All posts by Miss Nicholson

Art, Confident Individuals, Cooperative learning, Expressive Arts, Group work, Personalisation and Choice, Responsible Citizens, Space, Successful Learners, Topic

Building space rockets

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On Thursday the 16th we were asked to get into the same groups that we were in when we made our posters. Miss Nicholson and Miss Morrison told us that we were going to be making space rockets out of junk. It had to be taller than a ruler but smaller than 1 metre. They had gathered a lot of ‘junk’ for us to choose from. We took it in turns for each group member to go to the desk with the ‘junk’ and select one piece at a time that we thought would be good to use for a rocket. Once we gathered enough resources we then began building our rockets.

Today we got to paint our junk model space rockets that we built.

Once we were finished we had to think of a name for our rocket, where our rocket was going and why and who was in the rocket! We had great fun and worked really well in our groups and with other groups as we had to share the masking tape.

Sciences, Space, Visitors

Space with Mr Rose

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Today Mr Rose came in to speak about the last few planets of the solar system. Here are a few more facts for you:

It takes 11 and a half Earth years for Jupiter to go around the sun.

Saturn takes 29 and a half years to go around the sun.

Uranus takes 84 years to go around the sun.

Neptune takes 165 Earth years to go around the sun.

You could fit all of the planets in the solar system in Jupiter.

The smallest star is the same size as 8 Jupiter’s.

It would take 1,000 Earths to fill Jupiter.

It would take 1,000,000 Earths to fill the sun.

1 day on Jupiter is 10 Earth hours

The Great Red spot on Jupiter is a tornado and you could squeeze 3 Earths into it!

Jupiter has 16 satellites and they are named after mythological creatures connected to Zeus.

Saturn has 18 satellites. The Satellite Titan creates a shadow on Saturn.

Uranus has 15 satellites and these are names after characters form Shakespeare.

Neptune has 8 satellites and are named after water goddesses

Animation, Art, Confident Individuals, Expressive Arts, Group work, Literacy and English, Personalisation and Choice, Space, Topic

Animation

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We have been really busy working on our animations today. Miss Nicholson showed us the app ZU3D, this is how we are going to film our animations.

First of all we had to think of what we wanted to happen in our animation. Miss Nicholson told us it had to be about space and that we had to have at least 3 interesting facts about space within the animation, but the rest was up to us to decide. First of all we thought about an idea of what would happen in our animation. We had to then decide if we were going to make the animation 2D or 3D. Once we decided this we had to think about the characters we would have within the animation. We thought about what they would look like, how we would make them and the resources we would then need. Some of us decided we would bring in little lego figures as we were going to make our animation 3D. We then thought about the background/setting and what we wanted this to look like so we drew little sketches and thought about all the resources we would need. We then moved on to props, if we were going to have any, what would they be, how would we make them and the resources we needed.

Then we were ready to create a storyboard. Miss Nicholson gave us a sheet with lots of boxes on it. We used this to plan out our animation and what had to happen, what characters/setting/props would be needed for each stage. This will help when filming as we will have a clear picture of what will happen and what we need.

Then we looked at writing scripts for the animation as we had to speak in order to get the 3 facts into it.  Finally we looked at any sound effects or music that we might need/want.

Once we had finished all this we got to begin making our characters. background and props.

Miss Nicholson took us in groups to show us the app on her Ipad and the different features of ZU3D. We learned about the onion skin, this is the last frame you captured over the current image you are seeing. Its like a ghost picture so that you know where your last frame was and can see how much your character has moved. This prevents your animation from jumping all over the place. We then looked at how to add in music or sound effects as well as adding in titles, speech bubbles/text and credits. Its quite a good app but it will take a long while to film our animations as you have to move everything very slowly.

This is very exciting!

Art, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Personalisation and Choice, Space, Successful Learners, Topic

Space rockets

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We have been very busy designing our own rockets and making a picture for them to go on so it looks like they are in space. Once we had finished our pictures and glued our rockets on we thought about things associated with space and created acrostic poems. We worked really hard and came up with some fantastic poems so we thought you should see some of them!

Confident Individuals, Responsible Citizens, Shetland, Tingwall Primary School, Visitors

Nesting and Girlsta Jarl Squad visits Tingwall

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We all gathered down at the Tingwall hall after dinner. The Jarl squad were a little late coming but we didn’t mind as it was exciting waiting for them.  There were pupils from our school in the jarl squad so it must have been very exciting for them. We were excited to see them and what they would be wearing. The Jarl Squad came in and sang the Up Helly Aa song followed by their own song. We game the Jarl and his squad 3 cheers and presented them with a gift. They gave the school a gift of a copy of their shields and each pupil in the school got a badge with the design of their shield on it. It was very nice of them. After this we got to go mingle with the Vikings and try on their helmets and hold their axes and shields. It was good fun! We had a great afternoon!

Literacy and English, Social Studies

Burns night

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Tonight people all over the world will be celebrating Burns night. We looked at why we celebrate Burns night and who Robert Burns was.

Burns Night is a celebration often held in Scotland around 25th January.  It celebrates the life and work of a famous writer named Robert Burns.

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet (25th January 1759 to 21st July 1796) His work is very well known and celebrated worldwide. He wrote his works in both the Scots language and Standard English. He also wrote folk songs which are still enjoyed by many people today, his most famous one is Auld Lang Syne.

On Burns Night, many people have a traditional dinner called Burns Supper. This usually includes eating haggis, which is a traditional Scottish food. It is often served with neeps and tatties. Poems written by Burns are often read aloud too.

Before people start eating their Burns Supper, the Selkirk Grace is often said:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
And sae let the Lord be thankit.

Robert Burns is still very famous today. He has been voted ‘The Greatest Scot’ by the Scottish Public in a survey held by national Scottish television channel, STV.

There is also a Robert Burns Museum which is in the place where Robert was born.

Literacy and English, Space, Topic, Visitors

Mr Rose and space

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Today Harry Rose came in for our second session on learning about space. Unfortunately the power went off during the presentation so Mr Rose had to talk without having the power point. He did very well to carry on speaking. We are looking forward to seeing the rest of the presentation next week.

Here are some more interesting facts for you:

There are 88 constellations. The most famous constellations are in the Northern Hemisphere. They are mainly named from Greek myths.

You could take a submarine right under the North Pole as it is just water underneath. Unlike the South pole which has land underneath. The highest mountain on earth is underneath Antarctica. We can’t remember what Mr Rose called this.

There is 50,000 tuns of ‘stuff’ that falls from space in 1 year! So earth is getting bigger every time.

Comets are made from stone and ice. The tail that you can see is the ice melting as it is getting closer to the sun. The tail always faces away from the sun as the solar wind blows it away from it.

Meteor showers (shooting stars) is earth going through the tail of a comet.

The closest star next to earth is 43 trillion kilometres away! It would take 4 1/3 years for a message to get there if it was travelling at the speed of light from earth. The speed of light is 300,000, 000 metres per second or 300, 000 kilometres per second. It would take us 7000 years for us to get from earth to the next star.

-My Achievements, Confident Individuals, Expressive Arts, From home, Literacy and English

Show and tell

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Over the past few days the children have brought in a few of their achievements, items they treasure or models that they have made which we would like to share on our blog.

Literacy and English, Shetland, Topic, Visitors

Granny Brae

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Colvin’s granny (Jenny Murray) came in to talk to us and the primary 2/3s this morning about an axe head that Colvin found in Yell on the beach in Gutcher. This was used about 5000 years ago when the first Shetlanders were here. They used sheep guts to attach the stone to the wooden handle.The used ash and sand on a bit of leather to polish stones.

She talked about the houses that they had in the stone age. They were round, small and made of stones.

She allowed us to ask her questions at the end and tell her of our findings. It was really interesting and we enjoyed her visiting our class.

Here is a picture of Colvin and the axe head:

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These are a few photos that Miss Nicholson took. You can see what the axe would have looked like (a Whalsay man made a replica for the museum – with real sheep guts!) You can also see some of the other axe heads that have been found and used thousands of years ago. They were used for a number of different things: killing animals, chopping down trees (Yes Shetland used to have lots of trees and when they were building the Gas Plant they found roots of trees that would have been a forest!)