Drake Music

Abi Sinar, a musician with Drake Music, has been working with students at Orchard Brae for the last two years, even throughout lockdowns, in developing the North East Digital Orchestra project. The ultimate goal of the project is to create a digital orchestra for school leavers and young adults, enabling them to develop their musical skills and create new music using a range of inclusive music technologies.

Pupils who have been involved in the project have been supported by Abi to develop their musical skills using a variety of accessible instruments and have created this video for you to enjoy, where they play Ode To Joy as well as their own additional compositions to the song.

Many thanks to Abi for her support and in making the film. If you would like to find out more about Drake Music and their work, please follow the link below:

https://drakemusicscotland.org/

Science Week

Room 16 enjoyed celebrating Science Week last week by doing their own sensory experiment. We made our own lava lamps by adding Vitamin C tablets to oil and coloured water. We enjoyed the smell of the orange from the vitamin C, the sound of the fizzing and the sight of the bubbles coming through the layer of oil. It also gave us all the opportunity to practise our motor skills with pouring the water and oil. We shone lights underneath our lamps and put the lights out – they looked awesome!

Dancing In Room 2

This week Room 2 had the best dance class yet with Katie and her dance assistant. Our pupils showed interest during it, with all pupils participating actively at times and some pupils consolidating learning from previous classes, particularly during the cool down. Most importantly everyone, including the adults, had fun. 

Room 16 Random Acts of Kindness

Room 16 have been celebrating Random Acts of Kindness Day this week! Everyone took a turn to choose a familiar member of staff they wanted to give a treat to. All the pupils made very clear choices! We then went round school to find the staff members and deliver their treat along with a message using a Big Mack switch. We loved seeing everyone’s reactions to their surprise treats. We also took the opportunity to learn the Makaton sign for kind.

Food, glorious food!

Room 16 have been learning about one of their favourite things – food! We have been talking about our likes and dislikes. The pupils have been practising asking each other what their favourite food using switches or using PODD. This will go towards one of our ASDAN awards. We are going to be learning about putting our information into a table to show others what we have found out as a class.

Christmas Jumper Day 2021

To celebrate Save The Children’s Christmas jumper day, the pupil council challenged classes to make real Christmas jumpers using as many recycled or sustainable materials as possible.  Room 12 used it as a learning opportunity to “respect other people’s choices”. And I’m sure you will agree the results are fabulous. 

BookBug

We hope all our pupils in Primary 1 are enjoying exploring the books that they received in their BookBug packs which were sent home recently. These are a free gift from Scottish Book Trust, and the three picture books they contain are those shortlisted for the BookBug Picture Book Prize.

Children are invited to place their votes for their favourite title either using the following link to vote through the Aberdeen City Libraries poll https://forms.office.com/r/r2M2bVuPbk or alternatively, directly with Scottish Book Trust by following this link Register and vote: The Bookbug Picture Book Prize – Scottish Book Trust.

Voting closes at 5pm on Friday 10 December 2021.

Aberdeen City Libraries have also launched a video, featuring a read-through of all three of the Picture Book Prize shortlisted titles, which can be accessed through https://fb.watch/9ugmSKuarm/.

George’s Marvellous Medicine

Room 18 have been hearing the story of George’s Marvellous Medicine during lunch time book club and we are really enjoying it!  We had a go at making our own potions by measuring out different colours of water and mixing them together.  We have been learning how to measure water in different ways and it was a good chance to practise pouring and measuring carefully.