Category Archives: Expressive Arts

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, festival, Religious and Moral Education

Yom Hasoah

May 16, 2016 Gayle Santi

It was recently Yom Hashoah and in order to commemorate this day, there was an event held at Giffnock Shul, which I as fortunate enough to attend. This day marks a day of remembrance for the people that died in the Holocaust. 2 school pupils lead the service and we had a Jewish male choir preforming. As the names of all those family members who had been killed were shown on the screen, a man played the violin. There were lots of clips from various Holocaust survivors and we had speeches from special guests, including Ben Helfgot, who is a very well known Holocaust survivor.

6 candles were lit for the 6 million Jews who had died in the War. Pupils from the school or the local area came up to light 5 candles and then the sixth candle was lit by Ben Helfgot, our special guest.

The theme of the evening was “from Poland to Windmere”, and his speech told us all about his story and his journey and how he feels about the Holocaust today.

Primary 7 had also been working on a project and had picked a person from the ‘Boys’ to commemorate and make a hand stitched tea towel that were all displayed in the Shul hall.

It was a special day to be a part of.

By Susie Tenby

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English

Primary 7 Art Inspiration

March 30, 2016 Gayle Santi

Recently, the pupils in our class each presented a solo talk about a famous person who truly inspired us. It was great to hear the varied individuals that we each chose and why we found them inspirational in the first place.

Afterwards, we thought it would be a good idea if we made collages about our inspirational person, so that the rest of the school could see our work. We were to collect images, words, newspaper and magazine cut-outs all about our inspirational person. Then when we had all the cut-outs that we needed, we stuck them on to coloured board in the shape of something to do with our inspirational person. Later we put PVA glue on them so that they hardened permanently.

Finally, our teacher, Mrs Santi, put them on the wall proudly for the rest of the school to see and as a daily reminder to each of us about those people in the world or the past that inspire us to become better visions of ourselves.

By Josh Zeitlin

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and English, Numeracy and Mathematics, Technologies

Upper School Master Classes

March 22, 2016 Gayle Santi

The Primary Four, Five, Six and Seven classes have recently started Master Classes every Friday. Each one of the master classes will run for 4 weeks.

The classes consist of:

Film making
Sewing
Woodwork
Baking/cooking

Each class is led by one of the class teachers.

In Primary Seven, we have recently started Film Making with Mrs Santi. We have been given the challenge of creating a short film that will send a message to the viewers. This will then be shown to the rest of the school at one of our weekly assemblies.

We have completed projects like this in the past. Mrs Santi was able to show us some of the work from the project we did a few years ago, when we were all in Primary 3. One of the most helpful tips we picked up on was the importance of impact. We realised that sometimes the use of dialogue in a short film can take away from the message that the group are trying to share.

We chose groups to create our films with and with those groups we had to come up with a team name and a message for our film.

We then had to plan out where the scenes would be shot and what props would be needed. We carried this out in a similar way as we had [previously done in our writing lessons for Script-Writing.

Now we have completed practice scenes and watched them back to see would we could add in or take out, to help make our short film even better. The groups have also discussed if their short film will look realistic and if the characters are easy to play.

Overall the film making work shop will not only help with filming and editing skills, it will also help improve our dramatic acting skills too!

We have loved the Master Classes so far and look forward to trying the other ones. We have heard that the Primary Six class have been learning to sew and have been using their new skills to help them make things like puppets.

In Primary Five, they are learning about woodwork and have been using their new skills to make bird houses. This sounded really interesting. First of all they planned out the design and structure of their bird house and then cut their wood to be a fitting size, they are soon to move on to actually building their bird houses.

Finally, in Primary Four, they have been learning about cooking and baking skills. So far they have made savoury things like cheese scones and pizzas. Then they have also made sweet things, like flapjacks. I am extremely excited to learn all these new skills that I have never tried before.

By Madeline Friel

-My Achievements, Class Trip, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Religious and Moral Education, Technologies

Yom Hashoah

March 22, 2016 Gayle Santi

The Yom Hashoah Project

The Primary 7 class has been working on a project led by Mrs Hyman (Freddie’s mum!). We were all given the task of going away and creating our own ICT collages based on a person who lived through World War II.

We have been learning about Ben Helfgott and ‘the boys’. Many of the people that we have chosen to work on were children in the Holocaust and separated from their families. Many now live in the U.K and we have looked at and learned a little about what their lives are like now.

With the people we have chosen, we have selected pictures and words that link to them and help people to learn more about them.

When we had all finished our collages, we had them printed on to fabrics which are now going to be sewn onto a cloth which we will keep, as a pillow or a tea towel.

Our collages will also be shown at an event for people to see them. Ben Helfgott is also going to be coming to the Yom Hashoah event at Giffnock Synagogue to speak. He was actually in the Olympics as a weightlifter and even won a gold medal!

In these lessons with Mrs Hyman, we have put colour on to the cloth to brighten it up, we have also been stitching the fabric into the cloth and some of us were just learning how the stich.

The people we have chosen, we have picked because there was something about them or their story that stood out to us and inspired us.

By Susie Tenby

Expressive Arts, festival, Religious and Moral Education

Calderwood’s Chanukah Disco

December 21, 2015 Gayle Santi

Every year I’m extremely excited to attend the Chanukah Disco and this year was no exception.

Most of my class were able to come along. This was my last disco at Calderwood Lodge and I really didn’t want to miss out. I was there to celebrate with my friends, my class and the rest of the school.

At the disco we all danced and enjoyed the sweets from the stall. I played and laughed my friends all night. There was prizes to be won from the DJ and a few of the younger stages won them and looked extremely happy with themselves.

The Chanukah disco was very fun and our class loved it. It will be sad to think that we will never get to go again but I hope that the tradition is carried on, and that the next classes continue to go along and celebrate.

Lyla Gaizely-Gardiner

Expressive Arts, festival, Literacy and English, Religious and Moral Education

Chanukah Assembly

December 14, 2015 Gayle Santi

Madeleine and Hassan have been telling you all in earlier blogs about Chanukah. As part of our celebrations, we went to see the Primary 4 class performing a Chanukah Show. The parents all came along to watch.

There was a short play that included songs and the story of Chanukah. The story talks about the Maccabis and how they went to war with the Greeks because the Greeks said no to Shabbat. They only had enough oil to light the candle on the Menorah for one night and miraculously, it lasted for 8 days.

The choir completed the show with the traditional Chanukah songs. There was a lovely electric atmosphere and all the children were excited for the celebrations. It is a special assembly every year.

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Social Studies

WWII Curricular Event

December 9, 2015 Gayle Santi

On Friday, Primary 7 turned our classroom into a World War Two registration room and invited our parents and grandparents to come and enjoy our WWII event. Our class held a World War II event. It was a chance to show our friends and family what we had been learning over the past few months. We had more than 20 visitors!

We set up a number of stations:
First of all, every visitor had to register for their identification card. We have learned that at any point during the war, if you were asked to display or show your ID badge, it was crucial that you had it on you.

Then, everybody had to register for their Rationing books and a specific store. At the store, they were able to learn about all the food that had to be rationed, and why. Everyone during the war had to register to a store to stop them using their rationing books in lots of different stores.

Everyone had the chance to make their own gas masks as well, which would be necessary during the Blitz. These were quite magnificent

Outside the classroom, we had a live radio broadcast by Amy Quigley and Lyla Gaizlie-Gardiner that followed the Blitz. And we also had information about the use of Propaganda posters and adverts and we got to show off our own.

On the whiteboard, we had a film showing each of us reading out some of our WWII evacuee letters and radio transcripts that we did in writing.

When our World War II event came to a close we sang songs that were very popular in World War II.

It was a great morning and all our parents and grandparents had a great time.

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English

Book Buddies

October 7, 2015 Gayle Santi

Near the beginning of term, the Primary Seven class went downstairs to the Primary One class to come up with a story with them and create our very own book.

Each Primary 7 pupil worked with one or two of the Primary 1 boys and girls. We then sat together and gathered ideas from them about the books that they enjoy reading and what they wanted their story to be about.
We made some sketches that we would include in our book and the Primary 1’s helped with these drawings. This helped them to improve their art skills. Their talents were exceptional!
We then typed up our stories and we will soon be turning these into the finished products.

Some of the Primary One class might grow up to become authors one day since some of their ideas were incredible.
Miss Jagger and Mrs Santi helped us a lot as well. We all worked together to do our very best work. It was a really fantastic activity that taught us about responsibility and learning and I hope we get to do something like this again soon.

Vaneeza Ali