Author Archives: C Capaldi

Wastebusters Science Equipment has arrived!

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The Eco Committee would like to say thanks again for supporting our textile recycling challenge. Last Thursday, Mr Gray from EDF energy led the school in an assembly to celebrate our achievement. He told us where our collected clothes and textiles would go (either to be reused, upcycled or recycled) and reminded us to continue to hand our used clothes into a charity shop or to take them to a recycling bank.

We collected 341kg of textiles and this gave us 13,640 points to spend on Science equipment. The Eco Committee looked through the list and decided on four items:
* A pumping heart model;
* A motorised solar system model;
* A pack of 5 high speed flyer technology kit; and
* A pack of 10 junk boat model technology kits.

We are very excited to start using our equipment!

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Eco Committee – textile recycling update!

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The Eco Committee are delighted to share the news that we collected an impressive 341kg worth of textiles.

This gave us 13640 points to exchange for Science equipment. The Eco Committee met on Wednesday and decided on some interesting equipment and technology kits. All will be revealed at our Celebration Assembly next Thursday.

Thanks again to everyone for all your support…and old clothes!

Science into Schools Textile Recycling

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The Eco Committee have signed up to an exciting programme which lets us swap unwanted clothes and textiles for science equipment and resources!

Today Steve and Kenny from EDF Energy’s Wastebusters programme came to deliver an assembly to the whole school.  They reminded us about the importance of the three Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  They spoke about only buying the clothes we need (reducing); passing clothes onto friends and relatives when we’ve outgrown them or upcycling clothes to make something else (reusing); and finally recycling what’s left.  They showed us a film about what happens at a recycling plant and explained that sometimes our old clothes and textiles can be made into something else and other times clothes can be sent to other parts of the world where they can be used again.

Anyway, now it’s over to all of us!  Every child has been given a bag to take home.  Please fill this bag with any unwanted clothes, bed linen, towels, curtains and paired shoes, sandals, boots or trainers. We can’t accept duvets, pillows, sleeping bags or bric a brac.  Bring the bag into school before 12th February when our textiles will be collected.  Each bag is worth points and the Eco Committee will choose how to redeem these points for Science equipment.

Please support us in our challenge! Thank you.

The Eco Committee

Eco Committee News – Litter Week

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In late October the Eco Committee had litter week and all the classes focused on learning about litter. On Tuesday the school had a litter pick up we collected a variety of different types of litter like crisp wrappers, chocolate wrapper, tin foil, plastic and some weird things in the Woods like a computer game box! On Wednesday we had a no paper day. This was a challenge for the whole school because we had to write on whiteboards, use laptops and find creative ways of doing our work without using any paper!! Thursday the whole school took part in a litter poster competition. There was so many amazing posters. On Friday the classes took part in making models of our own Eco Mascot, Trashy. Through out the week, small groups from the Eco Committee shared fascinating litter facts with all the classes and also the whole school took part in a wrapper-free snack challenge. Here are the results of the wrapper-free snack challenge.

6. Primary 4/5 – 31%
5. Primary 2M – 33%
4. Primary 7 – 44%
3. Primary 3 – 45%
2. Primary 2K – 66%
1. Primary 3/4- 67%

Primary 3/4 and Primary 2K got extra playtime!  Everyone had lots of fun during Litter week and the Eco Committee spent lots of time at our last meeting deciding on the Litter posters that we are going to display around the school!  More information to follow.

By Katie, P6 Eco rep

Litter Week (21st-24th October)

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Here is Trashie, our Eco Mascot. This was the winning design (by Ailsa, now in P5) from our Spring Eco Week.

Here is Trashie, our Eco Mascot. This was the winning design (by Ailsa, now in P5) from our Spring Eco Week.

Our Eco Committee:
Here are the Eco Committee reps for this year.:
Ruby and Dawid – P1, Filip and Rebecca – P2K, Adam and Shane – P2M, Liam and Jessica – P3, Charlie and Scott – P3/4, Ailsa and Chloe – P4/5, Katie and Bruce – P6, Beth and Alex – P7.
At our first Eco Meeting, we introduced our new Eco reps, had a chat about recycling and then focused our attention on Litter Week.

Litter Week:
Litter Week will take place after the October break. We will start with a whole school litter pick up, have a litter poster competition, a recycled art project , do some litter themed Maths and so on. One of the main ways we can cut down on litter is to reduce the amount of rubbish, so we will have a wrapper-free snack challenge where we are asking all pupils to bring either fruit or snack in a tub for their morning snack. The class with the best results over the three days will get an extra playtime on Friday! During Litter Week, we’ll also be thinking about our Eco Mascot, Trashie. We hope to use wrappers and recycled objects to create 2D and 3D models of Trashie.

Litter Pick up:
The litter pick up will take place on Tuesday 21st October at 10am. Please make sure your child brings a pair of gloves that they don’t mind getting dirty. If any parents/carers wish to help us clear the playground and the woods, it’d be very much appreciated. There will be tabards and litter pickers available. Thank you!
The Eco Committee

Measurement in P2M

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In Maths on Wednesdays, we have had lots of fun focusing on Measurement this term.  We have been estimating and then measuring length and weight using cubes, blocks, beads etc.  We compared our heights, hair length and measured our feet and height using rulers and metre sticks.  We even measured the length and width of the netball court using trundle wheels!

In our classroom we have a Post Office role play area.  We can measure the length and weight of parcels as well as writing envelopes, filling in our log book, applying for passports and posting letters!

P2M’s Measurement on PhotoPeach

Transport in the olden days

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transport talkThis morning, Mr Carwell from the Musselburgh Museum came into the P2 classes to talk about transport in the olden days. We looked at black and white photos of all sorts of transport. We saw horse drawn buses and carriages. We saw lots of pictures of electric trams in Musselburgh and pictures of the old depot too. We saw pictures of trams during wartime in Edinburgh and one had crashed because they weren’t allowed lights on. We also saw a tram that had toppled into someone’s garden! Then we saw pictures of old buses and as time moved on we began to see some cars too, although these cars didn’t look like the ones we have nowadays!

Lily – I learned that in the olden days, horses were useful for pulling transport.
Alex – I learned that trams were used during wartimes and that sick people were pulled to hospital in horse drawn carriages.
Shane – I learned that lights needed to be switched off in wartime.
Ada – I learned that the old trams had an upstairs without a roof.
Zac – I learned that sometimes you needed extra horses to pull a bus up a steep hill.

Egyptian Art Portraits in P3

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In P3 our topic this term is the ancient Egyptians. In our art lessons, we have been working Egyptian style portraits. Firstly we looked at examples of ancient Egyptian portraits. We noticed the the tall and decorative headdresses and crowns worn by Kings, Queens and Gods and we spoke about the colour and pattern shown in the paintings.

We started by drawing our portraits, paying particular attention to pattern. Then we added paint and thick black painted lines to make the colours stand out. After cutting out our portraits and sticking onto coloured paper, we finished by writing our own names using heiroglyphs.

We are really impressed with all our hard work and think our portraits look fabulous!

Sustainability Summit

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sustainability summitOn the 5th of June, Chloe and Ailsa from P4, Lucy C from P5, and Niamh H, Abby and Andi from P6 joined Mrs Capaldi at the Eco Summit hosted by Sanderson’s Wynd Primary School.  We listened to talks from some people at the Council who were talking about recycling in East Lothian and got lots of good ideas from the other schools about the things we could do next year in the Eco Committee.  We took lots of notes that we will share with the Eco Committee at our next meeting.  Here we are getting our photo taken Iain Gray MSP, Stuart McPherson and the children from the other schools.  We are preparing a newsletter to share all our Eco successes this year at the moment.  Watch this space for more news!

The Eco Committee