Michael tells us all about volcanic lava, demonstrated by blended plasticine

Diarmuid reported on an earthquake interviewing survivor Finlay.

Chloe showed us her earthquake proof house. It rests upon rubber shock absorbers to protect the home from the impact.

Jake, Lauren, Annmarie, Cameron and Emily all made keys to mark on their world maps where natural disasters have occurred.

Grace wrote a letter about surviving an earthquake in Oceania, Kelsey wrote to her parents from their basement after a tornado had struck and Lewis wrote to his Dad after being in an earthquake in Belgium.

Jack and Milly about to show what their volcano can do!

Jack and Milly’s volcano continued to erupt long after the children had gone home on Friday! Mrs Wright was afraid to leave it…thankfully it did stop!

Today we had survival kits, drawings of stormy weather, power point presentations, letters, models, world maps and scientific demonstrations. Josh showed a home that could extend upwards in times of flooding, while Olivia’s design to beat flooding was a buoyant home, which we all watched rise as she demonstrated. Erin and Isla had detailed drawings of homes that could survive all eventualities! Harry came to school with two lemonade bottles joined at the neck and showed us a ‘tornado in a bottle’. All these homework projects have furthered our understanding of severe weather events and natural disasters around the world. It looks like we have tomorrows problem solvers right here in Applegrove!

Today P7 cycled to Kinloss for a Rugby Festival that had been organised by Kinloss Kestrels and Active Schools for the Forres Schools – Pilmuir, Logie, Dallas, Kinloss and Applegrove.

Applegrove, being the bigger school, was split into 2 groups and everyone participated in 8 different activities that developed their Rugby skills – passing, kicking and tackling. Great fun was had by all. Some activities awarded points and others were just for fun.

After an hour and a half of activity the scores were in. Tensions mounted as the results were read out. Applegrove 2 were the eventual winners – well done to them 🙂

It was then time for the long cycle back to school – thankfully everyone made it and it was certainly a quiet afternoon in P7 classes!

Many thanks to Active Schools, Kinloss Kestrels and the parents who helpd to get us all there!

Click here to read the latest newsletter.  Thank you for helping us be an Eco School by reading this https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/my/public/Applegrove/uploads/sites/3245/2016/09/Newsletter-Oct-2016.pdf

Today P7 pupils went along to the Town Hall to participate in a London Science Museum Show.

This was a show all about Electricity and pupils learned all about static electricity, the history of electicity development and famous scientists such as Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Michael Faraday and Alessandro Volta.

They also got to watch some exciting experiments using the Van de Graff Generator and the Tesla Machine. Talia Pearson and Alex Ross were picked from the audience to participate in one of the demonstrations. Mrs Hunter was also chosen to help with one of the more dangerous experiments!

Today, P6/7M spent hardly any time in the classroom but lots of learning was to be done!

The day started off with a visit to the Mosset Burn Flood Alleviation Scheme where they learnt about why this is an imprortant feature in Forres’ future. The visit linked to their learning about Natural Disasters and how Global Warming is increasing the risk of flooding in our area. They learnt that the scheme acts like a bath and will hold back the river water letting only a little bit at a time out through the ‘plug’ therefore reducing the risk of flooding. This means that our homes, businesses and wildlife is not in danger. They also learnt about the role of a Civil Engineer and have realsised that maths and communication skills are vital for this job! A big thankyou to Kenna and Stuart for giving their time to tell us about the flood alleviation.

After lunch it was back to the outside for some Numeracy. They used chalks, sticks and pine cones to represent clocks on the playground. Each clock represented the start time of a film and beside it the pupils wrote how long their film lasted. Pairs then swapped around and had to calculate the end times of the films. This built on what we had been learning in class. Lots of the pupils felt that drawing the big clocks really helped them with calculating the durations.

Finally the day ended with PE. Groups had worked together to design small activities to improve throwing and catching skills. Today the groups shared their activities and we all got a chance to try out each others ideas. There has certainly been an improvement in throwing and catching.

As part of our context for learning, P7H have been studying global warming.  We investigated the causes, the impact and how we can prevent it.  After this investigation we took our learning into the playground to present our understanding.  We were split into groups and used different materials to make displays.  These were presented to each other and peer assessed.  This really helped to embed our learning as well developing our collaborative skills.

Today 29 pupils in 6W, 30 from 7H, 23 from 6/7M and parent helpers walked through Sanquhar Community Woods to meet two Civil Engineers at the flood alleviation scheme.
It was very interesting to hear how the topography and the ecology of the area was considered before building the scheme. The algae, the wetlands and landscaping have all enhanced the area for otters, bird life, frogs, etc. In addition the area is designed for walkers, runners, cyclists and horse riders.
It is good to know that Forres is well protected from flooding in the future. The pupils asked many interesting questions that were answered by Kenna and Stewart. The work of a civil engineer involves a love of problem solving, design and sustainability.

On Wednesday 7th September a group of children from Belarus came to visit us at Applegrove and join in some activities. The children are staying with families in Moray as part of the ‘Friends of Chernobyl Moray’ charity. The children live in an area which is still affected by the after effects of a nuclear accident which happened there almost 30 years ago. The children visit Forres for one month each year for five years and stay with the same family each year. They are given dental and health checks and lots of opportunities to enjoy the fresh Moray air. They also visit lots of local places and we were delighted that they came to visit us at Applegrove. They joined us in assembly where we sang one of our favourite songs ‘welcome everybody’ We  sang the welcome part in Russian ‘Dubro Pozhalovat’. The children visited P4FL who had made a card for each of the 19 children with greetings in Russian. They shook hands and introduced themselves in Russian too . Finally the pupils went outside to enjoy some outdoor learning experiences with 6W, play some games and have a snack inside our school tepee . It was a great experience for both Belorussian and Scottish pupils. 

P6/7M have been learning about Natural Disasters this term and were set a number of challenges as homework tasks. It has been interesting to see the different ways they have completed these tasks. Lots of thinking and creativity going on here as well as an understanding of disasters shown. There has also been pictures of extreme weather, drawing of survival kits and houses that will withstand floods. Well done to all 🙂

After meeting everyone in a ‘Welcome’ assembly and visiting classes, the children from Belarus came and joined us on the field for some fun activities. We played ‘Capture the Flag’, Aunt Sally, tree coin challenge and had juice and a biscuit in the school shelter. 6W then showed them our Daily Mile track. We were all amazed at the speed our visitors ran one lap.