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!

Friday Golf

Last Friday we had a great opportunity to go to the Golf Club and learn some golfing skills from the Golf Club members.  It was very cold but we thoroughly enjoyed it.  We got the chance to try putting, chipping and doing some long shots.  It was good to have a go at this after our club golf.  There is training on Monday night which we can go to at the Stromness Golf Club if we’re interested in furthering our skills.  Here we are at the Golf Club with the member s and Mel Douglas who was up for the weekend. 

 

 

Sharing our Learning

This week we have been sharing our learning with Primary 3.  Like us, they are learning about living things so we researched a type of Orkney wildlife, created either a PowerPoint, poster or leaflet and presented it to a small group of P3’s.  It was a super chance for us to share our learning with P3 and have them ask us some questions about Orkney wildlife.  P3 thought the P5’s spoke loud and clear, had interesting facts and good pictures in their presentations.  P5 thought that P3 were an excellent audience who were patient, listened well and asked good questions.

 

Well done P3 and P5! 

Caterpillar Watch

Our caterpillars are now hanging down from the lid of the tub.  This is a sure sign that they are ready to make a chrysalis.  They have been hanging all day so we think that they may make their chrysalis overnight.  Hopefully we will get the chance to see one of them ‘spin’ and make their chrysalis.  Check back for another update tomorrow! 

Humungous Caterpillars!

Our caterpillars have increased vastly in size and we think they are going to make their chrysalis soon.  As you can see they have eaten lots of the food on the bottom of the tub and what they haven't eaten they have mashed up!  They have moved to the top of the peedie tub and were beginning to hang down when we left school today.  We had hoped they would spin their chrysalis’ when we were at school but we are looking forward to checking them tomorrow morning!   

Monday Madness

We’ve had a busy Monday today!  We had our final Tag Rugby session.  We joined up with P4 to make a bigger group so that we could play more games against each other.  We did some warm up games and then practiced our ‘line’ to try and make sure that members of the opposite team didn’t have any gaps to run through. 

We have really enjoyed our Tag Rugby sessions and have made really good progress with our Rugby.  Mark is impressed with how much we have come on and said we will be in a good position when we start next time!

As Tag Rugby finished our Bikability began!  This week we focussed on learning about checking our bike to make sure it was all in check and some general cycling tips.  Mr MacLeod and Mr Johnston went through the different parts of the bike and how we can check that each part is working correctly.  We also had to check our helmets – if you can fit more than 2 fingers under the strap then the helmet is too loose!  Some of us are needing a bit of help at home to adjust the straps before our session next week.  Mr MacLeod also set us homework to revise how to check the bike and is going to see how much we can remember next week!