In the afternoon of Wednesday 15th March all the P7s of Islay and Jura all learned about chemical reactions. The chemical reactions that Mrs Moran talked about are; change of colour, appearance of a solid, different temperature- hot or cold, bubbles, sound and it might move around the water. All the P7 went to do science to see what the High School is like and what the science class is like. We learned that if you sprinkle little bits of iron over a flame of fire it will look like sparklers.
Mrs Moran also taught about sodium which is a metal and showed us what it can do. Sodium is a dangerous product and can be very harmful but what it can do looks very pretty. Mrs Moran put a tiny bit of sodium in the water. ” Everyone stand back!” Mrs Moran said. The sodium whizzed about the water, slowed down and created a pretty pinky purple colour in the water it moved around and in a couple of seconds BANG!
By Natalie
P4/5 have been learning about forces for science week. They have also been using science skills like how to test fairly. They tested to find out how the difference in force they applied had bigger and smaller impacts on what they were moving. They measured what they were doing in newtons and the testing was fair and accurate. They built rockets to test which would travel the furthest. They felt that the bigger force would have a better impact because it would make the rocket go further and faster.
They also did an experiment on how far a small car could travel. They had a chair and they had a elastic band. They put the elastic band round the chair legs and then one of them pulled the band back and then the other person put the car in front of the band and then the other person the band go and it shot the car forward. Then they marked down what distance the car had traveled. They then used smaller and bigger pulls on the elastic band to see if the distance would change. They learned how changing the size of a force could change the motion of what they were testing.
The robots were made of Lego but they had a device on them. The device was what made the robots do what it was programmed to do, a micro processor. We had to get a computer then make programs on it. We had to add settings on an app on the computer then make it move forward by clicking a arrow facing forward and then add more setting and click on a stop button to make it stop.
into the computer and the other into the robot. We then had to press a button on the computer to transport the programs onto the robot. Once the robot was programmed you had to take it to a race track to get it tested and if the robot passed the test, you can go onto the next challenge. The next challenge was to make it go forward then go backwards for 3 seconds. We had to make a new setting on the computer which had a backward arrow on it and then make it go backward for 3 seconds by clicking a button and writing 3 seconds down. We then tested it out again on the race track and then we got another challenge.
Today wednesday 1st March I got an email from David Wood about my bird Endeavour, he sent me tracks of greenland white fronted geese. That the RSPB track using tags, he sent me the tracks to show me where the greenland white fronted geese migrate to and I found it very interesting, they fly thousands of miles and they all fly in their families.
We are very happy to have had our Green Flag renewed again. Here is what the report said –
All of P567 have been working hard at the Christmas cupcake challenge making bubblegum, chocolate orange, lemon sherbet and honeycomb flavour cupcakes for their enterprise task. They all look great!
The PPPS which are Matthew, Aaron, Abi, Rowan, Sophie and Kaitlyn are making crafts for Port Ellen’s Christmas fair. We made lots of items and it only took two days to make everything. We made tin cans, star mirrors, taguls and finger puppet nativities. The star mirrors are £1:50 there are 7 of them. The nativity is £2:00 and there is 5 sets of them. The taguls are £1:00 and there are 8 of them. The star mirrors are £1:50 and there are 7 of them. The tin cans are 50p and there 6 of them. We had to create balance sheets and work out unit costs to be able to price our items, to make sure we make a profit.
We have been making things for the Christmas fair. We have made tiles with a map of Islay on it, we have made rainbow coloured Christmas baubles with sparkles and we have made snow globes. We have made a book on an app called book creator on the ipads with the Christmas fair notes on it. We also designed a cupcake for the cupcake competition. We made crunchie flavoured red cupcakes with a Santa hat on them. We have been learning how to make a balance sheet and how to make a chart on excel and we also did market research for the project. I hope everything sells really well.
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.
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.
Today Ellie, Kaitlyn and Sarah found out about the Forth Road Bridge because their class are going to Stirling for an annual school trip. They will be visiting Bannockburn, The Forth Road Bridge, Stirling castle and Stirling university. We found out that over 70,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day and over 24 million vehicles cross the bridge every year. It took around 6 years to build and seven people died building it. On the 5th December 2015 a small 2cm crack was found and the bridge had to be rebuilt. The bridge is 51 years old. It is owned and operated by Network Rail. It is the 4th longest bridge in the world. It is over the fifth of the forth. It cost about £19.5 million. It is Britians first all steel bridge. It used nearly 40,000 tonnes of steel and 125,000 cubic metres of concrete. The designers were Benjamin Baker and John Fowler. They will be visiting it next week, hope they have a great time. By Kaitlyn, Sarah and Ellie<img