Balloon rockets

This afternoon we have been building on our understanding of forces. We began the afternoon with discussions over what forces are and how they are used to propel rockets to space. We also looked at the impact friction, air and water resistance have on movement of objects.

These discussions then created more interest on rocket launches, with questions of how is a rocket launched and what happens when it goes wrong? We watched a few video clips to gain a better understanding.

After this, it was our chance to put some of this learning into action with investigations into how size and material (friction) impact on the distance a balloon rocket travels along a “track”.

This will form the foundations for further understanding and applications of our forces investigations.

 

 

Paper bridges

This morning we worked in pairs to see how strong we could make a bridge using only paper …

We investigated how a simple activity of adding folds or additional support structures could greatly increase the mass that one piece of paper could support.

Some then explored how this differed if we used card instead of paper.

There was a clear buzz in the classroom during the activity and it was great to see so many groups working so well together.

Well done P5/6

Big Hit Badminton

This morning we, and the P5 pupils from Mrs Moars class, were blessed with a visit from Jane Grant, from Badminton Scotland. It was great to have the extra P5 pupils involved with us too.

This was us practicing our foot work.

by Becca
This was us when we were warming up doing different sorts of jumps and shasie.

By Carla

This was a fun exercise, I really enjoyed it.

By Tory.
This was us trying to keep the the shuttle
cock in the air.

By Hannah
It was really fun to play badminton, because it warmed us up for the start of the day.

By Isabel

We all had lots of fun and are inspired to look at this more in the future for possible PE lessons.

P5/6 CLASS ASSEMBLY ON WW1

Today was the big day for all of us in P5/6, time to share our learning with friends, family and the whole school. There were a few nerves building as the day progressed and much relief when it was all finished – also some pleasure in being able to reduce some parents and staff members to a tear at the end!

Isabel, Jay and Alex sharing details of how WW1 started.

Emma, Carla and Tory sharing details of women in WW1

Robbie, Ronan and Robert shared information about life in the trenches.

Kelsi, Mia and Evie talked about some key Shetlanders from WW1

Amy, Koll and Frankie spoke about the battle of the Somme, where Shetland suffered the biggest loss.

Hayden, Isaiah and Lucien shared some details of the weapons used in WW1.

Becca, Hannah and Daniel shared their thoughts on the end of the war and our learning.

Ellie, Evie, Hannah, Isabel and Robbie all shared information about their own connections to WW1. This was a lovely addition to the assembly and all of the pupils had found this information in their own time!


Quiz time (Abi, Ellie and Kayla): time to check if the audience had been paying enough attention to the assembly… Well done audience!

Getting ready to sing “Keep the Home Fires Burning” – we are blessed with such beautiful singers in P5/6

Soloists: Emma, Evie, Hannah, Tory, Kelsi, Abi, Becca and Carla.

Quartets: Robbie, Lucien, Hayden and Koll and Ellie, Kayla, Jay and Frankie.

I can honestly say that I could not have been more proud of all of the P5/6 pupils. They have put so much thought and effort into this. They have been very instrumental in deciding how we should do it, what should be included, all slides and scripts were prepared by themselves too.

We have thoroughly enjoyed the topic of WW1, both the pupils and myself, and I believe that was clear in the presentation of their assembly this afternoon.

Well done P5/6, you should all be super proud of yourselves – have a well deserved break over the weekend!

Request for junk please

This term we will be focusing on science in our topic work. Within this, the pupils have requested that we look at rockets during our learning. To put our learning into practice we are hoping to design and build our own rockets later in the term.

I have asked the class to bring in some clean junk that they think could be used for this project. As a parent, I am aware that these requests don’t always make it home so thought a blog post would be helpful too.

If you have anything at home that may be useful could you please pass it on to your child to bring in to school? – cleaned please to prevent the spread of any nasty bugs.

 

Many thanks and enjoy the weekend.

STEM Activities

There has been much excitement this term for both myself and the P5/6 pupils as we have started  our 4 week block of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) sessions with Emma Chittick, from Skills Development Scotland (SDS).

SDS are trying to encourage more pupils to consider future STEM careers by introducing them to ‘fun’ STEM activities through the latter years of primary school.

All pupils have been working really hard and enjoying the challenges set by Emma. So far we have used our coding skills to get our robots to orbit the Earth. Some of us were able to simulate a launch and change from a small orbit to a large orbit. This week we looked at “space junk” – we were able to programme the robots to orbit the Earth and divert around an obstacle to prevent dammage to our satellite.

 

 

I think the below comments from the pupils show how much they are enjoying this activity.

“STEM is really good” – Frankie

“STEM is really good because we get to learn with robots. I enjoy learning different things to do.” – Isabel and Kelsi.

“It’s good because it’s about robotics.” – Robert and Ronan

“We are enjoying it. It is fun” – Carla and Kayla

“It is quite hard at the moment but it’s fun.” – Robbie and Lucien

“It’s good, I love it, it’s my favourite thing to do.” – Amy

Merry Christmas!!

Sending all the P5/6 pupils best wishes for a fantastic Christmas break and a speedy recovery for those of you who are feeling unwell.

Sorry that I didn’t get the chance to pass on my Christmas wishes personally and we missed out on our last day fun – we will arrange our games afternoon for another day next term.

Miss Budge and I will look forward to seeing you all in the New Year and hearing all about your holiday excitement.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Achievement Talks 30.11.18

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.

Keep  up the good work P5/6!

French Pen Pals

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.

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