After Kirsty told us about James Robertson and we looked around the exhibition we got to try drawing a self portrait like James Robertson’s one.
He had a globe painted with him to show he was educated and we think it also shows that he mapped around the world.
We had to think about what we would want the world to know about us. A lot of the boys drew something to do with football or computer games. There were also sports like, hockey and swimming, musical instruments and things we enjoy doing now or would like to do when we are older. We worked really hard on our portraits and coloured them in, some of us did not get them finished before we had our break so Miss Nicholson let us finish them once we had our snack. After our break we got to have a look around the museum which was great as our topic is Shetland. We had to complete a scavenger hunt. We split into 3 groups and worked together to find everything as well as having a look at everything in the museum.
We met another group on the stairs
This boat was massive!
We are ticking things off the scavenger hunt
“I can see you Miss Nichoslon!”
We loved looking at the fiddles
Ashleigh looking at what was being projected onto the wall
The boys thought they would nip around and photo bomb
Today we went to the Shetland museum to look at the exhibition on James Robertson. He is the Shetlander who put Jamaica on the map. He was the youngest boy of 10 children. He lived in a croft house in Gossabrough, Yell. His family weren’t rich but they weren’t poor. He was very clever. He made several maps of Jamaica and they are really good for the time they were made considering he doesn’t have the technology we have now. After he made the map of Jamaica he went to London and got a painting made of himself as well as buying lots of nice things since he was rich. He wasn’t nice to his nieces and nephews. It took him 12 years to make the map of Aberdeenshire. He went on trial because the people who asked for the map of Aberdeenshire told him his map was wrong but he had worked on it for 12 years so it would have been right at the time he started. He only had 3 years to make it so they thought they shouldn’t have to pay him, he thought he should be paid for all his work. So they took it to court. He died before his trial so we don’t know who would have won. He died aged 74.
Today we looked at Remembrance Day and why we have it. We had a 2 minutes silence to remember those who was lost in the war. We also discussed why we wear poppies…
Remembrance Day is the 11th of November. At 11 o’clock on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 World War 1 ended.
We learned why poppies are the symbol of remembrance day…
Poppies were the only thing to grow in Flanders Fields – this is where a lot of fighting took place.
A man called John McCrae was so deeply moved by what he saw in Northern France that he wrote the famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields.’
We also learned the difference between the English and Scottish poppy.
The English poppy has 2 petals and a leaf whereas the Scottish poppy has 4 petals with no leaf. The Scottish don’t put a leaf on their poppy because it would cost more to make and they believe that this money can be better spent on supporting veterans.
Money raised from selling poppies help people who have been to war and survived and their families.
We all wrote our own Remembrance/Poppy acrostic poems and made our own poppies:
On Tuesday 3rd November we went on a school trip with the primary 6/7s to an African drumming workshop at the Scalloway Primary School. There were two guys that took the workshop Bruce Ncube, he was from Zimbabwe and Seckou Keita, he was from Senegal. Joy Duncan from Shetland was also there. Hamnavoe and Scalloway primary 4-7 attended the workshop too. We got numbered because there was a lot of people so we had to take turns to play the drums. They taught us how to play them which was great. When we were drumming the floor vibrated. We sung a song – some of the words were: Zebelay Zebelay zebelay, cocowah, cocowah. We had our break in the games hall. The boys played football, we had a game Tingwall vs Hamnavoe – we won 4-3. This was a fun workshop, we really enjoyed it!
We learned about the 5th of November and why we have bonfire night. We know all about Guy Fawkes and read the poem Remember, Remember the 5th of November. Some of us hadn’t heard it before. We also read other poems to do with bonfires and fireworks. We thought it would be good to create our own! So as a class we thought of all the words we associate with bonfire night and fireworks. We used all of our senses! We wrote these all on the whiteboard so everyone could see. Then in groups we made acrostic poems about fireworks and bonfires (we wanted to do bonfire night but we didn’t have enough room). Everyone in the group had to contribute! We had time at the end to draw colourful fireworks on our poems.
We were busy making Halloween decorations for the Halloween party in the hall at the weekend. We had great fun making lots of different things. Miss Nicholson had lots of activities for us to choose from, she put all the choices on the board and we chose 2 we wanted to do. We could make hanging bats, paper chain ghosts, ghost garlands, witches, spider webs, hanging ghosts and lots more. We tried to make the spiders web out of black bags but they didn’t work so we chose other things. We really liked making the paper chain ghost.
Our spider web
our huge paper chain ghost
hanging ghosts
our little ghost garlands
little ghosts handing from a paper chain
Thursday
We learned French words for a witch, a pumpkin, a ghost, a black cat, a pointy hat, a spider and a skeleton:
See if you can work them out!
Une sorcièr
Un chat noir
Une araignée
Une citrouille
Un fantôme
Un chapeau pointu
Un squelette
Miss Nicholson put pictures of these things around the room, she would say one of them and we would have to stand next to the picture we thought it was. The first time we did this a few of us got a bit mixed up but once she tried it again we all got them right.
We also got to play a quick game of heads down, thumbs up but in french. Instead you would say: “tête baissée, pouces levés” and to say put your head up is “levez la tête”
After French Miss Nicholson split the class into two groups and gave us the bones of a skeleton and asked us to try and put it back together. We worked really well as a team and it didn’t take us long to put him together again. Both groups did make 1 mistake but it wasn’t a big one. We thought this was fun!
We mixed up our right and left hands but we didn’t think about the fact he was lying down and we were the opposite to him.
our leg bones are the wrong way round but we worked well as a group
Friday
Today after we watched newsround we took the Halloween quiz. Did you know that the old name for Halloween is Samhain and that people in the middle ages were suspicious of black cats because they thought they were witches?! Hundreds of years ago people thought that ghosts would try to return to their old homes on Halloween so to avoid being recognized by theses ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for other spirits. So this is why we dress up!
We used words associated with Halloween for our spelling activities. We all brainstormed and came up with one to put on the board.
During golden time Miss Nicholson brought in a couple of pumpkins for us to carve. A few of us stayed in the classroom to help. We had great fun working together to create these! Everyone had a shot at scooping out the insides. It was very messy but great! When we were waiting for our turn we designed a face for the pumpkin. Once everyone had drawn something we put them on the floor and we chose 2 that we wanted. Miss Nicholson counted up the votes before she carved them for us. She said a couple of us could take them home if we wanted so we put up our hands to see who wanted them and then used lolly sticks to chose 2 people. This was the fairest way. Colvin and Lucy were the 2 chosen to take them home. 🙂
We’ve had a busy few days back at school, on Wednesday we watched newsround and discussed what we watched and debated whether we should or shouldn’t have wild animals used for entertainment purposes. We thought if they were being treated fairly and were being looked after then this would be ok as they usually take orphan animals or ones that cannot look after themselves. Then we shared a little of our news with the class before writing about our October holidays in our writing jotters. We had to draw a spooky Halloween picture and write a spooky short story about it. Some of us didn’t get to write the story as we had to go onto our reading. After dinner we made Halloween crafts – we will put another post up to show you all the cool things we made. It was great! On Thursday we had reading and maths in the morning, then music and class PE after break and in the afternoon we had French but this was linked to Halloween which was fun and we had to assemble a skeleton.
Primary 4/5 have been very busy this past few weeks researching myths and legends around the world. Once they gathered all of their research they created a presentation. They had the choice of how they wished to present their information – most groups chose Power Point, although there were a few groups that chose to have a poster alongside their Power Point. We looked at presentation skills before they presented their work to the rest of the class. There were lots of questions asked after each presentation which sparked great discussion within the class. A lot of hard work was put into their presentation and it showed! Well done P4/5!
Joann, Seth and Rebekah researched American Myths and Legends
Brandon, Brooke and Colvin researched Greek Myths and Legends
Ross, Ryan and Magnus researched Chinese Myths and Legends
Millie, Teaagan and Levi researched Italian Myths and Legends
Joann worked really hard when Seth and Rebekah were off
David, Evan, Barron and Keisha researched Indian Myths and Legends
James, Ruby and Ailee researched Celtic Myths and Legends
Kanchana, Harry and Lucy researched African Myths and Legends
Ashleigh, Danny and Anya researched Egyptian Myths and Legends
We took part in Roald Dahl’s Virtually Live programme this afternoon. Primary 6 and 7 came through to our classroom to watch it with us. We cleared the tables away when Miss Nicholson got it up on the whiteboard, we listened to part of ‘The Twits’ when we were waiting for the live programme to start. We counted down from 10 when the numbers came up on the whiteboard. We learned the different steps as to how the book is made, we listened to the man who was Roald Dahl’s official biographer answer questions about Roald Dahl and we learned how to draw Mr Twit. Here is a few of our quick sketches:
Miss Nicholson took in her accordion for us to see today. She let us have a go and even played a couple of tunes for us. We really enjoyed this and clapped for her. Some of us had never seen one before so we were excited to have a go ourselves. We asked to have another shot at golden time and primary 6 even came to see what the noise was about and had a go. We know where the ‘C’ button is on the bass as it feels funny. The accordion can make funny noises and can be very loud!
It made a really funny noise!I found the ‘C’ button
