Prayer Rug Designs

Amy, Ewan and Ronan have created these attractive rug designs.

Prayer Rug Designs - Islam

There are

5 important parts

to

Muslim worship.

Muslims believe that following the

'five pillars'

help them keep their religion properly.

The second important pillar is

PRAYER

(see: What is Islam? homework link for more information)

It is usual to have a small personal rug to kneel on during prayer in the Mosque at home or elsewhere.

We have been designing and making replica prayer rugs from

card trimmed with wool.

The colours and patterns have been inspired by traditional Islamic art which uses

calligraphy and pattern as decoration.

Muhammad

teaches about not drawing living things.

Magic 9x Table

Our Rock Sample Key

We have made a simple key to help identify and sort our rock samples.

Sorting our Rock Samples

It is soft and crumbly when you ...

Look how hard it is when you ....

Have you tried shining a light through it?

The samples in the pictures are - ROCK CRYSTAL, PYRITE (fool's gold) and

the mineral rose quartz in its natural and polished state

We spent time this afternoon trying to identify our great collection of rock and mineral samples.

Some we recognised easily e.g. granite and sandstone.

St. Magnus Cathedral is a famous example of a red sandstone building.

Others we had never heard of e.g. obsidian and basalt.

Firstly, we sorted the rock samples by their rock type.

IGNEOUS SEDIMENTARY METAMORPHIC

To find out more about how these different rocks were created click on the Rock Hounds homework link where you will find an animation explaining how each type of rock was formed.

We then attempted to sort a few of the easier samples by property e.g. How hard is it?.

We found that marble and granite were very hard but sandstone and chalk were quite soft.

We know that granite and marble are used in buildings.

Aberdeen is called the 'Granite City' because so many of the buildings there are made of granite.

Granite is an example of an igneous rock. Granite is the signature rock of Planet Earth. Other rocky planets such as Mars, Venus and Mercury are covered with basalt, as is our ocean floor.

Try out our 'Who Am I'? rock quiz on the homework link. It is VERY tricky!

Our next task will be to show how igneous rocks can be grainy and made of large crystals or smooth and glassy.

We will be melting sugar to ... follow our blog to find out what happens next...

MODROC monsters ALMOST on the move...

Through the Class 4/5 materials investigation we have had the opportunity to extend the range of materials we work with.

We are really enjoying exploring MODROC as a medium for designing, sculpting and creating mythical beasts, monsters and dinosaurs

The base for our creature was a tattie with 4 lollipop sticks for legs.

First challenge ... Can your tattie beastie stand?

A small sample only of creatures in various stages of creation are on the site!

Once they are completed, a slideshow of every sculpture will be on the blog.

Science is fun... showing a chemical reaction...

" WOW!"

"Look at the millions of tiny bubbles!"

We wanted to find out if we could show a chemical reaction taking place by mixing 2 substances together.

We used 2 reactants in our experiment, bicarbonate of soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (ascetic acid).

We guessed - would we perhaps create a new product?

What we did was we added a big spoonful of bicarbonate of soda to a small plastic container that was half full of vinegar with a little bit of red food colouring for effect!

What happened was that INSTANTLY the 2 reactants fizzed up and poured out of the container! This showed that a chemical reaction had taken place and that a GAS was present. The gas was carbon dioxide.

This showed us that we could demonstrate a chemical reaction by mixing 2

substances together. Cool!

(Mixing 2 substances does not always create a chemical reaction).

More great tie dye designs...

Tie Dye Explosions !

Experimenting with
fabrics is part of our
materials investigation...

...research on YOU TUBE showed us that we could be more creative with our tie dye designs...




"I never believed it would look like that!

"I love it!"

"It looks like a Hawaiian T Shirt"


"I have a pink bed cover. It is going to be perfect on my bed"

"It is going to be a family heirloom!"

Here are a few of our fantastic tie dye designs!

Every one is unique.

More will be added ...

Rocks and Buildings in Orkney

sandstone limestone

conglomerate

We are studying rocks and minerals as part of our Materials investigation this term. We are testing for rock properties. We know these properties make rocks and minerals suitable for particular jobs.

The name for the study of rocks is geology.

Can you identify each local rock sample pictured on the blog?

We have found out there are 3 types of rock, IGNEOUS , METAMORPHIC and SEDIMENTARY.

We know Orkney has a lot of sedimentary rock (check out the BBC Learning Zone Class Clips animation link) in particular old red sandstone.

Sedimentary rock is rich in fossils.

Any rock or fossil examples locally that can be shared with us would be very much appreciated.

We have found out that local rocks used for building in Orkney in the past were sandstone, conglomerate and limestone.

We would welcome the expertise of a local builder who could explain to us the benefits and problems with old local building materials and advantages that new materials they work with might have .

We will be looking for rock samples around the school grounds and going to look for materials used in local Kirkwall buildings.