This week P7 have been on their residential trip to Ardentinny with Moorfoot Primary as part of our transition to High School.
Watch the video below to see some raft building and sinking!
Click here to see the pictures in our Ardentinny gallery!
All posts by Mrs Hunter
Felt Making Tutorial
During Science Week we were learning about friction. We found out that friction is a force between two surfaces that are sliding, or trying to slide, across each other. The wool fibres are felted or fused together using moisture, friction and heat. As the wool shrinks the fibres interlock and mat together. You may have noticed that if a wool jumper is washed too hot in a washing machine it will shrink and felt! The wool fibres are layered out horizontally and vertically then soap and warm water are applied and the felt is massaged and rolled. It was challenging and very time consuming but we all enjoyed learning how to felt. We are really proud of our felt pieces but had sore and tired arms at the end! Watch Alana’s felt tutorial below for step by step instructions.
Here are some photos of the felting process:
Some photos of our felted pieces:
A Very Victorian Fairtrade Cafe!
To complete our learning on the Victorians, we organised a Victorian themed Fairtrade Cafe for our school community. In preparation for our cafe, we each worked in co-operative groups to investigate a different area of the Victorian era. Groups researched areas such as Victorian education, famous Victorians and inventors, rich and poor lifestyles and jobs for example, chimney sweeps, servants and working down in the mines. We prepared to showcase our learning by delegating tasks. As a group, we decided who would create the powerpoint, design games for our visitors to play and who would dress as a Victorian for the day! Alongside this, we also had to plan for the running of our cafe. We split into groups to work on a homebaking stall, serving the tea and coffee, selling Fairtrade Christmas products and raise awareness of Fairtrade by talking to our visitors to the cafe. Our P7 Fairtrade group members headed up each group and kept things running smoothly. Have a look at some of our pictures below to see how we got on!
Victorian Projects
As our Victorian topic is coming to an end, we brought in our projects that we have been working on throughout the term. It was really interesting to share our biographies on our favourite Victorians, differences between toys then and now and diary entries of a day in the life of a child in the workhouse. We also designed our own inventions and created Victorian toys and games to play. Jack even carved his very own mini Victorian street child – very impressive! After reading our classmates work, we used peer assessment strategies to give positive feedback on each others work. By writing comments on post-its, we were able to give feedback and pinpoint areas of work we thought were done well. It was great to read the comments left on our projects when we got them back!
Curling
This term, we have been lucky enough to try Curling. Inspired by our success at the Commonwealth games, every Thursday we have been going to the Waterfront to meet our instructors. It took us a while to get used to walking on the ice in our trainers instead of wearing ice skates! We have learned lots of techniques including sliding the stone and sweeping the ice in the path of the stone. Playing an actual game of curling isn’t easy and it was difficult to get the stone into the ‘house’.
Our Victorian Adventure!
P7 recently visited Scotland Street School to link in with our learning about the Victorian Era and children’s rights in class. We turned back the clock, dressed as Victorian school children and took part in a lesson. The teacher was really strict and we were all a little nervous in case we ended up getting the belt or becoming the class dunce! Children would never be treated in that way now because we have children’s rights to protect us. We had to chant our times tables over and over again (which we all thought it was a little boring!) and then stand when the teacher asked us a times table question from the ‘clock face’. Writing on slate was not easy and it was difficult to keep up with the mental maths questions. Finally we had to write the alphabet using a pen and inkwell. We had to blot the paper when we used too much ink! At the end of our lesson we took part in ‘drill’ which is kind of like P.E but just standing on the spot, not at all like we have nowadays. It’s safe to say…we were not impressed! When the ‘2014’ bell rang, the teacher came out of character and talked to us about the differences between school in the Victorian era and school now, funnily enough, most of us preferred school now. David volunteered to try on the dunce hat and we all had a good laugh, including David! What a fantastic trip!
