On Monday 23rd February pupils undertook a workshop provided by the National Library of Scotland in collaboration with Seachdainn na Gaidhlig (Gaelic Week). The pupils were tasked with producing an artwork inspired by the many, and varied, words and phrases in the Gaelic language for ‘rain’. The work they produced will be on display at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh – once we have dates for the exhibition, we will let you know.
Pupils in Raasay Primary School celebrated Pancake Day by making their own pancakes. They had to follow the recipe, weigh ingredients and cook the pancakes. They did a fantastic job with all agreeing that they were delicious!
Pupils had an opportunity to choose their learning topic this term – and chose to study ‘The Ancient Greeks’
They have been learning about Greek culture, society, engineers and inventors among other aspects of the Greek civilisation. The boys have also created their own shields which were made to be life size – and it was quite a revelation how large they were, and how heavy they must have been to carry!
As part of our Reading Schools Silver Award journey, a whole school collaborative visit to Macdiarmid Primary School took place on Thursday 12th February. This was a fantastic opportunity for us to share our learning and make new friendships across our age and stage. The Nursery pupils joined the Macdiarmid Nursery for a fun morning of stories, activities and outdoor play. The staff had an opportunity to share their floorbooks work and other practices. The older pupils wrote their own stories based on the style of their class novel – The Wild Robot. They also challenged the other pupils to identify imagery in their writing. The feedback from everyone was that it was a hugely successful and enjoyable event and a fantastic opportunity to share ideas.
Our Health and Wellbeing focus since the beginning of term has been learning about healthy lifestyles and nurturing. We have also been looking at the importance of friendships and family relationships. Our final lesson was on learning all about what it is like to be a parent and the skills, qualities and commitment required.
Pupils identified questions they would like to ask our visitor – Karen who kindly brought in baby Louis for a visit and answered all our questions. As we have been involved in ‘Reading Schools Week’ all this week, Karen also brought in some of Louis’s favourite stories which the boys read to him. Thank you to Karen and Louis for their visit – this was a lovely way to round off Reading Schools Week and our Health and Wellbeing topic.
The boys have been learning all about how to look after themselves. This includes sorting healthy food and being active.
As part of our STEM project on renewable energy, the children are making enough electricity to light an LED from wind power. They constructed a ‘wind turbine’ using blades and a generator and watched the bulb light. In a second experiment, they measured the electricity generated using a multimeter and worked out where to position the blades for maximum electricity.
Pupils in the Primary School joined the Nursery for an assembly and activities about Robert Burns. They all learned some facts about Burns and also learnt the Selkirk Grace before doing some fun learning activities. At lunchtime, our school cook Ann produced a delicious Burns lunch of haggis, neeps and tatties followed by cranachan.
Pupils are undergoing their block of YMI lessons and have kicked off the year by learning some tunes to build their repertoire – they are starting off with some local tunes including – ‘Ho bhan ‘s na Ho bhan Ho’ and Teann a nall.
In term 2 the boys undertook learning ‘Calum’s Road’ to tie in with the work they were doing on the Christmas show. Their tutor, Murdo, detailed that this is a complex tune and that they did very well to learn such a tricky tune.
Pupils are able to exercise choice when it comes to their core reading book. They can choose from the books which are available for the level that they have been assessed as reading at.
Raasay Primary School 