Author: laurahendersonsite

Patients can book appointments online now.

A Mental Health Nurse is working at Kippen Surgery now on a Monday and Friday afternoon and a Physiotherapist on a Wednesday and Friday morning. Patients can self refer.

Dr Annett Schmautz

“Film Night in Kippen” is a fun, social evening featuring Film-Festival-quality short films — usually 8 to 10 films from different genres — specially selected for the Kippen audience.

The evening usually begins at 7 PM at the Kippen Reading Rooms with a social gathering — adult beverages and snacks and good conversation — followed by the film screenings, specially curated for the occasion by Michael Flint.

Admission is free while donations are always appreciated.

The next “Film Night in Kippen” will be on Wednesday, September 4th at 7 PM.

This is definitely an enjoyable evening combining thought-provoking topics with pure entertainment.  It’s a nice mix that appears to keep everybody happy and returning for more each month.

For more information go to www.zshorts.com/kippen or email Mike@ZShorts.com.

Michael Flint

In the previous issue of The Wee Vine, there was a reference to Fore Road having been known as Buchanan Street in the past.  Other than one overprinted photograph, I am informed that there is no evidence to confirm this, and that it has always been Fore Road.  I apologise for the error.

Stuart Thomson

The Spring planting worked well after a cold, wet blustery day planting them up in November. I had w illing helpers (persuaded!) in the shape of Fionna Lindsay, husband Micky, Lindsay Frost and the Clarks from Glebe House. Lindsay produced some extra pots planted with bulbs with the addition of ceramic poppies which looked good on Remembrance Sunday.

Summer planting took place the week before Street Fayre with a more established group of helpers who will also take turns in tending and watering the tubs through the summer. I am most grateful to Fionna Lindsay, Una Donaldson, Wendy Clark, and Sue Bryans for coming on board as the new team.

The collection box in McNicolls was emptied a few weeks ago with over £30, so once again, thank you so much to the village folk who put their change in it. It’s amazing how it mounts up and keeps the kitty flowing.

We need some more sun to bring them on now!

Naomi Hirst

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Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 16th October in the Reading Rooms. All welcome.

Helen Wilson, President

It’s been a busy few months for the children of Kippen Playgroup, with lots of fun excursions and plenty of time out and about exploring nature’s playground.

First up was our annual highlight; a visit to Arnprior Farm to meet the new lambs.  Rebecca and Duncan McEwan very kindly invite us down every year to learn how the farm copes with so many new babies.  It’s always interesting and educational, plus it gives the kids a chance to get up close and personal with the farm’s pet lambs by petting, feeding and collecting hay for the woolly whippersnappers.  We’re incredibly lucky to live in this part of the world, and the Playgroup children benefit enormously from getting regular outings to local farms to learn all about food production and animal care.

After learning the ropes as sheep farmers, the children got back to the serious business of Nook & Cranny Exploration.  The kids take great delight in roaming our countryside collecting sticks, looking for bears, hunting for bugs and splashing in any and every water source they come across.  Readers will no doubt be delighted to hear that on one of their expeditions the children discovered that we apparently have lobsters residing in the frog pond!  Great news for the local eateries, although I’m told they may struggle to find them on their own.  Never fear, we have some diminutive and experienced fisherpeople in our ranks who would be more than happy to explain at length about their findings and point them in the right direction.

It’s not all good news though, it would appear that in a tree hollow down one of the back lanes, the Gruffalo and Dracula himself are shacked up!  Under no circumstances should you approach said hollow, these two are notoriously a bad influence on each other!  Put it this way there’s no scrambling, roasting or making ice cream…the snake, the owl and the Fox were served bleu!  There are also signs of a troll living under the bridge on the way up to Monkey Camp, so stay safe out there Kippenites!

When the children aren’t discovering new, and potentially dangerous, creatures around Kippen, they are up at Monkey Camp or down at the Orchard, drawing with charcoal (mainly on their faces), playing tug of war, climbing trees, concocting potions, painting and hanging out with the baby ducks.  Our Playleaders Morna and Pam do a wonderful job of surreptitiously introducing numeracy and literacy in our outdoor settings whilst letting the children lead the play and make their own discoveries.

Our end of term outing took us to Old Leckie Farm, where farmer Alison showed us around and introduced us to the most dog-like sheep we’ve ever met (Flopsy) and the famous Leckie Layers.  The kids really loved getting their wellies pecked at by so many hens and then helping to collect and sort some of the fresh eggs.  The children also got their hands dirty digging up potatoes and Alison kindly gave each of them a bag to take home, which I can attest to being some of the best tatties I’ve ever tasted!

We wave goodbye to five of our Playgroup crew as they head to school in August, and we wish them all the best for their future and hope that Playgroup has given them a lifelong love of the great outdoors.  As a result of our graduates leaving us for pastures new, we will have spaces available for the new term, after the summer holidays, so please get in touch with Morna via kippenplaygroup@gmail.com to arrange a taster session.  We run Playgroup every Tuesday and Friday (9:30-12pm) during term time, and we take children from 2 up to 5 years old.

It’s also been a busy time at Toddlers, we recently had a theatre group called Calvinball come and perform for us in the beautiful Church grounds, which was lots of fun and the children really seemed to love the interaction with the performance.  We also had Zoolab come to introduce the little ones to lots of creepy crawlies, a couple of rats and a massive snake!  The children absolutely loved it and were far less freaked out than the Mummy contingent. Toddlers is usually less about spiders and snakes and more about cuppas and cakes, so please pop into the Village Hall on a Thursday (10:15-12pm) for less scares and more self-care.  During the summer holidays it’s worth checking out the Toddlers Facebook page (@KippenBabiesToddlers) to make sure we’re not meeting at a park in the sunshine instead.

Kippen Street Fayre was an absolute triumph this year and our Playgroup & Toddlers’ bottle stall raised over £1,100!  It’s a truly amazing total and goes a long way to keep our service running throughout the year.  Not only that, but we donate 10% of our takings to the Over 65’s Christmas lunch, so we hope this means that they have a great start to their wine and nibbles kitty.  All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible generosity of the people of Kippen, and the many businesses, who donated record amounts of bottles this year, and then came and spent some hard-earned cash at the stall.  So, a heartfelt thank you from all the committee and the children of Kippen Playgroup & Toddlers.

Suzanne Lorraine.

Amazonia

On Thursday 2^nd May P1-3 visited Amazonia near Glasgow.  Their topic this term is the Rainforest and the visit allowed them to experience what it would be like to be in the Rainforest. They learned more about the different layers of the Rainforest and animals that live there.  Everyone was very interested in what we can do to help endangered animals.  One of the highlights of the day was getting to hold some real animals.  There was a tarantula, snake, cockroach and tortoise. The animals felt different to hold than you would imagine.  Everyone had a fantastic trip and learned lots of new things about the Rainforest.

“I enjoyed seeing the tarantula and the snake. It felt very weird”.

Jake Dean

“It was fun visiting Amazonia. I learned more about the rainforest.”

Heidi Fielden

“I saw a scary parrot.”

Ruairi Skinner

Primary 1, 2 and 3

Primary 1, 2 and 3 have been learning about the Rainforests in the final term of this year. To celebrate our learning, we ended our topic with a Rainforest Café. We used food that grows in the Rainforest to create a menu for our café. Primary 1 made guacamole, Primary 2 made fruit salad and Primary 3 made fruit kebabs.

We decorated the open area and laid out tables with green tablecloths. All the pupils got to taste all the food and the teachers served some Rainforest Punch. It was a super way to end our topic and everyone enjoyed the café.

“We made guacamole. We mashed up the avocado. Then we put in some cut up tomato and added some lime juice. Later we had it at the café. It was very fun!” (Johnnie P1)

“I got to sit down at a table and eat the fruit kebabs. They were delicious! I also tried dry mango. It was nice but very chewy!” (Macy P2)

“We had a wonderful Rainforest Café. We got to taste all the food we had made when we were done. I had a great time! (Marlie P2)

 

 

P4/5’s Enterprise Project – Sunflower Kits

P4/5 spent some time learning about product design and running a business through the enterprise part of their farming topic. They put together, advertised and sold ‘Grow your own sunflower’ kits, trying to keep these as eco-friendly as possible using what they have learned on the school’s Green Flag journey. They also had a visit from Arnprior Pumpkins, to learn more about how farmers are diversifying and further develop their understanding of the roles and features of a business.

The Sunflower Kits proved to be very popular and sold out, resulting in a profit! £77 was spent on buying bee, bird and butterfly friendly plants for our wildlife corner, and the other £67 went towards subsidising the excellent class trip to the Royal Highland Show.

P6/7 Pop up Carnival

Primary 6/7 had great fun during the Kippen Street Fayre where they created a Pop-up Carnival for visitors as part of their Enterprise and Developing the Young Workforce topic. They devised the games and organised stalls as well as advertising and promoting the exciting games and prizes on offer. The games were: ‘Buy to Burst’ a darts game, ‘Higher or Lower’ a card game, ‘Hoopla’, ‘Beanbag Buckets’ and ‘Shoot to Win’ a timed basketball shooting game (which proved extremely popular, with parents and former pupils competing fiercely for a rather lovely black and gold basketball!) The whole P6/7 class was involved throughout the afternoon, running the stalls and the ticket stand, as well as giving out prizes to our winners.

The class received great support from the Kippen School parents, students and the wider Kippen community. Despite the worries over the weather, we managed to raise over £100 for Contact the Elderly, a charity our class has been collaborating with throughout the year. Our Letter Writing campaign is aimed at combating loneliness in the older generation and the class has been writing to their pen pals over the last year. With the money raised at the carnival, we now plan to hold a Tea Party where we will be able to finally meet our incredible pen pals!

Another Green Flag for Kippen Primary

We were very proud to be presented with our 4^th Green Flag by Eco-Schools Scotland. It is a whole School effort to successfully achieve this award. Well done to the Eco team and Miss Alexander for leading the submission to renew our green flag status and for all of the other responsibility groups for contributing to the submission. The Eco-schools Scotland team commented on the work done with partners (Terracycle, Forth Environment Link, WWF, Burnside Woods and the Marine Conservation Society), the Day in the Woods project, John Muir Awards, the on-site Rag Bag and waste free lunches week. “The Eco-committee and staff appear to be doing a fantastic job keeping the School and wider community informed of the eco work being done via assemblies, Twitter and the Eco-noticeboard”

We celebrated the Green Flag status by having an afternoon of fun outside, clearing and planting in the wild corner, sports and ice lollies on the multi-court and lots of games at the P6/7 Carnival. The houses, Nevis, Lomond and Ledi rotated round the different activities and enjoyed the summer sunshine.

Another Green Flag for Kippen Primary

We were very proud to be presented with our 4^th Green Flag by Eco-Schools Scotland. It is a whole School effort to successfully achieve this award. Well done to the Eco team and Miss Alexander for leading the submission to renew our green flag status and for all of the other responsibility groups for contributing to the submission. The Eco-schools Scotland team commented on the work done with partners (Terracycle, Forth Environment Link, WWF, Burnside Woods and the Marine Conservation Society), the Day in the Woods project, John Muir Awards, the on-site Rag Bag and waste free lunches week. “The Eco-committee and staff appear to be doing a fantastic job keeping the School and wider community informed of the eco work being done via assemblies, Twitter and the Eco-noticeboard”

We celebrated the Green Flag status by having an afternoon of fun outside, clearing and planting in the wild corner, sports and ice lollies on the multi-court and lots of games at the P6/7 Carnival. The houses, Nevis, Lomond and Ledi rotated round the different activities and enjoyed the summer sunshine.

 

Kippen Primary had an exciting and unique opportunity to go and see the archaeological dig taking place at Keir Hill of Dasher on Friday 24th May 2019. Thank you to Mr and Mrs Gaywood for the invitation to visit the site. We were supported by Murray Cook, Stirling Council’s archaeologist, Irene Chapman from Kippen Heritage and David Smith from Stirling’s Smith Museum. Mr Smith delivered a talk in school to all pupils on the morning of the visit and Murray Cook spoke with pupils at the site.

Pupils in P1-5 all walked down to see the dig site in the afternoon. They got to hear about some artefacts found at other sites and see a metal detector in action.

‘I learned a lot, for instance about the magnetism of the metal detector can help you find little balls of silver even if they are rusty or old. It was really interesting to learn about the history of the site and how it could be the site of Scotland’s first church.’ Blake P5

Pupils in P6 and P7 all went down to the site and were able to take part in a dig.

‘I thought it was really good experience to get to do the digging. We found lots of big rocks but nothing of importance. I also thought it was really fun to be allowed to dig.’ Emily P6

Thank you also to all of the parent helpers who helped us take groups of children to the site and back.