Tag Archives: creativity

Learning How to Code Using Scratch

March 20, 2015 User deactivated 4 Comments

Scratch is a computer animation and programming site and this term we have been learning to use it. We have had to learn how use code to make things move and how to make things called sprites, change. One of our tasks was to make a children’s rights game. Some people made their game like flappy bird or paddle and you had to collect wee icons and a right would pop up. The game is meant to help you learn your rights. I am good at Scratch and have been using it for a while now. I understand it really well so I had to go around helping everyone with their coding and make their game work. You had to be creative to come up with ideas to make your game interesting for people to play. Some people found it difficult to use code but everyone now knows how to make a basic game with controls now. I want to have a job in computer programming when I am older so I hope this will help me prepare for it.

Here are Nick and Aidan’s games

This is Abbi’s game

bootcamp, Expressive Arts, Sciences, shareourlearning

Felt Making Tutorial

March 19, 2015 Mrs Hunter 7 Comments

During Science Week we were learning about friction. We found out that friction is a force between two surfaces that are sliding, or trying to slide, across each other. The wool fibres are felted or fused together using moisture, friction and heat. As the wool shrinks the fibres interlock and mat together. You may have noticed that if a wool jumper is washed too hot in a washing machine it will shrink and felt! The wool fibres are layered out horizontally and vertically then soap and warm water are applied and the felt is massaged and rolled. It was challenging and very time consuming but we all enjoyed learning how to felt. We are really proud of our felt pieces but had sore and tired arms at the end! Watch Alana’s felt tutorial below for step by step instructions.

Here are some photos of the felting process:

Some photos of our felted pieces:

Religious and Moral Education

Cracking the Easter code!

March 16, 2015 User deactivated 5 Comments

Today we visited our local church old Gourock and Ashton. Our minister David taught us all about Easter and had prepared some fun activities for us. Firstly we played a “who wants to be a millionaire” game all about the history of Easter eggs. We found out how many Easter eggs were made in a year which was around 300,000!

The most expensive Easter egg ever made was £50,000! The winning team collected 13 plastic eggs in their bucket and received a prize at the end. We then split into groups and had 5 different stations to investigate. At each station you had to find a word beginning with “s” to crack the Easter code and find out about holy week.

At station number 1 we found out all about the Jews and their special dinner, we also got to try some of the food that they eat but most importantly we found out the word beginning with “s” and it was sharing.
At station number 2, David let us take part in a drama scene of Jesus seeking to be heard.
At station number 3 we learned all about serving and as an example of this we washed each others feet because that’s what Jesus did to his disciples and the word beginning with “s” was seeking.
At station number 4 we designed our own crosses by scratching special card to make it colourful, this station was all about sacrifice because Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross.
The last station was station 5 where we watched a short clip on Jesus going into the garden to pray. The “s” word was struggling because his whole life he knew that he was going to die.

After we had finished these activities we heard a drama scene about Jesus rising from his tomb. We all then got a cross to write our feelings and reactions about what we would have done if we saw that happening. We all learned that the Easter story is more interesting than we all first thought. It was good to learn in a small group as well as a class. I feel that I could now share my learning with others that don’t know about the Easter story. Now when it comes to Easter I wont just think about the chocolate that I get I will think about the story of Jesus! Click here for a link to their website.

bootcamp, Literacy and English

P7 Bio Poem!

February 23, 2015 User deactivated 6 Comments

Here is our Bio Poem we have written as a class. There were a lot of discussions around what we should choose, but in the end we think it sums us up quite nicely! Hope you like it 🙂

Primary 7

Hilarious, competitive, smart, creative

Pupils of Mrs Hunter

Lovers of TMNT, Football, KFC and You Tube

We feel enthusiastic, determined and confident

We fear McDonalds, a wet play and being last sitting for lunch!

We are proud of being a Fairtrade School, gaining our RRSA Level 1, winning our Rugby tournament, and learning to ski!

We would like to fight for equality, end world poverty and show racism the red card!

We live in glorious Gourock in bonnie Scotland

Gourock Primary School 🙂

Expressive Arts, Literacy and English

P7 Burns Supper

February 12, 2015 User deactivated 6 Comments

This term we have been learning all about Robert Burns and his life, as well as Scots Language. We started to plan our annual Burns Supper; firstly we learned how to pronounce Scots words within our poems. As well as that, we translated some of burns most famous poems into English before writing our own poems in the style of ‘To A Mouse’ in English then translated to Scots using Scots dictionaries and previous knowledge.We then had to responsibility for our own learning by learning words, adding drama and writing scripts.

However before we started we had to set up the hall by;

Setting tables (cutlery, placemats, programs, tablet and shortbread)
Decorate hall (art and flowers )
Place water, Irn-bru and bread on the tables

As well as setting up the table we also had to make programs, invitations and the table plan. The table plan was simple to write but incredibly important on the night. We had to show people to their seats and because of the table plan, we managed to start on time as everyone was in their seats chatting to the people in their table.

We also had to learn appropriate conversation and manners while at the table, for example, not pouring out your own drink first by offering all the adults before yourself as well as giving adults the basket of bread before yourself. The hardest thing to do was making sure everybody was happy with their night!

One of the many lessons we learned was about teamwork, to us this was a really important lesson because we all knew that if only one person had set up the hall then we would never have been ready in time for our Burns night! The only reason it was ready was because we worked as a team and helped each other out.

The highlight of the night and topic was probably the toast to the lassies and the reply. It was hilarious to listen and relate to what they were saying and although both toasts where amazing, the girls definitely won!!

The Burns Supper was a great success and we all enjoyed it very much as we saw all our hard work and energy pay off!

By Hannah and Lucy D

Expressive Arts

Tartan Art

February 4, 2015 User deactivated Leave a comment

In preparation for our Burns Supper this year we have created Tartan Art to be displayed in the gym hall. We started this by looking up our family or clan tartan or making up our own if we don’t have one. It was important to look at the pattern involved in the tartan and how it all fitted together. We had to either use the colours of our chosen tartan or create our own complimentary coloured tartan design.

First of all, everybody had to draw straight lines in their chosen colour on to special cartridge paper. We did this using Oil Pastel so that we could get the Wax Resist effect. Next, we had to paint over the lines in a wash of the background colour of our tartan. This had to be a thin mixture of pallet paint or our paint would be too thick and the oil pastel wouldn’t show through. It was great when we saw our pattern all come together! We had to do this 3 times so that we had some spare pieces to make tartan place cards for the Burns Supper.

After our paint had dried, we got a piece of small, black paper and another piece of our tartan. We looked at a silhouette of Rabbie Burns, then drew our own onto one of our tartan papers. Then we carefully cut it out and glued it on the black piece of paper. After that we decided to cut the black bit of paper into an oval as we thought it looked better than a rectangle.

Last of all we had to carefully glue the black paper with the tartan Robert Burns silhouette onto a full page of tartan that was the same as the one on Burns. We had to be patient when copying our tartan as some of the designs were really tricky. Everybody in the class really enjoyed it! By Martin P7

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing

Snow Portraits and Sculptures #Gilbertt

January 19, 2015 User deactivated 14 Comments

On Friday it was snowing so we decided to go outside and do some art. We split into groups and designed either a snow portrait or snow sculpture. We created Gilbertt (with two ‘t’s) the snowman and his son Gilbertt jr. Some people went and got snow by using the cones to collect snow and used it as a shovel, we all worked together to make him. He was protected by some snow walls with twigs on them that we found in the playground, it looked good. Dionne built a snow dog because that’s her favourite animal. Andrew and Martin made a puny imposter Gilbertt that was found melted and never to be seen again. Hazel and Rebecca also created a snowman called Henry and hid him in petal gardens to keep him safe! Rachael managed to draw a portrait of Robert Burns with a pencil, it looked just like him! Gilbertt made it until the end of the day and then sadly someone decapitated him, we were all sad and wrote some speeches. It was fun trying to play sports in the snow. It was difficult trying to hit a snowball with a racquet! We all really enjoyed being outside, it was a bit cold but fun to do something different. Written by Aidan and David P7.

Literacy and English, Social Studies

Victorian Projects

December 18, 2014 Mrs Hunter 1 Comment

As our Victorian topic is coming to an end, we brought in our projects that we have been working on throughout the term. It was really interesting to share our biographies on our favourite Victorians, differences between toys then and now and diary entries of a day in the life of a child in the workhouse. We also designed our own inventions and created Victorian toys and games to play. Jack even carved his very own mini Victorian street child – very impressive! After reading our classmates work, we used peer assessment strategies to give positive feedback on each others work. By writing comments on post-its, we were able to give feedback and pinpoint areas of work we thought were done well. It was great to read the comments left on our projects when we got them back!