Week beginning December 3rd 2007

This week sees the start of the big build up to Christmas!

The children have already made their own tree shaped classroom advent calendar and there will be THREE pockets to empty on Monday when they come in…the bonus of December starting on a Saturday!

In our classes this week we will be…

Science

In Science this week we will be looking at crossing the River Forth using the bridges – and because they are not all the same structure, how bridges sometimes work in different ways. We will get a chance to build our own bridge in a team exercise that will require planning, enterprise and special thought. The building materials themselves may be something of a surprise to the children!

Photos to follow in due course…

Maths

To mark the beginning of advent we will undertake further work on the days and months of the calendar. We will pay special attention to the coming new year of 2008. One of our activities will be to make a 2008 calendar for our own homes.

English

On Monday we used our Leap Pads to read our own story books. This included the story of Shrek. These talking books allow us to follow the words and clarify any difficult vocabulary whilst having great fun with the interactive aspect of them.

Art

Our art classes will take on something of a festive theme in the coming weeks – and much of the produce will make its way home as a surprise for our families. Last week we took home our turkey shaped pen holders – not to begin our Christmas celebrations a month early, rather to mark our look at Thanksgiving!

Home Economics 

In Home Economics we will be continuing to make our own kitchen aprons. We will eventually use these aprons when we get another chance to do some cooking!

Christmas Cross Curricular project

We made our bracelets last week in this class and this week we hope to begin selling them! As part of the project a trip to the Edinburgh German Christmas Market is on the cards for one very special Friday morning…

PE

In PE this week we are continuing practising our basketball skills. Mrs Reid partners us so that we can practise shooting, dribbling and passing.

Thanksgiving and St Andrew’s Day

St Andrews Day-ThanksGiving Activity

In America, over the last week, people have been celebrating THANKSGIVING.

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a traditional North American holiday to give thanks for the things that people have at the end of the harvest season. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada.

In the United States, Thanksgiving Day is part of long weekend which usually marks a break in school and college calendars. Many workers (78% in 2007) are given both Thanksgiving and the day after as paid holidays. The day after Thanksgiving is known as the unofficial holiday, Black Friday: the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season. Many shops open very early (typically 5 A.M.) and offer special deals to draw people to their stores.

Thanksgiving meals are traditionally family events where certain kinds of food are served. Turkey is the main part of Thanksgiving dinners (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes known as “Turkey Day”). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, turnips, rolls, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie are commonly eaten at Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanksgiving started in 1619. On December 4, 1619, a group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia. The group’s charter required that the day of arrival be observed annually as a “day of thanksgiving” to God. On that first day, Captain John Woodleaf held the first service of thanksgiving. Over the centuries it has become a very important holiday in the United States and most families enjoy the opportunity to spend time together during the cold months, eating nice food and having a rest from work or school before the mad Christmas rush begins.

Last week, we received an email from Akron, Ohio, that told us of some of the plans in place there for Thanksgiving…

“Over here, millions of Americans are preparing for Thanksgiving. This holiday is spread out though, people travel more now than at Christmas or New Year. My dad is volunteering in a mission tomorrow, working in the soup kitchen. We will be heading to my best friend’s place as she is having approximately 40 people over to share a meal. My two brothers are hooked up in Orlando, Florida with their families. On Friday we’ll all get together with my family. Then, on Saturday, we’ll kick-it at my cousin’s house!”

It is an incredibly busy time and – as the email tells us – is almost more celebrated than Christmas or New Year!

Here, in Scotland, we also have more low key celebrations at the end of the harvest. In schools and churches all over the country, there have been Harvest Services and Harvest Festivals. This tends to be marked by children and families donating food stuffs to be collected for distribution amongst the elderly in the community. More recently, some schools have put on performances or plays connected to the theme of sustainable development and famine in the Third World. However, Harvest Thanksgiving in Scotland is not a holiday as such.

We will be celebrating St Andrew’s Day on November 30th. St. Andrew’s Day is the feast of Saint Andrew, celebrated always on the 30th November each year. Saint Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and St. Andrew’s Day is Scotland’s official national day, although Burns’ Night has traditionally been more widely observed.

However, in 2006, the Scottish Parliament designated the Day as an official bank holiday.

We will not, however, be off school on the 30th of November and most adults will still have to work. So we decided to investigate how St Andrew’s Day was being celebrated in our community…

* What did we know of St Andrew?
* What is being done in East Lothian to promote St Andrew’s Day?
* What are we doing in our school?
* Do people think St Andrew’s Day should be a big public holiday?

In the Herald newspaper on November 23rd, it said that a number of local attractions would be open to the public, free of charge, here in East Lothian.

Dirleton Castle, Inveresk Lodge Garden, Musselburgh and Tantallon Castle are all going to be freely open to the public on St Andrew’s Day.

We also found on the Scottish Government website that Athelstaneford Primary are organising a lunchtime cafe and raffle in the village hall with support from the Parent Council and many local businesses. The school are having a special enterprise day to help create Scottish decorations for the hall. They will also be raising their new flag.

ATHELSTANEFORD has a special place in Scotland’s history.

According to legend, the Pictish King Angus was marching southwards with his army, when they found themselves confronted by a larger force under an English leader called Athelstan. Defeat seemed almost certain, but after Angus and his men had prayed for deliverance, the appearance in the blue sky above them of a white cloud in the shape of a saltire or St Andrew’s Cross seemed to promise that their prayers had been answered. Angus vowed that if they were victorious that day, St Andrew would forever after be their patron saint. When the Scots did indeed win, Angus remembered his promise, and so Andrew became our patron saint and his cross our flag.

At the western end of the village lies the Church of Scotland Parish Church, which was originally built in 1176. The present building dates from 1780. One of the fine stain glass windows in the Church is of St Andrew, Patron Saint of Scotland. Within the burial ground of the Church, the SALTIRE MEMORIAL is located.

We also read that Campie Primary, in Musselburgh, will be having a whole school activity entitled ‘Proud To Be A Scot: Proud To Be A Citizen Of The World’. The work will celebrate the landscape, people, language and music of Scotland and Africa.

On the website ElectricScotland we learned that Andrew was a fisherman – this ties in nicely with our ELP cross curricular theme, WE were fishermen ourselves only last week!

We discovered that Andrew was the first disciple called by Jesus and that he was also crucified. However, Andrew did not believe he was good enough to be crucified on the same kind of cross as Jesus – and so he died on a diagonal cross like the one on the Scottish Saltire.

Andrew is traditionally thought to have worn blue clothing when he was a follower of Jesus and because of this, the (Saltire) flag of St Andrew became a white diagonal cross on a bright blue background.

We also discovered from The St Andrew Society that some of the saint’s bones are to be found in the place called St Andrews which lies on our river, the River Forth. Nobody is sure how they got there and more than one legend has been told about the transfer of Andrew’s bones to Scotland.

The country’s political independence, restored by the heroic efforts culminating in Bannockburn, was given its most eloquent expression in the Declaration of Arbroath, and in 1385 an Act of Parliament established the statutory position of the St Andrew’s Cross as the national flag which any Scot is entitled to fly or display.

The Arbroath Declaration (1320) relates with pride the country’s link with St Andrew and the scene of his missionary labours:

“Among other distinguished nations our own nation, namely of Scots, has been marked by many distinctions. It journeyed from Greater Scythia… but nowhere could it be subjugated by any people…it acquired, with many victories and untold efforts, the places which it now holds, although often assailed by Norwegians, Danes and English.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ…called them…almost the first to his most holy faith. Nor did he wish to confirm them in that faith by anyone but by the first apostle by calling, …namely the most gentle Andrew, the blessed Peter’s brother, whom he wished to protect them as their patron for ever”.

Week beginning November 26th 2007

This week we will be celebrating St Andrew’s Day – a day to think about Scotland’s national patron saint and all the wonderful things we know about our country. We also will be having a special visit from Education Convener, Cllr Peter McKenzie, on Tuesday afternoon. He is interested in seeing what is going on at Preston Lodge High School.

In our main subject areas we will be looking at the following things…

Science

In Science this week we will be looking at transport and energy. We will find out what sorts of transport are used in our area – and, in particular, on the River Forth. Boats, trains and even hovercraft will get a mention, as we look to see how energy is used to make things move. We will also investigate why energy and transportation is needed for every area of our lives.

We will get a chance to try out different experiments that show us how things move using energy. Extension work includes speaking about specific kinds of energy including the term kinetic energy.

We will also relate humans using energy in order to move to our work on the food chain from last week’s lessons…

Maths

In maths this week we will continue with our work looking at money, change and denominations. We will also be finishing off making our own advent calendar to be used in the classroom next month in our countdown to Christmas…

English

In English this week we have been working hard on making sure basic sentence structure is understood. The need for capital letters at the start of sentences or at the beginning of proper names has been looked at in particular detail.

We have also continued with out phonics and reading books.

Cross curricular enterprise project

This week we will begin making our bracelets for our enterprise project. They are alphabet bracelets and need us to be able to use letters of the alphabet in the correct sequence to spell out names on each bracelet…

PE

We have continued with learning how to play badminton!

Art

In art we worked on pictures of turkeys (yes we did!). This is to tie in with our theme of comparing St Andrews Day with Thanks Giving in America…

CDT

In CDT we have started working on woodwork – making a jewellery box to take home! However, Mr Cruickshank has also been showing us how to make toast…only for us to show him how to demolish it, once buttered!

Ready, Steady Science!

A special visitor came into Science this week to help us learn more about food chains – in particular food chains that originate in the sea.

Mr Frost, who is a Super Scientist by day and keen angler in his free time, came along to our lesson to show us how to catch, gut, process and cook fish. It was a bit like being on a fantastic version of Ready Steady Cook meets Brainiac!

To start the lesson Mr Frost showed us his fishing equipment. There were flies to attract the fish and a rod which he carefully showed us how to flick into the water. We had a close look at the flies and thought about how they would get caught in the fishes’ mouths.

Mrs Binnie and Mr Kidd, between them, had managed to get their hands on a range of fish that were still pretty much intact. This allowed us to look at whole Rainbow Trout and Sea Bream – and there were enough fish for us all to have one each to look at.

We first looked at the outside of our fish – what did they look like? How were they similar and how did they differ? Mr Frost removed some of the lovely silver scales from the side of a Sea Bream and we had a closer look. Miss Cleland showed us inside the mouth of the fish – we didn’t know they had tongues and teeth! You could guess from the kind of teeth they had whether they ate plants or other fish (herbivores or carnivores). We were also shown where the gills were – and talked about how they worked and why they were so important.

We closed our eyes and were each given a fish to hold in our hands. We had to tell the class how it felt to us – was it heavy, light, hot, cold, slippy, rough, smooth? We thought about the colour and texture of the fish. Fish in the supermarket or chip shop is usually very white and cloudy looking – but this fish was shiny, pink, silver and sort of see through in places…

Why and how did it change by the time it ended up on our plates?

Mr Frost then went on to show us what was inside the fish. He carefully cut the heads off with a sharp knife. We had another look at the eyes and mouth. Then he carefully cut along the belly of the fish in a smooth, straight line and opened the body out so we could see inside – there were bones and other bits! Next, he cut along the back of the fish, where there was a sort of ridge (in the way our spine is a kind of ridge) and removed what seemed to be “the side”. He gave this a special name – it was a fillet.

We looked at the skeleton of the fish. The bones were thin and white. They were bendy and not hard, like ours are. We wondered why that was. One pupil lifted up their still-whole fish and flexed it as if it were swimming – this showed us in a very good way how the fish needs to be flexible and bendy in order to swim well.

We talked about what we might do with the left over head, tail and skeleton. We first thought most people would just throw them away. However, we had a talk about times gone by – and how lack of food supplies would often mean people making stock or soup using the leftovers of the fish…and how the bones could be used for making household items as well.

We also thought about who else might eat the fish – was it only humans who had fish suppers on a Saturday night? Mr Kiernan had kindly brought in a sharks jaw for us to examine and compare with the fish we were looking at. We saw how easily the bream and trout fitted into the mouth of a bigger sea predator. We compared the big, sharp teeth of the shark with the little smooth teeth of the Bream. Ms Cleland told us they were very different because the two fish ate very different foods…

It was now time to think about cooking the fish. Mr Frost had brought a container along in which he placed the fillets. We were asked to help “season” the fish using salt and pepper. This was to prepare it for the process of cooking – something called “smoking” the fish. Mr Frost had prepared a smoker for the fish using a tin and and a metal grill. Small pieces of wood were put under the wire grill and our seasoned fillets were placed on top. The smoker was then sealed and heated using a burner until it was perfectly cooked. It looked and smelled amazing!

At lunchtime, Mr Frost brought round our smoked fish for us to taste – it was now a lovely pinky brown colour and smelt a bit like smoky bacon! We watched carefully for any small bones as we took a taste of our own fish.

Banking on our maths skills…

As we have recorded previously in the article “Improvisation maths at the restaurant, hairdresser and cinema…” role play has become an important part of our lessons in ELP maths.

Many of the topics we are covering with the children are designed to give them essential life skills that will stand them in good stead for their adult lives once Preston Lodge is but a (hopefully) pleasant, distant memory,

The areas of relevant everyday maths that we plan to concentrate on in particular include –

Money (coins, notes, denominations, change, prices, budget, banking)
Date (days, weeks, months, year, annual events, recurring occasions, advent, planning, reminders, timetables, diaries)
Time (telling the time, timetables, planning, alarms, 24 hour clock, durations, planning)

– as well as the fundamentals of addition, subtraction etc (of course!)

In dealing with the use of money, in particular, the use of role play has been invaluable. We have set up our own pretend shop, make believe bank – and even, at the children’s request, an Insurance Company selling house insurance policies (for all of £5 per annum believe it or not!).

Teaching and learning support staff have willingly played the roles of customers and employees of the ELP Bank, ELP Insurance Company or ELP store. Pupils similarly have acted out these roles accordingly.

An example of the kind of activity the children may take part in might be…

Child A plays a teller at ELP bank. Before they open their counter they must first sort their cash till. This involves ordering all like notes and like coins together and then putting them into the cash tray in order of ascending denomination.

Child B (or teacher or learning support worker) visits the bank and asks to withdraw a set amount of money from their account. Child A must then process this transaction, delivering the right money to the customer. We might then consider if there was more than one combination of notes (or coins) we could have handed over to the customer – if the child is at the stage that they can cope with this level of differentiation.

Another improvisation scene might be…

Child A needs to buy lunch from the school canteen. They have X pounds on their card. They have a choice of menu to select lunch from. (It would generally be a lunch menu that supports the Health Promoting Schools work – however we also usually include an option like sweets or doughnuts so that we can have a “healthy choices” discussion if the opportunity presents itself).

Child A must choose a lunch that they can afford. They might also be asked to work out how much money they would be left with on their card after buying lunch (this is an extension activity for the more advanced pupils in the group). They could physically represent this as “change” using the toy money from the cash box.

There are so many different variations on this theme of real life improvisation and it will be a very long time before we exhaust our acting opportunities…

The children really engage in these activities and gain crucial life skills as they unwittingly improve their maths at the same time. Much pleasure is gained from these lessons – with our favourite moment so far most definitely being when one of the children was playing the role of the bank teller. The pupil in question was asked by “Mrs Smith” if she could withdraw £5 from her bank account.

The young lady behind our ELP Bank Counter replied “I’ll go and ask my manager!”

Week beginning November 19th 2007…

This week we will be moving home…

Last Friday, sadly, Mrs Simpson retired from working as a teacher at Preston Lodge – and she will be greatly missed by us all. However, as a parting gift to the ELP children, she has asked them to “look after my room for me”. As of Monday, the ELP group will be moving into that classroom – taking advantage of the fabulous opportunities it will present us for undertaking the vast array of work we do on the ELP programme.

We will have more room for art, a story corner, display materials and personal space. We will also be able to make good use of the five computers that are set up in the classroom. It is going to be an exciting time for the ELP children!

We will also have a bright and airy classroom with a wonderful view of the River Forth – even though the power station is also on the horizon, that only makes things more interesting.

Elsewhere on the ELP programme this week…

Science

In Science we will be continuing our look at the food chain – with particular emphasis on the part fishing plays in our daily lives. The children will hear from staff who are keen anglers, will get to see fishing equipment first hand and will explore the wide range of fish and shellfish that are caught off our coasts. As fishing has been such an important part of East Lothian culture down the centuries, we will also look at the tales and myths that have built up around the sea – including hearing a story about a selkie…

See ELP Science “From the rod to the plate” lesson plans for full information.

Photographs of our fishing lesson when we had a special visitor come into class to show us how fish are caught, gutted and processed will appear here soon – watch this space!

Maths

We will continue to consolidate our knowledge of the calendar this week – undertaking a number of activities about birthdays, school timetables and advent.

We will also continue to work on our knowledge of money by using role play as the central part of a lesson on paying for items with the correct money. We will continue to consolidate our recognition of different notes and coins using our ELC cash till. We will also relate this to the Luncherama interactive maths game on the Learning and Teaching Scotland Website. The children can practise this at home at any time, with help from an adult. The link to this game, where the pupils must choose an item for lunch and then select the correct coins to pay for it, is:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/preview/lunch/lunch.html

English

This week we have been working on writing sentences. We have worked very hard at composing sentences that are very important to our everyday lives. These include –

* My name is __________.
* My address is ________.
* I like to _____________.

We have also constructed some fab sentences that have been very creative – and fun to write!
These have included-

* Hippos love the mud!
* Monkeys like to eat bananas
* All lions are fierce!

And very topically…
*It is raining!

All of these activities have originated from lessons in the BBC Active English 10 minute top-ups. These resources can be bought in good mainstream book shops (eg Borders, Waterstones) and cost only £2.99 – and would possibly make good resources for parents/carers to also have at home if they wanted to reinforce work being done in class.

Some of the children will also be using Letts Excellent English KS1 as part of our ELP literacy framework. These books are also available from mainstream bookstores and cost £3.99.

We have also continued our progress using Floppy’s Activity books and Floppy reading texts – differentiated to each child’s individual developmental needs.

ICT

This week we will be the Premiere of our slideshow to be sent to America about our lives in Preston Lodge High School. Further information can be found in the ELP ICT category…

We will also continue to explore the use of digital cameras in computing. Last week we chose places in Preston Lodge to photograph for our Powerpoint for Ohio, this week we will look at what happens to those photographs after they are captured on camera. Do they go to Boots for printing? Or does something else happen?

Art
Continuing our cross curricular theme of the River Forth, the pupils will be finishing off models of fish that they constructed using dough mixture. The fish will be painted with vibrant colours of their choice and displayed in the Learning Zone for all to enjoy…

PE
This week in PE we have taken part in playing badminton. We learned how to play power shots – this is because these shots are hard to return – and tapped shots that are softer and make people run to the net.

We also had another go at basketball. This week we were practising our shooting. If you aim for the square on the backboard of the basket, the ball will normally drop into the net.

Social Studies
This week in history we have been comparing what life in Prestonpans was like in the past with how it is now. We looked at things like energy use, transport modes, marriage traditions and other home life practices. We discovered that, in the past, only rich children went to school – that was a big surprise!

Scientist of the Week Awards

In Science we have been awarding the Scientist of the Week Award to the ELP pupil who has demonstrated the most enthusiasm, contributed a great idea or wonderful insight into the lessons we do each week.

The pupil is awarded our mainstream Science Positive Referral Certificate, amended for the purpose of the ELP programme. Please click on the link for your information.

Scientist of the Week Award

Should your child be the recipient of this award, he or she is asked to take it home so that their parents or carers are aware of their success. We trust that this has been happening on the occasions your child has been Scientist of the Week.

Using Powerpoint to send information to America…

This week we are learning how to use a special computer package called Powerpoint. The reason we want to find out what this special programme can do, is that we would like to tell our American friends in Akron, Ohio all about our lives in East Lothian.

At first we thought that we could maybe send them an email with our stories and information – but that might be a bit dull because there would be no pictures. It might also be a difficult task for some of us to write – and for some of our friends to read.

Then we had the idea of putting some pictures on the school website showing the things we do, the places we go and the interests we have – that might prove pretty but we worried it might not have enough information to tell “our story”.

We talked about how other people (for example, our teachers in class) explain new things. What do they use to tell “a new story” or present new ideas? Some of the things we suggested included:

*Interactive whiteboard internet activities (like the habitats game we played last week)
*Mind maps and picture diagrams on the board
*Hand outs and work sheet activities
*Slideshow on the white screen
*Television or video programmes (like the one we made about sharks or the one we watched about food chains)

We thought about how practical all of these might be. How easy would it be for us to do some of the above when our friends in Akron are thousands of miles away?

Our conclusion was that making a slideshow might be the best idea – we could always EMAIL it as an attachment. (And we have already had plenty of practice sending emails). We used the following linked fileto plan our activity before moving on to use Powerpoint (as a group) to construct our own slideshow to send to the USA.

Using Powerpoint to send a letter to America…

Our pictures for the slide show

Week beginning November 12th 2007…

This week in school we will be undertaking a number of exciting things! This will culminate on Friday with our annual Children in Need Fundraiser.

Parents should note that this Friday will be a DRESS DOWN DAY. Children will be expected to contribute £1 to the school Children in Need fund raising via their register teacher, Ms Cleland, on Friday morning.

You can find out more about the things going on in school to raise money for Children in Need by following this link

http://edubuzz.org/blogs/plhs-s6charity/2007/11/09/children-in-need-event-programme

Elsewhere in school this week…

Maths

In maths this week we will be continuing our work looking at the months of the year, days of the week and repeating special occasions (such as Christmas, birthdays etc). We will be undertaking interactive computer based activities as well as doing some worksheets looking at the role and function of the yearly calendar.

Science
This week in science we will be introducing the concept of food chains. Please see our Science archives for the Food Chain Lesson entitled “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly”.

We will be investigating simple food chains, learning about the kind of species that may be at the top and which animals may be further down the chain. We will learn that PLANTs are always at the bottom of the food chain, no matter what chain we investigate. As an extension target, we hope to be able to use the words “predator” and “prey” in the correct context, but in our own terms.

We will use the East Lothian Logo to introduce the term “bird of prey”.

English

In English this week the pupils will be undertaking work including:

* Nelson Grammar Book P13 (Past and present tense – changing the endings of words)
* Floppy’s Activity Book P12-13
* Jolly Phonics P 16-17 (ai, ee, ie, oa sounds)
* Spelling flash cards (simple nouns)
* Spelling worksheets (simple nouns)

ICT
In ICT this week we will be working on our link up with Innes Middle School in Akron, Ohio. We will be preparing a POWERPOINT slide show about East lothian to send to their teacher in America. She can then use the powerpoint presentation to tell the pupils in Innes Middle School more about US!

We will work as a group, with help from our teachers, but the information we put into the Powerpoint slide show and the images we choose will all be generated by the pupils themselves…

Story time…

We will continue our book, “Hitler’s Canary” by Sandi Toksvig. Last week we learned that the Germans had invaded Denmark and that Bamse was going to have to go somewhere safe…but where to? We will find out more this week!

From last week…

“The planes were dropping paper. Green paper. Leaflets. Some people in the street were running and I could see cyclists tearing off in all directions. An old man had paused to shake his stick at the sky.

‘What is it?’ I called out to him.
‘This,’ he cried, pointing at the planes in fury, ‘is our enemy!’

The green leaflets continued to flutter down. I put my hand out of the window and grabbed one. It was a strange mix of Danish, German and Norwegian. I remembered thinking how dreadful my teacher at school would have thought it was.

OPROP, said the headline – ATTENTION.

It was addressed to the soldiers and people of Denmark and said that the Germans had come to protect them from the evil plans of the British and the French; that all Danes were to go on with their lives as if everything was normal. I knew I should be afraid but I didn’t know yet what of: the Germans? The British? The French? We were theatre people. We didn’t get involved in these things. It was nothing to do with us.

The dressing-room door opened and Mama stood there in her shimmering royal gown of the night before. She looked perfect. As if nothing had happened at all.

‘Mother,’ I exclaimed, ‘I think the Germans have come.’
‘Yes, dear,’ she replied. ‘We must change at once.’

Social Studies
Update to follow…

PE
In PE this week we continued to improve our basketball skills with all our class mates from our practical set.

Art

We continued working on our fish themed mobiles.

We find out a little more about our friends in Ohio…

Today we received an email from the school in Ohio that we are forging links with. It came from the classroom teacher whose idea it was to make contact with Preston Lodge – and she answered some of the many questions OUR students had about life in an Akron school.

Our pupils were very excited to discover the names of some of the students they will be communicating with over the coming months – and a bit more about the area the school is sited in.

Here is just a snippet of the email from Innes Middle School, Akron, Ohio…

“Hi there, thanks for the questions!
We work at Innes Middle School, Akron Ohio. It is currenently located on Manchester Road (this building originally was Margaret Park elementary). The ages range from 12 to 15 years, that is grades 7th and 8th here, respectively. Currently our middle school is being remodelled so our 6th graders (11-12 year olds) are at another campus. Therefore, we have Innes On
The Lake on Manchester Rd. and Innes Academy on Kenmore Blvd”.

Our pupils were able to use this information to find Innes Middle School using Google and Google Earth. This allowed us to practise our ICT skills and at the same time feel far closer to Akron than a simple book or photo would let us.

Our email from America continued…

“At one time Akron Ohio was the tyre capital of America. Goodyear and Firestone tyres are still made today, but unfortunately the factories moved south of the border. We have a big lake next to our school called, Summit Lake. Once it was a grand amusement park area like you had in Portobello. We’re talking the roaring 1920’s and 1930’s!

Now it looks pretty, but noone would swim in it. And it is the source of many urban legends about lost cars and drowned individuals.”

We will look at the industries of Akron and Prestonpans over the next few weeks – they were clearly very different to the children even before we make any moves to further investigate and compare further.

Further information that we will look at as part of a lesson making comparisons between the two schools was relayed to us in this following paragraph. Preston Lodge has a much larger school roll and has a fairly different composition of social groups. It will be interesting to find the similarities as well as the differences over the coming weeks!

“We are one of seven middle schools in Akron and we are considered the east cluster.
I think there are 500 kids combined on both campuses. The student body is diverse, meaning we have many ethnic backgrounds: hispanic, arabic, african american and caucasian, asian; the full gammet”.