Storytelling

We've been doing some storytelling for our link school in Canada.  We've now got 3 stories put onto our wiki - we hope other people will listen to them too, and maybe even leave comments for us here.
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 stories.
 

Rockets and astronauts

We finished our Solar System topic this week. It's been a really fun topic and we've enjoyed it. We really liked finding out about the space shuttle, and this week we made and launched our own rockets.

We made 2 different kind of rockets. The first was blow rockets - they were launched in the classroom. The different fin designs made them fly different distances - and also how hard you blew through the straw! First we laid out planet targets, then in groups we launched our rockets. Everyone got 3 goes and even the staff joined in!

Do you think anyeone's rocket reached Pluto?

Here's a slide show of all of the rockets being launched:



We made other rockets and launched them outside. They used a chemical reaction to make them launch.

First we estimated how high we thought they might go.

Then we set them off. How high do you think they went?

Sometimes when you are doing science experiments it doesn't quite go to plan ...

Mr Scott and Mr Mowat came to help us. They brought a rocket too - how high do you think their rocket went?

We had to stand well back to watch - about 10m away from where it was launched.

Then we did a countdown. 10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1   Blast off!

Look how high it went! Can you see it about the school roof? This is it on the way back down!

Here is a video of the launch.


We also got to try astronaut food this week. It's freeze dried so all of the water is taken out of it and it's very light for the astronauts to take into space with them. We tried cinnamon apple wedges, strawberries, peaches and neopolitan ice cream.



Which would you like?

It was crunchy at first because it was so dry but if you sat the food on your tongue and waited for your saliva to wet it then it was just like eating a normal peach!

We invited 5A to try some because they are doing the Solar System too. Some staff tried some - we're not sure if Mr Geddes likes it...

We've thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Solar System. Hopefully the Coasts topic next term will be just as interesting and enjoyable.

We had a food tasting for Holiday Orkney (lots of lovely local food like bere bannocks, cheese and fish), a food tasting for Ancient Greece (octopus, feta cheese, olives ...) and now a food tasting for Solar System of astronaut food. We're wondering if we're having a food tasting for next term's Coasts topic too ... Mrs MacNab says we'll have to wait and see.

Happy Easter!

Miss Persidou taught us about how they celebrate Easter in Greece. Did you know that they don't roll their Easter eggs - they crack them.

She taught us 2 Greek dances too.

We made Easter cards.

It was our last week of doing tennis in PE.

We finished our Solar System topic this week. We'll do a separate blog entry about that as we had a really exciting week with it!

We started thinking about the coasts topic for next term. We wrote questions that we would like answered during the topic.

Some people want to know a lot!

Do you think we'll manage to answer all of these questions?

Tree planting

Last week we went tree planting at the Peedie Sea.

International Education in our class.

We made a display about international education in our class.

We made a slideshow about our display.

Sport Relief

We've had a really fun day. We started off with the Just Dance challenge on the Wii. We made Mrs MacNab and Mrs Scott do it too. Can you believe it was the first time they have ever had a shot on a Wii? We took about 7 photos of Mrs MacNab dancing! Mrs MacNab says this is the worst photo, but we chose it to go onto the blog because it's funny!

We'll hopefully have a slideshow of more photos from the Just Dance challenge up later.


** NEWSFLASH ** 23rd March. Here is the video now.





We also bought Sport Relief socks...

... and we designed funky socks too.

We don't know yet how much we've raised, but we'll try to post the total when we find out.

Star myths

Our topic this term has been Our Solar System. As part of it we've been looking at the night sky - we've watched the moon changing and we've spotted some constellations, like Orion and the Plough. We made our own constellations and wrote myths to explain how they got into the sky. We hope you like them. Maybe, if you look very hard, you'll spot our constellations in the sky....

Shargeth the greedy dinosaur!

Shargeth was a dinosaur, the only dinosaur left after the snow came. Shargeth managed to find a good enough shelter. He had lots of food but he was that hungry he ate everything. Then he had no food left and he went to bed. When he got up he decided to go out and look for some tasty food but it was all hidden up in the snow. Then he saw the moon. He said “It looks like cheese. Cheese will make a good meal.” Shargeth stood up on his back legs and jumped with his mouth open and tipped up and ate the moon. When he swallowed the moon millions of birds lifted him up to the sky and he turned into a constellation. The moon dropped out of his belly and it managed to escape back into the sky. Now when you look to the sky you can see him still trying to eat the moon with his mouth wide open.

by James, Magnus, Rosie & Kaitlyn

Asim the warrior

Once there was a warrior called Asim. He was a brave and strong man. He won all his battles and he was rich. Then he decided to make an offering to the Gods, a big tree. So he went to cut the tree with his axe. As soon as he got the axe into the tree, it started to fall and the top of the tree got him on the head and he die. Then the Gods decided that he was so nice they took him into the sky and made him a constellation.

by Ashleigh, Joe, Amy & Jessica

The Hero’s Sword

Once upon a time there was a hunter called Linke who saved the King three times. He had the sword since he was 16 and now he is 40. It was a big and shiny sword that could cut through anything except for gold. Once he was hunting a massive monster and he pulled his sword back but the monster killed him. The Gods picked up the sword and threw it into the sky to remind people of the great hunter.

by Dani, Lee, Reid & Ewan

Mariah the Swan

Long long ago lived a swan called Mariah. She was white and she lived in the Peedie Sea. She liked to fly up in the sky. One day she flew up high in the sky. She was so excited that she went so high that Orion the Hunter could see her. Orion thought that she was beautiful and he was lonely so he pulled her up into the night sky and now she is up in the sky beside Orion for us to see her beauty. Every time Mariah had a good thought a shooting star comes out of her eyes.

by Alanah, Abbie, Martyna, Molly & Molly

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?

Fun with science

We had great fun doing science experiments on Thursday afternoon! We were investigating rocket propulsion.

Here we are trying to prove that there was gas being created in a bottle.

We talked about the experiement and then wrote reports on it.

We did drama outside this week. We went into groups and made up plays to show why it's good to be honest, then we acted them in front of everyone in the courtyard. It was fun. Mrs MacNab said that was the best acting we've done yet - we made up the plays ourselves and most people remembered to talk loudly so the audience could hear.

We also did more maths this week. It's getting difficult now. One group were dividing by 3, another were finding out about remainders and the other were using strategies to help them multiply numbers that aren't in the times tables (like 36 or 120). We'll be doing more practice of that next week.

Did you know there's games online where you can practise maths? If you click on the 'Class 3/4's Links' on the right of the blog you can find maths games to play.

In RME we've been doing the Easter story and practising our songs for the Easter performance. Next week we'll be finding out about how they celebrate Easter in Greece, and we're hoping to teach Miss Persidou about how we celebrate Easter in Orkney.