Today we welcomed 8 children to Tea with SLT. Letizia and Poppy from P2 had both worked hard, Letizia wrote independent sentences and Poppy made a great poster about being a good friend. Lewis produced a brilliant John Logie Baird factsheet, Aoife also from P5 wrote a very descriptive Scottish poem.

Michael was sent down to Tea with SLT after addressing the lassies as part of the P6 Burns supper celebrations and Olivia made a fantastic Burns Supper Invitation. In Primary 7 Milosz was celebrated for excellent descriptive character writing and Rocco was rewarded as winner of the Primary 7 Sumdog Maths challenge.

Well done to all our visitors this week, great work everyone!

On Monday, we learned about the life of Robert Burns and how people celebrate his life today. We then wrote an invitation for our own Burns Supper including information about the traditional food and entertainment such ceilidh dancing. In the afternoon, we learned ‘Strip the willow’. It was great fun and made us feel energetic… but also a bit dizzy!!

On Wednesday, we learned that it’s traditional to do a toast to the lassies at a Burns Supper and a reply. The boys and girls split up and we thought about ways in which we could toast each other in a humorous way! We collated everyone’s ideas and wrote a toast, ready to be presented at the Burns Supper.

On Thursday afternoon, we all wore tartan! We were piped into one classroom where there were tables set and decorated with tartan. Everyone sat down and we watched a video clip about Robert Burns. We then said the Selkirk Grace together. Before we ate, we listened to someone performing the address to the haggis… which was very dramatic! It was then time to eat our braw shortbread and tablet! We washed it down with a wee irn-bru! After that, we listened to some of Robert Burns’ famous poems such as ‘Tae a Moose’.

We were then excited to finally do the toast to the lassies and the reply! Michael Tester confidently delivered a toast to the lassies which was hilarious… before Lauren, Catriona, Daisy, Olivia and Sophie got their own back with their reply on behalf of the lassies!! To end our celebration, we all joined hands and sang Auld Lang Syne!

We loved our Burns Supper!

The P7s have had a fun week directing their learning about America. We have compared some of our similarities and differences with Scotland, the sheer size and different time zones in the USA surprised many of us! We looked into how the ’13 Colonies became 13 States’ and learned some new vocabulary such as Congress, amendment and constitution!

We met our new Italian teacher, Valentina, and had a visit from Edinburgh University and Fife College to deliver STEM activities. Mrs Millar (the physicist) was very passionate telling us about her job working with very big and very small numbers. We learned about aerodynamics in our rocket launching lesson and about the power to move objects using positive and negative charge.

 

Yesterday in P6, we had some visitors who taught us about STEM. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, and is a really important subject to learn about because it helps us to understand how the world works and these skills will be important in our future careers.

One workshop was run by Mrs Miller who is physicist. In groups, we tried to build the tallest tower out of Jenga, realising that the tower had to have a strong and stable foundation. This was challenging because we had a limited number of blocks so had to leave some to build the tower up high. We then had to build a bridge using the blocks too, including a ramp for the cars to go up. We also developed our teamwork skills, because we had to discuss our ideas and then find compromises, and we worked on problem solving too by adapting the structure.

The other workshop was about building rockets, and was organised by Andrew who is an engineer. First, we looked at different types of propellers and motors, including one which was 3D printed. Then we rolled paper round a stick to make a cylindar, then stuck on a cone on top and added fins to the bottom. This made our rockets more aerodynamic. Once we had finished our rockets, we placed them on a launcher which shot air into the rocket when we pressed the pump. This made the rockets fly through the air.

Overall, we had an amazing time! It was so interesting and we learnt lots of new things.

Thank you to Fife College and Edinburgh University for this opportunity.