Wednesday 16 February 2011

Wednesday 16th February


On the plane from Edinburgh to Tampere, Finland



The beautiful setting of Kuvansi's primary school, Eastern Finland.

Cross country skiing at the school earlier today.
The weather has been brilliant- sunny and cold!
On the ice rink!
Ice skating in the fantastic sun!
Marjo, the ice skating instructor.
Penpals help each other out at the skiing tracks.
Cross country skiing in the sun at Kuvansi!
Reciting some Burns for the Finnish children, and teachers!
Jyrki- a real Finnish "Scotsman!"

Tonight, in the hut where we had sausages and snacks after playing with our penpals outside.






Inside the hut, with the roaring fire, which ensured we kept warm.

Quotes from Wednesday 16th February 2011

A summary of the day:

Breakfast was at 9am- after our long journey yesterday.

We then got the bus to Kuvansin koulu- our school, about 10km away, where we met our penpals and saw around the school, which is very different to our own.

We watched as our penpals introduced Finland to us via various Powerpoints. Then, we took our own turn to present our own Powerpoints to the Finnish class.

After lunch, we split into two groups and our penpals helped us outside as we headed off to either ice-skate or cross-country ski.

After cross country skiing, we had snacks and drinks, then came back to Varkaus, where we visited the mechanical music museum.

Then, back at our accommodation, we had dinner then played with our penpals, who came with their parents.

Lewis: I liked the skiing- the place we are staying is really nice and it's bigger than I thought it would be. The food has been really nice too!

Ethan: The woodwork room in the school is really cool. It was fun playing with our penpals.

Harry: The museum was really fun. The skiing was harder than I thought it would be but I enjoyed it! The snow is really deep, much deeper than I imagined.

Ewan J: I liked the skiing, even though I fell over in the really deep snow. The accommodation is massive.

Kathryn: Meeting my penpal was nice. It was fun skiing, but hard work. The school is really different.

Ruby: I really enjoyed the ice skating and I am having a really good time.

Megan: I learned how to ice skate today. We need a sewing room in our school, like in Kuvansi!!

More from the rest of the class perhaps tomorrow!

Note from Mr Purves:

Unfortunately, the internet is not working properly at our accommodation, so I have had to come to Mr Ikonen's house to upload this work. Please understand that we are trying to do all we can to let you see what we are doing, but it is possible that we won't manage to upload material each day, as originally planned.

Everyone has had a brilliant first full day here today- and it has been really great to see the penpals working so hard with each other when we were skiing or skating earlier today. As I write this, it's -28C outside, so it's very cold, but it many have been surprised and have said that it doesn't feel as cold as they thought it would feel!

15 comments:

Janey Jack said...

What a fantastic sounding day. We are very jealous. Have a great time everyone.

The Riva Family said...

Glad to hear you have had a fab first day. It looks great and we wish we were there too (especially Beth). It's great to read your comments and I hope you are all behaving and having lots of fun. Looking forward to the next blog.
Andrew, Tracy and Beth Riva

guy donaldson said...

Great to see what you have all been doing and having such a great time.Only -28C ,tropical!!Look forward to more updates,say a big Hi to Harry,thanks, Guy and Joan

Dave, Mairi & Claire said...

Hi P7
Looks absolutely great. All very jealous at this end. Hope you enjoyed the flight. Weather horrible here. Enjoy the rest of your stay. Why no pictures of Mr Purves skiing?

Lisa Kielty said...

Looks fantastic you guys, sunnier than here where we've had freezing torrential rain all day!

Appreciate the extra effort it's taking to post to the blog, thank you Mr Purves.
Irwin, your brother and I are very pleased that you survived ice-skating/ski-ing without breaking anything!
Wishing you all a fantastic day tomorrow and hope to hear more about it in the evening if you can manage.

Gunn Family said...

Looks fab, all very jealous of you. Glad you're having a good time.

Lindsay Brown said...

Hi everyone looks like you are having lots of fun. Love your blog. Hope you have a great day tomorrow.
Ewan missing you LOL.xxx

Stephanie Heawood said...

Glad to hear that you have had such a good day with your penpals, and having fun skiing and skating in the sun and snow! Have fun in Savonlinna tomorrow.
Take care,
Stephanie

Unknown said...

It is good to hear that they are enjoying themselves. Have Fun!f

Ethans Uncle David and Aunt Jacqueline said...

Everything looks great, hope you all have a lovely time.

Fiona Kent said...

hey finland looks like you all had a good time skiing today (totally jealous). how many times did you fall over ryan?? was cold here today but not as cold as finland haha. xxx

Ilkka-teacher said...

Hello from Parkumäki!
It was wery nice that you wisit our school.

T. Ilkka-teacher

Evie Trouton said...

It looks like that was great !

From,

Evie Trouton

The Hummel Family said...

We've been following where you've been on google maps and it looks amazing. All sounds grea. Keep cosy and have loads of fun!

Linda Hummel said...

Any sign of Aurora Borealis up there amidst all these solar flares? Keep your eyes to the skies!