On Monday 5th June, Dunrossness, Sandwick and Cunningsburgh P6&7s came together for the big day that we have been practising for. We had a practice during the morning and then our dress rehearsal in the afternoon and then the performance at 2pm.
The children performed really well and Ms Scanlan was very proud of everyone. Victoria gets a special mention for her part as the devil!
On Monday 22nd, all of Primary 6 and 7 went to Sandwick to practise our Scottish Opera performance. Ms Scanlan was really proud of our behaviour and the way that we sang so well. We’re looking forward to the performance on Monday 5th June.
We had the most amazing last day out with Pete Richardson and his colleague Matty today. We set off to Garth’s Ness and as we approached the end of the road, Pete spotted the fins and we all got to see a pod of orcas, it was really exciting. We watched from the cliff edge and then decided to go across to Scatness, to have a day of scrambling and climbing on the rocks there, and maybe seeing the whales again. Sure enough, as soon as we arrived at Scatness we saw them again and then later on too as they came back past us. Ms Scanlan had taken our new binoculars, so we all had a chance to see them clearly. P7 have been so lucky this year, on the first trip w e swam with porpoises, on the second trip we watched an otter swimming and catching fish and now killer whales! John Muir would have been very impressed with that!
Here’s what P7 said about our three John Muir days:
Logan – I really enjoyed when we were jumping off ledges in Cunningsburgh and swimming in the sea.
Ben – I really enjoyed jumping off a small cliff in Cunningsburgh, because of the thrill of jumping down.
Kyle- I really enjoyed Cunningsburgh swimming. It was great to be in a lot of space and to use that space for swimming.
Victoria – I really enjoyed watching all the wildlife, especially the killer whales and the baby seals. I have also been adventurous with all the challenges. But most of all, I have loved all of it!!
Shaina – I really enjoyed todays John Muir trip. We were rock climbing at Scatness. My favourite part was when I climbed up a really tall rock, I didn’t think that I could do it, but I did!
Layla – I have really enjoyed the John Muir trips because I saw killer whales, an otter and three baby seals. I also really enjoyed jumping off the really high rocks.
Lauren – My favourite part of the John Muir days are that you get to enjoy and appreciate the outdoors. My favourite bit was when I jumped off a rock into the sea.
Ella – I really enjoyed this John Muir trip, mainly because there were killer whales and baby seals. All of the John Muir trips have been really good.
John Magnus – I really enjoyed the John Muir days. I liked the coasteering at Cunningsburgh and seeing the baby seals and killer whales at Scatness.
Following on from the Terrific Scientific project, Primary 6/7 made the most of the good weather, to go and make identification sketches of the trees. The trees that we planted a few years ago are growing well. There were lots of birds feeding in the area and bumblebees flying around. We also caught a big ground beetle.
Terrific
Today we took part in our fourth Terrific Scientific investigation. This time we are investigating trees. We have to survey the 🌳 in the school grounds and record how tall they are and the circumference of their trunks. We will then use a carbon calculator to work out how much carbon each tree is storing. We will then calculate the total amount of carbon stored by all the trees in the school and learn about why trees storing carbon is important and where the carbon comes from.
This time we are sending our results to Leeds University and they will analyse the results from all the schools in the U.K.
If you want to see our results so far, you can look online at the Terrific Scientific website. There are lots of other activities on there too that children can do at home. We have also tried the ‘bouncing eggs’, which was a lot of fun.
It was really good to receive our certificate in the post this week. We’re still feeding the birds 🐦 everyday and seeing lots of spring migrants and breeding birds coming through.
All the class have now received their emails from their 🇰🇪 Kenyan pen pals. We are busy getting ready replies to send to them at the end of the week.
Joy Duncan has worked with all our classes this term and what a treat it was today to hear and watch all the different drumming, singing and dancing from all over Africa.
Every class performed something quite different and the audience loved it. It was clear by looking at all the children, that they really enjoyed their learning too.
Thanks Joy, looking forward to the next drumming lessons already 🥁
Primary 7 has a fantastic John Muir day. The weather was perfect for March, flat calm and dry, so Pete decided to take us to Bressay.
We walked from the Noss car park down to the shore, where we had watched an otter feeding in the seaweed on fish.
We walked south, past the broch and had fun, climbing, jumping and exploring the coastline.
We have been building up to SMUHA for a couple of weeks, with lots of time spent on maakin, preparing props, making up sketches and practising songs.
Friday was a perfect day and the Norse gods made sure we had perfect weather for the procession. Our guiser jarl Truncherface AKA Calum Mackay, and his fantastic Trowie squad led the procession well and all the other bairns sang and roared impressively! John and the galley boys had made another excellent galley and the burning was great to watch.
Back in the hall after break, we were treated to some very funny acts and finally the squad came in to sing their songs.
In the afternoon we were treated to some drumming with Joy and Emily playing her fiddle. The jarl squad looked fantastic when they arrived and it was great to go into the playground to see their galley.
It was a really super day in school and we hope that you had fun in the evening.
