My goodness P5 have had a busy few weeks ! We have been looking at historical aspects of the curriculum through a number of events. We participated in an ‘archaeological dig’ where we discovered various parts of a skeleton and then had to re-construct the formation of the body and complete a tricky calculation to work out the height of the person.

We took a trip to Edinburgh where we saw the various locations that we had been studying in class and even went back in time to meet Mary, Queen of Scots. She provided us with costumes from 1566 so that we could attend the christening of King James VI of Scotland who also became King James I of England. He was the King that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up at the Houses of Parliament on the 5th November. Mary taught us the ‘Dance of the Washerwoman’ and we also examined the food that would be served at a Royal banquet and used oranges and cloves to make pomanders. There were some unpleasant odours around in the 1500’s ! On our journey we explored the Royal Apartments in the Palace of Holyroodhouse and saw the spot where David Rizzio was murdered by Lord Darnley. We walked up the Royal Mile passed The Museum of Edinburgh where the collar and bowl of Greyfriars Bobby are kept. We spotted the distinctive Tolbooth building that served as jail in the days of Old Edinburgh. We passed John Knox’s house and admired the architecture and spoke about the window tax which resulted in the ‘wee windaes’. Further along the High Street we saw the Mercat Cross where the residents of Old Edinburgh would hear the news and passed the impressive St Giles Cathedral. We saw the location of the infamous Deacon Brodie’s workshop. Finally we arrived at Edinburgh Castle and saw the many defence features of the building, the one o’clock gun, Mons Meg and the statues of Wallace and Bruce. We managed to visit St Margaret’s Chapel which is the oldest building in the Castle. We were exhausted but had a wonderful time.

In art we have been exploring a new technique where we created autumnal art. We blended oil pastels to create the leaves and then blended paint to create a water effect around them. They were very impressive.