We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Despite the snow Class 7 finally took part in the school production of 'A Christmas Carol' and gave two great performances!

Well done everybody - now for the party!

party atmosphere!



Dancing queens,

King of the dance floor!

Arctic board games

Our games are finished!

We designed and created Arctic board games which had to be fun, visually attractive, playable and educational.



Testing the playability.



Are the instructions clear?



Are the questions interesting and are the answers accurate?



'POLAR BEAR PANIC'

'KAYAK HUNT'

'POLAR EXPRESS'

All of the games were tested and evaluated by P6 - thank you P6!

We hope your Christmas board games are as attractive and fun to play!

A Christmas Kayak and a Carol

Today we had a bumper 2 hour kayak session at the pool. We played a few games, some of which were adapted from games we play in the hall. We got started with the ice floe game and then we had a tug of war. Next we had 'Total wipe out' and seal and polar bear (a version of cat and mouse). After another tug of war we had a relay race in 4 teams. It was great fun and it showed how confident we all are in kayaks.

We love kayaking!



Yum! Yum!

We wish you a merry Christmas!

After a Christmas lunch it was time for our dress rehearsal of 'A Christmas Carol'.

This is the performance which is videoed and will be put on our website soon.

We hope you enjoy it!

Fantastic Gymnastic Class 7

  We have been putting together gymnastic skills into longer sequences with our PE teacher Mr MacDonald. We linked rolls, balances and jumps and put our own creativity into the final sequence.
Here are our recordings.

Igloo 2

A week after the original build and the igloo is stronger than ever - the freeze/thaw cycle has hardened the structure.

The temporary roof has been removed for safety reasons but it still provides a fun shelter at break times.

Glaitness tree lighting

We had our own tree lighting celebration on Monday morning after the community tree lighting at the cathedral at the weekend.

The choir gather at the unlit tree.

 We sang 'Oh Christmas Tree' and the choir sang 'Santa Lucia'.



St Lucy arrives with her procession of attendants.

Agata and Alice gave their speeches and the tree was switched on.

St Lucy gives her speech.

The countdown to Christmas has begun!

The tree is lit!

Arctic technology

We took advantage of the weather this week and used real snow to build our version of an igloo. It was not the right kind of snow to build with so we had to make a few modifications to our technique.

                                

A Right Blether!

Today we voted as part of 'A Right Blether'. Tam Baillie, the Children's commissioner came to our school and talked to us all about the process of gathering the opinions of children form all over the country. Next year he will tell the Scottish Parliament what we think and that will influence developemnts at local and national level. Its a bit like a very big pupil council vote!



Ready to vote!




Tam explains the process.

We are also celebrating the Convention on the Rights of the Child being 21 years old this month.

We made cartoons to show how children could be helped by 'Rights Superheroes'!

Tam has a look at our cartoons.

Paddling and pyjamas in the pool

This term we have been going to the pool after school to finish off some of the tasks for the Rookie Lifeguard Award. We have also been paddling kayaks and finding out about traditional Inuit kayaks which have been used in the Arctic for thousands of years for hunting. Some of the children in our link school in Igloolik go hunting after school and in the holidays.
Read our own imaginary expedition blog posts here.
Please leave your comments below!

Treading water and raising the alarm.

Junior lifeguards pool practice.



Trying to save energy and warmth.



Floating in the HELP position.



Practising with paddles, going forward.



Turning and stopping with a paddle.



Getting back to the finish position.




Going forward and stopping.



Practising turning on the spot.

Look where you are going.




Slowly and controlled...




Developing good control.



Getting to grips with the paddle.



International Education Week

This week we welcomed Richard Bates, a geophysicist who has worked extensively in the Arctic, to share his experiences of measuring how quickly the glacial ice is melting in Greenland. Richard showed us some amazing photographs of  the work he is involved with in the Arctic. We already know that Inuit commuities are well aware of the situation through our link school in Igloolik, Nunavut. Richard's visit supports our our work on the Arctic, global warming and sustainablity this term. BBC Radio Orkney will be broadcasting a piece about Richard's visit on BBC Radio Orkney on Friday 19th Nov.

We will put the recorded report on our wiki shortly.



Richard Bates, Mary Saunders (Orkney College) and Class 7.

Later in the year we hope to work with Orkney College geophysicist, Mary Saunders, as part of a local archaeology project. This work will be shared with our link school in Iceland and through the North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation.

John Rae

This week we finished our reports about the life of John Rae and went to St Magnus Cathedral churchyard to see where he was buried.

 Inside, as the organ played, we found the memorial sculpture which shows him in traditional furs and with his gun and a book. Could it represent the book in which he wrote notes about the traditional First Nations technology, with drawings of snow huts and snow shoes?



You will be able to read our reports about John Rae's life and expeditions on our wiki soon.

Canoeing and campcraft at Walliwall

This week we went to Walliwall to find out about campcraft skills and to paddle like Orkneymen working for the Hudson Bay Company.

We had challenging weather but, with John Rae as our role model, we were not deterred!

Two teams took on a challenge of making a shelter with tarps and upturned canoes.

They cooked bannock dough over the fire and paddled a raft of canoes as traders.

Icelandic visitors

This week we have had visitors from Iceland. Asgeir Ingi and Anna Karen are from the north east of Iceland. They came with their parents, Unnsteinn and Rosa, and Sif.

Unnsteinn and Sif  have come to Orkney to share the archaeology project they have done at Asgeir Ingi and Anna Karen's school.



Speaking English as your second language in another country - well done!

Anna Karen writes in Icelandic - the alphabet and pronounciation are different.

Counting to ten.

We learned from them how to count to ten in Icelandic and to say, 'Hello, my name is..., 'What is your name?' and we found out a little about their school and what Iceland is like. We showed them around our school. We hope that we will be able to make a link with their school and share some of our work with them.

Many thanks for coming to visit!

Book trailer bonanza!

We watched the Charlie Higson live author event on Glow today and then we finished off the last few book trailers.
We have nearly uploaded them all. Why not have a look at them on our wiki.
Perhaps you will find a book you would like to read!

What a great day for a trip!

Today's scheduled trip to Walliwall to paddle canoes and do campcraft activities was postponed til next term because high winds were forecast. However it turned out to be a glorious day! We tried to make the most of it anyway.

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 We took the trimmings from the willow sticks which we had prepared for the campcraft and planted them in the school grounds. We hope that they will make good roots and then we will be able to coppice them so that they grow long stems. They can then be harvested when needed and used for shelter building and other things. If it grows well it might look like the field of willow that Orkney College are growing at Muddisdale.



1 metre apart please.




Don't forget the watering in!




Here you go!




Spot the willow trees.




Done - our mini Muddisdale.

  In the afternoon we took our shelter building 'kit' up to Muiddisdale to test it out in different locations.


Group 1 - the traditional tipi.




Team work and good communication.




Group 2 - tipi in the trees.




Group 3 - 2 tripods and a cross piece.




The tarp goes over.




Tying on with bark bindings.




Everyone in!



Today's trip gave us some ideas for activities we could do with Primary 1 at Muddisdale, we will be planning for that soon, but first we need more tarps and a few more willow stems.

We might even make our own hammocks!

So we had a great day outside after all, but look forward to our Walliwall trip next term.