Today we were investigating nets of cubes. We used polydron to see how many different types of nets we could find. My group found 6 ways.
Tag Archives: successful learners
A busy week for Primary 1
This week we have met Tiger Ten and learned our new phonics ‘m‘ and ‘r.’ We have been thinking about fireworks and how to keep safe on bonfire night. We also spoke about how to keep safe on dark nights by wearing reflective clothes. We went on a walk with Mrs Nicolson to look at 3D shapes in our environment.
Primary 1 starts term 2
We’ve had a busy week back at school after the holidays. We learned all about Naughty 9 and our new letter ‘h.’ We all designed and painted our own Minion and have been thinking about our new topic for this term which is ‘Light.’ We have chosen to turn the huge box we got into a lighthouse for us to play in, in the classroom.
Last Week of Term
This week everyone has been busy, busy, busy!
On Wednesday Wendy from Burra Bears came in to speak about her workshop. She showed us the bear they made for Shetland wool week. It was very interesting and we all hope she can come again.
In P.E primary 6 and 7 made a human pyramid and it was very hard to do! Everyone kept on falling over and we laughed.
In maths primary 6 and 7 made kites. They were very sturdy but some went in circles when they flew. Were making kites because we’ve been learning about the properties of shapes in Friday maths.
We hope everyone has a lovely holiday!
By Hannah and Noah
Trowie Stories
This term we have been writing trowie stories to make a book for the library. Primary 3-7 have been writing them and they are all fantastic! Each pupil has written something unique and have drawn a picture to go with it. Here is one of the stories.
Billy the Opposite Trow
Shetland is a very good place for looking for trows. It’s definitely where you should start. There are all sorts of trows. Trows with 3 eyes, trows with legs so short they have to bounce around on their bottoms, big trows, small trows, nice trows and bad trows and there is one type of trow that only lives for five days. They are the rarest and people call them opposite trows. This is a very suitable name because it is true. They are opposite from other trows. If they are born into bad families they will be good and if they are born into a good family they will be bad and if they are born into a family of sea trows they will be land trows and well you get the point but the one super extraordinary thing about opposite trows is that they cannot go out at night or they will turn to stone but only if they are caught in moonlight of course so they have to go out in the day. The sad thing is that no trows like opposite trows and did I mention that on the fifth day they turn to stone. Yeah sad I know. Anyway this is a story of a very lucky opposite trow who lived a life like no other.
One day a family of bad trows had a baby trow. Everyone had been extremely excited. The family was waiting to see a badly behaved, mischievous, ugly child but when they saw him they all gasped. He was an opposite trow. The mum, Trowalina, blushed bright pink and looked as though she was about to burst into tears. The baby was banished. The family sent him off in a little fish box and never looked back at him again. The trow closed his eyes not knowing what had happened and lay entirely still. The darkness was falling which was a problem because the trow had nothing to cover himself with. Luckily the sky was cloudy and the moon was hidden all night. The trow grew very fast because he was an opposite trow, in fact he grew in one day. He was cold and wet and still he closed his eyes. That was the first and worst day of this little trow’s life.
The next day at around noon a little girl called Alice the around the age of 9 with blonde hair and deep blue eyes found the trow on a beach in Aith. Alice was wearing a pink dress with a white cardigan that had short lace sleeves. Alice was curious. Her mum and dad often got worried about her curiosity because they thought it might get her into trouble. She looked at the trow and would have never guessed he was a trow because he looked very much like an irregularly small human. The trow had curly brown hair, a stubby round nose, middle sized ears and big, bright, emerald green eyes. He wasn’t ugly like other trows. As soon as Alice saw him she loved him. She picked him up and the trow opened his eyes and jumped. He had a twinkle in his eye that Alice loved. He looked at Alice then at the boat then at Alice then at the boat and when he looked at Alice again he started to cry. The memories were flooding back to him just like water flooding a city.
“What is your name?” Alice asked softly.
“I don’t have one,” the trow said between sobs.
“I’ll call you Billy,” said Alice.”And by the way my name is Alice.” They played on the beach for hours chatting asking each other questions then it started getting dark so Alice took Billy to her house and introduced him to her parents. She lived in a house that was quite big. The walls were white and the windows reflected the light. Her parents were pleased to meet him.
“Would you like some bannocks? “asked Alice’s mum, Mary asked
“We have already had our tea but you can still have some .“ Billy took one. It was the first thing he had eaten and he loved it.
Next Alice took Billy up to her room. It was bright blue with yellow stripes on the wall. She had a beautiful white bedside cabinet with six small drawers and a bright white light sitting on it. There were two boxes of toys, one in the corner and one at the end of her bed which had a purple duvet with blue and yellow spots to match the walls with a matching pillow case. The boxes were sorted and everything fitted perfectly. One box had soft toys and the other had board games and dolls. Both boxes were decorated beautifully with swirls and spots. They went to sleep. The next day she asked Billy how he had got to the beach. Billy told her everything from the banishing to the boat but he left out the fact he was an opposite trow. Alice was amazed.
“So you were banished?” Alice asked mesmerized.
“Yep,” said Billy.
“And and you were…”
“Can we go exploring?” Billy said desperately trying to change subject before she found out he was an opposite trow.
“Sure. We could go to Michael’s Wood or Kergord or maybe Sandsound.” said Alice.
“Um…let’s go to…umm Michael’s Wood,” Billy said slowly not knowing what to choose in case Alice did not want to go there.
“Great choice,” Alice said smiling her eyes twinkling like stars. So off they went. Alice did not live far so they walked there. When they got there they played on the pirate ship and they played with the cars and then they went home. They had their dinner then they went to sleep.
The next two days were filled with adventure. They went to Sand Gardens, St Ninian’s Isle, Ronas Hill and Kergord and on the third day they stayed at home. Alice had lots of toys at home. She had lots of dolls teddies and her own cooking set. Alice and Billy helped Mary make mince and tatties for tea. After they ate Alice and Billy went to Alice’s room. Alice and Billy were playing tea parties then Billy decided it was time to tell her.
“I’m an opposite trow,” he said eyes closed. Alice knew all about opposite trows.
“How long have you lived for?” she asked nervously. Her eyes were pricked with tears but she was trying hard not to let them roll down her cheeks.
“Five,” Billy said starting to cry. He moved over to Alice who hugged him. They both cried and Billy turned to stone. Alice ran down the stairs to her mother who hugged her tight.
“Maybe you could keep him in your room or make a little howe for him with some flowers,” she said to her daughter who was still weeping.
”And remember he is not gone he is just not here,” she said smiling. Alice thought about the idea and then decided she would keep him in her room with some flowers and from that day on Billy sat on her bedside table that twinkle still in his eye with a sign next to him that reads Billy the opposite trow.
Story by Elsie p 7
Illustration by Peter p6
Posted by Elsie and Hannah
Mystery at Da Laird’s Haa / Author Visit
Bookmaker Visit by Robert P.4
After milk break a book writer came in to talk to P3/4/5. She was called Christine De Luca and at the same time Iris Sandison was talking to P6/7. Christine gave us all a book each to keep it was ‘Mystery at da Laird’s Haa’ by Bjorn Sandison. It was fun and I enjoyed it. She read us some bits from the book and we read bits too. It had a lot of Shetland Dialect. Here is some I know – Muckle (big) and Peerie (small) and I know some others. She said we should be proud of knowing Shetland Dialect because it is special. I am looking forward to reading some more when I take my book home.
*(You can also listen to the story online @ www.hanselcooperativepress.co.uk)
Dissolving Experiments with P3/4/5
Primary 3/4/5 have been making predictions about what will happen during dissolving experiments with Mr Rose. They predicted that hot water would dissolve things faster. Their investigations proved they were absolutely right! They also discovered that the hotter the water was, the more it could dissolve.
They used salt in their experiments. How many other things in everyday life do we dissolve? (Here are some of the examples P3/4/5 came up with to get you thinking – coffee, sugar, washing powder…can you think of anymore?)
A busy start to Primary 1
We have had a busy 4 weeks in Primary One. We have met the first 6 Jolly Phonic sounds, been to the Number Zoo with Penguin One, Ticklish Two and Butterfly Three. We are learning about 2D shapes and went for a walk to find shapes in our environment. We have enjoyed our play activities in class where our activity wheel shows us what we can choose and understand what balloon day means. We also had a visit from Tidou who was a bit shy until we realised that she could only speak French.
Our Terrific Trip by Eva P.5
I was so excited once I woke up on Tuesday morning, because we (Primaries 3 – 7) were going on a school trip to the Sandness Mill and Turriefield. I had never been to either of them so to me it was going to be one big adventure.
Once I arrived at school I was told we were to leave at quarter to 10, so before we left we did a little maths on symmetry, a few minutes later I was told to grab everything I needed because we were going. I was really excited and happy.
When we arrived at the Sandness Mill we were greeted by two people, one called Gary and one called Louise. They told us we were going to be split into two groups. I was in group one with a few other people and everybody else was in group two. Group one was with Gary and group two was with Louise. After that we followed Gary into the mill, first he showed us the weaving loom machine. It was very noisy and it was so noisy some people had to wear headphones! Every hour they could have 6 jackets made, I bet you couldn’t do that with your needles!
Gary showed us a few other machines too one of them was the carding machine that makes ‘oo’ into yarn – WOW. He also showed us a room full of ‘oo’. The ‘oo’ was very springy and quite spongy. Gary said it also felt all soft like snowflakes. He told us the ‘oo’ had 3 baths but they were way too hot for us but just right for cleaning the ‘oo’. They could also dye the ‘oo’, they could make lots of colours and Shetland colours too. There were lots of other machines like the jumper making machine and they said the Fair Isle was the most complicated and this is two of the most interesting things that one of the machines was 100 years old and another thing was the Sandness Mill is the only place in the whole of Europe where you can see the whole process from ‘oo’ to woolly jumpers and the finished product is also sold in the shop.
Sandness mill was marvellous and I called it the Super Sandness Mill. I was sad to leave but happy because … Next up Transition Tuffiefield.
Before we went to Turriefield we went to a beach to eat our snack.
The waves were massive. 
I had an apple and once I had finished it we were off on the bus again.
I was very excited once I heard all of everyone else’s comments about Turriefield. We were greeted by two people, one called Penny and one called Alan. First they took us to see the turkeys – gobble gobble 
up next was Harvey the horse. We got to pet his nose 
then they showed us a few different tools and let us try to lift the heavy steel weed cutter and ploughs
(they were quite heavy). 
They also showed us the vegetables they grew. They grew melons, garlic, beetroot, kale, chillies, peppers, leeks, marrows, sweetcorn, peas and a few other things
( I almost forgot about pumpkins and broccoli and aubergines). Also they showed us inside the politunnels and said they (by they I mean two of them) are jungles then they showed us the ducks and explained a bit about Turriefield. Back up at the shed they gave us all
peas in a pod to try . 
They were outstanding. So good I called Turriefield Terrific Turriefield and it certainly was. I was very sad to go I had a spectacular trip.
I would definitely do that trip again. Some of the highlights of the trip was looking at all the food, trying the peas and learning how to dye the ‘oo’ and the big room that was full of it!
But now I was back on the way back to the school and by this time I was very hungry but I was lucky because once we arrived back at the school we were going to have our lunch.
At the school I ate my lunch and then I had my break. At break I wrote Peerie Filskit Tammie and when I got home I told my mam all about it.
I felt happy and excited for our next trip.
By Eva
Bagging Peats
On Monday 24th August, P3-7 and secondary 4 went to the peat hill to bag peats for the school. First Mr Garrick split the primary children into groups of 3 and each group had a secondary pupil. We walked to where the school peats were then we started bagging. We stayed in our groups and each took a bag. Most of the peats were bone dry. Because the peats were so dry there was a lot of dust, so we had to wear safety goggles. It was really hot but quite windy. I was in a group with Ishbel and Marley. When we finished filling a bag we had to lift it to the side of the road. The bags were super heavy but the secondaries were there to help. We had to fill lots of bags and we had to keep moving since there were so many of us. While we bagged peats Mr Garrick took the bags to the school in a trailer.
Certain spots were very muddy but it was very fun and tiring. I saw a spider in one of the bags when I carried it down to the road. We filled over 100 bags altogether for the school. Everyone worked really hard.
We also did some research on Shetland peats when we got back to school. Here is what my group found out:
Peat is cut for burning in fires in many parts of Shetland. They make great fuel but the stages they go through take a while. First the heather and grass is removed from the top of the peat bank. Next the peat is sliced into brick shapes with a special tool called a tushkar and it left to dry out. After a few days the peats are raised into small pyramids to let more air reach them. Then when they are properly dry they are bagged and brought home. By Elsie Msalila
