Farm to Fork

With thanks to the RHET (Royal Horicultural Education Trust) P3 had a busy day yesterday visiting Templehall Farm in Pencaitland where Farmer Barclay taught us all about the animals and crops on his farm. We were learning about the care, hard work and technologies that go into growing our food in Scotland.

Weighing and measuring is very important in farming. In one of the photos you will see us standing on the weighbridge. The weight of the entire group was 1140kg!

Following the farm we were off on a tour of Tesco at Hardengreen, Dalkeith with Claire who showed us what goes on behind the scenes (including a visit inside a huge freezer) to get our food from the farm and onto the supermarket shelves.

 

 

Primary 6 enjoy Games @ the Hub

Primary 6 joined in with Primary 6 classes from across the city to take part in an event called Games at the Hub.  We took part in 3 different sports – Dance, Volleyball and Cricket.  The dance group spent the day learning a fantastic routine which 200 of them performed at the end of the day.  The cricket team played matches against other schools and managed to score 98 runs in their first match!  The volleyball teams played many matches throughout the day and showed great skill and team work.  We really enjoyed taking part in the sports but it’s safe to say we were exhausted by the time the closing ceremony came round at the end of the day!

Happy Hatching

Nursery and Primary 3 pupils have had an exciting time today. We were greeted by three chicks that had hatched overnight and over the course of the morning they were joined by a further three. This is all part of our joint Living Eggs project and we will be caring for them for two weeks. Family and friends are welcome to come in for a look when dropping or collecting pupils.

Here is a little time lapsed video showing our 5th chick hatching. Amazing for the children to see a new life coming into the world.

Some quotes from the children:

I couldn’t believe my eyes when the egg cracked and the chick hatched! –  Chanelle

It was amazing to watch the chick hatching. -Marcel

I felt relieved when I saw the egg shells crack and the chicks hatching. – Natalia

I was speechless when Miss McGregor told us some eggs had hatched – Kayla

It felt like a dream come true. – Lucy

I was amazed when I saw the chicks drying and getting so fluffy. – Dorota

I was excited when I came up to the classroom to see the newly hatched chicks. – Joel

It was emotional when the eggs were hatching. – Olivia

When I first held them I felt so joyful. – Angel

I was excited when to see the chicks. – Albert

I was glad to see them. – Jacob

I was gobsmacked when the chicks were hatching. – Chloe

I was super glad when the eggs hatched. – Demi

I felt so emotional when I first saw the chicks. – Brogan

 

The Nursery and P3 children worked together to make their own hens and chicks.

 

Tick tock – look at our clocks

Primary 3 have been working really hard with their families to design and create entries for our P3 Clock Competition. The standard is high and their imagination and creativity has blown us away yet again! Well done everyone who has joined in.

The clocks will be on display in the P3 classroom all week. Families and friends are welcome to come in and view them either before or after school.

It is going to be an incredibly difficult job judging winners from such a fabulous collection of entries. Here are all the pupils proudly showing off their masterpieces! Which ones would you vote for?

 

 

Big Board Game Day 2018

Today is Big Board Game Day here at St. Catherine’s Primary School. Here we are wearing our favourite colours playng our favourite board games, all in aid of a great cause, the NSPCC. Together we managed to raise £152. Well done everyone!

Step in Time

This term Primary 3 have been learning about telling the time and this afternoon they welcomed parents, grandparents, aunties and sisters into school to see how they have been learning in class. Everyone took part in different activities with the children from making cut and flap clocks, telling the time lotto and digital/analogue games. We started off by teaching the visitors our Clock Rap and some of the children led us in this. Using different voices like angry, posh or silly made everyone laugh.Here is Olivia leading us in silly voices.

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Everyone went home with a bag full of resources for helping to support learning in telling the time. We also launched our Design a Clock Competition – the children are excited about transforming their clocks using their creativity and imaginations. Watch this space for entries in a few weeks time. Thank you to all those who were able to come along and support their child for this event.

 

Children of the Northern Star

Yesterday Primary 3 had an exciting visit to the National Museum of Scotland for a time travelling adventure back to Viking times, 1200 years ago. Their Viking day out began in the theatre where they learned about Viking life in the Orkney Isles. Next they were able to look around the galleries, study a Viking grave and try on some clothing.

Next they moved on the a handling session where each child was able to explore different Viking artefacts. The children really impressed Miss McGregor with all their knowledge, thoughful questions and ideas about some of the interesting pieces.

Finally, after lunch, there was time to investigate some of the other galleries in the museum before heading back to school. Can you spot which one of us was wearing an astronaut suit and who is driving the race car?

World Book Day Bookshop Visit

P5, P6 and P7 pupils visited the Edinburgh Bookshop today to see the FANTASTIC World Book Day display they had created. We created ‘Book Monsters’ which were reading hand drawn copies of our favourite books.

Marie was kind enough to talk to us about her love of reading and to share an extract from Spellchasers: The Beginner’s Guide to Curses. We exchanged our World Book Day tokens for an exciting new book and received some expert advice on choosing our next read. Thank you to Marie & Kate for making us feel so welcome.

A huge well done to all the pupils involved in creating the window display. You did a tremendous job!

Keeping Busy

Here are some primary 3 pupils who kept themselves busy during the recent snow days. Inspired by a book in their Read Write Count bags they built their very own habitats. Here they are pointing out where you can find their chosen habitats on our classroom map.

End of the week update: Well primary 3 pupils have inspired each other and really enjoyed sharing their work. Look how many habitats we had by Friday, ready to share in assembly. Well done everyone!

Day 3 at Ardentinny

There were a lot of tired faces at breakfast this morning after our first full day of activities yesterday.   No time to rest though as all groups were out early to get going with today’s activities.

Walking through the forest, the children had to work as a team to build a shelter. First of all they had to decide on the best place for building their shelter. They then had to find large branches to create a roof in their shelter. This stage required lots of teamwork to carry them as they were so heavy! Once there were enough large branches it was time to find smaller twigs and moss to place on top and seal the roof. The children communicated well and make a shelter to be proud of!

On the way back to the centre we walked along the beach where the children were finding lots of interesting stones and shells. We were especially hoping to fivnd some beautiful pearls inside the shells!

The children are all definitely ready for their warm bowl of soup to heat them up at lunch time!