Our Solar System and PE

Here's the constellation some of us created this week. We wrote a myth about it too - that will be appearing on the blog in a few weeks when the other groups have done theirs.

Abbie got a planetarium and brought it in for us all to see. We enjoyed watching the planets orbiting the sun and we discovered that they stay in the same order so Mercury is always the planet closest to the sun.

The first day the classroom wasn't dark enough to see the constellations on the ceiling, but Mrs Scot held a big piece of paper for us to see the constellations on. Then we got some curtains and put them up and shut the blinds and we were able to see the constellations faintly on the ceiling.

Can you find any constellations in the sky?

We're still trying to look at the moom every night. What shape is it tonight?

Here are P4 writing newspaper articles about the space shuttle. They watched some interviews with astronuats and took notes first. Taking notes was hard!

Here we are doing tennis in PE. We learned how to play tennis rounders!

In RME we've been learning about Hinduism. This week we learned about reincarnation and karma and we made a game. Do you know what karma is?

This was our last week of gymnastics with Mr Berry and we were showing off how much we have improved, especially at balances.

In Golden Time some people were making aliens, others were using the techno lego to build things. We're hoping we get to use techno lego again next week.

Do you like our models?

What would you make?

Lots of fun

We've been having lots of fun again.

Here we are in drama, acting out scenes to show good ways and bad ways of responding to people. We had lots of ideas of good ways to act and we are trying to remember good ways to deal with things in the playground too.

In PE with Mrs MacNab we have started doing tennis. It's great fun!

In PE on Fridays we're doing gymnastics with Mr Berry.

Here we are doing listening skills.

In our topic we've been finding out why the moon looks like it changes shape. Do you know why?

Some people pretended to be the Sun, Earth and Moon so we could act it out.

In our topic we've been finding out about stars and constellations and some groups have made their own constellation and written a star myth about it. Here is one group working with Miss Persidou (who is from Greece).

We made 'pinprick pictures' of 2 constellations - Orion and The Plough - to help us find them in the night sky at home. Do you know what they look like?

In maths we've been working hard at multiplication and division. Here we are doing loop cards and trying to get a new record time.

P4 learned lots of 'magic tricks' to do with the 9x table.
Did you know you can use your fingers to help with the 9x table?

Tables practice - with different people taking turns of being 'teacher' and leading the tables.

P4 were challenged to teach Mrs Scott the 9x table ausing as many 'magic tricks' as possible. How many different ways do you think they used?

Divison is fun!

Fun in Golden Time - blowpainting aliens ....

... colouring in (these are Rangoli patterns. Do you know what a Rangoli pattern is?) ...

... and chess.

Who's winning?

Another fun week in P3/4.

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!

Our land art

Last week we looked at some land art made by Richard Shilling. We're hoping to make our own land art when we do some beach visits next term, but the snow inspired some of the girls and they spent break time making their own land art, and lunchtime repairing it!

Team work.

Reaching high to put the final pieces on.

Look at it - isn't it high?

"It's even higher than Mrs MacNab".

The rest of the class went out to see it in the afternoon when we went out to look at how our shadows had changed.

Snow closures and science

It was a funny week last week. Some days we were at school as usual, one day school was closed because of the snow, and one day school got shut early and we all got home to play in the snow! Even the teachers.

In school we were getting on with our work. Here we are doing spelling and using the dictionary to help us.

In drama we were role playing lots of different scenes (scenarios) where we had to show what we thought would happen next. Then everyone talked about whether the characters had acted in a good way or whether they could have done things better. This helps us to try to respond appropriately to other people.

We got some new games for the smartboard - they're VCOP games and we're really enjoying them. We've only played 2 so far but there's lots more we can try. This one is Victor Van Cleef the Punctuation Thief.

On Wednesday Mrs MacNab took us outside to do music. We loved it! We recorded lots of different sounds that we could hear or make in the snow.

We went into the courtyard to listen to find out if the sounds here were the same as the sounds at the front of the school. It was very peaceful in the courtyard. If we were very quiet we could hear birds singing. We saw a starling on the roof. When we listened carefully and concentrated hard we realised the snow made a different sound when we walked in the courtyard than when we walked on the grass.
Do you know why that was?

We did some science outside too. We looked at people's shadows. They were very long.

We went back outside later and looked at our shadows again. They had changed. We're going to be thinking about this more over the next few weeks as part of our Solar System topic.

We did some other science too. Here we are doing an experiment to try to find out why rockets have to carry oxygen as well as fuel. The oxygen isn't just for the astronauts to breathe - the engine needs oxygen too.

Did you know that? Do you know why?

The Space Shuttle has launched!

Today we watched the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. We saw the crew get ready and get strapped in and then we watched the launch. We wrote newspaper articles about it. We hope you enjoy reading them.


The Endeavour takes off               by Rosie

About half past nine this morning the Space Shuttle went at 1800 miles per hour to the International Space Station. It went to deliver some new things to experiment with. It was going to go a few days ago but the weather was too bad but today the Space Shuttle left. By now it will be there. On it there were five men and one lady.



The Space Shuttle takes off          by Amy

The Space Shuttle is called Endeavour. It took off at about half past nine and it took off in Florida. Then it blasted into the International Space Station. It went to the International Space Station to do more science experiments.


Space Shuttle launch            by Ashleigh

This morning the Space Shuttle took off in Florida. The Space Shuttle’s name was called Endeavour. It was going to the International Space Station. It was gigantic and noisy. They were taking potions to the space station. It was going at 1800 miles an hour. They did a countdown.



Space Shuttle takes off                 by Joe

On Monday morning at half past nine the Endeavour took off to go to the International Space Station to put a new science lab on the space station. It took off from Florida in the United States. It went at 1800 miles per hour.


Off to space                  by Alanah

This morning at half past 9 our time in Britain a space ship was launched in Florida. Florida is in USA, the United States of America. There were 5 men astronauts and 1 lady astronaut. The astronauts are going to the International Space Station to do experiments in space. They counted down from 10 to 1 and after 1 they all said LIFT OFF! The space ship went up to 1800 miles per hour. The space ship was called the Endeavour. The space ship was very very very loud. The space ship is whitey grey and it said United States on it. I think that it was very fun to watch.


NASA Rocket Takes off!                by Molly H

On Monday the Endeavour (one of NASA’s rockets) launched in Florida at about 9:30. We saw a clip on Mrs MacNab’s laptop there was tons of smoke and flames. The reason they went up is to add a new room to the International Space Station. Endeavour took off at 1800mph and to get into their seats the spacemen and women climbed onto their seats and they were lying down but when they were in space thankfully they would be the right way round. There were 5 spacemen and 1 spacewoman. When the Space Shuttle lifted off it made a really loud noise like thunder. I wonder where the rocket is now?