The Vikings are coming!!!!

P4 assembly - Friday 4th March

10am

Parents welcome.  Please let us know how many seats your family require before Thursday afternoon.  

Look forward to seeing you there

January / February

As our topic is Vikings this term we have been participating in a range of Viking related activities.  Above shows photos of us making ourselves into mini vikings using material and making sure we dress ourselves in the correct viking clothing.

We also learned about Viking Longships.  We found out that the average longship was 28 metres in length so we decided to find out how big this was.  We used metre sticks and trundle wheels to measure the distance out in the playground.  Group 1 found out that 28m was from P1 to P4 classroom windows.  Group 2 found out that 28m was the length of the muga.

Miss Kelday then set a homework challenge which asked us to build our own model longships.  We had 4 weeks to work on these with an adult at home and could use any materials we liked.

Here are some photos of our longships...  feel free to pop into school for a look.

James and Glen still to be photographed

In maths we have worked extremely hard on our addition and subtraction skills.  We have learned all about 100 squares, empty number lines and partitioning.  We decided to take a peedie break from this and move on to position and movement.  We have been learning all about giving directions this week and used a remote controlled car to do this.  We used command such as forward, right and left turns to direct the car and also included distances.  We had to type in the directions and watch the car move around the track (we built this ourselves - we gave ourselves a big challenge!!)  We made a few mistakes but persevered and corrected them to successfully move the car from the beginning to end in one full run.  We were very proud of each other as this was a super challenging task! 

One of our optional homework tasks this term was to learn a card game to teach to other members of the class.  Lots of people took part and we spent some time playing card games and teaching each other the rules.  

Christmas Fun!

We had a bouncy castle in school so each class had a turn.  We all piled on and had great fun bouncing together!

P1,2 and 3 performed the main concert this year  - Oops a Daisy Angel.

P4-7 supported this by singing some Christmas songs.  Here are P4 and 5 on stage singing their 2 songs. 

Christmas Dinner - a great time had by all! 

Some Photobooth Silliness on Christmas Craft Afternoon

Decorating the classroom tree

December

In December we continued to work hard on our Transport Project.  We went on a few class trips and had fun completing experiments in school.  

Here we are outside the airport! 

Both groups got the chance to visit the Airport Fire Station.  We explored all the different vehicles including the Fire Trucks, Gators and Jet Skis.  We even got to watch the fire hose being sprayed.  The water tank could hold 10,000 litres and could be emptied in approx 2 minutes!  Now that's a lot of water!  

We also went on one of the planes and had a tour of the Cockpit.  There were lots of buttons and dials to look at.  We had a tour of the airport and were lucky enough to get a surprise gift of FlyBe waistcoats, lanyards and a sweetie.

Thank you Kirkwall Airport for having us! 

 We were also learning all about aerodynamics and made balloon rockets to try and make them fly as fast as we could and as far as we could by making them as aerodynamic as possible.  We had lots of popped balloons but it was all good fun! 

To learn about friction we set up some race tracks using a variety of materials including wood, paper, sandpaper, carpet and lino.  We made a ramp and measured how far a toy car traveled on each surface.  We strengthened our measuring skills as well as our team work within this task, 

Ian Richardson was also kind enough to let us visit his boatyard.  We learnt how boats are made and the techniques he uses.  This would come in handy in term 3 when we build our own longships.

Other things happening in December

We were busy organising our enterprise project - Christmas Cards and Gifts

We asked all pupils to draw a Christmas themed picture back in October and sent orders to a company south.  When the orders arrived we had lots of sorting to do.  We unpacked the big boxes and checked off all the items to make sure we received everything,  This was a time consuming task but worth it as we found out there was a few things missing!  Phew! 

We then separated the products into classes and then delivered them.  

Thank you to everyone who ordered a personalised Christmas product.  We raised some money for school resources and learned some good team work skills at the same time.

P4 and P5 went on a visit to the Orkney Monitor Farm this month.  Millburn Farm in Harray offers children the chance to come and learn about what farming in Orkney is really like.  We looked at what is involved in owning cows and sheep and also how to grow crops in Orkney.  It was really interesting and we all learned something new.  The weather wasn't great and it was quite cold but we didn't let it dampen our spirits.  We soon realised that Farming is a tricky job but very important if we want to have food on our plates!  

A Norweigan band came over to Orkney in December to play concerts around the time of the Kirkwall Tree lighting as part of the links between Orkney and Norway.  They played a range of tunes from all over the world.

Welcome Back to the Blog

Sorry for being so late with these blog posts.  It has been a really busy few months in P4 and we have lots and lots of photos to share with you.

Here are some of our monthly highlights...

NOVEMBER

We have been working with a new online resource in P4.  It is called Education City and helps us with our maths and literacy skills.  Miss Kelday can set us tasks to complete or we can pick which activities we want to do to improve our skills.  It is good fun and we enjoy playing the games.  Unfortunately this site can only be used at school but there are many more websites which can be used at home to help with learning in maths and literacy too.

In November we were learning all about the Hindu festival of Divali.  We decided to make some Divali sweets to share with the rest of the school.  Indi also told us about her experience of Divali and lent us some super outfits for our assembly.   A few of the P4's created a dance for Indi, to wish her a happy Divali, and they also presented it to the rest of the school at assembly.

Our assembly focused on the story of Rama and Sita and how Divali came into being.