Willowbank School, KilmarnockThere was lots of great numeracy skills on show this week when the class worked hard on their pictogram SQA work. The class were Successful Learners when they created pictograms from data collected in class choosing favorite colours and matching eye colour. They also interpreted ready-made pictograms by translating the graph into building blocks before looking at the highest and smallest and relating that to the favorite and least favorite. Some very hard work completed – well done!
The Bluebells have been enjoying learning about life on a Scottish Island through Katie Morag stories. Today we learned about how people travel from an island to the mainland using a boat. We created our own foil boats and used a fan to make them sail across the water in our tuff tray. We enjoyed a little competitive boat race against our friends.
The class were Successful Learners this week when they continued their study of ‘His Dark Materials’. This week we looked at the emotions of Iorek the polar bear. Everyone matched what happened to different emotions expressed by Iorek. We also had a quick look at some characters and their behaviors. Excellent work everybody
On Tuesday we celebrated Robert Burns.
In the morning we listened to some Scottish poems – our favourite was ‘Crocodile’ by JK Annand. We then created our own acrostic poem choosing different words that started with each of the letters in the word Scotland.
In the afternoon we used strips of paper to create our own tartan design for our kilts that will be displayed on our Katie Morag display outside our classroom. We were all confident individuals at choosing which strip of colour we wanted to use each time. We added a black semi -circle to be the sporran and gold detail with our name.
Last week were were confident individuals mixing up icing in a bowl and using a spoon to create a Scotland flag design on a biscuit.
This week after reading some of the Katie Morag stories we matched some of the characters and places from the stories. All of the pupils were successful learners and able to glue either the pieces or the paper. Some were able to match picture to picture and some were able to match picture to word. They enjoyed the stories and we discussed each of the characters and the different places Katie Morag visited in some of the stories.
We were all confident individuals, successful learners and effective contributors when working together to perform ‘A Red Red Rose’ by Robert Burns.
We learned the signs for the poem and then also added music to it. The Oak class put on a special performance for Ollie at Drake music. He was extremely impressed by everyone. Well done Oak class.
We enjoyed our Scottish dancing, made mini Robert Burns shortbread and made Burns gift bags.
The boys had lots of fun celebrating Robert Burns Day. We discussed who he was and how and why we celebrate this poet every year.
We all enjoyed watching the Transition class’ Burns Supper and were amazed that Mr Nicoll could play the bagpipes!
We made our own haggis, neeps and tatties, made a kilt complete with a sporran and we even attempted to learn the Gay Gordons Scottish dance. We all enjoyed that! 
The Asteroids were learning about ‘wonky’ fruit and the difference between ‘wonky’ fruit and the ‘perfect’ fruit you find in the supermarkets. We were learning that misshapen fruit tastes just the same as perfect looking fruit and so to help the farmers, reduce waste and help the environment, we should try and use ‘wonky’ fruit when we can.
We looked at pictures of different fruit, identified them and sorted them into perfect fruit and wonky fruit groups.
We used ‘wonky’ blueberries, strawberries and over-ripe bananas in our smoothie. It tasted delicious!
The Bluebells have enjoyed learning about activities that happen during a traditional Scottish Highland Games. We took turns trying out some of the activities. We tossed the caber, threw the hammer, played tug of war, threw the wellie and our favourite was hurling the haggis.
It was hot and cold this week in the Transition class during our Health and Wellbeing lesson. We looked at how our skin and muscles felt when hot and cold. We held an ice cube and identified different sensations that we could feel. We then turned a hairdryer on to feel the heat and identify those sensations. Words chosen by the class included hot, cold, jaggy and calm.
We then took advantage of the frosty day to go outside and bare our forearms to see how our skin and muscles felt. Everyone was very brave and even placed a frosted leaf on our forearms to feel even more cold! Well done everyone!
