Month: January 2013

Fishing on Islay is a way for many people to make a living normally they catch crab,lobsters and scallops. Its been around for thousand of years. Everyday people are heading down to the pier to go fishing for a living.  Around about 20 big fishing boats are at our piers on Islay.

Farms on Islay contain animals such as pigs,sheep,cows,highland cows and horses. There are many farms on Islay. Cows eat grass,silage and draff; sheep eat mainly grass. All farmers have sheepdogs to round up their sheep if they’re running wild.

by Liam and Connor

At school we learn a language called Gaelic,we know the colours and phrases like “dearg” is the colour red and “madainn mhath” means good morning we are learning the days of the week and the weather and months and the numbers. “Diluain” is Monday, “Dimaiet” is Tuesday, “Diciadain” is Wednesday, “Diardaoin” is Thusday, “Dihaoine” is Friday, “Disathirne” is Saturday and “Diclo’mhnach” is Sunday. We all enjoy learning Gaelic in school,sometimes it can be tricky pronouncing the words and phrases.

On Islay we like to play football which there is 5 teams they are called Port Ellen, Bowmore, Kilchoman, Islay wanderers, Port Charlotte there used to be two more teams called Laphroaig and Ardbeg. Although football is very popular the Scottish national sport is shinty. We too have a tournament and a after school club. Port Ellen have won the tournament several years in a row. In shinty you are trying to hit the ball into the goals with the shinty stick. Shinty is very similar to ice hockey except it is a small round ball not a puck. Shinty can be a dangerous sport so we wear helmets. We also play rounders which is a sport that is like baseball we like playing sports in our school and we have a sports day we also have a sports club that takes place at 12:00 noon in school.

On Islay people do many types of dancing such as- Highland dancing, Step dancing, Country dancing, Ballet, Hip hop and many more. Highland dancing is when diffrent people dance to the accordion or the bag pipes. Highland dancing is known for junior dancers and also grown-ups. There outfit is a short mini kilt and a silk waist coat worn  under a white blouse with black pumps. Highland dancing is one of Islays most popular and known dancing, country dancing is also very common and known in Islay. They also dance to accordion or bag pipes, they uselly dance with a female and a male together. The diffrent names of the dances are called -The Cananadian Barn dance, Flying scotts man, Gay Gordans and lots of diffrent ones. Islay is quite famous for dancing and everyone really enjoys it.

Sometimes a cinema comes to the island. It is called the Screen Machine.The Screen Machine is a portable cinema that goes round the whole of Scotland. It comes to Islay because we don’t have a proper cinema on the island. It’s a van that has a big screen and loads of seats in it so when you go in it feels like a miniature cinema! When it comes it parks outside the Ramsey Hall in Port Ellen but sometimes it parks in the school playground! That means we get to go in and watch a movie with the rest of the school. On Friday we are going to see Arthur Christmas so we’re all really happy and excited. Right now it’s showing  The Hobbit, Skyfall, Paranorman and Arthur Christmas. I really like  the Screen Machine because it feels really weird sitting in a huge van watching a movie.

By Elinor