It was a day for celebration in Primary 1 and 2 today!
After our ‘spotty’ term, this was the first day we have had all 25 children in class.
We were able to sort ourselves into alphabetical order with Mrs Nicolson making sure she included herself to make all 26 letters of the alphabet.
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Roman soldier’s sandals were called caligae (cal-igg-eye). They were designed to bend easily so soldiers could fight, march and run. Primary four made their own versions with Ms Fraser. 
They are very eye catching and rather stylish but we decided perhaps ours are best suited for indoor wear!
Today P7 came through to our classroom to help the P2/3s do some topic work. Our class split into 9 groups, and with the help of a P7, each group researched a different Viking God. We spent 20 minutes looking for interesting facts, and for the second 20 minutes, P7 showed P2/3 how to make a PowerPoint. By the end of topic time we managed to get all 9 PowerPoints saved for the P2/3s to present in class next week. It was great to see everyone working so well together. Thanks a lot to the very helpful Primary 7s!
Over the past couple of weeks Primary 2 have been learning about money. They have learned what all the different coins are, and even made posters to show to the P3s. Today they had the chance to play shop with Miss Murray, and try to complete money dominoes as a group. They managed to complete 14 dominoes in 5 minutes. They’re going to try and beat their score next week!
Throughout our topic, we have been keeping Viking diaries to demonstrate our learning. At the start of the term, we all created Viking characters, and every time we learn something new about Vikings, we write a diary entry about it! So far we have discussed leaving home, travelling in a long ship, living in a longhouse and today we wrote about our Viking jobs! We have been following our writing targets, and when we finish, we self-assess our writing using traffic lights. We have also been drawing pictures to go with our writing, and decorated the covers to make them look like Viking diaries!
Last week P2/3 learned about Viking Runes and figured out how to write their names like Vikings! This week we have been learning about Viking Gods, and we found out some of their names by deciphering Runes.
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Photos from the Drama Festival 2017.
This week at school, the P6,7s started to make a Treasure map. We got two big pieces of paper and tea bag stained them, we are using this for our maths with Mrs Mouat and we are doing coordinates. Through-out the week then we will be guessing the coordinates on the map. At the end of term the person closest to the real coordinates on the map will win a prize but there could be mini prizes too !
Today Eva , Bethany , Scott and Troy started the map. Each person in the class will have a go at drawing a picture on the map.
By Bethany and Eva
Primary 4 – 7 visited the Museum and archives to find out more about what happened to the Victorian whaling ship ‘Diana’. Kirsty Clark led a hands-on workshop on what it was like at the Whaling in Victorian times and Mark and Brian Smith shared interesting information stored in the archives. We had a really interesting and informative visit, thank you all!
The Diana left for the Arctic in May 1866. At first the crew did well and they caught a small number of whales, but on the journey back the weather began to get worse and the ship was locked in a sea of frozen ice. It was trapped for over six months. Food was rationed, and fuel was in short supply; the sailors were driven to use anything they could get their hands on for food, even the wood from the ship’s masts and seal clubs.
By the time the ice had thawed and the Diana had finally landed in the Shetland Isles, 13 men were dead including Captain Gravill, the captain of the ship. A detailed log was written by the ship’s surgeon, Dr Charles Edward Smith, after the death of Captain Gravill.
We have entered a play in the Drama Festival which tells the story of the crew, many of which were Shetlanders. Some of the crew are our ancestors.
The play was written and directed by Marsali Taylor, based on the information in Dr Smith’s log entries. Dr Smith’s brother, Frederick Smith was mayor of West Ham and after hearing the tragic story of the Diana’s crew, he paid for a red marble drinking fountain to be erected on Victoria Pier in Lerwick.The memorial reads “The Providential Return of the S Whaler ‘Diana’ of Hull 1866-7”.
After researching how the Romans built roads we built our own to demonstrate the layers of construction involved – with one key difference – ours are edible!
