First school work

I shared this on the Facebook page the other day so some of you may have already seen this, but for those of you who haven't, this is the very first piece of work that Alasdair (5) did when he started school.

 

 

'Is mise' is mi-she (small I sound, like mint without the nt & small e sound, like shed without the d!) is the Gaelic for 'I am' and he has drawn a lovely picture of himself.

 

He always draws Fraser in his pictures of himself too and that's him at the bottom.

 

The other wee thing in the picture is my parents' dog. I'm not sure why he decided to add him!

 

And if you look at his face there is a line beside one of his eyes. That's meant to be a patch of eczema he had on his face and had scratched a little, making it look like a little red line.

 

He thought it all out very carefully!

Tweet

Christmas Lights Switch On

Firstly, Happy St Andrew's Day!

Now onto those sweet schoolchildren singing last night.

As I'm sure most of you know, our boys attend a Gaelic Medium school, where they are taught in Gaelic. They have no English at all until the end of Primary 3 (age 7).

The only Gaelic school remotely near us is in the city, about 15 miles away, and so we take the train in every morning (which only takes about 15-20 minutes). Alasdair and I then head home again before returning for the other boys at 3pm.

OK, I'm digressing here.

Every year the school choir is asked to sing at the Christmas Light Switch On in the area around the school. It is right in the city centre, with Edinburgh Castle looking down on them from less than a mile away.

It was absolutely freezing last night but the children all did the school proud, as they always do.

The biggest excitement was when the local councillor announced the lights would be switched on by the two youngest choir members, and our Calum was one of the two! He was so chuffed. I do have a film of that, but as I was using my normal camera, I hadn't thought about the fact that if you take a video long-ways, you can't flip it round on your computer like you can with a photo, so I won't make you all watch it sideways!

I have three other video clips for you though - it's OK, they aren't too long :0) - of the three songs they sang.

Firstly was Seallaibh an t-sneachda (shallav an shnechga) - Look at the Snow.

Then they sang the lovely Leanabh an Aigh.

They finished with everyone's favourite, Glacan Binn - Jingle Bells. Only James and Calum are in the choir, but for this last one any younger brothers and sisters were allowed to go up and join in so you can see David at the front with his best friend Ruaraidh. (David's the one with his jacket open, even though everyone else is wrapped up from top to toe!)

Oh, you will also notice in this one that the school is very close to the Fire Station - And that isn't the school behind them but the main offices of the Bank of Scotland!

I hope that has everyone in the festive spirit and ready for the start of advent tomorrow!

Tweet

Brògan Ùr aig Daibhidh

Look at that.

Tonight's post starts with a language lesson. 

Just in time for the schools returning.

So, pronounciation first, is 'brogan oor egg Da-ee-vee'.

The meanings of the words:

brògan - shoes (singular shoe would be bròg)

Ùr - new

aig - literally means 'belonging to' 

Daibhidh - David

I thought that by explaining it this way would show you how sentence structure is made up in Gaelic.

You might also have noticed, both here and in previous Gaelic word of the days, that the 'v' sound in Gaelic is made by combining either 'mh' or 'bh'. There is no letter 'v' in the Gaelic alphabet. Or J, K, Q, W, X, Y, Z!

Now, onto those brògan of Daibhidh's.

(If there is a Gaelic version of the children's name, then that is what they are known as by the teachers at the school, and so David's school friends all call him Daibhidh. My boys attend a Gaelic Medium school where they are taught using Gaelic as the first language. I wrote a bit more about it here, for any newer followers who may have missed that.)

ANYWAY, the brògan.

Here they are.

At first glance they are quite a cute pair of Kicker's boots.

Now, what is our boys' biggest love? (Apart from their Mamaidh, that is!)

Yes, that's right, LEGO.

That's a Lego Police Landrover on the back of that foot above..........

.........and a Lego Police Man and Motorbike on the back of the other one!

Not only that, but there are lights that flash in the soles!

He just loves his brògan ùr.

And just to finish off, here are the boys ready for the first day back to school this morning.

James has just started his last year at Primary school, and the P7s have a special red school jumper.

Alasdair still has another 3 years before he joins them at school, but he grabbed his bag this morning too when he saw the other boys with theirs!

Tweet