Pencaitland Primary Blog

We enjoyed playing our favourite parachute games.

This is Lothian and Borders Police’s summer campaign against under age drinking in East Lothian. Click on the link below for more details.

http://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/thinkb4udrink/flyer_sliced.html

Over the last four weeks on a Monday afternoon, Primary 3 have been developing their skills to work as a team. The children have been encouraged to think about what choices they make as a team and to justify the decisions they have made. They have had to problem-solve, co-operate, and be very creative! The block of lessons culminated in the Eggsiting Tower challenge. Each group had to build a tower with limited resources (yes, including the shoebox!) which would hold an egg (hardboiled!) for 30 seconds.

The teams worked really well. We had some fantastic ideas and results. We all learned a lot about ourselves over the four weeks and had a great time!

In P2/3 we have been working on our mapping skills. We went for a walk to the crossroads in Pencaitland looking out for landmarks. When we came back we drew maps with directions for getting to our school. We also thought about road safety when we were crossing the road, so we wrote instructions for that too! To finish our topic we drew our own treasure maps, painting them with teabags to make them look old. It was a lot of fun.

The trainers have been dusted down and Primary 5 have been off and running round the village again in a bid to keep healthy, happy and active!

The boys and girls are already completing the same course we ran last year after only two weeks’ training! The team spirit is high, the encouragement the pupils give each other is outstanding, and we are all having a lot of fun!

This summer we have been joined by Robbie Cleat, ex-pupil, previous Sandra Samuel award holder, and an incredibly keen athlete. Robbie is heading off to university in October, but volunteered his services as he will be working in East Lothian over the summer running Multi Sports sessions, and he is a trained UK Athletics Coach running about 10 miles every week! So a huge thanks to Robbie for his time and contribution.

Have a great holiday and - keep on running!

To tie in with our “Living Things’ topic, we visited Dalkeith Country Park today.  When we arrived we played some ‘nature-themed’ games which were both good fun and reminded us of some of the things we had learnt about plants and animals during this topic.  To keep active we also played some football and rounders.  We had lunch in the courtyard and then met the Ranger for a walk round the woods.  This was good timing because the tree canopy protected us from the rain which had just started! The Ranger showed us how to identify beech, oak, horse-chestnut and sycamore trees.  He also pointed out plants, ferns and flowers as well as showing us how to spot evidence of animal activity -for example markings on trees left by roe deer, and holes left by woodpeckers.  We also saw the tallest tree in the wood, a giant redwood.  We had time at the end of the visit to squeeze in a trip to the adventure playground - as you can imagine that was one of our highlights of the day!

On Friday 13th Primary 3 did our assembly about Jewish weddings.

There were 4 flower girls, 2 bridesmaids and a best man. The groom pulls the veil over the bride’s face and the two mothers break a plate to show that the agreement could not be undone.

There were also seven blessings and 2 witnesses. After the ceremony we had music and dancing.

There were 46 visitors plus P1, P1/2 and P2/3.

We had so much fun! Apart from acting we learned a lot.

By Katy and Olivia

Well done everyone - Mr. K

We are doing an end of term show it is called Hoodwinked and it’s all about the story of Robin Hood and his merry men.

My character is called Friar Swill. The most embarrassing moment in the show for me was when Finlay took off my habit and I was left in shorts and vest.
by Ruairidh

My character is king Richard the lion heart. The most embarrassing moment was when I had to wear a habit. I looked like I was getting married.
by Martin

My character is Will Scarlet [one of the merry men].My most embarrassing moment was when Me and little John [Cameron] kneeled down to king Richard and Cameron and I ripped our trousers.
by Danny

June is a busy month for nursery. Our pre-school children are taking part in lots of activities to ensure a smooth transition to P1 and have met their new teachers regularly throughout this session. We have our nursery sports days , a teddy bears’ picnic and an outing to East Links Park to look forward to - hopefully the weather will be kind to us!

The morning children have been using the digital camera independently, with some interesting results. I see a great future ahead for some of our budding photographers! A selection of their work can be seen in the parents’ room at nursery.

Finally, I would like to thank all the parents who have helped out in many ways throughout this year. It has been a pleasure to work with the children and see them learn and grow as individuals. I hope everyone has a happy, safe and sunny summer.

The football team were back at HTC this morning, minus the P7’s who were at the Ross High induction day.We were up against some very good teams (some of whom still had their P7s available).  Our first match was against Loretto.  Our boys played some scintillating football and showed great determination in coming back from a goal deficit to win 2-1. In our second game the Law P7’s greater physical presence and ability to substitute tired players (we didn’t have any subs today!) meant we lost. That meant we would have had to win our final game against Longniddry, but despite taking the lead twice the boys began to tire and went down by the narrowest of margins.  So we didn’t qualify for the semi-finals, but thoroughly enjoyed playing at the HTC and are looking forward to next year.  Well done boys, the football you played was great to watch and  your behaviour was a credit to the school. 

Today some of the P6/7 boys attended a football session at the new Hibernian Training Centre just outside Ormiston.The boys were very impressed with the facilities.  Between games they had a coaching session from one of the Hibs training staff - which they thoroughly enjoyed. As to the competition itself, we were drawn in a group with St Mary’s and Kings Meadow primaries.  In the first game against St Mary’s we were fortunate enough to be playing with the wind . The boys played some great football and won 3-0. Unfortunately they weren’t as successful in the second game.  Playing into a strong wind we took a 2 goal lead, however Kings Meadow rallied and eventually ran out 4-2 winners.  The good news is that we still managed to qualify as one of the best runners up and so the team will be returning tomorrow for the finals. Good Luck!

This week has been a really busy week for the Primary 6s because we’ve been to the Science Centre, played a bit of rugby, been practising for our assembly and presenting our assembly in front of the parents, wearing pyjamas. (Annabel, Euan, Morgan, Guy and Lachlan)

At the Science Centre we went to the 3D cinema and watched a film about the creatures of the sea. We had to wear special glasses and you could see the fish coming out of the screen in front of you. We watched a trailer about dinosaurs which looked really good, but terrifying (Samantha, Eilidh M, Robbie, James and Connor)
We went to the lab and were working with DNA to try and find out who had bonenapped Mr Bones (a skeleton) and worked out that it was Kris the Kennel Keeper. We also learned how to take our own finger prints. (Abby, Lucy, Andrew and Jacob)
There was lots of activities in the mall, a giant chess and Connect 4. There was a giant piano that you could stand on and play. There were also giant snails (real ones) and we had fun playing on the spinning tyre. (Cara, Shereen, Rachel L and Lydia)

This week in our rugby training, we were split into 2 teams and played tag rugby. You can see from the photos that we had fun. (Lewis, Emily, Rachel B, Calum B and Mhairi)

For our class assembly we were talking about the Burmese Cyclone. A cyclone is a wind that comes from the Indian Ocean. It is like a hurricaine or typhoon. We sang a song about suffering in the world called ‘Sometimes I wonder - The Suffering Song’. A group of us sang a solo verse. Everyone was wearing pyjamas to raise money for people who have survived the cyclone in Burma. You’ll see how much we raised on the Blog soon. (Eilidh Mc, Adam M, Adam W and Calum D)

During our reading lessons we each have a role to play. We can be the leader, the clarifyer, the questioner, the predictor, the summariser or a reader. How do we feel about that?

Being the leader is fun because you get to tell people what to do just like a teacher. Sam Ramsay

The clarifyer has quite an important role because they have to look up tricky words in a dictionary. Lois Finnie

When you’re the questioner it’s really hard sometimes to think of fat questions. Jamie Wilson

I like being the predictor because you get to look in the crystal ball and guess what’s going to happen next. Isla MacInnes

It’s great being the summariser because you only have to pick out the main points in what’s been read. Hannah Baur

P1/2 have been looking at China, and finding out what life is like for a child living there. As part of this topic we have been learning about the Olympics, and we decided we would have our very own Olympics. So far we have made the medals and the Olympic torch, and we have started practising for the events. We still have a lot to do before the opening ceremony! Watch this space to find out more.

This is the new logo of Pencaitland After Schol Club, which will be on the staff uniforms at the start of the new term.

The club ran a competition for the children to design a logo. This was split into three age categories: P1-P3, P4-P5 and P6-P7. There was a winner from each age group and an overall winner. The competition was judged by Mrs Swinton who chose this as the winning design.

The winner was Erin McLeod from P3. Well done Erin!

In June this year, East Lothian Council, in partnership with Lothian and Borders Police, will be hosting a series of Internet safety and responsible use training sessions for parents with pupils in P5 - S6 across the county. This is in response to growing concerns, expressed by individual parents and parent councils, about how to make sure young people use the internet safely and responsibly. The sessions are also designed to show parents how they can protect their youngsters from on-line dangers.

The training sessions will be led by Ollie Bray (Depute Head at Musselburgh Grammar School) and PC David Gunn from Lothian and Borders Police. Both Mr Bray and Mr Gunn are accredited Ambassadors of the Child Exploitation Online Protection Agency (CEOP).

The training session has already been piloted within the Musselburgh Cluster and received positive response from over 200 parents. The content of the evening includes background information on new technologies and information about computers and mobile phones and the law. But the main part of the presentation involves Mr Bray taking the parents into some ‘real’ social networking spaces that young people use. This includes Habba Hotel, Teenspot, MSN Instant Messenger and Bebo. The session also gives advice on how you can protect your home computer and advice on on-line gaming.

Everybody who attends the training will have access to a comprehensive on-line handout.

The sessions will be held at:

* Preston Lodge High- 3 June 2008
* Ross High - 10 June 2008
* Dunbar Grammar - 11 June 2008
* Knox Academy - 18 June 2008
* North Berwick High - 24 June 2008

All training sessions will take place between 7 - 9pm.

Ollie Bray, Depute Head at Musselburgh Grammar School, says:
‘This is a very exciting time for East Lothian to be leading the way in Internet Training for staff, parents, families and pupils. We are going to use the feedback we gain from these sessions to inform good practice nationally through the Scottish Learning Festival.’

These evenings will start promptly at 7pm and have a limited availability. If you have any queries or you would like to book a place on one of these sessions, please email Tess Watson, (Acting Education Support Officer) at twatson@eastlothian.gov.uk or log onto http:edubuzz.org/blogs/internetsafety

On thursday 29th of May, Richard English the Ranger came in and told us what trees, plants and animals need to survive in the wild. He brought in somew stuffed animals and photos of trees and plants and we discussed what each needed in order to live. He also told us how to care for the envinroment. Then Mrs Thom came in and we all went into the woods. Some of us saw a squirel but then it dissapeard into the trees. Richard then made us build a tree using just ourselves. First some volunteers had to lie down to make the roots. They got dirty ! Then the next volunteers made the trunk. Because the trunk makes the tree strong these volunteers had to pretend to be strong-men. Next some of us had to be capillaries which take water up the tree (they had had make wooosh noises). Others had to be the twigs/leaves and and had to make factory noises as the leaves do lots of  hard work. Finally the last of use had to be the bark - i guess you know what they had to shout !We crossed the bridge and guess what we found? A GIANT FUNGUS! To finish off we used string to connect animails to their different foods and we soon saw how food webs were all interconnected. You should have seen the string at the end. It was so mixed up. It was good to get out of the class and we were so busy we were nearly late for the bell at the end of the day.Hannah S and Isla T.

Primary 6 have been learning to play tag rugby. This week we were getting to grips with the tags and learned to play a few fun games. Next week, we will be using the rugby balls. Watch this space for some more updates.

It is now nearly the end of the session and we need to start thinking about the reps for next session.  All elections will take place next week. 

Some class reps wish to continue for a second session which is OK under our constitution.

Primary 6 and primary 7 classes next session should also elect the ECO reps for 2008-2009.

There shall be approximately 14 members on the Pupil Council.  This will break into 2 sub committees - 1 class rep per class P3-P6 and 8 ECO members.  The ECO members will be elected from the P6 and P7 classes - 2 from p6 and 6 from P7, including two junior road safety officers.

Our next meeting will be a social event to meet the new members.

Finlay Munro

Primary 3 are counting Tesco Computers for Schools vouchers. If you have any could you please send them in as soon as possible.

Thank you.