We’ve had a really lovely last week of Term 2. We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. 

Christmas Maths Games. This week, we have played two different maths games that were both thoroughly enjoyed by all. The first was the ‘Christmas doodle game’ where the groups had to decorate empty strings with different things. Once decorated, the value of each thing was revealed and the teams had to calculate their totals. The winners were Rocco, Calen and Lauren. The second game was ‘The Paper Chain Race’ and the teams competed to create the longest paper chain with limited resources. There were lots of different strategies at play and modifications that needed to be    made throughout the challenge. The winners were Rocco, Evie, Jack, Libby, Cheryl and Eildih S. The whole class showed excellent problem solving, teamwork and communication skills throughout both tasks.

Christmas Party. We had a super fun Christmas party on Monday afternoon. After games and challenges in class, we had some snacks in the hall before taking part in a whole school ‘Grand Old Duke of York’.

Prime Minister Day.  On Wednesday, it was Vaila’s turn to rule for the day and I think it is safe to say, the whole class very much enjoyed it. “We had hot chocolate and biscuits in the morning while building dens. Then we made posters about Christmas around the world on laptops and we got to work in our dens. Then we watched Home Alone in the afternoon.” I think the class may want Vaila in charge more often.

The 12 Days of Christmas. Promote Shetland along with Bruce from Shetland fir Wirds, came to school on Thursday to record the class performing the 12 Days of Christmas. We are all very much looking forward to seeing the final video and will share the link as soon as we get it. Below are some photos of the class doing the ‘Rubber Chicken’ warm up.

The Last Day. We had a lovely last day of term. We went to the church across the road to hear about the Nativity story and then enjoyed a time playing different games in class. In the afternoon, we had a Christmas movie and some Christmassy drawing time.

What a busy week we’ve had in Primary 6/7!

Community Cafe. Last Friday we held our community cafe for the older members of our community. We had delicious homebakes and drinks, lots of games and activities, live music and great fun speaking with our visitors. The class did an amazing job at welcoming people, serving, clearing and washing up and most of all, interacting with the people who came along. They were just amazing!

Christmas Concert. This Tuesday the class did an wonderful job performing in a ‘A Story for Christmas Eve’. I was so proud of their whole class performance of ‘Da Night afore Yul’ and Shetland dialect songs as there were some tricky words in the lyrics. After working with Bruce from ‘Shetland fir Wirds’, we used their dialect word ideas to write ‘Da 12 Days of Christmas’. They were all shining stars!

Christmas Dinner. On Thursday this week, we all enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner. The P7 pupils helped to set up the hall and then served everyone their food. They were then able to sit down as the staff served them. It was very much enjoyed by everyone.

Hanukkah. For our Big Question this week, we were exploring the Jewish festival of Hanukkah and some of the key artefacts associated with it. The pupils then had a peerie Hanukkah party with donuts and gold coins.

Cinema Trip. On Friday morning, we all headed to Mareel to watch Moana 2.

Big Play with Nursery. The pupils requested a chance to play through in the nursery at some point. So we organised with the nursery staff and the class got to head through to the nursery for the Big Play Time. I think it is safe to say they had ‘the best afternoon ever!’

Animals with Funny Names. I have been so impressed with the homework that everyone created and it has been lovely to learn about lots of different animals with funny names. The pupils all shared in class this week and it was wonderful to see how encouraging and kind everyone was to each other as they were sharing. Excellent work P6/7!

Outdoor learning. As part of the Orange group maths this week, Miss Jamieson took the group outside to learn about compass points. The pupils had to turn themselves to face the correct direction and then associate this with how many degrees each point was worth. They also had fun creating their own rhymes to remember the order of compass points and then drawing their own compasses with chalk.

UK Parliament Week. Continuing on from last week’s work around democracy and elections, this week the class were split into ‘parties’ based on their initial ‘vote for me’ posters. When in their parties, they had to choose a leader, a party name, create a logo and write their manifesto. They then had to present this to the class as a party before the party leaders faced a time of questions from their opposition (I think there are some budding politicians in this class). The class all then were able to vote and the votes were counted. The new class Prime Minister is Vaila! Congratulations to all of the candidates and their parties for the super effort shown this week.

Nonsense Poems.  This week our writing has been themed around ‘A Bugs Life’. One of our writing tasks, was to create a nonsense acrostic poem about Insects. The pupils worked in pairs to research their given bug and then used their information to write their nonsense poems. There was a lot of hilarity in the class and the pupils were all fully engaged in the task.

UK Parliament Week. For our Big Question this week and into next, we are focusing on everything linked with the ‘UK parliament’. The class were learning about what a democracy is, key people associated linked to Shetland and the UK as well as how elections work. As part this, pupils all created their own campaign posters as to why they should be voted for. These will be used as part of a bigger task next week.

Castles CSI with Glasgow Science Centre. On Monday, we had a super visit from GSC who explained some of the science of castles. We also got to take part in a workshop being forensic scientists to investigate two different skeletons. It was a lot of fun and we definitely had to use great communication and teamwork to solve some trickier problems.

Shetland fir Wirds. On Monday, Bruce came in to help us begin to learn our words for ‘Da night afore Yul’. The learners all did so well and gave it a go, even when some of the words were very tricky. They’ve really embraced the theme for the Christmas Concert and have started to learn lines for other parts of the concert too.

Little people, BIG dreams. This week our Big Question, has focused on discrimination. The learners grapsed this concept well and explored it further by looking at different historical figures who had faced discrimination.

Monster Kickabout. We’ve had a super week celebrating football through the Monster Kickabout celebration. The football coaches have led sessions with the younger pupils in the multicourt each breaktime. It was that popular they held additional sessions with both the nursery and the P1/2 class. They held competitions for each class and then hosted a peerie assembly to give out cerificates to the MVPs and trophies to the competition winners. The coaches planned and organised the event themselves and have blown everyone away with their leadership and teamwork skills.

Shetland fir Wirds. This week, Bruce Eunson came to visit the class as we started our work in preparation for the Christmas Concert. We had a lot of fun thinking about different Shetland words in general and then more specifically linked to animals and foods. This will come in handy as we write our own version of the ’12 Days of Christmas’ and also practice for the concert.

Monster Kickabout. For this week and next week, we are celebrating football in the class and encouraging other classes to do the same.  A  group of pupils in the class are leading this and have planned different activities and events for the school. They organised a competition for each class and then the P7 pupils are working independently or in pairs to create trophies that will be used as prizes.

Writing. For our writing this term we are having three different focused tasks each week – 1 story, 1 ICT based task and 1 poster based task. We will also have an overarching theme each week and this week, we used ‘Coco’ as a stimulus looking at ‘the best festivals’ (persuasive text) and then creating posters about ‘The Day of the Dead’. The learners did an excellent job of creating their persuasive pieces of writing on the computer and their posters were amazing.

It has been lovely to have the class back and they’ve already been very busy.

Maths – Multiplication Master. This week we started our new mental maths activity called Multiplication Master. It allows the learners to focus on a particular times table per week and apply this to increasingly challenging questions. over the week.

Big Question. For this week’s big questions, we have been looking at different customs and values of  different countries around the world. The learners worked in groups to research a given country and then present their information/props in our class Cultural Fair. The groups then went on a world tour to learn about the different countries from ‘an expert’. It was so lovely to see the learners all working so cooperatively and sharing their research with great confidence and enthusiasm.

Happy Term 1. We have had such a busy week for the last week of term 1.

Shetland Youth Orchestra. This week we had a visit from the Shetland Youth Orchestra who treated us to different spooky tunes. The whole class really enjoyed some familiar music as well as the stories behind some of the new pieces we heard.

Famous Sportspeople Homework. The whole class had an opportunity to share their homework projects this week and I was so impressed with what everyone had done. It was lovely to see the learners full of confidence and able to share their research clearly with the class.

Salt Crystals. A couple of weeks ago we set up an experiment, when learning about separating materials, to grow salt crystals. The results have been really interesting and different results occurred depending on a range of factors, so it led to a lot of rich discussions around fair experiments.

Big Question. Our Big Question this week has been focusing on different religious festivals that take place at this time of year. We looked at harvest and why this is important for Christians. We also learned about Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and how this is celebrated within Judaism. We watched a couple of video of people explaining how they celebrated it and then discussed the similarities and differences between our own New Year celebrations. The class also got to taste some different foods that are eaten at a Rosh Hashanah celebration. Our ‘Big Question’ wall is now finished for the term too.

100 Club for writing. As the class achieved 100% in their writing once again, we celebrated with a hot chocolate. Well done P6/7!

A Whole New World. This week the task was to build a new habitat for an animal of their choice. The class all made some excellent new habitats and certainly had a lot of fun playing with the animal figures.

End of Term fun.  We’ve had a very busy but fun end of the week for the last few days of term 1.  We got to do some baking, making truffles with Carrie-Ann and pancakes with Mrs. A. We have also had ‘Big Play’ and a movie with popcorn to end the week.

Learner Led Event. Here are just a few snaps from our learner led event last week. Thank you to everyone who came along and took part in the different learning activities within the class.

Floppy Fingers Fun. To practice our times tables, the class played a new game this week called ‘floppy fingers’. There was a lot of laughter and competitive spirit on show but it did make practicing quick recall of tables facts lot of fun. See if your child can teach it to you at home.

Lemon experiments. This week we continued to look at batteries and circuits. We tried to make  our own batteries this time using a lemon. Unfortunately this wasn’t successful as the battery didn’t work to light the bulb. However, I was so impressed with the class, especially their resilience and problem solving skills as they tried many different combinations to get their lemon batteries to work. A great lesson in what we can do when things don’t go as planned.

A Visit from Mrs. Meadows. On Tuesday, Mrs. Meadows came to speak to the class about having a baby. She spoke about how she is feeling and things she is doing to keep her and the baby safe. Mrs. Meadows also brought two large water bottles and let the class see how much extra weight a pregnant lady can carry around. She also showed us her scan picture so that we could see how the baby is developing and we got to look inside her baby box too. We had a lot of fun and got to ask some questions of our own too.

Cooking with Carrie-Ann. Over the last 4 weeks, the class have gone in groups to work on some cookery skills with Carrie-Ann. They have made tomato pasta, macaroni cheese, vegetable soup and pizza. They have all worked so well together to create their dishes and certainly enjoyed the results of their cooking.