Our Norwegian tree (almost!)

Gifford is about 20 miles from Scotland's captital city, Edinburgh. Every year Norway sends a Christmas tree to Edinburgh and it is set up on "The Mound," a hill in the centre of the city, near to Edinburgh Castle. The tree is sent by Norway as a thank you for the support Scotland gave during the Second World War. This is the 24th year Edinburgh has received the gift. The tree has always come from the Norwegian region of Hordaland. This year the tree came from an area of Scotland called Peebles, although Norway still paid for the tree. This was to reduce the carbon footprint of the tree. The Lord Provost of Edinburgh (a Scottish mayor) said: "This year Edinburgh will be having a green Christmas, so our friends in Hordaland are sourcing our famous Christmas gift locally." The tree has 1,800 lights on it. It looks lovely, doesn't it? A lot of our children will be going to Edinburgh to see the Christmas lights so they will be able to see the tree too.

Mr Devereux

We have arrived!

Now I have added everyone's pictures to the introductions. You can all see what the children in P7 at Yester look like.

Mr Devereux

Tartan kilts

Quite a lot of children in our P7 class wore tartan today, and you can see many of them wearing kilts. Mr Devereux played Scottish music when the children came in to the classroom at the start of the day.

Highland dancing

Nettle told you that she did Scottish highland dancing. Here she is wearing her traditional dancing costume for St Andrews Day.

Scottish music

Highlander, Tinkerbell and Adder played their violins in front of the whole school. The tune they played was Scotland the Brave. Actually, we though that they were very brave playing in front of the whole school. Our head teacher accompanied them on the piano.

Golden Time

This is a picture of our Scottish Golden Time. Children across the whole school chose the activity they went to. Here is Mr Devereux doing Scottish poems and stories with two pupils from P1, two from P2 and two from P7. Most of the other children in P7 went to Scottish games, Scottish quiz and designing tartan.

Our Scottish Flag

Here is the Scottish flag we made with the children wearing their school uniforms. Everyone is waving a Scottish flag (saltire) too. This is the playground at the front of the school. I climbed up a ladder on to the roof to take the photo. There was a lot of water on the roof which had turned to ice so I had to be very careful!
Mr Devereux

St Andrews Day

Today we are celebrating St Andrews day with an all school golden time with special Scottish activities. Usually golden time is a half hour of doing what we want in the classroom. Do you have golden time? Some of the activities we are doing today are : Designing tartan, listening to Scottish poems and stories, Scottish dancing and a special Scottish quiz. Today we are all wearing tartan. We are also all wearing white tops and blue jumpers because the WHOLE school are going to make the soltire (the Scottish flag) by all standing in a position which looks like the soltire.
We are going to have a GREAT time!

Bye! from The Human Nessie and Robin Red Breast

Winter poems and stories

P7 at Yester have enjoyed learning about the snow in Norway. I think they are very jealous. We have also been listening to stories of dark winter nights in Norway, stories of trolls and gods. Today we listened to a story about Thor's lost hammer.

Today we wrote poems about winter darkness. William Wallace enjoyed learning about trolls. He wrote his poem about trolls in the darkness. He used a lot of alliteration (repeating the same letter at the start of words). Alliterative poetry was very popular in Britain in Medieval times. How many examples of alliteration can you find? Here is his poem:

The trolls were trundling through the thick trench-like snow.

Harmlessly the snow glided through the thick trees like feather from the birds.

Everyone was in their warm cosy beds.

Winter was truly coming, the snow was coming fast.

It was pitch black but the trolls kept trundling through the thick trench-like snow.

Never had it been this cold and the snow so thick.

The trees were tricking the treacherous trolls tearfully tripping them up.

Everything outside was frozen from the fir on the trees to the grass on the ground.

Recklessly the trolls snatched the tiny toddlers in their beds and ate them for tea.

By William Wallace

Reading and writing

Hey! Robin Red breast here! In Scotland now, it’s heading towards winter but we have not had much snow. Have you? I’m wondering if any of you have heard of Jacqueline Wilson. She is my favourite writer! What writers do you know in Norway? I like writing and reading, and do any of you in Norway have favourite writers? I would like to know! At school my reading book is called The Secret Garden. Do you have reading groups in Gyllenborg Skole? In Norway do writers come and sign the books they write? Do you have any keen readers in your class? I am a VERY keen reader. Sorry I have so many questions!

St Andrews Day

Hi there Berry here

Tomorrow it is St. Andrews Day and we are allowed to wear tartan and I don’t know if everyone in the class will wear some tartan .
I can't wait till Christmas comes because I already know what I am getting so it is not a surprise. (any way got to dash.)

ST ANDREWS DAY

Hey, now it’s time to tell you guys some of our good old Scottish traditions.

Saturday is St. Andrews day! A day when we all wear tartan to celebrate one of our well known saints, St. Andrew.

Because we aren’t at school on Saturday we are all going to wear tartan tomorrow. Yay! That’s great because tartan is totally the fashion now as well. Yay!

By Thistle

Thistle, obviously likes tartan!!
She has really long, thin nails and plans to paint them tartan.
She is right now wondering if she has a tartan necklace.
OOOOOOHHH!!!

Do you have any great traditions Thistle could worry
about?

By Bramble

Tartan Terror!

Hello again! How are you today? We’ve only got a few weeks till the Christmas holidays and I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks of freedom. Were probably going to have absolutely rubbish snow (not like you). I really really like Christmas and I’m looking forward to putting up the tree. What’s Christmas like in Norway?

Bye bye! From Tartan Terror

Food in Scotland

Hi! Its us again! Its The Human Nessie and Highland Cow. We were wondering what you eat in Norway? Scotland’s traditional food is haggis, neaps and tatties (haggis, turnips and potatoes). In Scotland we grow some of our food but simply can’t grow some things like bananas for example. It’s far too cold. We do grow wheat which is turned into flour and then bread and other things. We also grow most vegetables and some fruits. What foods do you grow in Norway?

Whisky

Hi, I'm Whisky and I'm 11 years old and I live near Gifford. I have a mum and dad and a little sister. I have a lot of friends at school. At school I like gym, circle time, drama and golden time. After school I do a lot of activities. I go running at Meadowbank on Tuesday, and I do piano on Tuesday as well. I want to start Highland dancing. I love chewing gum and chocolate. I like to read and I love going shopping!
Whisky

Neap

Hi, my name is Neap. I am a girl. I like art and drawing and my hobbies are climbing and other adventure things. I like reading. I sit next to Whisky and Fudge. My favourite film is St Trinians.
Neap

Norwegian lesson

Hi there! Glad you liked our site, though I presume it didn't make much sense. The picture of the polar bear is taken at an arctic zoo/amusement centre here called "Polaria". There you can see real living seals! During the visit the pupils also watched a film about the climate changes and how it affects life above the Arctic Circle.

Now, regarding the Norwegian letter you were talking about: Actually we have three more letters in our alphabet than you have in yours. The last three letters in our alphabet are Æ (æ), Ø (ø), and Å (å).
The Æ is pronounced kind of like the A in the English word "barrier", or the OU in "sound". The Ø sounds like the O in "word" or the U in "much", while the Å resembles the O in"boring" or the A in "walk". We have separate keys for these letters on our keyboards in Norway. Sweden and Denmark also use these letters. Hope my explanation wasn't too complicated!

By the way; I thought I'd try a new colour as well, maybe silver works.

I have been looking at the Gyllenborg Skole website. It is very impressive with lots of photos. I like the picture of the polar bear. I hope he didn't eat anyone! I notice one of the letters you use looks like an o with a little circle above it. How do you say this sound? What key(s) on your computer do you press to make this appear on your screen? I got bored with using blue so I thought I would leave this post in red!

Mr Devereux

Tartan

Hi, my name is Tartan and I am 11 years old. My favourite sports are basketball, hockey and gymnastics. I have 2 sisters and one brother. I have one dog as well.
Tartan

Highlander

Hi! I'm Highlander. I'm 11 years old and I like reading and drawing. My favourite foods are chocolate (mmm!) and pizza. I have a dog called Solti (say "Sholty") and he is WILD! I live in the country and we have a big garden. I have one sister who is nine. She is annoying. When I'm older I'd like to be an illustrator because I love drawing.
Highlander

P7 web page

One of the ways we let parents know about all the things we are doing at Yester is by our own web page. I keep this up to date every week and put on photos of things were have been doing. We also have some PowerPoint presentations made by our children and some podcasts they have made too. If you want to have a look at our P7 web page click here or go to www.yester-school.org/ak.html We also have a section of the school's website called the P7 Zone. Here the children have worked in pairs to make their own web pages. There are 14 pages here for you to enjoy. The address is www.yester-school.org/j.html
Mr Devereux

Nettle

Hi, I am Nettle. I am 11 years old. I go to Yester Primary School. My favourite sports are gymnastics, golf, basketball, rugby and hockey. My hobbies are drumming, highland dancing and fashion design. I have 3 cats called Coco, Max and Charlie. I also have a dog called Ben. My favourite food is salad and cheese. My favourite animal is a tiger. My favourite colour is purple. I have 2 houses. I live in the town and the countryside.
Nettle

Fudge

Hi, I'm Fudge. I am 11 years old. My favourite hobby is horse riding. I have a pony called Coco. I go bowling every Saturday morning at 8.00. My favourite food is chicken tika and I love chocolate and chewing gum! I have lots of pets. I live in a village in East Lothian. I have a big sister.

Fudge

Stardust

Hi, I am Stardust and I live in the countryside of Scotland. My favourite things to do are play Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon. My favourite thing on tv is Top Gear. My favourite lessons at school are drama and art. I can't wait to hear more about your country.

Stardust

Tinkerbell

Hi peeps, I'm Tinkerbell. Here are some of the things I love:

• Top of the Pops magazine


• Disney Channel


• Chocolate


• Music


• My MP3


• Chocolate


• Claire's Accessories (a shop)


• Chocolate

Don't worry - I'm not that fat!

Tinkerbell

Turnip

Hi, I am Turnip. I am 10 years old and I love to be active. I enjoy dancing and playing the piano. I also do lots of art and enjoy painting and drawing. I go on lots of walks with my family and love spending time in the countryside. I also love to cook and spend time in the kitchen with my brothers.

Turnip

Kris Boyd

Name: Kris Boyd
Age: 10
Hobbies: football and darts
Sports: football, darts, hockey and WWE (wrestling)
Favourite TV show: WWE, football, darts, Mr Bean, Arnold Schwarzenegger and adults' films
Favourite thing to eat: mince and potatoes and everything else apart from mushrooms and tomatoes

I play for Hutchy Football Club. I have a dog and fish. I like to play with my WWE figures and my Super Strikers and also my Rangers figures. Oh - and my Playstation 2. I have a sister and mum and dad. I have been to 7 Rangers matches and 2 Scotland matches.

Kris Boyd

Bramble

Hi, I'm Bramble. I am 11 years old and come from Scotland. I enjoy any kinds of sport but I especially like long-distance running and swimming. I do athletics on Mondays and swimming twice a week for an hour. I know most of you enjoy skiing and I do too. In school I enjoy art, PE and drama. I live in a village near Gifford. When I grow up I want to be an athlete. I love animals and want to do something to help the environment.

Bramble

Haggis

Hi, I'm Haggis. I'm 11 years old. I like riding. I enjoy the countryside. I have one sister. I love living in Scotland.

Haggis

Ally McCoist

Name: Ally McCoist
Age: 11
Hobbies: football and basketball

Hi, I'm Ally McCoist. I'm 11 years old and I like playing football. I like being a striker or goalkeeper. I support Rangers FC. I like basketball as well but I like football better.

Ally McCoist

Adder

Hello, it's Adder here. I am eleven years old and quite tall. My favourite sports are hockey, rugby, cricket, golf and swimming. I play hockey for East Lothian and rugby and cricket for Gifford. At school my favourite lessons are PE, art and creative writing.

I play the violin and a little bit of piano. I have never been to Norway but I have been to Finland.

From Adder

P.S. An adder is a small poisonous snake.

Highland Cow

I am Highland Cow. I love making things and being creative. I LOVE reading. It is SO fun. I live in the country and I have lovely views. My favourite food is sausage, mashed potato and onion gravy. My favourite drink is lemonade. I am ten years old but soon I'll be eleven. I giggle a lot! I like cycling and swimming in summer. My favourite animal is a giraffe.
Kilt

Thistle

Hi, I'm Thistle,

I am 11 years and I live in a small village called Gifford. It's really pretty and I love living there.

I live with my little sister and my mum and dad. I also have two cats called Leo and Dinah, and two guinea pigs called Twix and Pringles. They are so cute.

My hobbies include dancing, shopping, singing, swimming, reading and more shopping! I do dancing and singing every week at 21st Century in Haddington. It's really fun.

Thistle

Saltire

Hi, I am Saltire! I am 11 yeatrs old and I live in the countryside. I have 6 dogs and 5 ferrets. I like to read, climb trees and play sports. I also like speedway. I am feeling excited about learning a bit more about Norway. So see you later.
Saltire

William Wallace

Hi, my name is William Wallace. I am ten years old and I live near Gifford. My hobbies are Warhammer and football. I support Chelsea Football Club and my favourite players are Joe Cole, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. Warhammer is little models that people collect and paint. There are lots of armies but I collect orcs and goblins.
William Wallace

Berry

Hi, I am Berry. I am 11. My hobbies are dancing, singing, cooking and gymnastics. The dancing I do is called country. I have learnt Strathspay and the rocking step. I am the only one who has got the hang of it, but other people are getting it too in the dancing class.

I have a lot of sisters and brothers and they are very annoying. Two of them have their own flats so that's okay and the rest of us stay with my mum and big brother.

Berry

Loch Ness

Hi, I'm Loch Ness. I am age 10 and in Primary 7 at Yester Primary School. My hobbies are dancing and reading lots of books. My favourite foods are: chocolate, ice cream beans, chips and sausages. I love going shopping for toys and clothes but I don't do it very often though. I love meeting with my friends. too. Bye!
Loch Ness

The Human Nessie

Hello! I am the Human Nessie! I am eleven years and one month old. I have one older sister. She is annoying! I quite like reading and love playing outside, especially in winter! I hear all of you in Norway get tons of snow compared to us. We don't have any snow at the moment although it is very cold. Our school, Yester, is really nice. We are all friends here. We all have to do school talks soon. I'm doing mine on mythical creatures. Do you have to do class talks?
By Human Nessie

Robin Red Breast

Hi! I'm Robin Red Breast and I am ten years old. I love taking photos, writing stories and writing poems. I am very giggly and silly. I like reading but I also like dancing to music. My favourite band is Girls Aloud, and my favourite girl in Girls Aloud is Cheryl Cole. I like fantasy things a lot. I love drawing Manga, and I am quite good at drawing it! My favourite animals are monkeys because they are cute, cheeky, silly and very beautiful creatures. I live in upper Bolton, Scotland. Beware if you get to know me - I get wacky ideas! My favourite food is sausage mash and onion gravy. When I grow up I want to become an author.
By Robin Red Breast

Rob Roy MacGregor

Hi, my name is Rob Roy MacGregor. I am 10 years old. I like dong school work. I am going into high school next year. I like swimming, football and hockey but I don't like gymnastics. My favourite wild animals are a tiger and panda, and my favourite animal is a dog.
By Rob Roy MacGregor

Tartan Terror!

Hi! Tartan Terror here! I love art and I spend most of my time drawing and making things. I'm also a keen reader and am a HUGE fan of the "Edge Chronicles" books. Have any of you read any?

Anyway, I also love the outside, especially in winter (our snow is rubbish). I live in Gifford. It's a little village in the country and it's really pretty. It's really convenient because the school is just a few minutes away so I can just walk up.

See you!

The Tartan Terror

Hello from Primary 7!

The children in primary 7 at Yester would like to introduce themselves. First they will post some words to say "Hi" and then later in the week they will add some photos to their posts so you can all see what they all look like. The children won't use their real names. They will use an alias or nickname. All of these are Scottish names. One of the boys has used the name of a well known Scottish football player. Another is called Nessie, which is a famous monster which some people believe lives in a large Scottish lake (or 'loch') called Loch Ness.
By Mr Devereux

The Fashion Show

All right, the fashion show is on. First off: The United States. Yee-haw!

Let's move a little further south and check out the trends in Brazil! Hey, where did Ronaldinho's ponytail go?

The French offer both fine art and a good meal.

Can anyone guess where this lad comes from?

Here we have a typical Norwegian girl, wearing traditional Norwegian clothing; The Dracula cape.

Moving on to our closest neighbours: The Swedes, famous for their attractive blondes.

The Djs provide phat beats...

... While the feisty Spanish senorita puts on a show of her own.

The Chinese lady in green prays that her friend will get the chopsticks out of her hair. "Gross, I EAT with those, you know!"

Photos of P7 at Yester

If you want to find out about some of the daft things our class has been doing, you can find lots of photographs of us on our P7 Gallery

Sponsored walk

Our class has just taken part in a sponsored walk. We walked through the woods and fields to a village about 2 miles away called Bolton. We measure in metres and learn about kilometres at school, but all our roads signs in Scotland tell us distances in miles! The class enjoyed missing lessons to walk in the country. We raised money to buy some new equipment for our classroom. We don't know how much money we have yet. The children are still bringing in the money they have collected. Do you take part in sponsored events and raise money for the school or for a charity?

Nice!

Very nice to read about what you do and look at pictures from your school. Your classroom certainly looks different from ours, we'll try to post some pictures from inside the school ASAP. I love the blue floor by the way! It must have been both fun and interesting to visit Parliament, it seems like a very good idea for an excursion. We still have some pieces left to post from our last writing session, including something about our local football team! I don't know how much you know about Norwegian football, but some of you might have heard about John Carew (Aston Villa), Morten G. Pedersen (Blackburn) or John Arne Riise (ex Liverpool, now Roma). I'll let the class' football fanatics fill you in on that soon.

Have an excellent weekend everybody!

Hello from Scotland!

Hello to all our new friends in Tromso! Thank you for telling us all about your school.We are looking forward to getting to know you and to working with you. Here at Yester, we are the Primary 7 class, which is the oldest class in the school. This picture is of our classroom.

This photo shows all of the class, taken this morning. Today is the last day of our school's Book Week, and many of us have been dressing up as our favourite book characters. We don't normally come to school looking like this! As we have said, we are looking forward to getting to know you all better, and to telling you lots about what we do here in Yester.

In the classroom

This picture shows some of us working on our recent project, where we have been learning all about government. Is your classroom set out like this?

Dare to wear pink!

Last week, many of us dressed in pink, as part of a national "Dare to wear pink!" day. This was great fun and we raised lots of money for breast cancer awareness.

At the Scottish Parliament

When we visited the Scottish Parliament recently, we spent some time chatting with the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Iain Gray. Here, some of us are pictured with Mr Gray.

At the Scottish Parliament!

This is a picture of us outside the Scottish Parliament when we visited recently.

More things to do in the winter, by Melissa

The winter in Tromsø is cold and wet, I guess it’s the same thing in Scotland. Here are common things to do in the winter:

Skiing
Riding snowmobiles
Snowboarding
Skating on the ice
Sliding down the hill
Making snow angels, snow men and so forth
Build snow castles
We have snowball fights
We throw people in the snow and put snow in their faces
We put on very slippery shoes, and slide down the road
When there’s a blizzard we usually sit in front of the fireplace with a big cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows

The winter in Tromsø, by Jan Ottar and Torbjørn

The winter in Tromsø is very cold.
The highest registered snow level in Tromsø is 2, 4 meters high, it was in 1997.
In the year 2000 there was almost 2 meters of snow.
It has been as cold as -22 degrees Celsius.
In the winter we can have snowball fights, or maybe dig snow caves in the big piles that gets made by all the busy snow plows cruising around.
We can go skating on the lakes. We can also go snowboarding and skiing.
Many people go to the mountain for skiing and snowboarding.
In Tromsø there's a popular alpine centre called Kroken ski centre.

Some facts about the school and the celebration, by Tiril and Sarah

Gyllenborg School

• The school is 108 years old.
• We are 282 students at the school.
• It's a good school to go to.
• We have a football cup every year. This year we came in second place!
• This date, November 8th, is the school's birthday.
• When the school celebrates its birthday all the students meet on the school and entertain the audience.

The programme on the Gyllenborg Day:

• We meet on the school at 11.00 o’clock.
• Each class is going to sing a song. At the end of the show we all sing together.
• And we in the 7th grade are going to sing ’’ Heal the world ’’and carry flags from 27 different countries, because that's how many nationalities that are represented at our school.

• We in the 7th grade will arrange a fashion show.
• We present clothes from 17 different countries.
• There are 13 students that are participating in the fashion show.
• We hope many people will come to watch us.
• We hope it will be an excellent day :)

News from the north!

Hi there P7! We here at Gyllenborg school are getting ready to post something on here for you to read. It will be stuff both about the town we live in, as well as a lot about the big Gyllenborg Day celebration we had this weekend. I'll let the pupils tell you more. We are gathering all the written assignments today, and rumour has it there are loads of pictures on the way!

-Magnus-