Happy Holidays!

Have a great Easter holiday everyone. See you in 2 whole weeks!!

World Book Day 2015

Last week was a busy one in Stromness Primary School. Primary 7's ran a very successful Book Fair  raising well over their expected total! We visited it twice and had a good look at all the exciting books!

On Thursday it was World Book Day! A super effort by Primary 4, can you guess who our famous book characters were?

Fair Trade Fortnight

From the 24th February to the 6th March Primary 4 took part in Fair Trade Fortnight. During these 2 weeks we found out lots about what Fair Trade is and how it can help the lives of the farmers who produce the items we like to eat and buy.

Gill Smee, from Fair Trade Orkney, came in to visit us and took in loads of products which were Fair Trade; there was olive oil, chocolate, nuts, honey, coffee, tea and sugar. We found where each of these items are made, the majority were from south of the equator in really hot countries.

We then led the assembly to the rest of the school and shared with them how important it is to support Fair Trade by buying products which have the Fair Trade symbol on them. 

On Monday of last week we had another visitor - Basilio Almonte de los Santos. Basilio was from the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. He told us all about the difference Fair Trade has made to his life and his family. He could only speak Spanish so he took a translator with him so we could understand each other. He took some cocoa beans with him and told us that all the beans in his tub would be needed to make just 1 bar of chocolate! We really enjoyed Basilio's visit!!

Super Smoothies!

Continuing with our healthy body topic, we have been focusing on healthy food for the last few weeks. We now all know what healthy food is and what unhealthy food is, but how can we encourage children to eat more healthy food, more often? Well, last week we took on the challenge to design and advertise a healthy snack that children would want to buy.

On Monday we did the taste test, trying 7 different types of fruit. We commented on how they looked, how they felt in our hands and mouth and, most importantly, how they tasted. We tried red grapes, banana, blueberries, pear, pineapple, mango and strawberry. In our design teams we then had to agree on three of these fruits to go in our smoothie as well as one liquid, (apple juice, orange juice, orange and mango juice, cranberry juice, milk or water).

Smoothie ingredients finalised it was time to advertise our creations. We needed to make sure our adverts were eye catching and bright, but also we wanted to get across how healthy they were. We researched our ingredients on the internet finding lots of interesting health benefits. Did you know that blueberries can improve your memory, mangoes are excellent for keeping your skin clear and pineapples can help to keep your gums strong?

Finally it was smoothie production day. In our design teams we prepared our fruit, by chopping it into smaller bits then placed them and our liquid into the smoothie maker and watched...each of the smoothies turned a different colour and texture, we tried to guess what colour each smoothie would go based on the ingredients involved. Yum Yum!

Orkney Cheese & Tesco visit

This Tuesday we were lucky enough to go on a class trip to visit not one place, but two!!


Our first stop was the Orkney Cheese factory in Hatston.

Lesley, our guide, told us the process of turning milk into cheese and showed us the men in the factory making the cheese. 

We saw them adding salt and mixing up the curds before it was sucked into huge pipes and formed into rectangular blocks.














In the next stage, the blocks were put into plastic bags and vacuum packed, placed on a conveyor belt, labelled and then packed in wooden boxes.








These wooden boxes are kept in huge store rooms for about a year before they are mature enough to be sold and eaten.

Back on the bus and off to our second stop of the afternoon - Tescos.

We were met by Kasia, who took us behind the scenes in Tesco and up the stairs to have lunch in the staff room. She had set out lots of sandwiches, soup and fruit which was delicious!



Then Kasia took us on a fruit and vegetable hunt in the store. We had to choose 7 different fruits or vegetables and then find out which country they came from. Some had come from South Africa, some from Brazil and some all the way from Thailand.

















Our last stop in Tesco was the cheese counter. Here we sampled 5 different cheeses, nearly everyone was brave and tried lots of new tastes, even a chocolate and orange Wensleydale!!!

A big thanks to both Orkney Cheese and Tesco for such a great day out! We all had a super time!!

Tiling with 2D shapes

During our Tuesday maths sessions with Mrs Johnston, we have been learning all about shape. We have looked at 3D shapes, 2D shapes and have kick started this term looking at tiling or 'tessellating'. This is a pattern made up of 2D shapes which fit together perfectly, with no overlaps and no gaps.

We spotted the repeating shapes in these patterns and coloured them in correctly to make beautiful designs. Sometimes it was a little tricky to see the where the pattern was!

                      

Then we had a go making our own with a variety of 2D shapes. There was some excellent group work going on and some lovely designs made too, well done P4!

Our Reward Coupons

Welcome back to Primary 4, and to a brand new year.

With a new year we have some changes in the classroom. One of these is our 'reward coupon' system. Last term the pupils earned table points through showing good behaviour, working as a team and displaying excellent manners. The table with the most points at the end of the week then got to choose an item from the prize drawer. This term, the winning table now gets to choose a reward coupon, redeemable at any point the following week.

Our reward coupons include 'sitting at Miss Nicolson's desk for the day,' 'having music on whilst working for 15 minutes,' and 'free drawing time at the end of the day.'

The pupils also wrote a few of their own, such as 'help out in another class for a lesson,' 'take our snow leopard Arcta home for the night,' and 'organise a game for the rest of the class.'