Primary 5/6 were really excited to receive their replies from Lomayana. The cards were beautifully drawn and it was really good to hear all about life in this part of Kenya.
Lomayana School
Lomayana is in the very dry and hot region of Kenya called Baringo. It has been very hot here this week, usually in the mid 30s. Ms Scanlan has also visited a school on a tiny local island called Kokwe.
The children in both schools were very excited to hear from us.
Making Iron Age Brochs and Viking longhouses
Chris Dyer came into school again this afternoon to help us to make our models. Last week we planned them and this week we were given all the materials and now we have to make them! We used polystyrene blocks for the stonework and wood for the roof. We’ll be making other artefacts with clay.
Here is how we got on today.
Historical Housing
This afternoon Chris Dyer came to help us with our history project. Chris explained what archaeologists do and we had a look across the Voe at Dalsetter where we could see the remains of a broch. He talked about the Shetland timeline and we completed the jigsaw puzzle in less than 2 minutes!
Chris talked about the types of housing in the Iron Age and in Viking times and in our groups we decided whether to make a broch or Viking longhouse. He showed us two models and showed us some photos of ancient houses.
We started to make plans of our models, it’ll be fun to see the finished models.
RSPB Schools Birdwatch
This afternoon we all took part in the RSPB Schools birdwatch. Schools throughout the whole of the UK take part in this and record the birds in their school grounds.
The results are then uploaded to the RSPB and they use the information to look at changes in bird populations.
Local birdwatcher Glen Tyler took groups of children out and we used our school binoculars, that Ness Engineering and Hugh Harrop had given us last year. The children asked lots of questions as they went around the school and used Hugh’s identification guide to learn a bit more about the local birds.
Everyone said they would like to do this again.
STEM
Emma Chittick came to help us with some more exciting programming on Tuesday. We had to make our robot move along a complicated route, making sharp turns, picking up and dropping ‘parcels’ and returning to base. Ms Scanlan was very impressed with what the class were able to do by the end of the session.
Preparations for Lomayana School visit, Kenya
This afternoon in Wider Achievement, Joy Duncan started to teach drumming tunes to the group, to video to take to show the children at Lomayana Primary school, when she and Ms Scanlan visit in February.
Ewan from Radio Shetland came along to interview us and find out a bit more about the project. He hopes that it will be on Radio
Shetland tomorrow evening.
Last week we practiced Shetland dances to video too.
Scatness Visit
This morning P5/6 went back in time 2000 years to the Iron Age. Chris Dyer from the Amenity Trust showed us round Scatness. We started in the visitor centre, where he talked to us about Shetland’s history. We completed a jigsaw puzzle, which had a timeline from the Stoneage to present day.
He also explained to us how housing has changed through the ages. Chris had lit a peat fire in the middle of the reconstructed wheelhouse and we all enjoyed going into it and hearing more about life in the Iron Age. After that we went for a look at other houses on the site and saw the broch.
We finished off by playing a really good Viking game called Kubb.
A big thank you to all our adult helpers too!
STEM Project
It was really exciting this morning to start our new STEM Project. Emma Chittick spent the first part of the morning with P5/6. She brought her IPads and LEGO and we had to programme the robots to deliver a parcel; we were pretending to be working for Amazon!
A few last photos from 2017
Last term the class wrote some fantastic adventure stories. We helped each other to make them better and then spent a lovely afternoon with P1/2 reading our stories to the younger children.
