Our Learning Blog

On Thursday 21st of March P6/7’s from every school on Islay and Jura went to Bowmore Hall to dance. We started at 10am and finished at around 12pm. We did the Canadian Barn Dance, Gay Gordans, Mrs McLeod and the Bamkin. We all liked the Flying Scotsman, Strip the Willow and the Virginia Reel. They were fun because they were fast and energetic. It was really fun dancing with children from other schools and we could meet the people we will be going to high school with. Thank you to Mrs Cameron and Mrs Shaw for teaching us all the dances and Bowmore primary for supplying juice and crisps for half time.

By Eilidh and Elinor

This year the whole of Islay are putting together a big thing where all the musical groups on Islay take part, like choirs, soloist and instrumentalists.  the reason this project is taking place is because 2 years ago (2011) the Islay feis done a famous poem by an Islay bard(poet) called William Livingstone, the poem was called The Battle of Traigh Gruinart, a very talented lady called Clare Jordan put the poem to fantastic music. All the choirs will learn the song in different parts , the junior choirs will only learn some parts whereas the adult choir will learn all the songs. It will be very tiring yet very fun and exciting.

On Tuesday 23rd April, Mrs Onions came in and talked to us about art. There was lots of different artists and paintings and we had to look at the styles and textures that the artists used. We researched lots of paintings, then we would pick our favourite one and then we had to choose what we would use to colour our pictures in. Mrs Onions also set out a bottle of wine and a bowl of fruit incase we wanted to pick that for our picture. So we all picked different ones and then we started to colour them in.

Three weeks ago we started making Eco ferries for a competition. We had great time building them. We built four prototypes and four real builds as well. There was two well built boats and two boats that were falling apart. So the two best built boats were altered and entered. One was wind powered and one was paddle and part wind and propeller. They were both made out of recycled materials and glue. Lets hope one or the other wins.  We tested them in the sea.

by Ewan and Cameron

Today we had a glow meet, with our partner school in Delhi in India. We partnered up with P3/4 to ask  children from India three questions. We wanted to find out about their life style, and ask quistions like, have they ever gone camping? Have they been out of India before? What is their living space like?

We found out that they live in three story buildings, their favourite food is burger and pizza, they listen to Taylor Swift and Western music as well as traditional Punjabi music, they like Hollywood films like James Bond and they do a lot of reading.  Our Gaelic folk group also performed their first international concert playing traditional Scottish music.  It was really interesting and next time we hope to do a Glow Meet where we can celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival, together.

Primary 6/7 were learning about  wave power and decided that we would make wave power devices and my groups name was called DUNLLY!!! and we tested it in the sea. Our device had one problem at the beginning of the design, we couldn’t get the LED light to work but managed to problem solve and sandpapered the wires to get the light to flash in the waves. We changed  the light around until we managed to get it to flash, it was really hard to make it generate electricity but we managed it in the end. But I think every group had a problem. When we were making the designs we got better at our communication skills, also there was another group called The DOUGHNUT Device they had a problem it sunk instead of floating, but eventually they made electricity too.