Our Learning Blog

On Tuesday 4th October Port Ellen primary went to Bowmore on a rugby trip with other schools on the island. First I did tag rugby  and then I did skill practice and then touch rugby and then bull dogs. I learned that no matter what you have to run forward in rugby.  When it was lunch time everyone ran to the grass where our pack lunch was.  I had cheese sandwiches, some crisps, some ribena cartons and a banana. Then in the afternoon we only did rugby and also we got a snack which was a bottle of water and a fruit bar donated by the Islay Rugby club, who also paid for our bus which was very kind.  It was very fun.

This year for the Mod Port Ellen Choir are going to Stornaway. The Mod is on the 19th October. We are going to sing a puirt a bueil, and two unisons. I think we are doing pretty well so far and I am looking forward to the Mod. Some people are doing a solo, poem or a duet and I am doing the three. Soon we are going to have a fundraiser event to earn money for the costs of going to the Mod called the Pre Mod concert, we have to sing at it and some people are doing their solos, poems and duet. I am very excited to go to this mod too and I hope we will win something this year. We are going to the Mod in a short time and hopefully we will be ready for this year! We are against Bowmore Primary choir and many other choirs. We are singing at the Mod because we want to win and show people how good we are. We have learned to control our voice and to sing high and low notes very accurately a good pace when we are singing and learn and read Gaelic and sing Gaelic.

By Rowan and Kaya.

On Monday 3rd October P5/6/7 wrote Mesolithic quest tales for their clans. The clans are Orca clan, Golden Eagle clan, Artic Fox clan and Red Deer clan. Each clan had a different tale to work on and we had to have a hero to overcome a problem in the tale. While writing the quest tale we learned how to add onomatopoeia, personification, similes and metaphors into our writing and include paragraphs. Everyone in each clan gets filmed when they are telling their part of the quest tale.

On Wednesday 5th October, P5/6/7 from Port Ellen Primary School went to Cairnmore woods to live in Mesolithic times. At school we all have four clans, The Golden Eagle Clan, The Arctic Fox Clan, The Orca Clan and the Red Deer Clan. In our clans we got given a leaf and we had to find out what tree the leaf came from and then when we were at the woods we had to find a tree in our clans that aaas the same tree as the leaf. We then made a den at the woods. We made a model of a village for our clan and an actual den. The Golden Eagle clan had a beach tree. The Arctic Fox clan had a sycamore tree. The Orca clan had an oak tree and The Red Deer clan had the ash tree. The Golden Eagle Clan had a tree and they made their den under it and made the model outside. They also had a spy hole where they could see the Orca clan who had a mud trap near them. The Arctic Fox Clan’s base was a fallen over tree that we could get over to get to our den but the rest of our base had a massive mud pile in and we used some of the mud to make our mini village. We did a hunt for sweets, this was to improve our hunter gathering skills. The Orca clan got the most sweets. We also made clay tree spirits to leave guarding our dens.  We had really good fun. We learned to observe objects better than we did before. We hope to go back soon.

On Wednesday 5th October p5,6,7 went on a trip to the woods.  After we had made our dens and completed some challenges we went to have our lunch near the beach.   When we went to the beach Mr Gairns had set up a fire for us to have our lunch round, and we had brought firewood from the woods to put on our fire.  When we had finished all our lunch some of us went to gut some trout so we could put it on the fire to cook and we also got to roast home grown apples as well.  We put the trout and apples on sticks to cook them and when they were cooked they tasted delicious.  We also got to try other Mesolithic foods for our lunch, cockles and nuts.  Not many people liked the cockles but we did like the trout and apples.  It was interesting to see what food would have been like in Mesolithic times.

After we had had our dinner we were going to go on a night trip to The glowing flashing Kelpies. We left our day bags in our rooms. After dinner we got into our groups that we found out when we were on the ferry. We all partnered up and then left to see the Kelpies. On the bus it was dark so everyone was excited because that would mean the Kelpies would glow up. Before we got off the bus they talked to us about being safe they had said to stay away from the canal and watch out for cars also strangers. When we got there we got of the bus and walked towards the Kelpies everyone knew they were huge because they were really big even when we were far away from them. Once we had arrived there was two huge horse heads that were glowing up, they were changing colors after about a couple of seconds. I didn’t know it was going to be two heads I thought it would be one, it was a fantastic sight.

On Thursday 15th September p6/7 from all the schools from Islay and Jura went to Stirling University and while we were there we got to dissect fish. When we were dissecting  the fish I was working with Rowan and we were testing to check the bacteria in the kidney but first me and Rowan had to push away a bubble that was protecting the kidney. After we pushed away the bubble we stuck a plastic stick in the kidney to get a sample of blood to rub it on a petri plate so that when they take it out a warm fridge they would be able to see the bacteria that was in  the fish’s kidney. After we dissected the fish we did a quiz that had nine questions in it and me and Rowan got 7 questions correct and two questions incorrect. When we got back outside we all got tour of the university and we even got to see what the rooms would look like.  After the tour we headed back to the youth hostel.

By Rebecca Morris