Metaphor Poems

Last week were were learning about metaphors, and how they can create really nice images that add detail to characters within your stories.  After looking careful at a poem called "My Headteacher" we decided to create our own metaphor poems.

Do you think they have been successful?  Have they painted a picture of the person they are writing about? 

Heroes & Role Models

Today we have been further investigating the people we look up to and admire.  We had to bring in an image of someone who we did not know but thought was 'cool' or impressive.  We realised so many of our heroes are actually admired for their skill or talent, rather than their personality.

After creating a list of positive and negative personality traits we thought of someone we knew much better that we really admire.  Lots of different people were thought of and here are a few examples.

Thank you P6 for your very interesting discussion contributions, I can really see how much you are thinking about what kind of people you would like to grow up to be!

Bag the Bruck

Last Friday Primary Six were doing their part to help keep Orkney clean and tidy.  Every year there is a "Bag the Bruck" weekend where volunteers across the county head out to pick up litter and other waste from around the coastlines and countryside.  P6 & P3/2 (with the help of Mrs Aitken, Mr McIntosh and some other helpers) went to Dingieshowe beach, Deerness and managed to collect 40 bags of rubbish collected from the beach!

Well done for all your hard work, a clean beach not only benefits us but really helps all the wildlife that live around our shores too.  Keep up the Eco-Friendly work.

A New Term - A New Challenge

Primary Six are now back refreshed and raring to go after the Easter holidays.  Last week we held our own K'nex Engineering Challenge.  The task put to the teams this week was to create a vehicle that could be used around the Olympic Site for London 2012.  In order to be successful the vehicle had to have at least three wheels, have space for a driver, passengers and luggage.  To test it's strength it also had to be able to carry a 500g weight.

Pupils had to work together to draw plans, considering all the elements of the design.  Half the class built their models while the other half judged their success.  It was a closely run competition, with the majority of models completing the task successfully.  But in the end it had to come down to one winner, which we can see below!

 

This model was selected because of the team's excellent communication skills, their problem solving when things didn't work and their model's ability not hold not only 500g but 2kg!  Well done guys, looking forward to seeing how you do in the next challenge!

Jack & The Beanstalk

Primary Six have been working very hard all term with Primary Seven for the Easter show.  This year it was Jack & The Beanstalk, based on Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhyme.  We had songs to learn, actions to practice, a set to paint and costumes to organise.  We were finally ready on Tuesday to present it to an audience, and the whole school really enjoyed watching our dress rehearsal.  Two performances for friends and relatives followed, and the whole show was given rave reviews, with laughter in the aisles!

Well done to P6 & 7, the whole show has demonstrated how well you can work together as one big St Andrews team.

Felting Fun

Last Friday Primary Six were very lucky to be involved in a fantastic felting project.  Christina Sargent, Miss Grant and Mrs MacKay worked with P2/1 and P6 to design sea-themed ideas as a result of the local folklore stories as told by Tom Muir on World Book Day.  

The ideas were then turned into a pattern and pupils had to work together with wool to begin the felting.  Pupils had to work the wool with combs and a lot of water and oil-based soap was used to bond the fabric. It was a fantastic day, with really good team work by all pupils.  The finished felt will be displayed in Glasgow alongside 3 other wallhangings from other Orcadian schools.  Well done Primary Six!

Our Europe Learning

We have now finished adding to our Europe wall.  In our groups we had to work out how to display the models, and build shelves to hold them.  All this information is now being used in our imaginative writing, which is looking very exciting!  

We're now working on different European Union case studies.

Photograph of the Week

This week at our after school club we were looking at Group Portraits.  We had to think about angle, action and colour when taking our shots, so that they were exciting and interesting.  After taking our photographs we used iPhoto to edit and make them more dramatic.  This is our favourite photograph from this week, well done guys!

Handling Data

This term we have been looking at handling data.  We have been learning about the different ways data can be presented and how to use the words mean, median, range and mode.  We used this knowledge to present weather information about European Countries.  The data had to be well organised using labelled graphs and we had to write a paragraph analysing the data. Here are some of our graphs!

World Book Day

It was World Book day on the 4th of March.  Here at St Andrews we were lucky to have several very interesting events.  To start our day Tom Muir came to tell traditional Orcadian stories to the whole school.  He fascinated the whole school with tales of Selkies, Fin People and the terrifying Stoorworm.  We'll be using some of these stories as inspiration for an art project we will start with the help of Miss Grant on Friday.  

The second exciting event was an online webcast with Michael Rosen from BBC Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust.  He was hilarious, and imitations around the school were frequent for the rest of the day.  It was really good being able to link down to Glasgow through Glow and on the internet.  We're looking forward to another webcast in May by Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo.

Europe Update

Just a quick update from on our Europe topic.  We have nearly completed our wall display.  In our groups we have researched country names, capital cities, seas and rivers, mountains and famous landmarks.  These are now all displayed upon our giant map, along with models, coins and souvenirs.  It's looking really good!

Next we will be beginning to look at how decisions are made in Europe, and specifically within the European Union of countries.

K'nex Capers

On Tuesday we were visited by Ruth Falconer of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths from the Scottish Government) to talk to us about engineering.  She brought with her several sets of K'nex.  With the help of the K'nex we looked at how shapes can be reinforced.  As a class challenge we were split into groups of 2 or 3 and had to build a wheelbarrow that could carry a book out of a flooded library.  We had to plan then build our barrow, adapting our model as we go.  Below are some photos as we were working.

When we were finished out models we had to present them to the class while Mr McIntosh, Mr Taylor & Mr Gallacher judged our success.  It was a very close competition with nearly every model successfully carrying the book the length of the desk.  Here is a photo of our winning team!

We're lucky to now have K'nex in the schools, so we're thinking of how to use it in our topic right now, any ideas?