Christmas Celebrations

On Monday 14th December we had our final rehearsal for the whole school Christmas concert and Nativity in the morning, and in the afternoon we performed and sang to an audience of parents and family.

We finished the cathedral picture outside the classroom.

Our twiggy stars look great!

Muddisdale in December

Today we went up to Muddisdale again to prepare for poetry writing and to play at our den area. We took the trolley with cups and water and the Kelly Kettle and had chocolate and snack after we had walked around the path and through the trees. While we were walking we stopped and listened and felt textures and looked and smelled, gathering words as we went.

 Lots of us thought that it was surprising to be in such a familiar place that was so different to the last time we were there. The leaves were gone. We could see the masses of twigs against the blueness of the sky. On the ground there were lots of sticks, and leaves which were squishy and soft and very wet. They smelled of the earth. Some of our structures were there from the last time we visited. We rebuilt some and created some new ones and climbed the trees. Some people adopted trees and gave them names!

Glaitness Tree Lighting

This morning we lit the tree at Glaitness School. The choir, St. Lucy and the procession were at the Kirkwall Tree Lighting ceremony in the cathedral on Saturday. The choir sang Santa Lucia and the procession came in dressed up with candles. St Lucy had a crown of candles and she made a speech.

St Lucy is a Scandinavian celebration which we have adopted here to celebrate our link with Norway, who send us a Christmas tree each year. During the tree lighting week we also got a visit from some of the Norwegian musicians. They played music from different coutries around the world as well as Norwegian folk music.

How to write a quality blog post

To help us think about what makes a quality blog post we have made a video with what we think is important. We hope it helps you with creating quality posts too. We will be watching our video to help us remember  what to think about each time we write posts. So far we have written posts after a lot of discussion and note making. Next time we write posts we will be doing it individually and as independently as we can, so we will be watching our own video again. To see our latest posts please scroll down to look at our posts about a visit from Steven Cooper, Tom Muir's visit and what we think about Fantastic Gymnastics. This video will be posted in the sidebar so that it is a handy link for when we (or you) need it. Happy blogging!

Mental Strategies for Addition

We have made a video to explain some of the mental strategies you can use for adding mentally. It is now added to the P5 Maths Channel where there are lots of videos about number at the P5 stage. This is quite a useful way of revising how to work things out in number and helps parents understand how we do it too. We hope you enjoy the video and find it useful. Explaining how to do something always helps us with our thinking when we are learning something new.

Tom Muir tells some Tales of Viking Lands

Tom Muir is a storyteller. On Tuesday Tom came in to tell us some terrific Viking stories that Vikings told a thousand years ago. In all the stories there was a god and most of the gods were very powerful. Storytelling was very important to Vikings. The Vikings believed that all the gods in stories were real. The god Freya had gold hair and was the god of love. She was ever so powerful. The god Balder was called Baldur the Beautiful. He had no enemies even the animals loved him. Thor was overly big he had a very long ginger bierd not everyone like him but he was still a great god.

Sofia, Erin R and Cierra

Tom Muir told us a story about the gods and the story was about when Thor lost his hammer. One morning Thor woke up he checked for his hammer on his table but it was not there so he checked under his bed but he couldn't find it there. So he shouted Lokey! So Lokey went to Freya to ask for her falcon suit. So he gave it to him but Thor couldn't fit in it so Lokey said he could go and get it for him. So he flew across to the Giants house.

Tyler, Erland and Kaydan

Tom Muir started telling stories when he was 26 or 27. Tom doesn't forget complicated stories. He told us stories about Vikings and the Gods of Viking lands. The captain god was Odin. And the most worshiped god was Thor the god of thunder.

If you want to hear more of his stories you can get his book.

Brogan, Aiden and Darby.

A visit from Steven Cooper

On Tuesday Steven Cooper came into our class to tell us about his work. He is a jeweller he has a shop called Aurora in Orkney. One of the things he told us about was his tools. One of the tools was the triblet he uses it to make the rings round on the inside. There is also a tool called engraving tool it engraves the runic writing on the rings also Steven has a tool called the leather hammer which he uses to hit the ring so it gets its shape. Then he showed us a needle file witch filed the jewellery down. The last tool he showed us was his pliers which he used to bend the silver into shape. He also showed us his magnifying goggles which he uses for locking really close up at jewellery.

Kaylen, Daisy and Lauren.

The silver came in shapes and sizes of stripes. In a video he showed us how he makes jewellery. First he made the silver into a ring shape with pliyers so he put the ring on a machine that polished it when it was done he used a silver solder To join the ring he said he has to be very very careful because it is hot. He finished it off with ruins carved with the engrading tool it said health and happiness.

Declan, Scott, William

The most expensive ring her ever made was an engagement ring he created £15 000.

He learned how to make jewellery at The Longship then he left and started Aurora.

Erlend C, Cameron and Finlay.

Fantastic Gymnastics

Photos by William.

This term in PE we are doing gymnastics. We are focussing on rolls, jumps and balances. Last week we got split into groups and we made up sequences. We were in groups of 4. We think we're getting the equipment out so we are excited for next week's gymnastics lesson because gymnastics is fantastic.

by Erin K. Caitlin and Aneisha

We were doing rolls and balances and sometimes we needed people to help us stay straight in a hand stand. Then we practised and got better and better.

Rolls can be forwards or backwards or sideways. Sideways rolls are the most difficult. A Teddy Bear roll is when you sit down and hold on to the back of your legs and roll around.

Balances is when you either stand on one hand or two and you can also stand on one foot or two, for example: handstand 'bow and arrow'. A bow and arrow is when one foot  is on the ground and lift the other leg up and hold on to the tip of your foot.

Jennifer, Pippa and Paige.

These jumps are what we have been practising we use to do a one eighty. Now some of us can do a round off. A round off is a half flip and half cartwheel or a three sixty some of us can do a one handed cartwheel! we would like to improve on cartwheel, handstands or headstands and reach our goals.

Jake, Bruce and Angus.

Our visit to St Magnus Cathedral and the Orkney Museum

A blog post by Class 5.

At the cathedral Fran told us that when it was being built you would be able to see the Peedie Sea in front of the cathedral. Red and yellow sandstone was found under the museum around a ramp or jetty where the builders brought it by ship from Eday. Now when you look across the road you can see shops. The land was reclaimed and shops were built there about two hundred years ago. 

The stone mason carved their mark so the chief mason would know how much to pay them and to see how much work they did. They all had different marks. We felt the symbols because we would be touching history.

The paintings on the roof got covered in plaster and painted white. The paintings were of gardens, patterns and saints. The paintings would be painted in bright colours and patterns. The covered up every bit except the one that was left because you couldn't see any of the pictures on the other ones.

In the middle of the cathedral there are four hooks on the pillars. They were put there by Cromwell to tie his horses. It was at the time when there was no king or queen.

Fran told us more about the St Magnus story.

When Haakon arrives at Egilsay.

Earl Rognvald.

Kol Rognvald's father.

 Years ago Magnus's nephew went to Orkney and said, 'If you make me Earl of Orkney I'll build a cathedral in Magnus's honour'. The people of Orkney agreed. 

When the church was getting rid of the bones of the saints the people of Orkney hid the bones of St Magnus in a pillar in the cathedral. Five hundred years later when they were repairing the pillar they found the box with St Magnus's bones inside it. They knew it was St Magnus because the skull had a big crack in it. They put the bones back in the pillar in a new box. They box is behind the stone with the cross on it. The original box is in the museum.

In the Viking age if they needed to cut grass or crops they used a sickle. At the museum today we saw a real sickle used by a Viking. It was made out of iron. You could only see the hook because it was broken and it was rusty all around. We saw Viking board pieces as well. They were made out of whalebone . The pieces were some beads. They were in a pouch so they were together. They were buried at a Viking grave at Scar in Sanday.

In the Orkney museum we looked at a box that had had St Magnus's bones in it. They put the bones in a new box back in the secret place.The old box is ancient and fragile.

The comb was made out of deer's antlers. The male deer's antlers fall off every year. They carved the deer's antlers. The men and women used combs for their hair. They hung them on their belt or in a pouch. The combs had some designs on it.

In the museum we looked at a sword and it was really rusty. The end of the sword was broken. Blowflies had laid eggs on the sword and when the eggs hatched there were maggots. There were little cases on the sword from the maggots.

The whalebone plaque was made out of whale bone. It was found in a grave in Sanday.

Viking model house challenge

Where did the Vikings eat, sleep, rest, cook, play and tell stories? Where did they store their precious jewellery, weapons and make their clothes? Where did they care for their animals? 

Making the model houses in groups.

Our challenge was to make and label a typical Viking model house in an hour showing how the Viking home provided these things. Some of the houses even had outdoor toilets! 

Our finished models.

You can read our comments about the task below..

Class 5 storytelling Festival

Our five groups finalised their stories today and performed them in class.  Two of the groups went outside to tell their stories in the storytelling tent. Their audience was P2/3. Perhaps they will leave some comments below to share their reactions!

Open Afternoon

This week we have a post by three pupil bloggers about last week's Open Afternoon.

We will aim to have more writing by pupils published here on the blog at regular intervals.

We had an open afternoon to show our parents what we have done in P5 so far. We made circuits to make a light bulb work. After that we made Lego ROVs. An ROV is some thing  that works on the sea bed in a wind farm. Next we did shelter building.  We could show our parents how to build a shelter because we did it at Muddisdale and we are good at it. Then we did some willow weaving. We played Chinese checkers and Mancala.  Next we went on the blog and we showed our parents the photos. My favourite thing was building shelters because we got to sit in it after we had built it.

BY Bruce and Kadyn

Open Afternoon

We invited our parents to come to our open afternoon to show them around  last Wednesday. I showed my mum around the class and showed her how to play Mancala. We made shelters and used our own instructions to build the shelter. After we played Mancala we went to look at the circuits and me and mum enjoyed it. We weaved a little willow circle. After we weaved we then tried to play Chinese checkers it was quite hard to play we did not understand very well. Next we went back to the electricity table and I named all the stuff that was there like the batteries and we used penny’s and other stuff to see if they would conduct the electricity.

I  enjoyed doing the electricity and showing mum what we have been doing. I told her about insulators and conductors and what the difference is. I also showed her my habitat and electricity folder. She enjoyed weaving and the electricity. Mum was annoyed she was not able to do the LEGO ROV. Me and mum tried really hard to fit everything in. I showed mum how to weave. The circle of weaved willow was about the size of my head. I  hope we can do this some other time. After mum left I made an ROV.

Sofia

Drama - The Story of St Magnus

This week we had our second drama session with Mrs Linklater exploring the story of St Magnus.

You can see the range of emotions we had to think about in some of the photos below.

Everyone got into role very well and we saw some good understanding of the range of feelings the characters involved might have felt.

Next Wednesday is our open classroom afternoon so we won't be having drama again until the last week of term. Next term we will be visiting the cathedral and continuing our work on the story there,

Nature walk and Land Art

Nature walk

 Today was our last trip to Muddisdale for a while - we might visit again when the weather has changed to see how the plants have changed too. 

We saw lots of interesting things and made some land art. 

Land art 

Return to Muddisdale and The LIDL Bus

We returned to Muddisdale to finish a few activities we didn't have time for last week.

We looked at the biodiversity of the trees and plants and minibeasts. We found that the best place for large numbers and  different types of minibeasts was in the leaf litter.

The place with the least biodiversity of plants and animals was the grass.

We found a place that was full of wildflowers and different plants and decided that it had been too wet to make into a field so had been left wild. Muddisdale woods was planted in a field and the grass and clover that the farmer had sown on the field was still going strong! 

The grass is mown too which helps it look green and tidy, but we found most biodiversity in plants and animals in the long grass. 

We also found a good example of slime mould - it could be 'dog's vomit' or it might be the species discovered by Glaitness pupils which we named 'troll snot'. 

Can you spot it in the collage above?

We are pleased with our journey sticks and willow weaving - they will remind us of the plants we saw on our trip today.

In the afternoon we visited the LIDL bus to make healthy smoothies which were delicious too.

We measured our heart rates before and after some exercises and games and found out how much harder our hearts work when we exercise.

Muddisdale

We have been up to Muddisdale for our first outdoor session. The weather meant we had to postpone the nature investigations until next time but the sun shone briefly just before we left.

You can see the results of some great shelter building skills and teamwork in the slideshow. Everyone has done a lot of evaluating and critical thinking about how to build a stable and strong structure. we are also practicing working in groups with each other. 

We also collected or 'harvested' some describing words while we were there. We will add our word clouds here with this link.
Please check the comments below to read our comments and poems, which will be added soon.

Preparing for shelter building

We have been practising working in groups to build models and thinking about what makes structures strong and stable so that we are ready for our trip to Muddisdale next week. We are looking forward to making a real shelter that we can all fit inside!

How to write a quality blog comment

We decided to make our own video to explain how to do this. We have had a first go at writing comments on the post below this one - please have a read and see what we thought about coming back to school and doing the pylon activity.

Welcome everyone!

Welcome back to school!

We have a new url - that is the address up in the bar at the top beginning with http:// Why not add it to your favourites! We hope parents and family members will look at our blog regularly and leave comments. Please finish your comment by signing off with your name so we know who you are if you are using the anonymous option.

We started the term with a newspaper challenge - building pylons using paper spills. First we had to make the spills which is not as easy at it looks, though everyone got better at this quite quickly. Then we had to think about the structure and shape of pylons. You can see the skills involved in this activity as labels at the bottom of the post. You can look at the comments below to see what everyone thought about the challenge. We will all be writing a quality blog comments regularly - please join in! If you would like to know more about how to write a quality blog comment have a look at the video in the sidebar. 

Everyone learned a lot about stable bases and strong shapes, how important joins are, and got used to working in groups again. Lots more structural challenges coming up!

P5 Activity Day at The Peedie Sea.

This video will give you an idea of the activities we enjoyed at The Peedie Sea today, although it is mostly one group's experiences everyone had a chance to try all three activities.

Please read comments below to find out what the children thought about their day!

This week we also had the wildlife bus visit our classroom and we learned about the wildcat and the beaver and the habitats they live in.

We also said goodbye to James, we will miss him, but we are sure he'll make loads of new friends at his new school - keep leaving comments James - next year look at the P6 blog though...

Thank you for all the lovely cards and gifts Class 5! You can come back to this blog anytime (next year it will be called Glaitness Class 5 2015 2016) and remember everything we did this year.
Happy holidays!

Boat trials at the Peedie Sea

Today a few lucky people had the chance to go over to The Peedie Sea and launch the boat that one of our children has been involved in making with his uncle. There was not just one boat but three there and everyone got a chance to try them out! Exciting!