Category Archives: Technologies

-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

Literacy and English, Technologies

Class Kindles

January 22, 2016 Gayle Santi

In Primary 7, we have been introduced to kindles, that we are reading our class novel on. We have all been taught how to use them properly and get the most out of them.

Our class think that the kindles are a new great way to read because some people prefer reading on a kindle because it is easier to find out what a word means when you aren’t familiar with it. All you need to do is select it, and it tells you what that means. We can also change the font size and the way the writing sits. This allows us to enjoy the reading a bit more.

Some of my classmates have told me a few of their opinions on the kindles,

“I think the kindles are a more fun way of reading.”
Lilah Cowan

“The kindles are much lighter than a book to carry around”.
Amy Quigley

I also think that the kindles are great because when we use them, we have the responsibility of looking after them and this responsibility helps prepare us for our future.

By Susie Tenby

Literacy and English, Sciences, Technologies

Our Class Charter

December 2, 2015 Gayle Santi

Our Class Charter for Primary 7 is based on the solar system, as we have been learning about Space in our Science lessons. The background of our class charter is black with our planets on it in 3D. We made them using papier-mâché with Mrs Santi, Miss Ross and Miss Munro. We then stuck them on to the wall on hinges so that you can lift them up to see our information underneath it.. Each planet represents one of the SHANARRI indicators:

S-safe (Mercury)
H-healthy (Venus)
A-active (Earth)
N-nurtured (Mars)
A-achieving (Jupiter)
R-responsible (Saturn)
R-respecting (Uranus) and
I-included (Neptune)

As part of homework we had to go and write about how the words above are important inside our school. We also researched whether Plutp is considered a planet in our solar system. We also found out more information about the planets in the solar system. This was great fun to do and I’m sure that we all can’t wait to use the knowledge that we have learnt during this experience in our future.

By Iman Rasool