Eday School blog

On Friday the 28th September Alex Salmond came to Eday to open the EMEC tidal test centre. We had lunch with Alex Salmond, Liam McArthur our MSP and Steven Hagan our councillor. The food was delicious. Then three of the pupils presented a painting to Alex Salmond and we all got our photo taken with him. It was very sore on our eyes because all the cameras flashed at least 3 times.
Mr Salmond said that we were the best behaved children he had met in a long time and he chatted with us which was fun. We thought he was very funny and cool.
There were at least 130 people in the school which is about the same as the whole populaton of the island! We had to play in just one part of the playground because there were three buses in the other part of the playground.

It was a really exciting day for our island but we were glad when everyone left.

On Wednesday the twenty ninth of August 2007 there was a ferry strike and we needed to get into town for a singing lesson. We went on a small boat which our teacher arranged with the council.
It was geat fun on the peedie boat and it was a lot faster than the ferry, but some people felt a bit sick. When we got into Kirkwall we walked up to Papdale Primary school and we went in to the playground. The pupils of Eday Primary School thought that it was verry busy and one of the pupils thought there was one hundred thousand pupils there! Not really, our teacher said there is about 500 at the school. That is still alot more than 8 at Eday school!
We followed everyone down to the hall and went into the music room and had our singing lesson with our music teacher.We learnt a really hard song called the Peace song. We had our lunch outside and some of us made new friends. Then after we had our lunch we went for a play in the playarea and played for a bit. We went inside for another music lesson and then we walked back down to the small ferry. The weather had got a bit worse, so it was a bit rougher on the way home.

We had a great day thanks to the peedie ferry.

Our topic work this term has been minibeast. We have been keeping nature diaries of what we have observed.We have used microscopes to look at the mouth parts and wings of some minibeasts. We had to record what happened to our Painted Lady caterpillars and also all the insects we found in the school grounds.

Our caterpillars grew quite quickly and soon turned into pupa. It took 2 weeks for them to hatch. When the butterflies came out we fed them sugar water and then a few days later we released them into the wild.

Lots of insects were brought into the school. G found a water beetle nymph in her dad's pond. R brought lots of white butterflies and we found out that there was more than one type which like to eat his mum's cabbages. We also found centipedes, woodlouse, spiders and beetles. D found a green beetle just like the picture she had painted in art. M brought in a mystery crysalis. We waited patiently to seem what would come out of it. Finally a moth appeared much to everyones surprise. We looked in the reference book and we think it was a poplar hawk moth.
We hope that our new wildlife area will encourage more minibeasts and butterflies. We hope to build a moth trap to see what comes at nighttime.

We have been working very hard since before Easter on a combined drama production with 3 other peedie schools.

The first thing we did was to create dances and mime with our Drama teacher. We also worked very hard with our music teacher and produced the music for our boat mime and pirate dance. We had to record what we did on DVD and send it to North Ronaldsay school as they were going to dance with us. They watched our mime and dance and added some bits of their own. They sent us a video so we could see what they had done. It was a bit strange working from a video. Papay school and Rousay school did the same thing for their dance and mime.

We met for the first time after Easter and had a rehearsal in Kirkwall with all the teachers helping us. It was great to see our friends but a bit difficult to get the dance right as we hadn't been practiving together.We then rehearsed for the next 2 wednesdays in the Arts theatre where we were going to perform. Because of the boat and plane times we had to come in the day before the rehearsals and stay overnight in the hostel. We had lots of fun when we were in town visiting places and trying new sports such as golf and fencing. Staying in the hostel was a bit scary at first but we really liked it by the end. The hostel staff were really kind to us and we got fed really well.

The rehearsals were hard work but it was fun decorating our t shirts to make pirate costumes. We used our picture from the peedie school travelling art gallery and photos from our island as the backdrop.We were also interviewed by the local radio station and newspapers which was a bit funny.

It all finally happened on the 23rd May when we performed at the Orkney Arts theatre in Kirkwallin front of our friends and family and children from 2 Kirkwall schools. The parents and friends had to come by boat or plane but lots of people came to support us and the ones from Eday clapped very loudly when we did our bit. It was fantastic and we would like to do it again!

We've been planting trees in the waste ground beside our playground.

We planted different types of native Orcadian trees and we planted about 500 trees in two days. We have also started a bog garden area. We have designed a plan which will make the whole area attractive to wildlife and visitors.

The trees will take a long time to grow as it is sometimes very windy beside the school, usually during the winter. We have a weather station and have recorded wind speeds up to 88mph! The trees in the field next to the school are over 15yrs old and they are only about 1.5 metres high. We hope our trees will grow a bit taller because they are native trees.

The next thing to do is to get the big hole filled with soil. We have to wait until the ground is a bit drier so the tractor doesn't get stuck. We will then be able to plant more trees and plants that like boggy conditions like Irises.

Next term we hope to get on with planning a shelter and finding sculpture to go in our garden.

We've had lots of help from our community, Anne our Eday ranger and Jenny from the tree nursery. A big thankyou to everyone who helped us.

On Thursday April 19th we went on a boat called the Swan. It is over 200 hundered years old it was made in Lerwick it was first used for fishing herring.It is now used for taking people out for sailing.

In the morning our trip on the Swan was delayed because it was rough weather, we did a quiz about the Swan it showed you where everything was.We went back down in the afternoon we put on all our saftey gear then we climbed down the ladder the crew was helping us down.

We all loved the Swan but we especially liked coiling the rope,steering the boat,we liked it when the boat began to rock and hoisting up the sails.We liked it when the waves got really big and they sprayed us it was really funny,and we especially liked exploring the boat.

Everybody really enjoyed it, we look forward to going next year.

Here are some pictures of our rag rugs. We made these using scraps of materials. Some of the material came from old clothes. One was made using a baby brother's old vest. Others used an old jumper that had very long sleeves and old jeans and shorts.
It was very hard work making these small rugs but one of our teachers makes very large rugs which must take ages! It was really fun to make and we would recommend it as a good way of recycling rags.

On Wednesday we learnt to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
We can Recycle old bits of cloth as dusters.
We can Reuse tin cans but first we have to clean them.
Recharge batteries to save the world.
Reuse paper by using the other side.
We completed a jigsaw a to show how our green cone works.

We made a flower using a plastic bottle and we painted it. I painted mine red.

We had our Red Nose Day 1 week late because we planned to do a science workshop last week.
We still had lots of fun and raise over £200 bag packing at our island shop. There are only about 100 people on our island but they always help us to raise lots of money for charity.
A big THANKYOU to everyone who gave us money.

This is the Setter stone on Eday

Who put it there?
Why did they put it there?
When did they put it there?
How tall is it ?


My Grandad's roof was found near Castles in Calf Sound after the storms on Saturday night!!