The BBQ and day 3 at Nethy

Wednesday night ended with a barbecue and some songs round the campfire with all the schools together as the sun set and the moon rose in a clear sky.

 Day 3 started with  the silver maze and problem solving in the forest. Team work and cooperation helped. Some of the problems required perseverance and quite a few attempts.

In the afternoon we went canoeing and did archery. The canoeing at the pond was great fun as we competed at picking up the balls to win points and had the obligatory jump in to freezing water at the end of the session.

It looked inviting in the hot weather, but it was a little more refreshing than expected!

The winers of the art competition with their work and their prize.

Tonight a DVD and a good sleep, then a Forest Adventure tomorrow morning before we leave.

Nethy Day 2

Another day of glorious weather and the groups split up to do the climbing wall and abseiling at the big tree. The new climbing wall is fantastic! A few warm up games and everyone had a free climbing challenge before attaching harnesses, and climbing up and abseiling down.

Can you get all the way round without touching the floor?

Belaying team.

 The other climbing activity was at the big tree.

Climbing up one side and abseiling down the other.

Claire goes up...

and Claire comes down!

I did it!

After lunch it was time to get kit organised for dry-slope skiing.

Height and weight needs to be measured and boots, helmets and skiis adjusted - lots of mental maths involved for the instructors, and Miss Gillies.

 The ski slope was bathed in sunshine so it was hot work getting around on the skis, but worth it!

Glaitness Ski Team - ready to go!

Future pros.

Half way up.

Up we go.

 As the afternoon progressed, everyone's skills improved until they were flying down with good control and only the occasional bump!
The button lift helped in the heat.

Getting the hang of the button lift.

We ended our activities with a competitive game of polo - with very relaxed rules...

Later, Time Out and supper.

Day 1 at Nethybridge.

We have had beautiful weather for our first day of activities, which started with orienteering. Based on the front lawn, we used increasingly complex maps to look for locations using photo clues. 

Taking a break on the front lawn.

Off with another photo clue.

Getting the answers checked.

A short break - time to catch up with our Michelle Paver books.

Arriving at the zip wire tower.

Zipping!

Made it!

The adventure course was fun.

Morgan makes it look easy.

Finally time for a shower and a swim before tea, games, Time Out and supper. Phew!

Water polo.

Mini - Olympics

Over the last few weeks Class 7 have been training for the Olympics - the Class 7 mini-Olympics - with Miss Flett. Finally the day arrived and everyone took part in hurdling, throwing and jumping.

P7 mini- Olympics finished with the relay race.

The medal ceremony took place at whole school assembly.

3rd place went to 'Fish fingers and custard'.

2nd place went to 'The bean team'.

1st place went to the 'Dynamos'.

Well done everyone!

BBC School Report Broadcast Day!

The BBC School Report team 2012

Our BBC School Report Broadcast is now live on our dedicated blog: BBC School Report at Glaitness 2012. Please visit and see our broadcast which is in three parts. Or find us on the map on BBC School Report webpage.

BBC School Report

We are busy gathering and writing news for our BBC School Report broadcast on March 15th. Please make sure you are tuned to our dedicated blog at BBC School Report at Glaitness 2012.

The Olympics interviewers.

The new swimming pool interviewers.

The marine litter reporting team meet Mr Ian Harcus to find out about the 'Fishing for Litter' project.

How we reflect on our learning

We think it is important to think about the learning we have done and know about the skills we are good at, and which are more challenging for us. We do this by looking at the cloud of labels on the blog and choosing one which we think we have done well. When we click on that skill it creates a list of posts which remind us of activities when we used that skill. Now we can choose an example which we remember and are pleased about doing well. We do this at home with our parents and at school once or twice a term. Its great fun to look back at things we have enjoyed and remember how we felt about them.

When posts are put on the blog we can label them with the most important skills we used in that activity. We can look at the cloud of labels and discuss, choose and agree on the best ones. Most of the skills can be used for many different areas of the curriculum (labels like writing and using mathematical skills aren't used much on the blog but you can see these skills on our wiki literacy and maths pages).

Using the blog labels to review learning.
Thinking about the skills we used and how we like to learn.

We learn in lots of different ways and we all like a different mixture of ways of learning, but most of us agree that model making and real life activities are some of the best ways of learning, some of us prefer drama and role play or debates. In our learning review we think about how we like to learn. This helps Ms Mackay give us choices about how we might be able to do things.

A few of our favourite ways of learning - investigating technology outdoors, planning and conducting experiments,
model making, playing games, creating pictures, organising fund raising, print-making.

All of us do things in and out of school which are important to us and we feel a sense of achievement about. Sometimes this can mean we win a medal or earn a certificate, but sometimes it is a real life skill like cooking a meal for the family or being a class representative on the Pupil Council. We like to share these achievements with our teachers so that they understand about our life outside school and what we are good at!

We do lots of things outside of school which we are proud of!

Launching the S TEAM!

 Today we (the S Team) were at Scapa Beach picking up litter or ‘Bagging the Bruck’. It was a very windy day but we picked up various types of materials but the main concern was plastic as, although many people don’t realise it, it does not biodegrade and disappear it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces and it is being found in the human food chain in some parts of the world. Some of the other materials we found included rope, bottle tops, shot gun cartages’ and parcel ties.

Sue Whitworth and Lindsay Taylor (the RSPB field officers) met us at Scapa to tell us a bit about the shells, wildlife, the affects of litter and they were also there to give us a hand with picking up litter. We didn’t only go to Scapa to pick up litter we also went to raise awareness of the amount of litter being dropped not only in Orkney but everywhere around the world, to achieve the second part of our John Muir award and also to collect ‘bruck’ to use in our art work.

We managed to collect 12 bags of rubbish and a huge piece of fish netting - it took the whole team to pull it out of the sand.

By Joanne and Leah

Tag Rugby indoors!

Today was our last session with Liam. We had to start off in the activity area as it was too icy outdoors, but it turned out to be challenging and good fun.

Liam and Cameron demonstrate.

Call, throw, catch, change places!

Thanks Liam and good luck!

Christmas Carols at the Cathedral

On Thursday evening we had a carol service at St Magnus Cathedral. Every class had a Christmas song to sing and the choir and orchestra, woodwind and strings group played. The audience all had a chance to join in with the carols too.

Mr Griffiths with Jordan, Joanne and Emma playing the Finnish folk song.

Primary 7 sing ' Santa Claus is coming to Town'.

We hope everyone who came along enjoyed the Service.

Tree Lighting

St Lucy and attendants.

On Saturday the St Lucy Tree Lighting ceremony was held at St Magnus Cathedral.  Children from Glaitness and Papdale took part in the choir and procession. This year St Lucy and her attendants were from our P7 class.

Class 7 participants and their certificates.

This morning at assembly St Lucy and the procession came in to light the school Christmas tree and the choir sang Sancta Lucia in Norwegian.

Thank you for a lovely start to Christmas time!

Inuit inspired printmaking

In Art we have been making prints with Mrs Firth. We started by looking at images of birds in Inuit Art. Then we made a printing block and inked it and tranferred the image to paper.

 

How to make a model igloo

Last week there was not enough snow to build an igloo outside so we used John Rae's notes and drawings, and a Ray Mears video, to make a model igloo.

Tag Rugby

The latest video on our Sports channel shows us playing Tag Rugby at the Pickaquoy astroturf pitch with Liam.

Making model open boats

We designed and created model open boats using some of the methods we know are used to make traditional birch bark canoes. We only had glue and string to make the joins. We used PVA as a waterproofing for the skin if we thought it need it. It didn't work quite as well as resin and bear fat to close any leaks. Everyone made gunwhales as part of their framework but there was a mix of hull designs. Some had a distinctive V shape along the keel while others were the traditional open canoe flat bottomed hull. Most people modified their designs to some extent as they made the models, and everyone learned a lot.

Voyageurs, campfires and canoes.

At The Ouse in Finstown we set up camp and sent our voyageurs off to trade for furs at the trading posts. We used the Hudson Bay Company trading game we created to set the scene and set up negotiations. Meanwhile back at the campfire we made bread dough twists and ate them with maple syrup. Later we boiled some water in the kelly kettle for hot chocolate before packing up and carefully leaving no trace of our camp.

Many thanks to our parent helpers, and to Ron, for making the day such a success.

Shelter building at Muddisdale

We went to Muddisdale to build shelters based on designs agreed by the groups. Each shelter had to be built in 15 minutes and everyone had to fit inside. Once they had built the shelters they ate their bannock and butter inside.

The Hudson Bay connection

This week Kim Foden came in to tell us about her ancestor Magnus Twatt who grew up in Orphir and spent 30 years working for the Hudson Bay Company in the late 18th century.

Kim shows us how the teepee is contructed.

We learned all about Magnus's life and heard how Kim found out about Magnus and discovered her Cree cousins at Sturgeon Lake.

Some of the Canadian artefacts Kim brought in to show us.

In the afternoon there was a technology challenge, to construct a model shelter that could be moved from place to place. Some groups tried to use the teepee construction, while others tried to use the traditional A frame tent shape.