coming on Wednesday for more festive fun! Merry Christmas!

The Eco committee have been busy recently thinking about what we should be doing in our school garden over the winter. Eilidh Wilson came to a meeting and we asked her about planting bulbs in our class plots. She explained that bulbs don’t like to be dug up or disturbed so it would be better to plant them in tubs around the school. This way in the spring we can plant more vegetables in our plots. She even gave us some bulbs to plant. Look out for these in the spring time.

Another day we went out to plant winter flowering pansies in the boxes at the front of the school. We hope these make it a nice cheery entrance for visitors. We checked the compost and dug out some to put it in our plots to feed the ground over the winter. It was a busy morning clearing weeds and old plants out. Poor Erin had to clear away a soggy pumpkin. So if you have a garden this is a good time to clear up all the dead plants and leaves and put some compost on top of your soil to keep it rich for the spring planting.