Today it was the turn of those on Nerdy Nuggets (consisting of Alex, Becca, Carla, Evie, Hannah and Lucien) to share their achievements with the rest of the class.
Today Carla shared with us some work that she had been doing at home based on our WW1 topic. Using the learning that we have been doing in class Carla created a diary of a woman during the period of WW1. It contained information of life at home, stories she had heard from the trenches and the impact of the loss of family members too. Well done Carla!
The diary of a woman during WW1.
Hannah told us all about her Grade 2 piano exam she sat earlier in the week. Some of the tasks she had to achieve were – play 3 pieces of music, accurately read and play a new piece and demonstrate her ability to follow a beat. We look forward to hearing how successful she was in the coming weeks. Good luck Hannah!
Lucien and Alex talked us through their WW1 PowerPoint presentation they have been completing in class. We have been concentrating on a specific area of WW1 each week and the pupils have been updating this information onto a PowerPoint presentation. There is some really interesting information being shared here boys, well done!
WW1 power point before we leave school.
Well done Nerdy Nuggets. Again, there have been some great achievements shared this week. I am also enjoying hearing all of the information that the pupils have been finding out about their personal connections to WW1.
During the October holidays Miss. Scanlan spent some time working in a French school in Cannes. At the start of the term, two teachers from this school returned to Scotland and Shetland to see how our schools differ to theirs.
One of the teachers, Yann Gueyffier, came into our class to share some information with us too. The pupils from P5/6 have agreed to become pen pals with the pupils in Yann’s class – we sent some information about ourselves back with Yann when he was leaving Shetland.
Yesterday, some of the pupils received video messages from their pen pals. There was much excitement in the classroom and we were all really impressed with their English. We will need to practice our French speaking before we are confident enough to send a video reply.
We will hope to send some seasonal messages through to the school before the end of term and are really hoping that we can continue to build our use of French through this activity.
Unfortunately, I missed the Achievement Talks last week, but Miss Budge left me some details of what was shared.
This week it was the turn for those in The Cool Unicorn Tractor group (consisting of Hayden, Daniel, Robert, Amy, Ronan and Isabel).
Isabel treated the class to a tune on her fiddle, she has been working well in her lessons and her confidence is building. Well done Isabel, it can be a little nerve-wracking standing in front of the class playing an instrument but I hear that you did a lovely job.
Hayden shared his excitement at moving up a swimming group in class swimming with Mrs. Smith. He spent the October holidays abroad with his family, where a lot of the time was spent playing in the pool. He thinks that this may have helped to improve his confidence in the pool. Mrs. Smith was very impressed with your improvements when you returned after the October break. Well done Hayden.
Amy also shared a swimming achievement with the rest of the class. She has successfully managed to master the art of performing a handstand flip in the swimming pool. This is great news as Amy has been suffering with an injury in recent swimming lessons, so it’s great to see that she is feeling more confident in the pool. Well done Amy.
We look forward to hearing more from our next group on Friday. Well done Cool Unicorn Tractors – sorry I have no photo’s to share this week.
On Friday we started our latest round of achievement talks for the term. This time it was a chance for those on the the “Pink Fluffy Unicorn” group to share their achievements with the rest of the class.
Emma shared with us a letter from the trenches that she had written at home. The letter showed how Emma had taken the learning that we had been doing in class and built on this at home. She took time to colour the page to make it look like it had been aged too.
Well done Emma.
Topic homework
Tory told us how he had mastered the art of performing a handstand flip over. He was proud to share this with us all as he had been working on it for some time and gained a few injuries in the process. We will look forward to hopefully seeing this in action at some point soon!
Mia was proud to share how she had been working on her reading this term and was pleased to see that she could now see progress with this. Well done Mia, you’ve been working well on this and I’ve definitely noticed an improvement.
Koll successfully had us all giggling with his achievement this week and relished in his time to share the numerous hairstyles he could now perform with his extra hair growth.
The achievement talks are a great opportunity for the pupils to show us all something that they are proud of, it’s great to hear when they have something to share that is from outside of school too.
This week we have been concentrating on Remembrance, discussing who and why we remember and why the poppy is used as a symbol for this.
After our class trip the pupils have taken note of some of the names of local people who lost their lives in WW1. Some pupils have also found members of their own family who were involved too – we hope to research this more in the future.
As part of the act of remembrance the class were introduced to the Remembrance Cross, where crosses are decorated with a poppy and dedicated to a particular soldier. We decided to use the information from our trip to dedicated a cross to our own local hero.
Each member of the class was given two pieces of wood, some sandpaper and string to create their own cross. The pictures above show them sanding down the rough edges in preparation. They then decorated the cross with a poppy and dedicated their cross to a soldier they were either related to who had lost their life during the war or one that we had learnt about during our trip.
The pupils have taken their crosses home with them where they will either keep them to remember their soldier or leave it at a War Memorial this weekend.
Well done P5/6 the crosses look fabulous and you have all done a great job in understanding and respecting the meaning of Remembrance.
On Wednesday we spent the morning visiting various places in Lerwick as part of our WW1 topic.
We began with a visit to the Anderson High School where we met with Mr. Jon Sandison. Mr. Sandison shared with us details of his own Grandad and his involvement in WW1, he also highlighted some of the roles that Shetlanders adopted during the war.
Through his teaching we now have a greater understanding of the sacrifices Shetland went through in these hard times. It has also given us names and dates that we will be looking into further throughout our topic.
The Anderson High School
Mr. Sandison sharing details about his own Grandad.Shetlanders “checking the cables”Waving the men off for The Great War.Memorial at the AHS listing all of the former pupils who died in the war.
After thanking Mr. Sandison we left to visit the Methodist Church in Lerwick. As this is the centenary year the church were hosting an “Experience Remembrance” event. The pupils moved around different stations throughout the church, listening to personal stories of experience or family connections to the war. There was also the opportunity to try some “Trench cake” and look at medals, photographs, etc.
Experiencing Remembrance at Lerwick Methodist Church
Experiencing our own war
Our class conflict wall
Discussion over the meaning of courage – with some personal stories of how family members had been courageous during the war.
Courage
Discussion over the meaning of sacrifice – with some personal stories of how family members had made the ultimate sacrifice and personal experiences of the rationing of WW2.
Sacrifice
Discussion over the meaning of being safe – the pupils heard the sound of an air raid siren and went down to experience an Anderson Shelter. Throughout this they were told stories of personal experiences of air raids during WW2.
SafeSafe
Pupils discussed ways they could resolve the conflicts they had raised on our conflict wall.
Peace
Finally we discussed the meaning of remembrance and the significance of the poppy. Pupils were given two petals to write a name of somebody they would like to remember. One petal was left at the church and the other was placed in their pocket to act as a reminder for them.
Remember
After lunch we walked over to the War Memorial at Hilhead. We discussed that the inner section was dedicated to those lost in WW1 and how the outer section was dedicated to those lost in WW2.
The pupils enjoyed looking to see if their family name was present on the memorial and we looked for some of the names that Mr. Sandison had shared with us earlier in the day too. We took some rubbings of the names to bring back to school.
Looking for family names.We found the plaque dedicated to those from Dunrossness.Making connections with the names we found.
Both myself and Miss Budge would like to thank all of the pupils for their fabulous behaviour on the trip today and for James Adamson volunteering as our parent helper. There was a lot for us to fit in and they all behaved fatastically and were very respectful to those who were sharing stories with us.
A huge thank you to Mr. Sandison, and the Anderson High School, and those involved with our experience at the Lerwick Methodist Church.
Well done P5/6!!
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