Category: Outdoor learning

Posted on

Sea Story P12

This term our topic is the sea!  We went in search of sea creatures at our local beaches and planned in our floorbook.  Breagha had told us she had met a lovely wee fish and some hermit crabs at black rock and would like us to venture down to meet them. We took out friends from ELC with us and found all sorts of exciting things! Unfortunately thought we saw lots of rubbish too and we decided to go back and to clear up what we saw, we know this isn’t good for the marine life so would like to help them out a little.

🌟 WALT find sea creatures and learn about their habitats.

🌟 WALT be concerned about our environment.

Having looked at different varieties of seaweed on another trip we brought some back to school to cook and try! We were all very brave smelling and then tasting sea kelp which we thought was pretty good all things considered…some of us like the crunch and others the salty flavour.

Finally in our Sea Story learning from our Floorbook. You will see on page 16 we have adopted a sea turtle 🐢 as we loved learning about them so much and wanted to do something to support them! We are just waiting our welcome pack arriving!

Posted on

After School Walking Club

Every Monday we get to go to walking club and it is a blast, we get to go on 1 mile walk with our friends and its a great exercise for our legs! Ms Brown and Ms Khan take us up the path near the school.  We can’t walk past a bench at a certain time.  After the walk we get hot chocolate!  This club helps our right to be healthy!

 

Posted on

Harvest Topic

P45 have been doing an IDL this term on harvest.  We looked at harvest from the land and the sea.  We made mini carrot cakes using local carrots, we used the graters and peelers safely and responsibly. 🥕 🥕🧅We are learning to use different cooking skills, and we explored two different methods of cutting using a knife. We made soup using a lot of local produce, grown in Port Ellen.

The children met Fiona from Islay Natural Heritage Trust who helped us forage for seaweed in our local environment. We found lots of seaweed and used a key to identify the species. We then learnt that you can cook using lots of different types of seaweed and we made Carrageen pudding, the seaweed made it go really thick, like jelly! lots of use tried our pudding and some fried seaweed, there were mixed reviews!

🤿 Gordon visited us to talk to use about diving around Islay and Jura for scallops. We learnt about what we can harvest from the Sea. Gordon showed us his diving equipment and even allowed us to have a shot of his goggles!🦞We also tasted a range of produce that is harvested from the sea around Islay. We tasted mackerel pate, scallops and lobster. Laurie’s Dad kindly allowed us to see a lobster that he caught in his fishing boat. Laurie showed the class and talked about what his Dad catches and how the boat catches different shellfish. 🦞After tasting we voted on our favourite food and created bar charts to display our findings.

The children worked hard to create lovely invitations inviting parents to our Harvest Lunch on Wednesday 2nd October and we even wrote our own prayer.  Our invited guests, which included the OAP lunch club, came along to eat the lovely soup and crumble we had prepared with local ingredients.  All the classes performed for them and a great time was had by all!

Posted on

Titanic!

P5 have been learning about the Titanic for their topic this term.  We went to the beach to observe boats by the peer. As we study the Titanic, we tried looking at how we might use perspective to help us draw a boat.  Then we went back in time to try and get a better understanding of what it would have been like to be a passenger on the Titanic.  We listened to a survivors story… it is so interesting! Finally the children braved the weather to set their Titanic models free into the sea. Some were slightly more successful at sailing than others… Everyone got soaked but it was so much fun!

Posted on

Trip to Bridgend Woods

P12 from across the island had a literacy filled trip to Bridgend Woods. What an adventure they had! We loved our trip on the big bus, even if it was a little cosy, meeting all our new friends from across the island and having our yummy packed lunches too! Our focus today was ‘Room on the Broom’ and we began by listening to the story in English and Gaelic. We had a witches cauldron to make s’mores, we had to help find all the characters in the story using a map, scavenge for things in a hunt and even made magic wands too!

 

Posted on

Nature Wands and Sycamores

ELC have been enjoying exploring the different seasons and are beginning to identify the different features of Autumn time as we move in to a new season. We are aware of the different features of Autumn and has enjoyed looking at sycamores and making them fly. We enjoyed going a wee walk this morning to collect some autumn materials we can use to make pictures !🌸 We have also been enjoying learning a song about sycamores.⭐️ ⭐️ I am aware of the different seasons. ⭐️ I am beginning to identify features of Autumn. ⭐️ I can be creative using a range of different materials. 👣We will continue to learn about the different seasons and explore Autumn further over the next term.

Posted on

Snail Fun!

P12 have been doing a Julia Donaldson topic and we went on a snail hunt! This week we have been reading Snail and the Whale and wanted to do some snail investigation. We also were kindly given some snail shells from Miss Clark who told us some super facts about them. You can see our Snail floorbook is full of questions.

Posted on

Endeavour Competition with Kew Gardens

During the holidays we received great news, that Port Ellen were a commended school in the Kew Gardens Endeavour competition!  The competition was to find out about the secret life of trees in your local area and write about them.  P67 had learned about how Islay has actual rainforests! They are some of the last temperate Rainforests in the UK. They visited one of the places at Olistaidh, where they did observational drawings of the trees.  They then researched them and created presentation fact files about the rainforests and where they are.  One of these files are featured on the winners page on the Kew Gardens website.

Posted on

Kildalton Trip

Monday the second of September 2024

We visited Kildalton cross with a few more people following which are 2 people from a computer science university named Saint Andrews and a person from Islay museum.

We and the scientists visited the Kildalton cross because of a school trip to investigate the cross because a fungus called lichen was eating away the carvings of the cross, that was made in the 8th century. The cross is about Christianity and had carvings about a lady holding a baby and had more cravings which looked really interesting which people think is Jesus.

We were split up into groups for different things like, making a little clip about Kildalton, taking photos, drawing anything at the place and 360 degree photo which was really fun because we had to hide from the camera when it takes a photo. After everyone finished each group we went back to the school a few kids that was: Hannah, Brody, Ella and Freddy. Went to take more 360 photos around the school, but unfortunately we couldn’t do much pictures outside because it was raining. But we still had fun! And that’s the end of our amazing and interesting trip Kildalton trip! Hope you enjoyed reading this!

 

 

Posted on

Glasgow Warriors Rugby

On August  the 28th P5,6,7  went to Bowmore football pitch and played rugby with 4 people from Glasgow Warriors. We played a passing game  and after we passed to 4 different people and then make a Pyramid and we had to make it 3 people then 4 and so on and so on  .Then we played a wee game of touch rugby. There were 3 teams blue, orange and non bibs and we had to try and score a tri at the other side of the pitch. We also played a skills game and had to circle the ball around our back as much times as we can, and had to put it through our legs in a figure of eight. At the end we all felt exited because they said they would sign out shirts and it was really good and I would recommend it to people who like different sports and being outside doing sports.

 

Posted on

P12 are Pirates for the Day

Well me hearties, what a day we did have!! Today we learnt to be pirates, we dressed the part, found buried messages in bottles, used maps, followed and created instructions and problems solved to find the hidden treasure! Well done boys and girls, we hope you had a super day! A special thank you to The Copper Still Coffee for being awesome and providing us with our treasure! All part of our explorers topic!

Posted on

Solar Punk Outdoors

P67 have been involved in an Education IDL pilot called Solar Punk this term. THE PROJECT-A challenge to design and brand your unique neighbourhood on an island that is based on the principles of the 15 minute neighbourhood rules and Solarpunk movement.

The children became passengers on a shipwrecked boat and had to work together to create Solar Punk Island, turning a section of the island into their own habitat based on ideas of sustainability.

They created designs for architecture, built renewable devices, learned to filter water, made gardens and spent a day practicing skills in the woods and the beach.  See the video:

 

 

Posted on

School Trip to the Isle of Jura!

On the 14th of September we went on a school trip. We went on The Banana Bus and headed to Kennacraig. As we were waiting for the ferry, we all got out of the car and had a bit of HIIT. With a cool breeze on our faces, we done squats and lunges, which was great fun. When we were on the ferry it was so beautiful, there were dark blue wavy waters, with fish all around. With a bump, we arrived at the pier. It was so fun driving with all the big bumps of the road and the massive stag everywhere. 

When we arrived at the town, the sun was shining like a fireball in the sky trying to set us on fire. When we arrived at Small Isles Primary School, they showed us where to put our stuff and where the classroom was. When we got in, we got to choose where to sit, and they were so kind they even gave up their seats for us to sit in. Not a big class, but they were all so kind. We decided to play a game… It was where you had to walk around the class and when the music stopped you had to turn around and the person beside you must tell you their name and then three facts about themselves (and vice versa). After we done that, we got into our groups that were on the board. The people in my group from the different school were: Grace and Shein. They were kind and had a lot in common with me. Shein was the same age as me and Grace was a year younger than me. We made a hilarious team name; can you guess what it was… THE GREESY BESTIES! Thirdly, we done a team quiz all about climate change and children’s rights. After that, we done a thing where we had to produce ideas to become eco-friendly. Each group produced two ideas to write to the government or Jenni Minto. We all had great ideas. Then for the main event… drum roll please! THE BEACH. We all went for a lovely walk to the beautiful beach. We all sat down and then we heard the teacher shout “The Greesy Besties please come and line up for ice cream,” a smile showed up on our whole team’s faces. We all got our ice cream and went to sit on the beach side. 

We arrived at Jura at about 10:30. It was a fun journey, and we enjoyed it. 

The school was in the middle of Jura, which was a beautiful place. 

Overall, we all had a blast and would absolutely love to go back to the Isle of Jura. 

Rachel Heads 

Posted on

Stickman Wood Adventure!

What an amazing adventure P1,2 had today with our new friends from Bowmore Primary! We had a day filled with stickman activities from raft building to mapping. We loved our packed lunches and were very excited to see what treats we had inside them. We made s’mores and played on the swings. Only a few of us fell asleep on the bus home until we saw a helicopter carrying an electricity pole! Well done team, you were fabulous!

 

 

Posted on

Sunny Beach Morning in ELC

This morning after going on our number walk with primary 1,2 we headed down to our secret beach for some morning snack and play in the sunshine ☀️ we had amazing fun exploring the caves, climbing the rocks, getting stuck in the sand and investigating all the different shells and creatures. ⭐️

Posted on

Weather in P4

This morning, we put out our rain gauges and answered our question from yesterday’s learning – why do we need to measure rainfall? We found out you need to measure rainfall to find out if the climate is changing and when to plant things.  We then began to look at air pressure and cloud formation.

 

Posted on

Christmas Fun in ELCC

We love painting and enjoyed painting a branch outside in the garden this morning, we want to make an outside Christmas tree 🎄. We had lots of discussion about ice and how cold it was in the nursery garden. We decided to make our own ice and added some bits of nature from the garden. Our freezer in the nursery was to small so we went and asked Mrs Holyoke if we could use her freezer!

We also went on a hunt round the village to find the Christmas numbers to 6! Fred knew that number 3 was at the Ramsey and Nola knew that number 5 was at Campbells 🎄 ⭐️ we are learning to notice numbers in our environments and all around us. 👣 We have loved looking at all the house numbers and in the windows, we hope everyone doesn’t mind.

Posted on

The One Show In Port Ellen

The One Show came to film our school because we had won the Pearson National Teaching award for Primary School of the Year.  P5/6/7 were filmed at the woods where we got to do  special activities like orienteering.

We arrived at the woods and got sorted into our clans the clans were MacDonald clan, MacLeod clan, MacKinnon clan and Macrae clan.  Each clan had a teacher and when we went to get the orienteering flag and bring back the answer  from the flag and give it to the teacher the answers were all in Gaelic the clans were split into two groups one group would find the colour one group would find the object.  We thought that going to the woods was really fun.

In the woods we were lighting a fire to cook bread on a willow stick. But we needed to whittle the stick to get the bark off the stick. Then we had to sterilize the stick in the fire and then we put bread dough to cook it over the fire. Then we ate the bread and it was really delicious.  After we got to try light the Kelly kettle with Mrs. Hannett. AND WAS REALLY FUN.

While we were in the woods part of the film crew were in the school filming the other classes do their activities like doing the beach clean.

Once the P567s came back from the woods, we had to get changed a quick as possible because there was a big surprise in the hall.

Once we sat down, we all got ready for the big surprise- We had won the Primary School of the year award!!!  Then Joe (the tv presenter) said that he brought the choir back together without us knowing. The P3 and P4 were practicing their song S’ann an Ilè. But when they performed it, they did it with Skipinnish!

It felt amazing that Skipinnish were here! They sang songs like Walking on the waves. It was so cool! We Thought that it was amazing seeing them that some of us got our t-shirt or jumper signed.  We are really proud of winning the award and had great fun with the One Show!

By James Norwood and Brody Shakespeare.

 

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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 

Posted on

Rock pooling

On Wednesday 7th of September p5/6/7 went rock pooling over the Ard to the  Swan’s pool for our classification topic.

We caught sea creatures; so we caught multiple crabs, a jelly fish,  some shrimp, fish, and a huge fish skeleton.

After that we got seaweeds and the animals we found and identified them using classification keys because we kept them in trays with water in them. The multiple seaweeds were all different colours, shapes and sizes.

After we let them go and walked back over the Ard and went back to school.

By William and Jacob

Posted on

P7 TRIP

As part of their transition activities, P7  went on the bus to Bowmore to do  orienteering with other P7s.

The course was in the high school playground and the football pitch.  You would get a map and a compass  to find a thing that snips your map and it makes a shape.

At the end we were talking and playing on the grass and then went on the bus and went back to the school.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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 😆🐮🐷🐴

Posted on

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 !

Posted on

Rugby Tournament 5 Schools

 

I was waiting for this day for ages! I was so excited. On February 2nd we did a rugby tournament with Bowmore, Keills, Port Charlotte and Jura.

First we all got our waterproofs on so we don’t get wet. When we first stepped on the pitch there was so many people! I only knew some of them. All of our group played a wee mini game to practice. Then we got into teams to play the other schools my heart was racing!

Our class got split into teams first the other team played Bowmore. It wasn’t contact rugby it was were we had a tail and if the other team got the ball we have to pull off their tail for them to pass the ball. The other team of our class got 8-5 Bowmore won. Then it was our turn first they got a goal then we got goal. Over all we got 11-4! I learnt the proper way to throw a rugby ball in that game.

The second game we were ready because we’d already played a game. We didn’t see the other half of the class but against Port Charlotte they got 5-4 to Port Charlotte. I passed the ball a lot then we got… 11-6 to us! We were all super happy. Then we were against Jura I was nervous because we heard that they were really good. We all powered through the rain and tried our hardest. Then the score was 6-4 to them. We were all sad but happy for them.

The other half of the class lost 5-4. Then last of all we played Keils. We were all having fun and laughing its didn’t matter if we lost or won. We played with big smiles on our faces. We won again 9-2! The other team got 9-2 too! Over all we had a great time. We all had yummy Pac lunches half way through aswell.

Report a Glow concern
Cookie policy  Privacy policy