Minibeasts Project

During project time on Friday, we played a 'Beetle Drive' to learn about the parts of an insect.  We learned that an insect has three body parts ( a head, a thorax and an abdoment), two wings, two antennae and six legs.

We had great fun playing!

We thought it was funny when we only managed to draw one part ....

...  and even funnier when we didn't manage to draw any!!

Folk Festival concert

On Friday we enjoyed being entertained by the Mick West duo, who are in Orkney for the folk festival.  They sang and played beautifully, and encouraged us to sing along with and do actions to some of their songs.

Primary 3's Assembly

Last week it was our turn to lead Assembly.  The theme of our Assembly was that everybody has special skills of some kind.  We told the story of Sidney Spider, who became very disheartened at the Minibeast Games when he didn't win any prizes.  He watched as Celia Centipede won the three-legged race, Ambrose Ant won the weight lifting, Gerry the Grasshopper was first in the long jump and Wilma the Worm raced ahead of him in the crawling race!  Poor old Sidney didn't think he was good at anything, until there was an announcement to say that a special prize was being awarded at this year's Minibeast Games for the best creation and the award was going to Sidney Spider for his amazing web! 

Well done Primary 3!  You all had special skills of loud voices and great acting at our Assembly!

Epilepsy Awareness Day

Last Wednesday, F. organised an 'Epilepsy Awareness Day' at St Andrews.  Everyone was invited to wear something purple, which is the colour of 'Epilepsy Action', a charity supporting people who suffer from epilepsy and their families.  F. also organised a wordsearch containing words connected with epilepsy.  The prize is a fabulous teddy bear, with the winner being announced next Wednesday. 

  

At our Assembly F. told everybody a bit more about epilepsy.  Well done - we are very proud of you for all your hard work and for being brave enough to speak to the whole school!

Tag Rugby

Last Wednesday we had our first Tag Rugby lesson for this year.  There was very heavy rain first thing on Wednesday but, luckily, it had stopped raining by the time our lesson started, and it stayed dry nearly all the time we were outside. 

It was very cold though, so we enjoyed the warm up games!

Bruce reminded us of some of the skills which we learned last year.

 We practised our passing and catching skills.

Then we finished our lesson with a game of Tag Bulldogs!

Extra break!

We enjoyed an extra break outside during the lovely weather last week!

Some of us enjoyed balancing on the trim track
equipment.

Some of us enjoyed relaxing in the sun.

Others went for a cruise!

Some of us enjoyed skipping with our new skipping rope ......

...... even Mrs Kirkness!

Music

Last Tuesday we had the chance to try out African drums and other percussion instruments during our Music lesson with Mrs Keldie. 

Roots of Empathy

During our Roots of Empathy session last week we spoke about what food babies like to eat and about the importance of staying with a baby while they eat.  We watched baby L. eating a biscuit.

Yum yum!

We also spoke about babies' names and discussed why mums and dads choose certain names for babies.  Some of us knew why our mums and dads gave us our names, and some of us are going to try to find out!

This toy looks interesting ......

...... but not as interesting as this name tag!

Chess winner!

Recently several pupils from St Andrews travelled to Aberdeen to take part in a chess tournament for children from all over the North of Scotland.  One of our classmates was first in her age group and won this wonderful trophy! 

Congratulations - we are all very proud of you!

Gardening

Last week our gardeners helped Conrad prepare the ground, and then plant carrots and onions.  They  also planted tomato plants to be grown inside the school.

Today another group planted beautiful flowers in some of the blue planters around the school.  The school grounds are looking lovely now.  Thank you to everyone for all their hard work, especially Conrad!

Minibeast display

We are in the middle of creating a minibeast display in our classroom.  We have been busy making the background for it and soon we will make different minibeasts to add to the display.

You are welcome to come and see our display once it is finished!

Visit to the pond

On Thursday we also made a very quick visit to the school's pond.  We were very excited to see lots of tadpoles and two small frogs.

Can anybody see any thing?

Look! There's one!

There's more over here!

Wow!  There's lots here too.

We're hoping to go back to the pond soon to do some pond dipping with Lindsey Taylor from the RSPB.  I wonder what other minibeasts we will find?

Outdoor Learning

We carried out an experiment to see which kind of material minibeasts would like best for their home. Last week we placed squares of six different materials ( wood, stone, glass, red felt, clear plastic and black plastic) on the ground in Victoria's Garden and left them for a week.

On Thursday we went back to Victoria's Garden to lift the material and count how many minibeasts were under each square.  We found out that most minibeasts were under the wood, stone and black plastic.  There were no minibeasts under the glass!  We think that minibeasts like dark places best.

Maths

In Maths we have been learning to use Venn and Carroll diagrams to sort information.

We made a Venn diagram on our Smartboard to show how many people in our class were girls and how many people lived in Holm.
We discovered that nine girls in our class live in Holm!








One of the ways we learned about Carroll diagrams was by playing a game called 'Alien Sort', where we had to sort aliens according to different criteria e.g. how strong they were, the food they ate or what special powers they had.

Gardening

Last week some of us helped Conrad with gardening around the school.  We have been preparing the raised beds for planting by removing stones, digging over the soil and making trenches. 

Next week we will hopefully be able to plant some vegetables.  Thank you for all your hard work everybody, and especially Conrad!