Some children from P4, P4/5 and P5 visited a museum in Govan to learn about the famous shipbuilding industry from Glasgow’s past.

We learned about the importance of the industry in Glasgow and how the technology evolved over the years.

We learned about all the equipment and tools that were used and how those improved over many years.

We heard a lot of new words that we didn’t know before like “welding” and “riveting“. We saw how the ships were designed and constructed. At the beginning whole ships were built there and in later years parts of ships were built there and stuck together somewhere else.

We took the subway and walked the rest of the journey. We had our lunch in the park before coming home – we were all very tired!

In November last year, a group of Primary 5s visited the backstage, technical workshops at the Royal Conservatoire to see how shows were produced behind the scenes. They visited the props, stage and costume departments where they saw how everything was put together by various professionals in order to create an entire show.

Here we are learning about the various props and costumes that are kept behind the scenes. We also saw how the costumes were designed and made:

Here we are looking at some other props that we constructed using moulds. The second photo is of us visiting the set cosntruction of their Christmas pantomime: The Jungle Book.

We also did a fun workshop where the staff where we learnt about using raw materials to be creative.

Return to the Conservatoire.

This term a group of Primary 7 students were able to visit another section of the conservatoire, this time to see the performance and practice areas as well as interview various professionals and students who work there.

We were able to speak with people who all had different roles behind the scenes and performers themselves in order to find out how they managed to be get into their career and what qualifications and experience they needed. We also were able to ask them questions about what they loved the most and what made their journey difficult as well as asking them our own personal questions we were curious about.

Make, Do and Grow

Make, Do and Grow is a social enterprise in Govan. It is a swap shop where people can donate items and buy other things, like toys or clothes.

What we learned:

• How to make different crafts like kites from recycled materials.
• The shop sells items for children aged 3-12 years old.
• They provide workshops for children and families for arts, crafts and music.
• They provide a space for birthdays as well as activities for a charge.
• Their workshops are free except for on Saturdays. £3 for a child and £2 for siblings, to help families afford the prices if they have more than one child.
• Families are encouraged to come in and spend time in the space to chat, have a cup of tea or coffee and make friends.
• Kaytie, who started the social enterprise, decided to create the service when she had children of her own and realised how expensive it was to buy toys and clothes and also how expensive clubs were. She wanted to create something herself to help with this.
• Their expenses (the things they have to spend money on to keep the service going) are paying the staff, rent, bills and insurance.
• The service is considered a CIC: Community Interest Company, because it helps the community, so Kaytie was given some money by the government to help start it and keep it running in the beginning.

Some Primary 6s and 7s visited this important Glasgow landmark to learn about the historic building and the everyday work that goes on there. The main focus for our visit was to learn about the role the library has as a social enterprise.

What we learned:

• the library team provides advice to people starting new businesses, including what qualifications they need to have a new job or start a certain business
• they can carry out marketing for people to find out who would buy their product
• they help to expand businesses that already exist
• the library can give a patent to people’s ideas or inventions that allow them to belong to the person and no one can steal their idea
• there are 5 floors which are open to the public and 5 more which are only for staff
• there are over 10 million items kept in the library
• they use a decimal reference system to store the items in order
• the building is made up of three parts: one from the 1910s, another from the 1960s and another from the 1980s

• we are able to help members of the public with skills that we have, for example one of us was able to help a man who couldn’t speak English use a computer because we spoke their language too
• there is a rumour that the building is haunted…

So today, we went on a trip to Sunny Govan Radio Station. We met Heather, the person in charge and also the founder of the station. Here we were working on the live radio program with Steg.

Things we enjoyed:

• Introducing songs and choosing them
• Doing interviews live
• Using the mixing desk
• Seeing Steg
• Recording a message for the unity project
• Singing to a local man called Archie

What we learnt:

• Being safe on the journey
• Using the mixing desk again
• Being responsible
• Using our voices on air
• The story of Sunny Govan- Heather started by only walking down a street and asking the community if they wanted a radio station and the community named it Sunny Govan.
• The three main jobs of Sunny Govan- Manager, producer and DJ
• The purpose of Sunny Govan- to make people happy in our community but still needing to make money to run the organisation.

So here we were in front of the new Mary Barbour statue. Mary was a political activist, in the early 20th century. We were set a challenge by Brian, a local historian, to count how many people were part of the statue. We all got it wrong a few times but eventually we discovered 17.

Some of us from Primary 4/5 went to the Kelvingrove Museum for the day to learn about Scotland’s history, animals and some famous people. Five out of twelve of us had never been before.

Here are some of the highlights 🙂

Things we enjoyed:

• taking photos of things we loved in the exhibitions
• looking at the stuffed animals
• the baby polar bears!
• learning about Scottish animals and history
• the giant Irish deer skeleton
• the whole Egyptian section
• the organ recital at lunchtime

Things that we learned:

• Ancient Egyptians took people’s brains out of their nose before they were mummified!
• Rich ancient Egyptians could afford special coffins
• They shaved their heads and wore wigs to show they had more money
• The brain wasn’t considered an important organ
• Polar bears live in the Arctic
• The huge Irish deer is now extinct
• We saw an organ being played for the first time
• Haggis is not actually a real animal
• Many Scottish people migrated to America to make money
• There are lots of different jobs in the museum – people who clean the exhibits, security to protect everything and someone called a taxidermist who stuffs the animals

Skills we used:

• we travelled by subway and found our way to the museum
• we made good decisions with our money
• we had to work out how many things we could buy at the shop and work out our change – which was very tricky!

What we enjoyed:

• touching the fake snow
• seeing all the shops
• hearing the shop lady talk about her bath-bombs at the stall
• analysing what all the art was about
• watching the video in the art gallery
• using the blocks in the creative area
• getting free food!

What we learned:

• what analyse means – trying to figure something out
• there are actually lots of artists
• some things in art didn’t actually happen – it was just the artist’s imagination
• you don’t have to paint to make art – you can use pictures or photos of real things instead and it can still be art
• we learned about some new artists
• to use our imagination
• there are still slaves in modern times, even in Scotland
• classical art is art that looks like the thing you are painting or drawing, modern art can look totally different
• Any Warhol did colourful art and one of his pieces was a soup can
• how to use the subway
• Shields Road subway is the closest one to our school
• you need to buy a return ticket to go somewhere and back

Why would we recommend going there to our friends or family?

• It’s fun to learn about artists
• It’s interesting
• It makes you think and you use your brain!

A group form P.6 visited the Necropolis. None of us had ever been before – and we will never forget it! We travelled by subway from Shields Road to Buchannan Street and then walked past lots of famous Glasgow buildings to get there.

We enjoyed:

• seeing new parts of Glasgow
• being on the subway
• scaring Mr McCormack
• the views from the graveyard of the city
• making movies
• writing the poems and sketching
• taking photos

What we learned:

• where lots of famous buildings are – the cathedral, Strathclyde University, Glasgow College and the oldest house in Glasgow
• the word “crypt” and how it was a fancy tomb like a stone hut
• the stones and graves were all designed differently
• we didn’t expect the Necropolis to be so big
• we researched Halloween poems – we didn’t know them before and also some of us didn’t realise poems didn’t always rhyme
• we practised reading our poems in public

Why would we recommend it to other people to go?

• it’s educational and fun!
• you can learn about the past
• you can practise using your maths by working out people’s ages on their gravestones
• you will see the best views of Glasgow!        

Some children from P6 and P6/7 visited a music studio in Glasgow city centre where we recorded songs that we chose ourselves.

Only one of us had ever been in a studio before.

Things we enjoyed:

• singing with our friends
• listening to our friends singing
• singing along with Jamie (the sound engineer) on his acoustic guitar
• the subway journey to the studio
• editing our songs
• getting the chance to try instruments like the guitar, drums and piano

Things we learned:

• new words like mixer, suspension bridge, acoustic and bass guitar
• how to mix music after recording it
• how to use a recording booth and what the headphones do
• how to use the mixing desk to see the volumes of voice against music
• about new technology
• how to get to St Enoch or the studio by subway and walking
• a return ticket costs £1.35

Things that we would do differently next time:

• sing a different song
• take the singing more seriously so we wouldn’t laugh in the booth
• practise more before we sing
• sing a solo

Why should people go there?

• we felt inspired to do something musical for a job
• we became more confident
• we learned new words
• we got to choose our own songs
• our parents enjoyed hearing about our day there
• we know how to get a music career as a performer or behind the scenes

Only three out of twelve of us had been to Balloch before so this was going to be a new experience for most of us. The journey is also quite long so we were going to have to leave school a bit earlier than usual.

We looked up timetables online for trains – some of us managed to work it out ourselves and others needed a bit of help.

First we had to walk to the subway station on Shields Road and take the subway to Partick in the west end of Glasgow. From there, we had to wait for the train to Balloch. We wrote about our journey in notepads and planned to take photos with an iPad for this blog.

Things that we did and learned:

• Mr McCormack and Mr Orr taught us about drinking water from streams – always make sure the water is moving. We could see the difference between the clean water in the stream (burn) and the stagnant water which was dirty.
• We learned the words “stagnant” which means not moving and the Scottish word “burn” which is a little steam.
• We wanted to feed the ducks and swans bread so had to buy some from the shop. Lots of us had never fed ducks before. We learnt about the type of ducks (mallards) and that the male is green and the female is brown. We also learned that baby swans are called signets.
• We learned how to be safe around water, never to lean too close or carry anything too heavy.
• Some of us expected Balloch to look different.
• We enjoyed playing in the park.
• If we were going back we would go for longer so that we could fit in more activities like fishing. We thought the journey was quite long so it would be worth staying longer at Balloch next time.
• Some of us didn’t enjoy walking so much!
• We can now explain to people how to get to Balloch if they don’t want to drive.