Day: October 1, 2018

On the 25th of September P6/7’s from Islay and Jura went to Oban for Stramash. Stramash is lots of exiting outdoor activities made for experience and making friends. First we got on the ferry to Kennacraig then it was a long bus journey to Oban. That was when we got to meet the instructors and get told our groups and rooms. Everyday we got told our timetable and on the first day I had cannoeing but the bus was late! The next day sounded fun anyway.

I got up out of bed and was told I had Castle adventure. Once we got there everyone had to say about the sounds around you and how we felt. My group made a very fun mud slide which caused one tragedy later on in the week. Soon after lunch my group had gorge walk. Gorge walk was really cold last year so I wasn’t looking forward to it. First we scrambled into our wetsuits then headed to the gorge. Suprisingly we got to see a red squirell. We also got to float down on our backs. I WAS ABSOLUTLEY FREEZING!

On the 2nd and last full day I awoke very tired. After breakfast my group had climbing and absailing. It came to my mind that it was going to be fun. We had to have a harness and a helmet to keep us safe. Once we got there we climbed on rock then two others. For me the last one was the hardest.

Later just before lunch we got told we were doing coasteering with Adam, so once again we had to clamber into our wetsuits and bouyancy aids. I knew coasteering would be fun because I did it last year. Coasteering was all about going around the coast climbing and then swim a bit.  Last year we got to jump of a rock and I didn’t do it but this year I was determined to jump.

That night the teachers decided to take us swimming, we also went last year but it wasn’t as fun as this year. The swirly flume was amazing and I got stuck in the middle of it but thankfully I managed to get out. Noon came and because it was the last night we had a fire and lots of games at the beach.

Sadly Stramash had to come to an end.  We only had time on the last day to do one activity which was bush craft with Rich. We did bush craft in a woods and got to make a fire. WE ALSO GOT TO TOAST MARSHMALLOWS! After that we had to say goodbye and start heading back to Islay.

Overall Stramash was really fun and I would definitly go back to Oban. My favourite activity was coasteering because you got to jump of a rock.

by Jack

Bush Craft at Stramash

On Tuesday the 25th September p6/7 from the Islay and Jura schools went on an outward-bound trip: Stramash.

One of the activities that we done was bush craft, I really enjoyed that. Excitedly I walked up the path towards the woods with my group and at last we arrived. Our instructor, (Rich) told us to go and find somewhere comfy to sit and listen to everything around us. When we came back down we listed everything we heard; cars, wind, leaves etc.

Later on Rich showed us a feather stick he made because he wanted us too have a go and try making one. All of us were told about the triangle of death, the triangle of death is in between your legs where your arteries are, we were told TO NEVER! cut in-between your legs because if your knife slips out of your hand it could hit your arteries and that could kill you. So that is why you have too always cut at the side of you and away from your body. Soon enough Rich handed out knifes to each one of us, we were all pretty psyched to get too use a real knife by ourselves. When I had a go at making my own feather stick it took me quite a while to get the knack of it but when I did I was all right at it.

Now it was time to make a fire. My partner for making the fire was Ciaran, our fire was the first to get going and I think that surprised both of us. Too make the fire we had too collect sticks, (number ones) and (number twos) were the kind of sticks we had to collect, number ones are small thin twigs and number twos are thicker and a bit bigger. Too test if the twigs were dry on the inside we would snap them and if they made a good noise then we were able to use them.

Finally we were ready to create our fire. Ciaran lit the fire and carefully I laid the number ones on top of it and the number twos width ways, we both also used our feather sticks. Whenever our fire started going out we would use the mats we sat on and blow on the fire with it and me and Ciaran would start shouting “LIFE SUPPORT” whenever our fire died down a bit. As well as making a great fire everyone got marshmallows and got to toast them over the fire and me and Ciaran got one more each than everyone. I felt pretty sneaky about that…

By now it was the end of our bush craft session and I would be able to tell my friends all about my great time building fires and making a fire stick.

By Holly

 

On Friday 28th of September 2 authors came to Port Ellen primary. In p4-7 class the author was called Janis MacKay and she came in and did some fun writing activities with the class. The first activity was we had to continue a part of a book she read called The Reluctant Time Traveler.  After we had written a few sentences we had to pass our work to the person on our right and then they had to right a sentence or 2 but continuing in the same style as the other writer. It was a fun little activity and she told us about how she became a writer and different places shes lived and questions linked to them. She also told us stories about how she was inspired to become a writer and what gave her ideas on what to write about.

On Friday 28th of September in p1-3 they had another author called Alan Dapre and he was talking about his book called Porridge the Tartan Cat.  P1-3 did a little activity where Alan read them a segment of the story then they got to make up their own characters and show what the character was feeling.  For example people drew spotty guinea pigs, unicorns and different patterned cats and things like that.

Written by Orla Campbell