Tuesday 22 March 2011

An idiom game!

We have been learning about idioms in p4. We thought some of the sayings that we looked at were really funny and a bit strange. Mrs McRae set us a challenge of drawing pictures to match the sayings - a bit like Catchphrase.
We tried them out on Mrs Thompson and she thought we should turn it into a game so here it is!
For example this picture shows the saying 'a sinking heart'


Have a look at the slide show to see some more. Use the pause button to give you time to think!  
If you would like to enter the competition you can download a form by using the link on the right! Just hand it in to the school or to a p4 pupil. We will leave it open till one week after the holidays and then put the answers up here on the blog.                          
Good luck!                             


Knex!

We had a challenge to use the Knex construction kits to make a Mars Rover.
We added lasers, cameras and pick up arms so that it could collect things like rock samples too. Some of them would be better at getting over rocks than others!
One of them could even hover in the air to move along! I hope there is some air on Mars!
We had great fun building them and showed great cooperation in our teams.





Medal winners!

Some of our class are excellent football players and have recently won medals!
Here they are proudly showing them off.
Well done boys and here's hoping there will be more successes to come.

Monday 21 March 2011

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Fairtrade

We've been helping to make bunting for the Fairtrade challenge. Mrs Rendall has used them to decorate the Green swans board until it's time to send them off to be added to the official bunting string.































Find out more about Fairtrade here

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

Even more rocket fun!

Our latest rocket experiment involved trying out different shapes of rockets to see which ones flew best. This time they were powered by a puff of air.
We made these ones with paper cuts outs and stuck bendy drinking straws on the back. The straws had to be bent so that the air did not go right through.
We flew them by putting them into a wider straw and puffing air into it.
We measured how far they flew.


We realised that it was important to make sure the rockets were powered by puffs of equal strength to make the test fair. Also we had to start at the same point. The rockets were all the same length too but had different shaped wings or bodies.
Here is a short video clip to demonstrate our techniques!

World Book Day

To celebrate our love of reading we had a secret book swap on World book day. We brought in books we had finished, wrapped them and stuck on a label with just one word to describe the book.

There was a good variety of books to swap and it was fun choosing which one to have.

A good selection of books


choosing a book

Let's see what I got!

 
We enjoy reading the new books that were added to our library recently.




Monday 7 March 2011

Peedie Pier ~
Artwork from Orkney’s Schools

Peir Arts Centre, Stromness
open until 12 March 2011






Lots of well known faces were spotted at the official opening on Saturday 5th March.
Free admission.
Open until 12 March 2011






Wednesday 2 March 2011

More rocket experiments!

Today we made rockets with long balloons, straws, tape and fishing line.  It was quite tough to blow the balloons up but we discovered that Casey was an expert! Ross went a bit red when he tried too!

We know that when air comes out of the back of a balloon it shoots forward in the same way that a rocket is propelled. We taped straws to the balloons and threaded some fishing line through so that we could control where they went.
We had to go into the hall to get enough room to fly the rockets.
Not all The rockets worked well however!
We discovered that short bits of straws worked better than long bits.
Can you tell which rockets had shorter bits?
We had great fun!

Tuesday 1 March 2011

Rocket propulsion

We have been experimenting with different ways of propelling objects. Our first experiment was with denture cleansing tablets, water and balloons. We discovered that the tablets reacted with water and made a gas which inflated the balloon. This is what happened.

We tried putting a tablet in a film canister with water and putting the lid on. Some reacted quickly but others had a wee while to wait!