P3/4 have been investigating the microclimate in the school grounds. They used digital thermometers on loan from the Royal Meteorological Society to record the temperatures at different places in the school grounds. It was a great way to consolidate all they had learned about maps as part of their orienteering. They then worked in the group to produce a scientific report complete with prediction, method, results, bar chart and explanation. A great piece of work!
Last week the Eco group decided to do a waste week and try to find out how much packaging  gets wasted at lunchtime in school.
We collected it for only three days.  There was quite a lot and I don’t think that it was very good. I think we should do the waste week again because on Tuesday 15th we collected 650 grams and to me that is very wasteful. On  Wednesday  it got a little better and then on Thursday it was the same as Monday, terrible. Hopefully we might be able to do it again and try to improve and have less packaging that gets wasted.
by Rowan
P567 at Port Ellen Primary have been doing Geology. This includes learning about rocks. So, we learned about how all the rocks are formed. They are formed by a cycle which is the Rock Cycle. There are 3 types of rock groups: Sedimentary rock, Metamorphic rock and Igneous rock. First, little broken up pieces of rocks, called Sediments cement and compact together to make Sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock then heats up and gets lots of pressure building up on it. Then it turns into a Metamorphic rock. Next the Metamorphic rock travels to the core of the Earth and melts into magma. When magma crystallizes, it makes Igneous rock. Finally, Igneous rock then experiences Weathering, Erosion and Depostition. Then the Igneous rock turn back into Sediments. Then, It starts again. The process of the rock cycle takes millions of years to complete. When we were learning about the Rock Cycle, we all made A3 posters and we drew a diagram on the Rock Cycle. I thought learning about The Rock Cycle was really fun.
On Friday the 19 of March all of Port Ellen primary walked down the streets collecting money for Sport Relief, even the nursery. The places they went to ask for money was the park, the Cyber, the Islay Hotel, Lennox Street, the Columba Hall, the whole village streets and the doctors. But before that long walk we sold lots of cake to everyone in the school. The amount of money we raised was £405.17. Well done and thanks.
Mrs Clark has started a club called science club on Wednesdays from 3:30am to 4:30pm. We have done it for 2 weeks; the 1st week we did it we were doing looking for worms for citizen science. The next week we did balloon rockets and the boys won by 2 meters with 1 balloon because we put more air in it for the pressure.
For the Day of Dance, which is when children from other schools come to Bowmore hall and we all do different dances, we have been practicing different dances in partners. We have learned the Dashing White Sergeant and much more. It has improved our level of fitness and we have learned to work together in groups and partners better. We have also improved our listening skills because we have to listen to the teachers so we know how to do the dances.
It is energetic and you can meet your friends and maybe new friends when we practice the dances and go to the day of dance and we will learn and get better at Scottish country dancing.
Struan and Ronan are starting up a new club on a Wednesday and will be taking p 3,4,5. It will be running in the hall and out side when it is nice. Thy are going to be taking them for runs around the school and doing circuit courses in the hall. They are doing it as part of Struan’s Endevour which is fitness. It will be running at lunch time.
The Euroquiz is a quiz about Europe. There are four rounds, Geography, Languages, History and sports. The group of four became a pair because two people were absent on the day which didn’t help our chances. We had one back-up who had been practicing hard with the others but they still needed another person so Kaitlyn volunteered to do it.
The first round was Geography of Europe. Some questions were about flags, landmarks and capital cities. To do this round they had to watch a powerpoint on the big board then they had to write the answer on an answer sheet.
The second round was languages. In the languages round they listened to Spanish, Italian and French. To do this round the teacher would ask a question then they would listen to it in Spanish, then Italian and finally French after that they would translate what the people said in the languages, then they would listen to it again to make sure they got the right answer, finally they would write their answer down on the answer sheet and hand it in to the teacher.
The third round was history. For the history round it asked questions about the History of Europe and some questions were about dates some countries joined the EU and what countries were the first to join the EU.
The last round was about sports. It had questions about sport and where some sports clubs are. To do the round it was the same as the first and the third round just with sports questions instead of geography and history.
The four pupils from Port Ellen Primary School who competed in the Argyll And Bute Euroquiz came 5th out of 5 schools-last! But everyone enjoyed themselves and had good fun.
On Wednesday 16th March all of the p7 in Argyll and Bute went over to the Islay High School to learn about science, because it was science week.
At the High School we made our own crystals and we also had to try and make a light go on by connecting wires. We all really enjoyed the science and we learnt a lot of new things to do with science. The next day in Port Ellen Primary School p3/4 and p5/6/7 invited our parents in to come and see some of the science we had done working with partners.
We set up lots of tables with lots of different activities such as a Islay map where you had to label lots of different rocks, cakes, the rock cycle, volcano, and much more.
It was great fun.
On Friday 4th March our school had a beach clean. The beach clean was for a very special reason, it was because it was the Queen’s 90th Birthday.
The Queen asked everyone to help clean Scotland instead of sending her  birthday cards because that would have meant a lot of stamps! So our school went down to the Co-op beach. The Primary 1s were very excited  was because it was their first beach clean.
I think we made a big difference.
