We had a very exciting afternoon, the fire brigade came to see us! We got to use the BIG hose and make our own rainbows with the reflected water. Some of us were brave enough to try on the fire helmet and turn on the sirens!
P12 and P4 trip to the Woods for Orienteering
We have had a fantastic day in the woods as part of our Maths Week Scotland learning. We walked the whole way to the woods, set up our base camp, had some healthy snack and a good explore before getting into our groups. We then had to follow our map to find all the teachers hiding at different points. After collecting all four signatures it was time to head back to base for some lunch and then a trip to the distillery to use the toilets! It was back to base camp for our final mapping activity – a scavenger hunt to collect items to work out our treat…. Thank you to all our grown ups for our yummy lunches and giving us cosy clothes to wear!
Maths Week Scotland
This week is Maths week scotland where every kid in Port Ellen primary school will be doing extra maths themed things. Maths Week Scotland lasts from 26.09.22 to 03.10.22. “Maths week scotland is brilliant and interesting!” says Ellie P5. Maths week scotland is a week where you celebrate the importance of maths. Lots of schools do extra fun maths activities like board games, drawing Infinity tiles and doing sumdog challenges.
In P567 they have been learning about lots of different things like competitions such as the Scottish Maths Challenge and Maths inside. They have done a zoom meeting on Infinity Tiles.
Infinity Tiles are squares where the lines end at the same point every time making a continuous design. They are used in many different types of art, especially Islamic art. They also learnt about fractals. Fractals are never ending patterns like a Sierpinski triangle which is a triangle inside a triangle, inside a triangle, inside a triangle, inside a triangle, etc, etc, etc.
Maths week scotland is lots of fun and lots of kids enjoy it and participate in the competitions. Even though lots of the challenges are very hard, lots keep on trying and get amazing scores!
By Evie
Maths Week Scotland
We were in a zoom call with Maths is Toast and we were learning about infinity tiles. Infinity tiles are things that can go on forever whatever way you put them they will always connect. They got us to learn about angles and different patterns.
We have finished the Scottish Maths Challenge which is what people do every year. We have three question everyone has to the same question and the Scottish Maths Challenge gives out awards like bronze, silver and gold. The questions are quite hard and you have to show your working out of the question but when you actually read the question it’s actually really easy.
This year we are doing the Maths Inside competition. It’s when you take a picture of something to do with maths and you put it on the website and they look at all the maths and the picture. This year there are options like shapes, in the wild and complete the pattern.
There is also a challenge on Sumdog with 1000 questions and all the schools in scotland are competing; it’s just questions like subtraction.
We have also got funding for maths homelink bags from Maths Week Scotland, and we now have lots of fun games we can take home and play to develop our maths skills.
A couple days ago we had a google meet with people that do vertical farming. Vertical farming is when there is a tower with loads of trays in it and a jet of water shoots in the top and there are holes in the trays and the water drips through the holes and there are L.E.D at the top which help with to process of growing the plants and they also grow trees. Instead of green houses.
William says ”I really like maths week scotland and it is very interesting”
By Dylan
Highland Dancing
Highland Dancing is a Scottish type of dancing. Quite a few people on Islay and in other places in the world it is quite common to do it. It can be quite hard to do Highland Dancing if you don’t know how to do it. There are so many different types of dances to learn.
Highland Dancing was founded in the 11th or 12th century and carried on for many years. Believe it or not it is still around today!!
All of Ella Edgar’s dancers ( of which there are many) all did Highland Dancing exams. We all performed a selection of dances which were all in the original order. Sadly the Highland Dancing examiner couldn’t come to Islay because of the weather, so instead we took a video of all of our dances and sent them to her.
There were many different dances we had to learn and perform at the exams, but it is sometimes very nerve racking and scary. You got to dance with 1 or 2 other people on the stage. We did our exams at Gaelic College.
There are a few different types of dancing like Highland, National and a few more. For Highland you have a kilt with a jacket and a white top underneath. For National you wear a white dress with a white skirt underneath and a shash.
‘’ It’s fun and and very enjoyable, and also tiring.’’~ Ayla~ P5.
Rachel
ELCC Worm World
Jimmy’s mum gave us a worm world so we filled it up today with soil and put 5 worms inside from our garden wormery 🪱🪱 We talked about what the worms would do in our worm home and what they could eat 🍃 We will keep an eye on them and keep them in nursery this week then let them go back in to our womery 😄 ⭐️ We are learning about worms and the important job that they do. 👣 Continue to watch our worms and feed them.
Healthy Sports in School
Carpet Bowl
On every Wednesday we walk with Miss Brown to the Ramsey Hall to play Carpet Bowls. Carpet Bowls is like Ten Pin Bowling but you play on a really long carpet. Also, the bowling balls are not round, they are big on one side and small on the other. In the middle of the carpet there is a block of wood. When you throw the ball you need to put the smaller side on the inside and swerve it round the piece of wood. There is then a white ball called the jack. In front of the jack is a line. You have to get the ball as close to the jack as you can, but the ball has to be over the line to count.
Daily Mile
Every morning or afternoon, our class goes on daily miles. On the daily miles some of us run, some walk, and some jog. Sometimes on the daily mile we find different types of flowers, plants and insects. When we find them we then try to identify them.
Bench Ball
Every time we do P.E and it is raining, we would go into the hall and do bench ball. Bench Ball is like basketball but you have someone in your team standing on a bench at the other side of the hall. The aim of the game is to pass the ball, but you are not allowed to move when you have the, to the person on the bench.
By James Norwood
Bee Respectful
What Is Citizenship?
Citizenship is something that Port Ellen Primary have been doing for many years, in recent years of covid the whole school has not been able to do it together. However, in covid times primary 5/6/7 have been doing it in their class by themselves. Just this year, Port Ellen Primary has been able to start doing together again. The school has been split into Citizenship groups, Bee Eco, Bee Respectful, Bee Readers and Bee Healthy. All of these groups are led by teachers of different years in our school, all of the teachers have different groups and are the leaders of the groups.
What Do We Do?
In our Citizenship group, we did a questionnaire and the older students had to help the younger students write down and read out the questions to them. As this was only recently, we went round in a circle and we introduced ourselves to everyone and told them a thing that we like or dislike. We talked about children’s rights and how we should respect them, we went through a slideshow and we had a look at different children’s rights.
Why Is Respect Important?
Respect is important because it is a happy motion also known as esteem. Respect is something that you show to someone or something a feel of happiness, gratefulness, kindness or politeness.
Iona
Bee Readers
We started our citizenship groups today. We met in Mrs Hannett’s class to discuss how we could create a reading culture in our school and wider community. We decided we could start a floor book to keep all of our ideas in one place and use it to take ownership of this area within our school. Today we signed our book to symbolise this as well as working together and being supportive of one another. We worked together to come up with all sorts of amazing ideas to develop this reading culture. Please add comments to this post of anything you at home feel we could do as well as anything you might be happy to help with. 
Bee Healthy Group
On Monday the 26th of September the whole school had the first citizenship meeting of the year. In citizenship there are 4 groups: the Eco group, the Healthy group, Rights respecting schools group and the reading group. In the meeting we thought of ideas for what we could do for our group.
Some of our ideas were to cook healthy food so that people would be encouraged to eat healthy. We might sell the tuck for money so that we can buy more playground equipment.
We are going to make things like smoothies and fruit salads. We will make the in the morning at the first break so you can get some food for your break as well as fruit.
We are going to run sports clubs so that people will be able to have fun while getting exercise from running and it will show people that exercise can be fun. To encourage people to be healthy we are going to make videos on why being healthy is good. To see what game to play we are going to do a survey on what game to play we are going to put games like football, dodgeball and basketball.
By Hugh
Bee Eco Citizenship Group
THE DIFFERENT CITIZENSHIP GROUPS ARE
In school we have been doing citizenship. There are different citizenship groups in school like the eco. I am in the eco group. We make the school more eco-friendly for our environment.
THE THINGS WE ARE GOING TO DO
We do citizenship every Monday afternoon. Mrs Harrison is in charge of the eco group. The things we are going to do for the school is beach cleans, school bee hive, bird houses.
FOCUSES
There are multiple focuses we have to work on in the eco group these are: food and environment ,litter ,climate action and school grounds. Our Eco rules are walk or cycle to school if you can , reduce, reuse, recycle, switch off the light when it’s bright, eat more fruit and vegetables. And there is one more but I forgot what it is. The people who are in the Eco group in p5/6/7 are Jacob, Alfie, James and Ayla.
James likes being in the eco group because he likes helping the planet.
Jacob
CLASSIFICATION
Classification is a method that scientists use to see what a creature is so different types of flowers and animals. There are also different groups. Carl Linnaeus is a famous person who started classifying. When did Carl Linnaeus start classifying? 1758. We started classification on the 8th of september and we went on walks. What did we do? We went rock pooling and found crabs, small fish and more. We found out if they were vertebrates or invertebrates. The topic was so fun and interesting most people liked the topic.
We had to draw pictures to put on our tree or life. I drew a plant thistle, other people drew animals, arachnids, mammals and birds. It was super fun for everyone. There are different categories of animal and they include mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, archnids, annelids, cnidaria, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans and myriapods.
Invertebrate and vertebrates.
Vertebrates have a backbone and Invertebrates do not have a backbone. For example slugs are Invertebrates because they don’t have a backbone and the cheetah is a vertebrate because it has a backbone. The biggest living organism is a fungi called a honey mushroom.
Thomas Edwards
Football Trip
On Saturday the 24th of September Port Ellen football club went to Campbeltown for a game of football and we went with Islay boys as well. Each team got to play two games of football. The scores were 2- 3 to Campbelltown the other scores were 2- 0 to Campbelltown. They won all the games.
We didn’t have enough players so we needed to get some players from Islay boys and people from 2014 and 2012 played with us. I really hurt my knee so Grant needed to carry me off the pitch because I couldn’t walk.
We left Islay at 9:15 in the morning and we got a beacon roll for breakfast on the boat. After playing we also had dinner on the boat.
By Freddy
KATIE MORAG IN P12
P12 are learning all about Katie Morag in their new topic. Here is our floor book so far. After looking at the maps we saw all sorts of squiggles that we interested in. We found out that these were different mapping symbols and so wanted to know what they were and decided we might like to make some of our own symbols for maps…
After looking at the start of our big book we wanted to investigate what a map was. We came up with all sorts of ideas, pirate maps for treasure, maps for new lands, maps to help us not get lost…. We then looked at a series of different maps and discussed what we could see about them. We looked at a map of Scotland, a map of the South of Islay and a map of Struay.
WELCOME BACK
Welcome to the start of a new school year at Port Ellen Primary!
We have some changes this year- we now have 4 classes and a new teacher Miss Tait has joined. She is teaching P4. P12 is taught by Mrs Hannett and Ms Brown, P3 by Mrs Harrison and Ms Brown, P4 by Ms Tait, Ms Brown and Ms Northcote and P567 by Mrs Clark, Ms Brown and Ms Northcote.
We look forward to a great years learning!
Miss Tait Outdoor Learning
SUNFLOWERS AND CATERPILLARS IN P12
We were very excited to receive some classroom pets this term! We have ten tiny wriggly caterpillars we are watching metamorphosis into beautiful butterflies. We’re very much looking forward to watching this process.
We were very excited to see how much our caterpillars had grown after a few days, they’re huge! We’re wondering how long it will be until they go into cocoons? Some of us were also delighted to see that our sunflowers have started to grow! We’ve added another page into our diaries to track their progress. Laurie’s is 4 cm tall already!
Jubilee Lunch
On Wednesday we held a street party style lunch for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. She has been on the throne for 70 years! Mrs Holyoake and Ms Brown provided us with a fantastic lunch which we enjoyed in the bright sunshine despite the midges. Thanks to Mrs Leask, Ms Mackie, Mrs Mcfarlane and Ms Murney for setting up.
Selling at Laphroaig Open Day
Primary 7s helped to sell lots of goods for the parent council at Laphroaig today. They sold tea towels and water bottles and bags. They even sold cakes and sandwiches on the path on the way up! We even had little helpers from ELCC helping up at Laphroaig after nursery today to raise money for the School.
PARENT’S OPEN AFTERNOON AND CELEBRATION
Teaching Award Winners!
Port Ellen Primary on Islay has received a silver award in the Pearson National Teaching Awards for ‘Making a Difference – Primary School of the Year’.
The awards celebrate excellence in education and recognise the life-changing impact that an inspirational teacher can have on the lives of the young people they work with.
Port Ellen received recognition for its commitment to achieving excellence for all, enabling pupils to flourish in an environment that values every child, promotes high expectations and provides opportunities for achievement. The school has now been shortlisted to win one of just 16 Gold Awards later in the year.
Maureen Macdonald, Head Teacher at Port Ellen Primary School, said: “At Port Ellen Primary we endeavour to provide an education that enables all our children, from early years right through to primary seven, to acquire and develop the skills, knowledge and attributes needed to thrive in and to shape our ever changing world.
“We aim to give our learners the confidence to develop and celebrate their individuality and creativity and to help them see their worth and value in society.
“I feel so privileged to work alongside passionate, conscientious staff and so proud of everyone within the school community who collectively support our children to be the best they can be and to realise their potential. That’s what makes the difference!”
Argyll and Bute Council’s Policy Lead for Education, Councillor Yvonne McNeilly, said: “The Pearson National Awards are widely recognised for celebrating the best educators in the country, so it is wonderful news that Port Ellen Primary has been selected for a prestigious silver award.
“Teachers play a vital role in our young peoples’ lives. From their earliest school days right through to their senior years, a good teacher can have a massive impact. They can help young people grow in confidence and, with the right encouragement and teaching methods, they can inspire our young people to achieve their goals.
“I am extremely proud of everyone at Port Ellen for the commitment they continue to provide pupils on a daily basis and I wish them all the very best as they progress through to the gold awards.”
Flying Kites in ELCC
We had a lovely morning in the sunshine this morning. We had our snack at the park then headed down the front beach to measure the wind speed with our new anemometer to see how windy it was to fly our kite.🪁 ⭐️. We really enjoyed using the anemometer and flying the kite, it was a bit trickier than up on our school hill. We will be looking at getting a weather station and learning more about the weather.
Bee Learning in P12
As part of our biodiversity topic we have been learning all about bees in P12. Bees are very important to keep our world healthy as they pollinate all the plants we eat. Fiona from the Islay Natural History Trust came in and told us all about bees and how they live and make honey. We also had a visit from Jacob in primary 5 who is doing Beekeeping for his Endeavour topic and showed us his Bee suit and model hive he made with his Papa. We now know lots about bees!
Plastic Count
In school we are all using a plastic count sheet to tally mark all of the plastic items we throw out or recycle from tonight until Thursday night. On Friday we are will use these sheets to create a class graph of all of the plastic rubbish we have thrown away. This is part of our Eco Schools work to reduce plastics use.
Vets in ELCC
We started to set up our vets surgery today. We have lots of patients in already and lots of resources to make them feel better. We read a story about Mog the cats visit to the vet. We also have a lovely story sack with lots of puppets that goes with a book called Old MacDonald. We sang Old MacDonald had a farm and shared the puppets.
Outside Farm in ELCC
We made our own farmland outside today on the tuff tray. We collected dirt and grass then children decided we needed stones and wood. We added our farm animals and had lots of fun playing in the farmland. Porter thought it was funny when the animals got dirty then jumped into the water bucket for a bath 😆🐮🐷🐴
Before You Pop!
Today P12 have been exploring the Emotion Works blue cog – regulation strategies. This helps us think about what we could do before we explode with anger, sadness or excitement. Things that might help us to calm down. We paired this learning with finding out a little bit about Andy Warhol and the POP art movement. We created fizzy juice cans in the style of Andy Warhol and added thought bubbles about different regulation strategies we could use when we needed them.
Herbal Teas
We have been learning about healthy eating and our senses. After planting our herbs in the garden we decided to make some herbal teas. We had to use our senses to describe what we could smell and we even had a go at tasting the teas. Some people thought some of the teas tasted nice and some tasted yucky !
Mocktails in P234
Today we have been looking at advertising techniques and trying out Keynote to make adverts for our mocktails. This is part of our Distillery IDL. We learned new ICT skills to make an advert.
ELCC COUNTING BUNS
Today at group time talked about what what a certain number looks like. We counted our current buns and found the correct number symbol. We sang the Current Bun song and bought our buns with a penny. We talked about how many were left and how many we had eaten. ⭐️ We are learning about how many are left and identifying the correct number. 🦶 We will continue to play number games and revisit this concept.
P1 TRANSITION VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS
Mrs Hannett is working with ELCC children who are soon going to be going into P1! To help the transition she is making weekly virtual classrooms for parents to share the transition experience. They also have joint sessions so they can get to know their P2 buddies next year. Below is a virtual classroom and a QR code link to the Seesaw post explaining how to use it.
P12 Distilleries Presentation
Yesterday afternoon we presented our distilleries to our class. We needed to think about how we built our model, ensure we spoke clearly and used as much distillery language as possible and could answer questions from our friends. We gave each other feedback on our designs using 2 stars and a wish.
