Our second attempt at making recycled paper, at the Pre 5 and P1/2 joint session, produced a much nicer looking paper! And the wee ones loved sloshing about in the paper pulp!
Learning about recycling
At the Pre-5 and P1/2 joint session the children were learning about recycling. They sorted materials and decided which could be recycled. They looked for the triangular recycling marks on the plastics and discovered lots of different numbers – because there are lots of different types of plastics. These can all go in our pink recycling bags at home!
Eco Assembly
The new eco committee held their first eco assembly. Eco monitors from each class reported to the school what had been happening in their classes – even our Pre-5 eco monitor who closes the door, switches off the light and helps take the fruit peelings to the worms! The committee shared their ideas for the coming year with the school.
Sunflowers battered by the wind
Our fantastic sunflowers, planted by P3/4 last session have finally collapsed in the wind…..but the Pre-5 unit have saved the heads and the birds are now enjoying sunflower seeds for lunch!
Paper making in P1/2
P1/2 have been learning that paper comes from trees. They found out all about the process that turns trees into paper and thought about what this meant for the planet. They think that we should not waste paper, that we should recycle more paper and reuse our scrap paper, and that people should plant a tree for every tree that is cut down. Here we are turning old newspaper into paper pulp – we enjoyed using the zapper! Our first recycled paper turned out a bit grey but we are going to try and refine our technique.
Bookswap
P1/2 held their first book swap of the year. One of their customers was so keen to get some new reading material that she brought 5 books to swap! Swapping books is great fun. It lets you get new books, which don’t cost anything and you can get rid of books that are too young for you. It is also good for the environment – reducing paper being used, and reusing books. The book swap will run every two weeks but remember to fill in a swapping form first!
The Cheeky Chicks
Mrs Clark brought 5 chicks to the school and a mum called Kracken.
The chicks are all yellow orange and are so cute. The mum’s feathers are crazy and are everywhere but don’t tell her that she is ugly because that will upset her, (she thinks that she is beautiful!) Sadly the little black chick, Smudge, has died due to bad weather and is no longer with us.
The chicks have water food and little crumb things around the outside of their chicken coop that Alicia made for her Endeavor last year and looks beautiful.
The chicks have to go home for the holiday to Mrs Clark’s house in case their food runs low and in case of bad weather.
Hope the chicks have a lovely holiday.
By Izzy
Book Festival
On the 3rd and the 4th of October it was the Islay Book Festival. WE got the chance to meet different authors such as Janis McKay, Barry Huchison, Mavis Gulliver, Dannielle Sacrodotti and Badger the Mystical Mutt. It was really good and we learned top tips on how to start your own novel. We then had a chance to buy these authors books so we could read them.(we also learned that a set of three book is called a trilogy!!!) 🙂
Port Ellen Pre Mod Concert
On Wednesday 8th October Port Ellen Primary Gaelic Choir, had a Pre Mod Concert with lots of sing and poetry recitals plus lots of Gaelic and music. That evening we had fiddlers whistlers and accordionists, and best of all lovely home baking and tea, along side a big raffle with lots of Islay whiskey and prizes.
At the end we sang Fama Clamosa with a big last song sorry life, and that night =The Best Concert Ever!!!!! 🙂
Mrs Regli
A teacher from Switzerland came to Port Ellen Primary School. She has been here for 3 weeks, but sadly she is leaving on Sunday 
Mrs Regli has been so much fun and she is great when it comes to music. She helps us with everything. She came with us to the Islay Life Museum and to Port Charlotte. Mrs Regli makes sure that everyone is working hard and not chatting. For her leaving, the class has given her presents and cards made by us. When she is teaching us music, she teaches us Swiss-German songs, a french song and an English song and we play a game called Peter called Paul and an animal version of it.
The whole class is sad that she is leaving but are very happy and grateful that she came and will hopefully come back.
Bye-Bye Mrs Regli :’(
By Abbie and Izzy 
Commonwealth War Graves Commision Ceremony
On Tuesday P7 of port Ellen primary school went to an opening of the the commonwealth war graves information board at Kilnaughton. We went there because there are doing a topic on WWI and we were asked to put crosses on the graves. They put up a plaque to tell you about the people that served on the Tuscania and died in 1918. I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. Heres a little fact: the Tuscania was 175 meters long, nearly the size of the Titanic.
The New Eco Committee
Last week we had some interviews to see who would be our new committee. If we wanted to become part of the committee we had to fill in an application and say what we wanted to be and why we wanted to be part of the eco committee. So now we have chosen our committee we can tell you.
Chairperson- Oliver
secretary- Annie
Media managers- Ciara and Mirren
Treasurer- Torin
Fundraiser- Anwen
P1/2 eco monitors- Katherine and Scott
P3/4 eco minitors- Rebecca and Mathew
P5/6 eco minitors- Jasmine and Eva
On the 24th of november we will be getting assessed by the green flag committee.
By Annie Farrell
My great great grandpa’s war memories.
I have been researching on my great grate grandpa because he was involed in world war one. In world war one he had sent post cards talking about how life in the trench was and what it was like training. All the post cards were sent to his wife Jenny and her children. The day that he comes home his wife and family are waiting at the door for him to come in. when he does come in hes boucing around happy that he is not dead at least that what my granny said. A few years later whilst playing golf he contracted phmonia and died. he was born in 1893 and died 1930.
By Emma and Nicholas
The Islay Museum Visit
On Thursday 2nd October we went to the Islay museum to learn about WW1 for our topic. I found out about what life was like living on Islay, there were lots of amazing artefacts to look at. While I was there I learnt about all the people from Islay who went to war, I also found out about a nurse who was sent to the Somme, it was very generous of the people at the museum to let us come I had a great day.
By Torin
P3/4 Harvest assembly
On Wedensday 8th October p3/4 held a harvest assembly for parents and the rest of the school to watch. A week before the harvest assembly we collected lots of harvest gifts for the old. We do this every year and everyone puts in a tin of food and lots of other things in. When all the food was collected they started their Harvest Assembly which was called the little black cloud. Ellen was the little black cloud. It was about a little black cloud who was trying to help by watering everything but everyone was unhappy but at the end the farmers needed the water for the plants and then the cloud was happy again. The moral of this story is that everyone has different points of view. It linked to harvest because when they watered the plants they could use the food as harvest food! We interviewed Abi and Jack they were very kind to let us do this. They both said that they were very nervous at first but they really enjoyed it in the end. Abi was a narrator which she was very good at and Jack was a builder and he was good as well.
By Emily and Jodie 🙂
Team games with P6/7 from Port Charlotte Primary School
Yesterday we went to Port Charlotte Primary School to do some team games and bond with some of the P6/7s there. When we got there we had a chance to get to know the P6/7s better. After our long break we had lunch inside the school and went back out to have lunch break. Then at last we finally started team games, I was in a team with Annie, Jodie, Seumas and Mohit. We worked great as a group and won the game with 44 points. I had great fun and can’t wait to do something like that again.
Helping your kids recognise unhealthy relationships – on and offline
How can your child spot relationships that are going to hurt them? Read our parent guide to abusive relationships and what to do about them
Three tips for raising a child with a healthy body image
Being positive about eating and what people look like (and yes, we’re afraid that means your own body, too) can make an enormous difference to how your child feels about their own appearance. Here are our guidelines for what (and what not) to do.
Three tips for starting a difficult conversation with your child
Sex, drugs, internet porn – no, no, no, you don’t want to talk to your child about that! How embarrassing. Especially as you know hardly anything about any of it. But it’s one of those jobs (like changing nappies) that parents are put on earth to do. Here are our tips for making it less of an ordeal.
Smoke Free Me!
On Monday P5,6,7 went to the high school to smoke free me. The people that were doing smoke free me they were telling us about how dangerous smoking is so they did a little drama. There names were Claire Air, Willy Try it and Justin Time. Claire Air and Willy Try it were best friends and they met a man called Justin Time and he smoked because he thought it made him look cool. so they said to him jump on the time machine and took him to the past were he met the tobacco lord and met a Doctor and they were persuading Justin not to smoke. So he jumped back on to the time machine and it took him back to the present. Then the time machine and it took him to the future but Justin didn’t have a future because he died young by smoking when he got back to the present and he quit smoking.
There are 4000 chemicals in tobacco.
By Ciara Johnston 🙂
Social media – are young people addicted?
‘Teens turn to, and are obsessed with whichever environment allows them to connect to friends. Most teens aren’t addicted to social media; if anything, they’re addicted to each other.’
Should parents worry about what their kids are doing online?
Do you sometimes feel your child is sharing not just too much information, but the wrong kind of information? Do you worry that their adolescent attitudes are going to hang over them for the rest of their lives? How do you talk to them about the identity they’re creating with their friends – and how the internet makes that visible to everyone?
Digital natives – are they really?
We’re always hearing about ‘digital natives’ as if all young people are happily at home on the internet, knowing where to find all the good things, how to avoid the hazards and partying happily together. But what if most young people were just as anxious and lost as their parents? The experts think that’s much closer to the truth…
When parents split up – managing contact
When parents split up, they have to agree the contact arrangements for children. The Coram Children’s Legal Centre outlines acceptable practice for contact, what to do when things go wrong, and some tips for making contact work for everyone.
When parents split up – a guide to the legal terms
More than 120,000 families with dependent children separated in 2014. Roughly half of those couples who split were married and the other half were previously cohabiting.
When parents split up – FAQs on residency
Residency is the legal term for where children live when their parents have split up. The Coram Children’s Legal Centre answers some FAQs about living arrangements, formal and informal.
Elections
For a couple of weeks p5/6 and p7 have been learning about elections and have been organizing their own parties. We all got split in to groups and there were six parties. The six parties were, the peace party, t.a.p which stood for the animal party, the green team, the fun party, fruitastic and w.o.f which stands for world of fitness. They all had slogans,
Peace Party- Make Peace, Have a Break
Green Team- We are Green and we are Keen
t.a.p- We stand for the Animals
Fruitastic- Fruity Fun
Wof- Fitness for Life
Fun Party- Fun for one and Fun for All!!!!!!
On Monday was our hustings, each group took it in turn to come and present their party on front of the school. In the presentation was the party leaders speech, the groups power point and the video which told you about them and how they would help people.They also went round at breaks handing out stickers so people would vote for them.
On Tuesday was the voting day where everyone in the school voted for who they thought would be the best. We set it up like a proper election, we had an electoral register, a ballot paper and everyone voted separately in the polling stations.
On Wednesday Mrs Clark and Miss Brown counted up all the votes: here are the results;
6th place- The Peace Party with 6 votes
5th place- wof with 7 votes
4th place- The Green Team with 9 votes
3rd place- Fruitastic with 11 votes
2nd place- Tap with 18 votes
1st!- Fun party which had 26 votes !!! 🙂
This was all part of our election topic and to finish our election topic, we are going to write our captains speech and use as many techniques as possible.
By Emily and Izzy 🙂
Port Ellen Election Madness!
We are currently learning all about how to run an election with Primary 5-7. We have learned about democracy and how elections work and the different sorts of government. We are now organising our own political parties for an in school election next week, debating, writing speeches, making party political broadcasts and a manifesto. Who would you vote for and why?
VOTE FOR FUN!!!!!
Hello, we are the FUN party and if you vote for us we will make breaks 5 minutes longer, write a letter to the council to fix the swings at the playing fields, and we will make it a rule that everyone must smile at least once a day. So vote for us, All for FUN and FUN for all!
The Peace Party
We are the Peace Party and we are going to stop bulling in schools, build a peace garden, stop war in scotland and if any country is at war we will give them a reward if they stop.
Please vote for the Peace Party its the right thing to do.
Make Peace, have a Break
Vote 4 The Peace Party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(Please)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
