We have been working on these pieces of art over the past few days, and now that most of them are finished, I think you would agree that they are really outstanding! We have taken the first steps to investigate technical drawing by using some tricks that are employed by those who draw images in technical drawing. Hope you like the end result- let us know what you think! (If you wish to see each of these full-size, click on a picture, then click on it again when it opens in a new window.)
Michael
Jun 222012
Jun 072012
As part of our Health Week, each class was asked to lead a short session where they demonstrated a work-out to the rest of the school. We did our session earlier today, leading the school in a work-out based on our own recording!
Many apologies that the quality of the sound is not good- we used the huge speakers in the hall, which played the song very loudly, yet clearly. For some reason, I think the camcorder couldn’t cope with the volume!
May 282012
The 2012 Schoolovision contest came to its end last Friday, and it was a great day for our P5/6 pupils as they learned that we had finished 4th out of a total of 38 countries from right across Europe, with our version of The Proclaimers’ song, I’m Gonna Be (500 miles).
So, many congratulations to the pupils for their great work in preparing the song! Norway were the outstanding entry, and they won the contest, followed by Ukraine and Spain, who came 2nd and 3rd.
May 152012
Our 2012 entry to Schoolovision is now on the blog, ahead of Friday’s deadline, when all 39 countries’ songs need to be there. With entries from as far north west as Iceland, right down to Azerbaijan in the south east, we have already seen that the standard for this year’s contest is probably the highest yet! By Friday, we should have entries from new members Luxembourg, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as Azerbaijan and Bosnia & Herzegovina’s which was the very first song uploaded last month.
We all enjoyed watching our entry this morning, and we should thank Castlesound studios in Pencaitland for allowing us to use their venue, as well as Gavin Tully-Jackson from Haddington who filmed the song for us. Thanks too to Miss Traill, who worked very hard to ensure that we sang fantastically at the recording studios! How will we fare against 38 other countries? We’ll find out next Friday, 25th May!
May 112012
This morning, we enjoyed our second drama session with Shona from the drama team. The results are here in this short video!
May 042012
This week, in art, we have been working on creating pictures titled, “Falling for Foreshortening!”
Foreshortening is the optical illusion that occurs when a part of something moves from one part of space to another. For example… a bridge travels from right in front of us, to far away from us on the other side of a river. The same thing can happen on a smaller level with human limbs. For this lesson, the class traced their feet and hands on paper. They then drew their arms, legs, body and head to create the illusion that the body was further away than the feet and hands. The images all end up looking like the subject is falling toward the viewer.
Already in the first week back, we have been very busy on a number of different things. We looked last week at how to create attractive leaflets and brochures, as well as learning to make some very unusual pictures in artwork. In addition, we filmed our 2012 Schoolovision video around the village and we should be able to see the results of this in the next couple of weeks.
Looking ahead, we plan to continue to concentrate on various types of writing this term, allowing the class to develop their own styles of writing as they tackle a variety of genres. Looking back through the writing jotters, we have written some very diverse pieces in the three terms up until the Easter break! We will also on a weekly basis try to look at a piece of writing for comprehension purposes, to strengthen our understanding of different types of written work. As well as this, we’ll revise some things we have come across before, and continue to think about how we can improve the overall quality of our grammar and punctuation.
In maths, we have already looked at information handling this term, and we have been learning more about the terms mean, median, mode and range this week. We’ll look at volume and 3 dimensions, as well as revising lots of things we looked at earlier in the year too.
We are just starting a new project called Travelling Green, which takes a truly multi-disciplinary look at the ways we travel to and from school. This project is very diverse, so it will consider social and scientific aspects as well as looking at healthy eating and how we can become fitter. It includes mapping work, which will strengthen what we learned from last term, and language work, where we look at poetry! Truly diverse!
Over the next few weeks in P.E. Mr Clelland will be looking closely at who might be considered for the annual East Lothian Sports team at Meadowbank, which takes place at the end of May. Today, he was assessing the children in their long-jumping techniques, so I hope that some of P5/6 are successful in gaining a place in the team for Meadowbank.
I have today given out homework, asking the children to plan a presentation or talk to give to the class, which is due for Monday 14th May. There is a sheet which gives advice about what I am looking for. Be aware that each week, the class receives spelling homework, reading in their groups, and where appropriate maths homework. From time to time, I also ask for other things to be done, such as this talk, or other research things from the internet or which might be project-related.
Can I please remind everyone again that we have gym each week on a Tuesday and a Thursday, so everyone needs to have their P.E. kit on these days. Miss Traill will continue to work with the class on Wednesdays and Miss Turbayne will continue with the violinists on Thursday afternoons.
Apr 202012
I know some of the childen have been trying to describe to parents exactly what we have been working on in art this week- and that it has been quite difficult to explain clearly what we have done! We looked at illusionary artwork, where you create a picture that can play tricks on the eyes, if you look at it very closely. It’s been quite a long task, and not all are finished yet, but here’s a flavour of what we have created below. Once they are all finished, I think we’ll have a really striking display! What do you think?
Saoirse in P7 thought this looked like baby snakes!
For some reason, I think of croissants when I look at this one!
This is very effective, even with a few sections left white!
What do you think of when looking closely at this? Sea shells, perhaps?
Apr 202012
The newly opened Yester Castle attraction!
After the holidays, we hope to create our Schoolovision film entry on Wednesday 18th April, if everyone is available to help us that day. A number of pupils told me they’d check to see if their parents could help, so if you can, please let me know by adding a comment after this post. We’d hope the filming should take only an hour to an hour and a half, probably in the morning.
Happy Easter!
Telling the class about Sweden.
As part of our topic on Sweden, we had a surprise yesterday when a real-live Swede came to the class and told us all a bit about where she lives, close to Örebro, in central Sweden! We had prepared a variety of very challenging questions about a whole range of things to do with Sweden that we wanted to find out about, but our visitor, Veronika, answered all of them very fully!
Many thanks to Veronika for her excellent talk to the class!
Mar 302012
About to hit the ball for six!
We played rounders outside on the field earlier this week, enjoying some time in the extremely warm weather. I think it’s the first time I can remember that the playing field has been used so extensively before Easter! Usually it’s too muddy at this time of year. Long may it continue, right through Easter and the summer term!
Yester's winning cross country runners celebrate with the trophy!
This morning the Yester cross country team headed down to Hallhill in Dunbar, to take part in the annual East Lothian Cross Country Championships. After two months of training, we hoped that our very competitive youngsters would do well. Usually there are either five or six schools who enter the small schools’ races, but this year there were a total of nine schools in our races!
Despite that, we are delighted to report that we emerged victorious yet again, returning with the trophy for the 5th year running! Not only that, but our fastest runners were the fastest of any pupils at the event, from either small or big schools from throughout East Lothian! Well done team!
Mar 262012
Moving to the music 2!
Moving to the music 1!
This afternoon, each class spent 30 minutes in the (very hot) hall, working out to aid the charity Lepra. As you can see, the children enjoyed themselves very much!
Mar 232012
Heading into Yester Estate.
A lovely morning in the park.
Walking through the woods next to the Bleachfield.
The whole school walked more than a mile this morning, in aid of Sport Relief. We set off from the playground, headed down towards the Bleachfield, turned into Yester Estate, carried on up towards the house, came back down the road and walked around the perimeter of the Bleachfield and through the woods, before coming back up towards the school.
Back in class, we used the mapping website Map My Run and the laptops to establish that our mile long walk had actually been a walk of 1.61 miles in total! Well done everyone, and thank you to the various parents who came along and supported us along the way.
Mar 232012
A new design of stamp!
In art this week, we looked at how to create our own stamps. We considered the sorts of things that appear on stamps, then set about making our own, unique stamps. The results have been very pleasing!
Mar 152012
Where's the ball going now?
In the gym today, we were playing team benchball games, with each team trying to score by passing the ball to their respective goalkeeper. It’s a very fast moving, all-action game, so I tried to capture some shots of the players in mid-game action- with mixed results! However, hopefully these pictures give a flavour of the fun the class had!
Mar 152012
Who has the strongest lungs?
As part of science week, we have been investigating what happens when you suck water through straws. However, we didn’t just use one straw, we used many joined together and we found that it became much more difficult to suck the water up through the straws as a result. Why was this? Forces acting downwards (gravity) and the fact that when we joined the straws together using sellotape, there may not have been perfect seals, thus losing the effects of a vacuum, as well as the fact that our lungs have only limited sucking capacity, all conspired to make the job much harder as we added the number of straws! We found that with 12 straws joined together, it was very, very hard to suck water successfully directly upwards!
Mar 142012
With Stuart Hamilton, at Castlesound Recording Studios.
P5/6 spent the morning at Castlesound Recording Studios in Pencaitland, working with owner Stuart Hamilton, where they recorded this year’s entry for Schoolovision- The Proclaimers’ song I’m Gonna Be (500 miles). Also there was Gavin Tully-Jackson, who was filming the experience.
Just to clarify what happens now: Gavin Tully-Jackson will return to the school one morning during the first week back after Easter, when we will shoot the “location” video, in the village. He’ll then edit this, along with today’s footage, to create the end video that will be entered into this year’s Schoolovision contest, and uploaded to the Schoolovision 2012 blog. This must be done no later than Friday 18th May. So- parents (and all of us!) will be able to see the end result in early May.
Here are some thoughts from the morning:
Megan -”We had great fun and it was a great experience for all of us!”
Joe – “It was really fantastic to see all the equipment there!”
Caitlin – “It was a really cool experience!”
Lauren A – “It was fun but it was quite hard work.”
Angus – “It was really fun seeing how a professional recording studio operates, but it was hard work!”
Finlay G – “We’ve all got our hopes up- we hope to do really well (possibly even win!) but this was a once in a lifetime experience that not a lot of people are able to have.”
Daisy – “It was a great day and a great song to sing!”
The class rehearse!
Filming in the studio…
Mar 092012
Choosing where to stay…
Deciding which type of car might be best to rent…
Working out how much money will be left!
Our task in ICT this morning was to budget for a family holiday to anywhere in Europe. This gave the class lots of scope to go wherever they wanted to, using either Ryanair or Easyjet as the flight carriers. We had learned the basics about how to book flights, accommodation and car hire last week in Money Week, when the class were asked to budget for a holiday to Finland, so this represented a leap forward in terms of allowing each pair to actually explore and decide what appealed most to them.
The budget was £3000, which included flights for a family of four, accommodation in the country you cose to fly to and car hire, as well as considering how much money would be needed for the duration of the holiday as spending money. At the end, we shared our plans with each other, and heard of some tremendously diverse and creative ideas in which to spend (or not spend!) all of the available budget!
Mar 052012
We were hopeful that we had done quite well in Thursday’s orienteering competition at John Muir Country Park in Dunbar…
If you click on this link from the Outdoor Learning team’s blog, you might enjoy reading about the result! Not only did we retain the P4/5 trophy, we also won the P6/7 trophy too! Well done to all the pupils who took part!
Some of the class in the sun at John Muir Country Park, after having completed the course.
Although we don’t yet know the results, as the event is running all day, with schools arriving at different times throughout the morning and afternoon, the P5/6 pupils feel they performed well. Hopefully we will know the results tomorrow!
Feb 272012
On Friday, some of the P5/6 class were invited by Dundee University to make a presentation about the work connected to International Education we have done here at Yester Primary, to B.ED students, who are learning to be teachers.
This was a very interesting 45 minutes, so thanks to those who participated in it! We told the student teachers about some of the projects we have undertaken, and how to create links with classes in other countries, before the meeting finished with the students from Dundee singing their own version of the Proclaimers’ song, I’m Gonna Be (500 miles), which we then repeated from our end! Let’s hope they follow us when we sing our song for Schoolovision soon!
Feb 202012
We had a visit today from Generation Science, and the class all carried out various experiments, including testing for acids and alkalis, mixing acids and alkalis together to see what happened, and recording the results, before finally watching and recording how various reactions occur when they mixed various substances together. Click on each picture below to see a larger version!
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- Generation Science comes to Yester!
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- Straight down to action!
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- Working to add the various ingredients
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- Testing for acids and alkalis
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- Careful when you add the liquids…
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- Don’t add the mixture too quickly!
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- Rinsing the mixture out
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- Team-work ensures the experiment will be a success!
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- Keeping a record of the results
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- Goggles ensure safety at work!
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- Did you get the same results as we did?
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- Listen carefully, as we learn what we’ll do next!
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- Concentration is the key!
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- Approaching the finale…
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- Boom! The lid is blown off!
Feb 092012
We’ve been enjoying a few weeks of Scottish Country Dancing in the hall, led by Mr Johnstone. Here are few photos of what we’ve done!
Feb 082012
The P5/6 blog has a new feature – you can now ‘like’ blog entries. This is a great and quick way of showing that you are impressed at what’s going on in P5/6 without having to write comments (although if you have something to say, please do).
Try it with this blog entry by clicking on the plus icon at the bottom of the post next to the little heart. You should see the number of ‘likes’ increase by one.
Hopefully this will give us a better idea of how many people look at and use the blog. Please note that this is in addition to the letter sent home to oldest children in each family today, which asks for views about our class blogs.
Happy ‘liking’!
If you would like to receive an email alerting you to the fact that the P5/6 blog has been updated, please look at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar of the blog, and click where it says “Subscribe to Welcome to P5/6′s webpage by email”.
This will take you to a page where you need to enter your email address, and some random letters below. Once you have done that, you will receive an email that you will need to click, activating your email alerts.
After that, each time we update the blog, you will then receive an email alerting you to this. It’s a good way to keep up to date with our news- and is in direct response to parents who asked for something like this at the recent Parents’ Council meeting.
Feb 072012
Creating Viking Powerpoints
Yesterday, as part of our project on Sweden, we learned a bit about the Swedish vikings. Today, as a follow up in ICT, we have been researching the Swedish vikings ourselves, and creating our own viking powerpoints.
Playing the Finnish game Molkky!
During Golden Time, some of the class decided to play the Finnish game Molkky. This is a very popular game in Finland, which looks a bit like skittles, but in fact involves quite a bit of thought, as you have to work out various strategies to try to beat your opponents!
Feb 032012
In the gym over the past few weeks, we have learned a variety of scottish dances, including Strip the Willow, The Gay Gordons, The Haymaker and The Waterdown Reel. All of these could be used in the forthcoming ceilidh later in the month at Garvald hall!
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