Last Monday Port Ellen Primary School had their swimming gala. A swimming gala is a competition where each and every class takes part in swimming races. Each person races other people in their class. The boys swimming champion was Ross Thomson and the girls swimming champion was Katie Middleton. Orsay came in 3rd, Nave came in 2nd, Texa 1st. Everyone had a great time and had lots of fun.
By Beth
Over the last few weeks we have been doing Scottish Country Dancing , with Mrs Shaw and Mrs Cameron. We have learn lots of different dances such as, Strip the Willow, The Circle Waltz, The Dashing White Sergeant The Canadian Barn Dance and the Bamkin. Everyone had partners, and it had to be boys with girls. My partner was Oliver however, Abbie was with Annie because there wasn’t enough boys, and Emma had Ciara. One of the dances that we found very difficult was The Dashing White Sergeant because near the end of the dance we have to do a figure of eight and many people found this very hard. We are looking forward to the Day Of Dance.
This week is going to be our last week of swimming.  We have been learning all about different techniques to keep our heads above the water. For example we used a techniques called treading water, the mixer and the recovery passion.  We also practised doing a safe entry. A safe entry is when you sit on the side of the pool and then you put both of your hands to one side of you and then twist your body round and slowly release your self into the pool and then swim as carefully as you can over to your casualty.  Last week we were starting to swim lengths. This week we are going to be doing a comic relief day swimming on Friday 13th March.
P7 have been doing a lot of science lately for there topic about water.  They have been learning some very good scientific words. They have been doing experiments using evaporation. Evaporation means a change from liquid to steam or vapour.  They recently did an experiment to make clean water when they put vinegar, flour, sugar, baking soda and water in a cup and mixed it. Then we cut a big bottle in half and placing the cup in the bottom half and placed the top half on and the water in it would turn to steam and go to the side of the bottle and run down to the bottle and sit at the bottom as pure water. They also did another experiment when you put sand, water, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar in a tub and put a cup that is lower than the rim.  Then you cover it in cling film tightly and tape it, then put a small rock above the cup and it will evaporate.  They are all enjoying this topic so far and love the experiments they did.
By Annie & Beth
Wednesday 21st January
We are going to be getting all of our action points done and start them up.
By Annie Farrell
P7 have been learning all about gymnastics and have been doing it for P.E. We have been focusing on four key things : Rotation, inversion, balance and flight. Rotation means rotating round, inversion is upside down, balance is just balancing and flight is when you jump or are in the air. But remember that when you are doing balance you have to hold it for extended period of time. We went into groups and made mini sequences to show our ability to do rotation, inversion, flight and balance. We were moving to the classical music the BBC 10 Pieces program. At the end we had to peer assess and self assess our ability to perform the four key things. We were all very enthusiastic and exited to be able to have an opportunity to learn about gymnastics.
By Jodie and Izzy 🙂
Today Paula from Eco schools Scotland came to see if our we could keep all four of our green flags. She said our school is very tidy and she would like to come again. The committee gave Paula a tour of our school grounds. In the hall we had stuff set up for Paula we showed Paula our Eco power point, some of our old endeavour files and some of our new endeavour files, we also showed her primary one and two homemade paper that they made all by their selves. During play time we had healthy soup and we also had a book swap. We have now found out we have our 5th green flag! Well done Port Ellen!
By Annie and Ciara 🙂
On Friday we all went down to the beach for a beach clean. Â The storms last week had uncovered lots of plastic bags down near the water line but within an hour the beach was looking good again.
P1/2 went round and picked up all the litter from the playground and they made a survey about what they found.
Now the playground is nice and clean. We should all start picking up litter like P1/2. They used some of the litter to make bird feeders
By Elizabeth Macmillan
Primary 1/2 from Port Ellen Primary school made bird food and feeders for the birds as a Christmas present. To make the bird food that they used Lard, seeds, dried pineapple, raisins, mix, the then used pine cone hanging with string to put the bird food mix on it. They then made bird feeders for their food using bottles that were found on their litter pick one day. They made them by putting a hole in the top where they threaded through some string to hang it up. They then decorated it by wrapping a piece of paper around the bottle which let them draw christmas picture using felt tip. It was GREAT FUN! 🙂
