Before the holidays, we decided on a class name and P4/5/6 chose the Draatsis. Please look out for a photo of your ‘Draatsi’ in the Home/School Diary today!
For these first two days, we have been settling in again and those new to this classroom, have been getting used to their teachers and routines. We have talked about our holidays and completed camera snapshots of our summer memories. We have started our self portraits for the year in the style of Chuck Close, an American portrait artist. We have tried a Maths problem solving activity that required us to persevere when our answer didn’t quite work out first time. We have worked on various Team Building games that have helped us work together, communicate well with each other and be patient and encouraging! They did very well. I think it will be a good year!
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One team building activity asked them to work together to create a pyramid of cups. They could not touch the cups, only use the rubber band and string provided.
When the first layer was done, and a system agreed on, it got easier.
We found out that for the task to succeed, we all needed to play an important part.
Some groups worked quickly. Some had the added problem of what to do if one fell on the floor! No hands allowed!
Great team work…
And delight when it was achieved!
Nearly there…
Oh no! Try again!
😀
Well done you two and thanks to Mr Feeney for helping.
It has been a busy scientific term in P4/5/6! Over the past few weeks we have explored all aspects of Light. We learned about shadows, reflections and how light can bend when it travels through a different medium.
We had fun with a periscope, looking around the room for a secret message being held up on a whiteboard. This was made possible with the mirrors reflecting the light.
Our camera obscuras showed us how light is reflected into our eyes. This appears as an upside down image. Our brain flips this around so that it makes sense to us. But in this camera, it is projected upside down on to the tracing paper screen. One pupil decided to do some handstands so that she would be seen the “right way up” in her friend’s camera obscura! It was lots of fun to experiment with.
Investigating how to make long and short shadows.
Can Kirsty read the secret message using her periscope?
This week P4/5/6 have been finding out about the history of our school and they have been looking at all the amazing artefacts that have been kept following the Queen’s visit to our school in 1969, when she opened it. Some pupils were surprised to hear that there were once 5 small village schools in the South Mainland and that these schools were all closed to make the school that we have today….although it’s grown over the years too!
We invited Mary Andreas in to talk to us and prepared questions to ask her about her memories of the Bigton school and how she felt about moving to a much bigger school, out with her community. She also recalled how the children and teachers prepared for the Queen’s visit and talked to us about her feelings on the day. We looked at photographs and enjoyed spotting some relations.
Our discussions this week ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, have definitely sparked an interest in the pupils to go home and ask their older family members about their experiences of school. Well done everyone!
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The outside brick work of the original school was kept when the new office area extension was built. The commemorative plaque that the Queen unveiled is still displayed and we still have the curtain she used to unveil it!
Here you can see the bunting that was used to decorate the school. There is a photo of the Queen with the plaque and two signed photos of the Queen and Prince Philip that were gifted to the school. We have also enjoyed looking at the photo of all the pupils who started at the new school!
This piece of writing explains some of the history of our school and how it quickly grew in the coming years. It also gives a little more information about the Queen’s visit.
Any former pupil will remember the excitement of the annual magazine coming home! This one is from 1971 and we found pieces of writing by lots of our relations. Leah’s Grandad and Uncles had lots of entries!
When the school was up and running, there was another official ceremony in November and this programme details what the new school looked like at the time.
The school was opened officially on Wednesday 12th November, 1969. The hall was full of pupils, parents, photographers and members of the Zetland Education Committee.
These photos are an amazing reminder of the past.
A big thank you to Mary for giving us her time and sharing her memories. Thanks also to Carolyn Smith for sharing her recollections of the day too.
A huge well done to one of our pupils who recently cut her long locks in aid of The Princess Trust. To date, she has raised an amazing £743 . Very well done!
Five pupils were delighted to come back from their Easter Holidays to find that they had received replies to the author letters they wrote for World Book Day! Some were standard replies from very busy authors but we were still grateful! One was a lovely, handwritten, personalised reply. The rest of the class are patiently waiting! 🤞
What a bright and sunny start to the new term! We have been working outside on some problem-solving Maths games and learning about different mental strategies when adding.
We also began our Queen’s Jubilee entries for the Living Lerwick art competition. Everyone was asked to design a picture showing what the Queen might see or do if she came to Shetland for a visit.
It was lovely to see the children making choices about how they would present their picture, using pencils, pens, paint or collage.
I was so proud to hear so many supportive comments when confidence levels dipped amongst some pupils, believing their picture was not good enough. What an amazing team we have in our classroom! You can take the following quote with you the next time you need a confidence boost…
It’s been a beautiful day and what better way to start it than a walk to school! Our JRSOs have been working hard behind the scenes to organise the final activity in The Big Walk and Wheel Challenge. They’ve been encouraging all classes to be physically active during the day, especially when some pupils can’t manage to walk or wheel to school. Today, they helped organise the buses to drop everyone off at the football pitch to walk to school together. Some pupils even managed some laps of the pitch while they waited for the buses to arrive. The website tells us, we have logged 368 physical activities and we are in 295th position in the Uk for participation and 74th in Scotland!
For the rest of our day, we enjoyed time reading our own books, finishing our Easter cards, problem solving Maths using Tangram shapes, active time with P6/7 and Assembly time with Mrs Finch! Now time for a rest! Fingers crossed 🤞 for a holiday filled with weather like today!
In our class we have a Recognition Board with a class focus for the week. This is something that we all recognise as being an area for us to develop and improve.
This week we were trying hard to be organised and ready, making sure that we are back in the classroom promptly once we have hung up our belongings in the cloakroom.
Everyone tries very hard to achieve our weekly focus so that they can get their name on to the Recognition Board. When everyone’s name is on, we can receive our class prize.
The class voted to have time playing in the “forest” as their prize. Looking at the forecast, we decided that Tuesday would be our best chance, to avoid any snowy showers later in the week!
We had fun building dens, creating bug hotels, playing hide and seek and playing ball games.
Wednesday afternoon was spent in P1/2, sharing with them the electrical quiz boards that we made last term.
Each pair supported a couple of P1/2s to try out their quiz and gave them time to explore the electrical circuits used to the play the game. If they managed to match the question with the correct answer, the bulb lit up!
Everyone in P4/5/6 did so well to explain their quiz and how to use it. They showed patience and understanding when more time was needed for the pupil to find the right answer. We would like to thank the P1/2s for having us in their classroom, they listened so well to their buddies and were so enthusiastic about each game they played.
We have missed having these opportunities to mix with other classes and develop important communication and social skills. We hope to be able to do something like this again soon!
On Wednesday morning we looked at how sound can travel through solids, liquids and gases. We used the tuning forks again to create vibrations to make the rice dance on our “drums”.
Then we moved on to making some string telephones to see if sound could travel along the string. It was lovely to see everyone working as a team, helping each other to measure the string and build their phones. We developed our skills in tying knots and untying
knots (when the string got in a tangle). Lots of perseverance shown from everyone! Well done!
Our photographer Eilidh, took some great photos of everyone passing on a secret message to their partner.
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Dancing rice!
What is he saying Elle?
We had to make sure the string was tight and that we didn’t touch the string.
Our messages could travel the whole length of the hall!
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