Sports Day

For the first time in years sports day was able to go ahead on the date that was planned and we had lovely weather.
The morning section was partly indoors in the arena at the Picky Centre and some activities on the track outside.
Our potted sports consisted of Beat the goalie, Bocchia, javelin throwing and curling. There were parachute games and Westray dodgeball also inside.

bocchia

curling

Beat the goalie

Throwing the javelin

Parachute fun!

Westray dodgeball

Outside at the race track we had some rugby training activities.

In the afternoon it was time for some team competition! There was a great atmosphere of sportsmanship and lots of encouragement from team mates!

flat race

3 legged race

bib, hat and hoop

sack race

skipping race

and the winners are ...
Ayre!
Team captains Ronan and Abbie make their thank you speeches.

Here they are with the trophy.

P7 also had responsibility for helping to organise by running with the scores and returning equipment to the start line - it kept them very busy! 

The fun we had!

I have attempted to make slideshows out of the photos that were taken last week. With 5 different cameras snapping away there is a considerable amount to sort through! Apologies if some of the photos seem duplicated.No fancy editing either I'm afraid - just pictures and music!
I have split the slideshows into activities to make it easier to upload as they would be too big otherwise.

Beach cleaning

During the last three weeks we have all given up some of our lunchtime breaks to go to Scapa beach where we have been helping to clear away rubbish washed ashore by heavy seas and storms.

The beach was littered with bits of plastic, rope, packaging cord and all sorts of assorted 'disposable' items.

Each time we went we found something different! The most upsetting thing was finding creatures that had died and wondering what had caused them to die. Some of us had never seen a puffin before so it was sad that our first sight had to be a dead one.

We came across several birds, a seal and a sheep.

Some of the bits of rope and plastic were buried quite deeply in the sand and it took some effort to get them out.

The boys made a sled with some of the bigger stuff and used it to haul our pickings one day!

Every day we went we half filled the big bin so it was a good feeling to think about how many marine creatures we might have saved and it was satisfying to see the beach looking tidier.

There is still a lot of rubbish along the side of the road so plenty to do yet! I wonder if the council could bring along a machine to scoop it up? I think it calls for some letter writing!

We have had a good response from our posting on the Pick up three Pieces facebook page and all publicity helps.

Follow the link below and if you have a facebook account please like and share the page.

Pick up Three Pieces

Another useful and interesting page to follow is the Orkney Beachcombers page:

Orkney Beachcombing

See some more images of our clean up in the slideshow below.

Steel drums!

This term we are looking at Carnivals and Mardi Gras celebrations around the world. We've been researching the types of music, costumes, feasting and dancing involved.
Last week we visited Papdale School to listen to their steel band and to have a go ourselves. Ms Geddes gave us some music to try on the steel drums and it was amazing how quickly we learned the different parts and put it all together as a recognisable tune.
Have a look at the slide show of us below and watch the video clip to see how we sounded after less than an hour of playing time!

Slide show

Playing our tune - can you tell what it is?

We are making colourful carnival masks in art and will post photos of them when they're finished. 

We learned that certain colours have meaning during the Carnival celebrations so we are making some designs using those colours for a display.

Purple Represents Justice. Green Represents Faith. And Gold Represents Power.

Playground Design

As an introduction to a real life project that we will be tackling soon, we tried out a challenge to design an imaginary playground.
Working in groups we each had an area of the playground to measure. Next we decided on a scale to use for our plans which we were drawing on squared paper.
We needed to design a piece of playground equipment to put in our playground. to do this we used multilink cubes.
The designs needed to be drawn in plan, side and front view.

The Shape of things!

In our maths work this term we are looking at shape, angles and bearings.
We have been making 3D shapes out of different materials and studying their nets. We've counted edges, faces and vertices and constructed skeletons. The hardest part is remembering the names!
Here we are constructing, counting and recording!

We've also been learning to identify and measure different types of angles. Using protractors accurately is a challenge but we were able to use them to work out bearings on maps and for other practical activities which let us see how they are used in real life situations.
We used protractors to make compasses and then tried them out for practical activities in the hall.

Island hopping

Using our bodies to make angles! This is 180 degrees!

How many degrees in this one?

Using bearings to place markers and then name the shapes we made.

Much concentration in evidence for this measuring task!

La Nativité The Nativity Play in French

A very Happy 2013 to all our readers!

Before the Christmas break p7 learned a version of the nativity in French and performed it to p6. We aren't used to speaking French in public and tend to be a bit self conscious yet.
Have a look at the video of the result! 
(As we didn't have much time to practice it is not exactly polished!)

Speedfacting

Yesterday we tried a new way to learn facts. In pairs we read some information about global warming and climate change and chose the main idea from our reading. Next we used the main idea to write our own sentences which we memorised.
We set the tables out so that we were facing each other. we told the person sitting opposite our information and listened to theirs. The inside group moved round in a circle until we had told everyone our facts and listened to everyone else's. A bit like speed dating!
It got a bit noisy! It was however a fun way to learn and we would like to try it again with another topic.

Book Week

On Friday 30th November we invited p1 into our classroom to share our favourite books. Everyone had a buddy and we read our books together. We gave our buddies the bookmarks we had made for them. Everyone enjoyed the session and we all agreed that we would like to do it again sometime. Here is a slideshow of our session.

Badminton

Here are some recent winners of badminton trophies and medals. Well done guys! It's great to see you representing the school so well.

Shelter building and canoeing

We had some preparation to do before we were ready to embark on our outdoor adventure. First we needed to be sure that we could build ourselves a shelter should we need it! We practised in school using modelling materials. We were allowed 15 spills, 1 metre of string, some matchsticks and a bin bag sized piece of plastic. Working as a team, sharing ideas and cooperating was very necessary for success in this task.

We tried different shapes of shelters and used the techniques we learned from Kim Foden's visit earlier in the term.
The next challenge was using real sized sticks and building shelters we could fit into.

See more shelter building photos in the slideshow below.


Now we were ready to try the real thing in the wilds of Harray! The weather was reasonably kind to us although the wind rose a peedie bit and meant we had to keep our canoeing close to the shore.
We managed to build two shelters of different types.

After the shelter building, it was time to get the canoes in the water. When we arrived at Harray loch we had to unload the canoes and learn how to carry them properly down to the water's edge. The Voyageurs in Northern Canada had to carry their canoes and supplies over many miles of rough country and snow. This is known as portage. Luckily we didn't have to carry our equipment very far. We were well dressed for the task with our waterproofs and buoyancy aids.

At last we were ready to launch!

We practised trading goods with our teams at the trading posts.

And all this before lunch!

There are some more images from our day out in the slideshow below:

We had a great day even though we didn't quite manage the campfire building due to time and weather. Many thanks to Ron and Ms Mackay for the experience and also to the parent helpers.