Canadian Day part 2 - parcel & party

For the 2nd part of our Canadian Day we had a nice surprise. When we got back into school after break we found that a parcel had arrived from our link school, Outma Sqilx Cultural School in Penticton in the Okanagan Region of British Columbia. We were really excited!

We took turns taking things out of the parcel. There were lots of things and everyone got some hockey cards, a bookmark and a a flag to take home. The other things are staying in school so other people can see them. There's a toy black bear (there are black bears living near our link school) and some pictures of Penticton and the Okanagan Lakes.

They have a monster in the Okanagan Lake called Ogopopo. It looks a bit like Nessie, the Loch Ness monster from Scotland. We wonder if they're cousins?

There were lovely letters from the pupils too, telling us about what they do and about some of the wildlife they see.

They sent us a big Canadian flag, and small flags for everyone too.

We got the big maple leaf flag put up on the flagpole outside the school. It looked really good - especially with the Spirit Dancer Canadian canoe sitting there too!

Lim Limpt, Outma School!

Last thing in the afternoon Mrs MacNab had another Canadian surprise for us. We had a Candian party! We listened to some canoe family songs and videos and then we had ice cream, waffles and maple syrup (which came from Canada - there is even a maple leaf on the Canadian flag).

Yum yum!

After that, Mrs MacNab told us about the Kwu'sukwna?qinx Canoe Family and the giveaway they did when they left Orkney. They gave presents that were either useful or meant something special. Mrs MacNab played the Kwu'sukwna?qinx Giveaway song and we tried to join in with it, then we all got presents.

Do you think we liked them?

We LOVED our Canadian Day!

Almost the end of term...

We can't believe it's almost the end of the school year already. We'll soon be in P4/5! We met our new teacher this week - it was very exciting because she took us to see some chicks in her classroom. We saw one hatching, and another 2 that were eating food. They were cute.

We're still rehearsing hard for the class assembly.

We've been finding out about how different creatures develop.  We compared orcas, grey seals, bottlenose dolphins and humans.

Did you know that orca calves drink 230 litres of milk a day? We don't think even Reid could manage that!

Did you know that puffins can start having babies when they're only 3 years old?

Did you know that grey seals pups are left to look after themselves when they are only 3 weeks old?

Did you know that female orcas can live to 90 years old?

Did you know that a newborn orca calf puts on weight at rate of 4kg per hour (that’s about 10 tins of baked beans!). By the time a seal pup is 3-4 weeks old it will weigh about 3 times what it weighed when it was born. A human baby will take about a year to weigh about 3 times wat it weighed when it was born.

We found it really interesting that creatures all developed at different rates.

It was exciting at the start of the week because we received some PowerPoints from our link school in Canada. The pupils from Outma Sqilx Cultural School made them to teach us some of their language. It looked really funny and has different letters to English - we had no idea how to say the words but they had added sound files so we could hear them speaking too. Then at the end they gave all the translations.

 

Lim limpt, Outma school!

We've all learned how to say "We are Okanagan" in the Syilx language. Ask any of the pupils and they will teach you too.

We've got some more exciting news about our link with Canada - the Canadian Spirit Dancer canoe is coming to Glaitness to visit us next week. We had a competition to design a piece of artwork to go on the canoe, so that a piece of Orkney will go with the canoe wherever it goes in the world! We're going to paint it on to the canoe soon and will show you more then.

We had fun with parachute games in PE.

Here's the cat trying to catch the mice...

On Friday it was the auditions for "Glaitness Has Got Talent". It was VERY scary performing in front of the whole school. We are very proud that 2 people from our class got through to the final. There are only 8 people in the final, so they did very well. Well done Dani and Kaitlyn!

The final will be next week, so it looks like the last week of term will be another busy and exciting one!

International Education in our class.

We made a display about international education in our class.

We made a slideshow about our display.

Parcel from Canada!

We had something very exciting happen this week - a parcel arrived from Canada! It wasn't from our link school (Outma Sqilx'w Cultural School), it was from the Kwu Sukwna?qinx Canoe Family who visited Orkney last summer. We feel like our link is with the whole community in Penticton which is great.

We were excited to see what was in the parcel and people had turns of picking things out.

There was a book, so that Mrs MacNab can learn all about how the Penticton Indian Band and Syilx people got their own land. There were some cards and photographs of the Canoe Family. We enjoyed finding out who was who, and seeing them in the Spirit Dancer canoe in Orkney as well as in their own canoe in the Okanagan.

There was also chewing gum. We're all quite excited about it! We won't be eating the chewing gum in school but we'll be given it to take home. The chewing gum has pictures from the Winter Olympics on it as they were held in Vancouver, which is also in British Columbia (where our link school is).

We decided to write letters to the pupils in the school. Here we are working on that. We drafted the letters first ...

... then we got out the laptops and typed them so they can be emailed to the school. We hope the pupils enjoy getting the replies to their letters.

We decided to make a display all about International Education and our link with Canada so that everyone else in the school can see it. We put the display up in time for our Mums and Dads to see it on parents' night too.

We chose what went in the display, and even what colours to use for mounting the pictures on. We made a list to compare things we do in Orkney with what the pupils in the Okanagan do.

We like International Education and we're very proud of our display. Mrs MacNab says it's excellent, and lots of other pupils and staff have already been looking at it. Maybe they'll leave comments for us here?

Storytelling

We've been doing some storytelling for our link school in Canada. We've finished the first story - Tam Bichan. You can hear it on the wiki we created to give the pupils in Outma Sqilx's Cultural School information about Orkney.

You can find the link to the wiki in "Class 3/4's Links" on the right of this blog, or click here to be taken direct to the Orkney storytelling page.

We hope you enjoy listening to our story.

We're hoping to add more stories as we get them recorded.

Our box has arrived in Canada!

Our box has arrived in our link school in the Okanagan in British Columbia, Canada. The pupils have opened it and they liked all the things inside it. They left a message for us on our blog here.

They sent us some letters too and we enjoyed reading them. We're hoping to reply to them soon. We found out that they like a lot of the same things as us, but the wildlife they see is very different. They have bears and rattlesnakes!

Did you know they're getting a new school built? We saw photos of the place where the new school will be built. There's wild horses there just now.

Storytelling and a Pyjama Party!

We are working on storytelling and Tom Muir came in to tell us a story. P1 enjoyed hearing him too.

We're working on our own stories now - we'll be recording traditional Orkney tales and sending them to our link school in Canada. We're looking forward to hearing some of their traditional tales too.

When the canoe family were in Orkney in the summer Tom Muir paddled with them in the canoe to Hoy and he told them some stories. They all used to be pupils at Outma Squilx Cultural School. Some of them went to Outma and read the pupils there some stories from Mr Muir's book. We're excited to find so many links to our Canadian school.

We had storytelling in drama as well. Miss Persidou told us a Greek myth. She told us about Perseus and Medusa.

Then we went into groups and acted out different scenes from the story so that we retold the whole story.

In language, P4 had fun making up headlines.

They were enjoying themselves so much that they didn't want to stop for lunch!

On Tuesday we had a pyjama party and bake sale to raise money to send to Haiti to help the children there.

Tuesday was the last day we had to go to school this week as it's the mid-term break now. Have a good holiday, everyone!

Sending our box to Canada.

We've been collecting things to send to our link school in Canada, the Outma Sqilx'w Cultural School. We put in lots of things we thought the pupils there would find interesting or useful.

Our link class is Class 2/3/4. They have 18 pupils in the class (we have 17) and they are aged 7, 8 and 9 just like us. We're really excited about it!

We hope they like the box. We won't write about what's in it as we don't want to spoil the surprise when they get it. We put in a peedie puffin and seal for them. The puffin is called Peter and the seal is called Sammy.

A photographer came from the Orkney Today so our photo should be in the paper next week!

Here we are putting Peter and Sammy into the box.

"To Canada"

We weighed the box before we sent it. Mrs MacNab was very pleased that everyone could tell her the weight using grams and kilograms.

Here is Gary in the school office getting the parcel to post for us. Thank you, Gary!

We really hope that the pupils in Outma are excited too!

Link with Outma Sqilx'w Cultural School

Our class has set up a link with a First Nations school in western Canada. It's a small school for members of the Penticton Indian Band, and is located in the Okanagan region of British Columbia. The school is called the Outma Sqilx'w Cultural School.

Some of the past pupils of the school were in Orkney this summer with their canoe family and the Spirit Dancer canoe. 3 members of our class (and Mrs MacNab) went out in the canoe, and Martyna and Mrs MacNab actually paddled with some of the Canadians who used to go to the Outma Sqilx'w Cultural School!

We listened to a recording of the canoe family singing The Okanagan Song. Everyone liked it and recognised the drums were keeping the rhythm for the singers.

We looked on Google Earth to find Penticton - and we even managed to find the school. Our link school won't be able to see Glaitness properly on Google Earth as there's a big cloud over it! We're going to send them photos and information though.

The 2 schools are on opposite sides of the globe!

When we zoomed in we could see that the nearest big city is Vancouver.

We zoomed in to Penticton ...

... and right in to see the school.

Mrs MacNab is now going to try to add the video of the Okanagan Song that we watched from Youtube. She's not sure if it will work.  Here goes.......




We're really looking forward to finding out more about the school and life in the Okanagan.