Scottish Math Challenge

Every year every school in Scotland has an option to participate in the Scottish math challenge spread across the months there is three sets of questions some being harder than others. There are three rewards: Bronze, Silver and Gold. to earn these rewards you need points. Points are collected by getting correct answers and good working out.

In Port Ellen the previous record in the school was one point of gold (set by my sister) but this year I bet that record with getting a gold then i got to go away to get the award.

That means this year had to go away to Glasgow university, we got lost a few times in the car park finding the university and any where else we went.

The awards where great they would pull up a schools name on the board then the students from the school came down but of course there was a math challenge it was pretty easy though. The presenter also pulled up on the board funny answers to the questions that included people who drew or wrote funny things. He even had a little segment where you had to guess where Islay was. I went up got my award got a envelope holding all the bronzes from my school got my mug and sat down.

It was a fun experience and I enjoyed it mostly.

 

 

P7 Trip to High-School

On Wednesday 13th March, All the P7’s from Islay went to the High-School for a science day. There were three classes split up between all the P7’s. Mr Harrison’s class: chemistry. Mrs Moran: biology. Mr kitchen: Science.

In chemistry we had flasks with acid water stuff and different liquids and mixed them, we timed them the more high concentrated liquid the faster it changed colour. At the end there was a big glass vase with water and when we mix it it changed colour.

In Science we used Bunson Burners we connected them to a pipe then turned on the gas and fire came out. We got cabbage and water and put them on top of the Bunson Burners and got the dye and added it to other colours to mix.

In Biology we got taught about algae and made little green balls of algae  and put them in the dark and the light. where they grew the ones in the light grew and the ones in the dark didn’t

over all we all enjoyed it and can’t wait to go to highschool.

Aaron Holes Book Review

Holes by Louis Sachar is a book based about unfair punishments. A boy called Stanley Yelnats is framed for stealing a pair of sneakers he did not steal. He got sent to camp green lake where he gets up to trouble.  I enjoyed very much because of the different types of characters from innocent Stanley Yelnats to the aggressive Warden.

The way the author wrote it it was like two different sides of the book; There was the joking funny sneaky boys then there was the dark side of the Warden and Mr Sir. A easy way to show this is when the boys stole a sack of seeds and Stanley took the blame. Mr Sir got angry and took him to the Warden. The Warden wears venomous nail polish; it wasn’t dry and she scratched Mr Sirs face for wasting her time.

The genre of this book I feel is adventure because Stanley and his freind Zero escape from Camp Green Lake. They have to climb to the top of a mountain. Stanley had to carry Zero to the top. The reason why they climbed to the top is because they believed there was water source at the top. I feel like it is also about freindships, because Stanley has to make freinds with the boys and they all have nicknames: Caveman-Stanley Yelnats, Zero-Hector Zeroni, Xray, Magnet, Twitch, Zigzag, Armpit and Squid they even called Mr Pendanski Mom.

Louis Sachar wrote very weirdly because there was a poem that he repeated over and over in the book.

“If only if only the woodpecker sighs,

The bark on the trees is as soft as the skies.

While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

Crying to the moo-00-oon,

If only if only.”

But he changes the poem each time. He can make the book really tense. Like when the author made Stanley and Hector starving in the desert.

Image result for holes

 

WW100 Display At The Ramsay Hall

This term we have been learning about how WW1 affected the lives of people on Islay and Port Ellen by learning about the sinking of the Tuscania and the Otranto and the lives of the local people at the time.  All through our WW100 topic we have made art work, researched from primary sources of evidence online, imagined letters and put ourselves in the soldiers shoes. The reason for this is that on Friday 4 May it had been one hundred years since WW1 and we had a big remembrance event on Islay.  Everyone around the island came to remember WW100 in Port Ellen. The Islay Quilters had worked with local community groups to make the state flags of the US soldiers who died in the two sinkings, including our school; our class made the flag for the state of Michegan.   The five schools on Islay came together to carry the flags in a procession to the pier and then we put them at the Ramsay hall for display. For the project we used our research to write letters pretending to be one of the soldiers from the Port Ellen war memorial, that we had chosen, writing to their family.   We included the name of our soldiers, any interesting facts, information about family members and their jobs. In the hall there is information about the Tuscania, Otranto, and soldiers that fought in the war. Jack used a map of Port Ellen at the time to show where the soldiers lived.  The art work we did was about the Tuscania and all different things about the war and was mixed media. The other schools also had things on display.  We liked learning about the war and how the war started and how it impacted on people here on Islay.

By Jack and Aaron

Port Ellen Egg Science!

This week the whole of Port Ellen Primary school have been testing Newtons 3 laws of motion with eggs!

The rules work as you have to protect your egg from breaking using resources provided, you have to make 2 things to hold your egg but 1 has to have a parachute and 1 doesn’t and there is prizes for the lightest, the egg that is least damaged and the one that looked the nicest.

We dropped the eggs from a height (The top of our stairs.) Then it will go at a high speed then splat on the floor. This is Newtons first law, The law of Inertia a object (The egg) will stay in motion still unless it is acted upon, the act is the floor the thing thats going to stop the egg so the egg falls down then hits the ground.

Newtons second law F=MA which stands for force= mass acceleration, This one was the most important this was to slow down your craft before hitting the ground using… Parachutes! For the parachutes there is only a few things 1. the bigger the better, 2. don’t make it to big it gets stuck on the stairs and 3. make it out of something light not like card so we used bin bags!

Newtons 3rd law for every action there is a opposite reaction. The egg is falling then it hits the ground the action the reaction the egg goes splat.

The eggs experiment was a great way to test Newtons laws of motion. It wasn’t just a way of testing Newtons laws but every body loved creating there own special device to keep the egg safe it was like a baby and you can’t drop the baby unless you are 5 metres high and it has a parachute.

 

Nuclear energy

Nuclear is a non renewable energy source.

Nuclear doesn’t release any gasses or fuels but if a tsunami happens or a terrorist attacks it,  it will release a lot of bad chemical that can cause global warming it can also kill people and it wont go away for thousands years.

The chemical reaction will cause radiation the parts of it will have to be hidden in a special rock because its the only rock that can hold it with out letting it go this rock has no cracks so it can hold it. This rock is on Islay!

Nuclear is from Radioactive minerals which are uranium they are found by mining. When the minerals are spilt they split in Nuclear reactors.

Nuclear only needs a tiny bit to create a lot of energy, It doesn’t release gasses or fuels.

They are expensive to run, if they leak they can have a massive effect on people.

Biomass a Renewable energy source.

Biomass is a Renewable energy source it is also short for biological material. Biomass creates heat and energy. The energy it contains is from the sun. Biomass is created by burning things like some crops, types of rubbish, manure, scrap and lumber forest in a boiler. The  most common types of Biomass boilers are hot water boilers and steam boilers. Co-firing biomass with coal is a very effective way of using biomass for energy. Biomass is the only renewable energy source that can be converted into liquid. The countries that use Biomass the most are Sweden, Austria, and the United states of America

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P5/6/7s Maths Challange

P5/6/7 in Islay Primary School have entered the Scottish Mathematical challenge for 2016-2017.  The p5 have been finding it challenging to do the maths but are giving it a go. Only some of the p5s have completed the first questions on the paper. P6/7 are a little bit more confident than p5s and most of them did it last year.  It is good to try and work out tricky things in maths.

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