Telling the Time with P3 and P2/3

20 03 2016

P3 and P2/3 have been playing lots of different time games to help them to develop their skills when reading both analogue and digital clock displays. Everyone agreed that they had great fun learning together!
Time Games with P3 and P2/3 on PhotoPeach




Exploding Drinks and Fizzy Balloons with P2/3 and P5!

11 03 2016

P2/3 and P5 had another morning of science experimentation today when they explored the power of the gas, carbon dioxide…next week we are going to look at the PH scale when we mix acid and alkali materials to learn what happens when two opposites are combined!
Exploding Drinks and Fizzy Balloons! on PhotoPeach




Mandela African Dance with P2/3

8 03 2016

Mandela African Dancing with P2/3! on PhotoPeach


P2/3 enjoyed an afternoon of African inspired dance with Denise, a native South African dance teacher who works with the East Lothian Arts Service. Denise taught the class all about African dances from the past right up to the present day. We enjoyed Zulu Warrior chanting, carnival celebration dances and modern African street dance routines. Denise also shared a very special book that she created with lots of African and Scottish school children which promotes world peace and harmony. We all learned a great deal from Denise and had fantastic fun learning how to dance more energetically and expressively!
Mandela African Dance with P2/3! on PhotoPeach




Football Crazy with P2/3!

8 03 2016

Football Skills with P2/3! on PhotoPeach


P2/3 enjoyed a fantastic football training session learning how to dribble and control the football. We are all looking forward to learning how to pass and tackle each other next!
Football Crazy with P2/3! on PhotoPeach


Our second football session was even more exciting today…we learned how to pass and score goals!
Football Crazy with P2/3! on PhotoPeach


This week we have been learning about how to use power and placement to help us to score goals more accurately. Now are all really looking forward to playing in a mini World Cup tournament for our last training session with Lorna from Hearts Ladies football squad.
More Fantastic Football with P2/3! on PhotoPeach




Celebrating World Book Day with P5 and P2/3

3 03 2016

P2/3 enjoyed celebrating World Book Day by coming to school dressed as their favourite book characters…there was Spiderman, Harry Potter, Charlie Bucket and many other fantastic characters. During Softstart worked with our P5 buddies to complete an extra special World Book Day Scavenger Hunt in our school library before meeting the author of the Princess Poppy books, Janey Jones. She told us all about how to write an exciting book for children. We all felt inspired to write own books after meeting her!
Celebrating World Book Day with P5 and P2/3 on PhotoPeach


Miss Robson also gave us a huge present to open together and guess what we found inside? Some brand new books for our school library! We had lots of fun looking through them and reading extracts to each other before putting them in the library for everyone in the school to enjoy. Now we are all feeling really motivated to read three times every week for ten minutes for ‘Reading is Braw’…Keep reading everyone!
Celebrating World Book Day with P2/3 on PhotoPeach




Reading is Braw with P2/3!

1 03 2016

Reading Is Braw with P2/3! on PhotoPeach


P2/3 had a great morning at the Links Park reading their favourite books as part of the launch of our community wide reading initiative, ‘Reading is Braw’. We all enjoyed reading outdoors and some of us chose to read to each other and share our stories. We are all now really excited and enthused about enjoying lots more books over the next few weeks.




Let’s Get Fizzy Science with P2/3 and P3A.

1 03 2016

Let’s Get Fizzy with P2/3! on PhotoPeach


P2/3 had a fantastic afternoon with Rebecca and Kim from Generation Science today. They were learning more about the differences between solids, liquids and gases before working cooperatively in teams to try out a selection of different experiments mixing different liquids and a special powder with each other to try to make a fizzy gas. Some combinations fizzed while others did not and we all had great fun being real scientists with our special aprons and safety goggles on. At the end Rebecca and Kim made a HUGE explosion which produced a hot fizzing orange gas, it was amazing!
Let’s Get Fizzy Explosions! on PhotoPeach


Let’s Get Fizzy! on PhotoPeach


Let’s Get Fizzy on PhotoPeach




Nocturnal Animals at Newhailes with P2/3 and P2

26 02 2016

P2/3 and both P2 classes had a fantastic time when they went to the Newhailes Estate woodlands to learn more about the different nocturnal animals and birds that live there.
Newhailes Fun with P2/3! on PhotoPeach


Nocturnal Animals at Newhailes on PhotoPeach


Newhailes Adventures on PhotoPeach


Stuart Whittaker, the National Trust for Scotland Ranger, met the children and taught them all about what makes night animals eyesight special. He explained that they have curved lenses which are covered in a reflective film called tapetum. He also showed us bat boxes high up in the trees and described how bats use their senses, in particular their echo location hearing to spot their prey when they are hunting and flying in the dark. Stuart had also set two different types of traps; a paint trap and a sand trap which allowed us to see mice tracks and fox prints. The other trap which he had set up was called a camera trap and you can see some of the photographs from it on one of the slideshows…we think that they are amazing!
Foxes at Newhailes on PhotoPeach


Awesome Outdoor Laerning at Newhailes! on PhotoPeach


Everyone had great fun during the morning break exploring the woods, eating their snack ‘al fresco’, swinging in the hammock, building dens and climbing the rope ladder.
Newhailes Adventures on PhotoPeach


The final nocturnal animal or bird of prey that Stuart introduced us to was the Barn Owl. First he read the story, Owl Babies by Martin Waddell before showing us some real owl pellets that the Barn Owls in Newhailes had coughed up. They were full of mice bones and other delicacies, delicious! Stuart explained that the Barn Owls are protected and had been living in Newhailes for only four years so they are very special.
Nocturnal Newhailes on PhotoPeach


Owls at Newhailes on PhotoPeach


We would like to extend an enormous thank you to Stuart for a really exciting and active outdoor learning experience, one that we will all remember for a long time.




Exploring and Experimenting with Soluble and Insoluble Materials with P2/3 and P5.

9 02 2016

Soluble or Insoluble? Experimenting and Exploring Dissolving with P2/3 and P5! on PhotoPeach


P5 and P2/3 had a fantastic afternoon of science detective work involving lots of experimentation with the aim being to find out which kind of materials are soluble and which are insoluble. An important part of their active cooperative learning experience was discovering what ‘dissolving’ really means and how it is different from ‘melting’. Each group had a selection of cups filled with salt, instant coffee granules, flour, uncooked rice, sugar, gravy granules and sand. They added equal quantities of water to each and mixed thoroughly to make a new solution while watching and recording any interesting changes that they noticed…Which materials do you think we decided were soluble and which did we agree were insoluble? Why not try our experiment at home together to find out for yourself!




Magic Number Games with P2/3 and their P7 Buddies!

28 01 2016

Magic Number Games with P7! on PhotoPeach


P2/3 and P7 enjoyed a fun filled active number learning experience yesterday when they played a variety of addition and subtraction games together. The P7 buddies helped their P2/3 partner try out different methods and strategies for calculations within 20 and even up to 50! It was a really motivational and exciting learning experience for everyone involved.