Giving Nature a Home

We’ve been very lucky this term to have had a few visits from Lindsey Taylor from the RSPB.  She has been helping us look for different types of wildlife around our school.  Last Wednesday we went on a ‘Nature Walk’ up to Copland’s Dock.  We found lots of different types of wildlife from birds to bugs!  We were surprised at how much we found so close to our school and Lindsey was surprised at how eagle eyed we are!  Miss Shearer took her camera but unfortunately the battery ran out after about 10 minutes!  Ooops!  Here are a few of the pictures! 

Today we headed out to Cottasgarth Bird Hide.  We were all very excited!  We spent time in the bird hide using our binoculars to see if we could spot the elusive Hen Harrier.  Unfortunately we didn’t manage to see any – they nest in the heather and are often very difficult to spot.  We did see a Raven, some Starlings and a group of 3 bonxies out hunting!  When we arrived at the hide we found a cuckoo who had possibly banged in to the window and had become stunned.  Lindsey picked it up and we got a really close look at it!  It was great. 

We heard lots of information about Hen Harriers.  We got to play some games where we used our listening skills to try and catch people and we also did a quiz on the beautiful mural painted in the hide.  Finally we went stream dipping to see what wildlife we could find in a natural stream – we mostly enjoyed splashing around in the water!

 

 

Although we didn’t see any Hen Harriers we had a brilliant time.  Cottasgarth Bird Hide is open all year round and is a great place to go to see birds as well as other wildlife – we would all like to go back! 

A big thanks to Lindsey for all the visits she has done for us this term – we have enjoyed every one of them!

Brilliant Bikeability

This week we completed our Level 1 Bikeability.  We’ve had great fun over the last few weeks learning about how to check our bikes, how to get on our bikes safely, how to cycle properly and how to signal using one arm.  Mr Macleod and Mr Johnston have been impressed at how we have improved over the last 5 weeks and how well we have listened.  We will now get certificates which will show the areas we have passed (coloured green) and the areas we still need to work on (orange and red).  Mr Macleod reminded us that even if we have ‘green’ on our certificates we still need to practice sometimes! 

We were very proud of our class mate Caity who has been working hard to learn to cycle over the last few weeks.  She has made so much progress she has learned how to cycle her bike and was able to join in with our final session in the playground!  Well done Caity!!

We will do our Bikeability Level 2 in Primary 6 where we will learn how to cycle safely on the road and how to use roundabouts. 

Lovely Library

Today we visited the new Library in Stromness at Warehouse Buildings.  We were given a tour of the building and got to see around all the rooms in the building.  We saw the meeting rooms and where they are going to hold ‘Bookbug’ instead of at our school!  We went upstairs and saw some desks where we can do our homework or studying when we are older.  We also got to go into the George Mackay Brown room where there are lots of special books which used to belong to George himself.  There were also copies of old Orcadian newspapers – some from the 1930’s!  Miss Shearer looked in some of them and found Ruben and Lucy’s birth announcements!  Lots of us would like to back and have a look at all the old newspapers.  Miss Shearer said we should try and find her birth announcement from 1987!  We then had some time to look at the books in the ‘Junior Fiction’ section and read quietly for a little while.  We were really impressed with the light and airy library and are looking forward to visiting again.    

Bikeability Update

Yesterday we had another session of Bikeability.  We have been learning about how to check our bike is roadworthy and safe to cycle.  We have also learnt about getting on and off our bikes safely. Yesterday we had to cycle past Mr Macleod, take a small hoop from his hand, turn at the bottom and give it back to Mr Macleod on our way back.  It was tricky!  We had to think about lots of different things like our balance, putting our hand out and turning all at the same time.  This is preparation for when we go on the road and need to indicate which way we are turning. 

 

Mr Macleod and Mr Johnston are impressed with our cycling skills and how we are coming on.  We will hopefully achieve our Bikeability Level 1 before the summer! 

Beautiful Butterflies

Over the last few weeks we’ve had some additions to the classroom – Painted Lady Butterflies!  They started off as teeny tiny caterpillars and they soon ate all the food and made their chrysalides. 

 

 

After a week and a half they had changed into butterflies and hatched out.  We’ve kept them for a few days and have been feeding them some nice juicy fruit which they eat using their ‘proboscis’ which is a long tube like tongue which sucks up the sweet nectar from fruit and flowers. 

 

 

We released them in the trees just outside the school so they had somewhere to land before they flew anywhere.  They took quite a while to leave the net and two didn’t really want to leave.  Miss Shearer put them onto the pieces of orange and took them out and set them in the long grass. 

 

It has been really interesting to see the changes which have taken place throughout the life cycle!

Our visit to the Hamnavoe

Today we had a fantastic day!  We went on a visit to the Hamnavoe to see our Lego Model in place on the ship.  We were also very fortunate to get a tour of the ship which we were most excited about! 

We started our visit like celebrities by getting some official pictures taken by Ken Amer for the OIC!  We had to get into just the right position!  Then we started our tour with the Captain.  He took us up to the bridge.  We got to go behind the ‘staff only’ barrier.  We saw some cabins where the crew sleep and then we headed to the bridge.  We got a great view over Stromness and heard all about how they manoeuvre the ship into place when they come into the pier.  We sat in the Captain’s chair with a Captain’s hat on!  Who knows – some of us may sit in that seat again as a Captain!  We went outside to look at the lifeboats and liferafts.  We also looked at the sticker on the back of the boat which showed the ‘Stromness from the Sea’ landmarks which pupils from SPS created last year.  We headed back downstairs and found some juice and biscuits waiting for us!  Finally Cheryl from Northlink very kindly gave us a ‘Goodie Bag’ each which had a t-shirt and water bottle in it along with some other things!  What a treat! 

 

Our whole 'Lego Hamnavoe' experience has been brilliant from start to finish.  Although at times it was tricky it was worth it in the end and we are just delighted to see our hard work on display on the ship!

 

Here we are on our way back to school showing off our goodie bags!  We were most chuffed with them!

 

Thank you very much to James and Cheryl from Serco Northlink and the crew of the MV Hamnavoe for having us aboard today - we really did have a brilliant time!