Fun Times at the Money Museum!

Where does money come from?

"When we were at the money museum we learned that shells were first used as money. They were used in Africa and they were very rare. Looking at the shells was very interesting because they were beautiful. The shells have a faded green splodge on top and the rest was white with a slit in the middle that was jagged. The shells are called Cowrie shells but sadly the beautiful shells' value decreased after the British brought millions of shells into Africa from the Maldives.

We loved the money museum."
by Olivia and Gulliver

This is a Cowrie shell from the Maldives

Can you guess how many shells are in this bag?
Once upon a time you would only need 10 shells for
a cow. Once the value of shells decreased
we learned that you would need 10 bags (250 in
each bag)

Shell money beads
This string of beads is 9m long and was used in the Solomon Islands. They would cut the shells with a drill and place them in the fire. People would wear them to show how wealthy they were.

This is a Tevau from Santa Cruz in the Solomon Islands. It was made from feathers and bark and would be wound up round a central cylinder.

Can you guess what this is?
This is a Chinese tea brick which was used as money in China, Mongolia and Tibet.

Finally, these were the earliest signs of using metal as money.





















Making Coins

"In the olden days they didn't have a machine which makes coins like we have now so they had to make the coins themselves. To make them they get a block of wood and put their coin into the device used to stamp them. Then they place another metal cylinder over the top and hit it with a hammer once. "

by Martha and Abi

 We got to look at lots of different coins. Some were hundreds of years old.

They told us that back in the olden days they used to carry around lumps of metal before they decided to use coins instead.

Back in King David's time there were 240 pennies in 1 pound. That's because 240 pennies weighed 1 pound. 

Pennies back then were worth more that they are today, Nowadays we can't buy very much at all with a penny. 

This gold coin was used in 1603 in a united Scotland and England. 

Making Notes

"When we went to the money museum we learnt all about the security of notes. Firstly we compared old notes to modern ones and there was quite a difference. Then we got to make our own notes and pull all the security on it. The first stage was to write a difficult signature on the top. Next we put the date on and a special number and a code. None of the codes are the same and they are written on the note twice. Afterwards we got a stamp that doesn't have any colour but prints a symbol. Then we did something fun which was writing in an invisible pen that you can only see if you use ultra violet light. Finally we added a sparkly sticker."

A few facts:

You used to get hanged for copying notes.

Notes are made out of cotton and if you shine them up to the light you see Sir Walter Scott on a piece of pattered paper.

We had a fascinating time at the security section."

by Isla and Rose

This is a note from the olden days and a note from today.

Can you spot the similarities and differences?

 

Susie had to blow up this £20 so that we could see all of the tiny little details that you wouldn't normally see.

Overall, A great time had by all!

Engineers in the Making!

Last week in P4A we thought we would try our hand at a bit of construction. . . only this type of construction involved spaghetti and marshmallows!

The task: to work together to build the strongest tower possible using only dry spaghetti and marshmallows. 

We had a couple of interesting towers in the end but which do you think won the challenge?

 (we won!)

Tae Kwon Do Belts for Jonty and Christy

Congratulations to Jonty and Christy for being graded blue belt with a red tag in Tae Kwon Do in the Sciennes' Tae Kwon Do Club. Here they are showing some of their moves!

Sum kids

Primary 4b represented Sciennes in a City-wide online maths challenge this week - and came a remarkable 8th place.

Competing against 33 schools from across the City, 4b took part in a wide range of mental maths games on the Sumdog website, developing their accuracy and speed as they went.

Edinburgh' Digital Learning Team organised this schools contest with Queensferry-based Sumdog. Nearly 2,000 pupils took part. We approximately 10,000 mental maths questions, practising our number bonds, fractions and maths operations as we went.

Finishing in 8th place when competing against much larger rivals was no mean feat - an achievement to be proud of, 4b!

Sport Relief 2014

How many different sports can you see represented in this picture? A good day had by all, all in support of Sport Relief. Thank you so much for your kind donations. 

Exciting, Adventurous and Interesting: P4A visit the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

 The Scottish National Portrait Gallery

By Hamish Lewis and Michael Gallacher from 4A

On Thursday 13th March P4A went on their exciting trip to the  Scottish National Portrait Gallery. To get there we had to get a bus which was very fun. We really enjoyed sitting at the front on the way back where we could pretend to drive!

Dr Budd from The University of Edinburgh met us at the museum. He had come in to school to speak to us the day before as he knows ALL about the history of art. When we got there Dr Budd showed us a statue of Robert Burns which he told us is made from Italian marble. He said if you rub his foot it would be good luck so we all got to go and rub his feet! He also told us to look up at the ceiling as it is full of paintings of famous Scots. He said we should look at them all and pick our favourite Scottish person from history.

After Dr Budd showed us the statue we went to unpack our bags in the lunch room and headed upstairs to look at some portraits in the gallery. The first painting that we looked at showed a family of a mum, dad and five children. We were really surprised when we found out two of the children that we thought were girls were actually boys wearing dresses! The boys back then didn’t get to wear trousers until the age of 10. We were also shocked to find out that one of the children in the painting had actually died and that they had painted her because they wanted to remember her. She was holding flowers which are a symbol for death because you have to cut the flowers and kill them to draw them. We also learned that men in the olden days all wore wigs because there was no running water in the houses for them to wash their hair. That is why all of the men in the portraits have long hair!

After lunch we went into the library where Dr Budd told us a creepy story about heads and bodies and two men called Burke and Hare who chopped people up and sold them to make money! We liked this part!

It was then time for our scavenger hunt. We split into different teams and had to look at all the portraits to try and solve different problems. There were lots of clues in the paintings but you had to look at them very closely! We LOVED doing this!

If we could describe the trip in 3 words it would be: exciting, adventurous and very interesting. We would like to say a big thank you to Dr Budd for teaching us all about the portraits and for a very fun day out!

 

 

Here is the statue of Robert Burns. This is when we all got to stroke his foot for good luck!

Can you recognise any famous Scots in this painting. It is a timeline which goes all the way around the room.

This is the painting of the family with the 5 children. Can you pick out which kids are boys and which kids are girls?

 

Mary, the little girl on the left sadly died before the painting had been finished. That is why she is holding a bunch of flowers.

 

This is us on our way home after a fantastic day in the museum!

Enjoying a sunny day outdoors!

Primary 4A have been out and about exploring their local area. Using a map we managed to locate lots and lots of local amenities. Don't hesitate to ask us if you need to locate your nearest hairdresser! 

World Book Day P4

Mathematical Athletics from Ryan!

Congratulations to Ryan on being awarded this bronze certificate from Mathletics ... and more House Points for Lauder!

Scots Night - The Album

Primary Four's Scots Night was an amazing achievement for all! We had expected a good show, given the abundant effort children in all three classes had put into their rehearsals, however the performance on the night was simply fantastic!

We recorded Scots Night's songs and poems on one of our wee iPads. While the children have had an opportunity to see the video in school, we felt the sound track would make a memorable record of the evening for families.

I have posted MP3 files from Scots Night onto Google Drive. You can find them by clicking here. These songs can be downloaded and added to your music player. Alternatively, burn them onto a disc using your computer at home.

Please let me know how you get on!

Scots Night - P4B's poem and song

Scots Night is fast approaching ....

Primary Four

We've had a few problems with our printers this week, so to help P4B stay on top of their out-of-school rehearsals, here is a link to our poem and class song. Or click on the tabs at the top of this blog.


Looking good P4!

A P4 snapshot

In P4's second Scots Night rehearsal with Mrs Underwood this morning, we practised the opening moves to our class dances. We are all becoming more familiar with the steps and have made an impressive start.

After dance, 4b went back up stairs to work on some money word problems, which also gave some an opportunity to complete their shopping trip at our own branch of Sciennes Stores.

In ICT, we used Geograph to build our knowledge about Scotland by finding out images of rural and urban areas.

In advance of Burns' Night, we shared what we know about Robert Burns and learned a little more about his life and times after lunch  - including by watching this short clip from VisitScotland.



We rounded off the day with a Buddhist tale about sharing and friendship.

After a busy day, I think we'll all sleep well tonight!