These poems were written on a sunny morning in the playground.
We tried to describe what we saw and what was happening as clearly as possible without adjective or adverbs.
Author: John Johnston
I am a teacher, currently working in Banton Primary for North Lanarkshire Council. I also act as Product Owner/provide support for Glow Blogs.
Meet The Biggies 2022
Dow’s Wood – September
This morning the biggies went for a walk in Dow’s Wood, they took part in a photo challenge, kept their eyes peeled for animals and plants and played some big.
An Artist at Rest
Conkers in the making
Thistle seeds
Hawthorn
A tiny frog explores a jumper
Looking for colours
Toadstool
There…
Two Roe
Today we went to the woods, we walked around the woods for a while taking pictures, stopping to look at wildlife, and wild plants. We eventually made our way to the Gladstone. Whilst at the Gladstone we sat down somewhere in the area, making sure to not go too far, and drew something like a small plant, a tree, or something similar.
Later we made our way to the school wood and played two team tag, after two rounds of it we made our way back to school.
Charlie
Today we went to Dows Woods, in Dows woods there was a cute tiny frog on Josh’s jumper (on a rucksack as well) and Hollie picked it up and put it in the trees.
When we were walking through the grass I found some hazelnuts that a mouse had eaten some a squirrel had eaten and some nothing had ate (and we also found conkers on a huge conker tree).
We sat on rocks and had to draw what we saw I drew some grass but there was a huge mushroom with a giant slug on it, Bobbi and I turned around for a few minutes and when we turned back it was gone.
Olivia Rose
There was a slug on a mushroom eating it. The slug was huge and then it disappeared.
I liked how we went and drew pictures of trees, leaves and other cool stuff I drew a tree that had no leaves on it.
At the start we got given a piece of paper so we could find\do things like make a rainbow, find a shadow and other things.
Mr Johnston found a shield bug it was green and had a little bit of yellow on its back he wasn’t scared of it.
-Bobbi
Hazel told Josh there was a spider on his head and he was rubbing his head saying get it off me. Hazel kept saying there’s a spider on your head and me standing laughing.
Standing there laughing,
We saw lots of bugs,
We drew stuff we could find,
We played a game it was fun ,
We saw two deer and a frog,
We had a long walk,
We saw mushrooms.
Amy
There is a bug out there that looks like a mosquito we called Tostito and we found a huge mushroom.
There is glass everywhere which is sad because we should be helping the environment.
There is a tiny green frog and a huge black beetle and they where really cool.
Hazel
At the woods we did challenges it was a photo challenge we are going to judge them soon the challenges were a rainbow, something moving (not a human), a shadow, something that makes you happy, a repeating pattern and a beautiful view it was hard because we went into different groups of three and four we couldn’t decide so we took tons of different pictures and we are going to pick them and Maybe win!
Hollie
Today we went to the woods and we did tones of stuff, all of it was very fun we played games and we drawn stuff, I drew a tree and everyone drew something cool, for the game we lay a game where you need to hide and then you need run, avoid the seekers and you need to sit on a log to get two points and if you just hide for the time limit you get one point.
Josh
Today at the woods we saw a frog and a huge ground beetle, we did a photographic challenge we drawn nature and we saw a rabbit hole. We played 2 team tag it was really fun even know my team lost. We saw a deer it was really fun and I can’t wait to go again
Rory
We found a beach tree and something came down it was a beach mast and it had seeds inside of it. There was spikes and it was green and when you opened it it looked like a flower.
Mia
We walked around the woods and we had a chart we had to find living things.
I enjoyed playing two team tig and seeing all the wildlife. We saw beetles, spiders, a wee frog, a shield bug and a pair of deer.
Daniel
I enjoined going through the long ferns and seeing how tall they were.
I enjoyed finding a spider and watching it walk on my hand.
I enjoyed drawing a plant.
Alex
Today I was in the woods with my class. I seen a beetle about 4.5cm big. It was black with a purple outline around it. We found the beetle Walking around on a rock. It was one of the coolest things I saw went we were walking in the woods.
Elise
I liked going to the Gladstone, the rocks surrounded by the oak trees and the old railway track.
I liked seeing the sheep and the deer.
I liked doing the game in the school woods where we have 2 teams and 1 team hides and when the team hides the 2nd team try’s to find them whilst the 1st team needs to get to the seat.
Harry
Feeding the birds
We had a try with our nature watch camera yesterday. 3 species of tit plus one other visitor you might just spot if you watch carefully.
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Coal Tit
The Biggies Words This Session
The biggies each choose 4 words to describe what they would like to do this year. I hope we will manage most of it!
Shading Birds
The Biggies have been working on shading, gradients and blending. We took some inspiration from Richard Spare and photos of birds that we can see in our playground.
Exploring Lego
For this term the Biggies have been working on a Lego Explore topic. It took us right up to the last week!
Today the children finished some ‘poster boards’ explain what they have learned.
The Dog Fam
Lego Go
Clouds
Playground Picnic & Play
This term of The Biggies Health & Wellbeing work included  being part of a group in a range of situations and enjoying  eating a diversity of foods in a range of social situations. We combined these by organising a “picnic” for the whole school.
The class spent the morning baking cookies and dipping strawberries in chocolate. After lunch they made smoothies.
The class then brought the whole school out into mixed groups served up the food and encourages some conservation.
After they had tidied up the Biggies used their Junior Leader training to lead the groups through some fun and healthy games. The other children rotated  through the groups lead by the Junior Leaders and had a great time.
We could see that all the team work we have been doing this session has really paid off. The Biggies took their responsibilities seriously with out losing a sense of fun doing a great job all day.
Personal Project Morning
On Monday morning the Biggies had some time to follow their own ideas. the previous week they had submitted plans explain what they would do, what they needed and what they learnt.
The idea included making board games, cardboard models, story writing, zine creating, and a micro:bit boat. You can see some of the end results below.
I was excited about the micro:bit boat. The pupils had the idea on seeing a motor attached to a micro:bit in the class. The figured out how to make the micro:bit control the moters and another micro:bit to control that. A lot of problem solving and practical skills involved!
Biodiversity Live Lesson
Last week we joined in this video conference. It was in 3 sections all based on wether.
First we heard from Jess Lilley, Edinburgh Zoo about life in the water. We saw the penguins at the zoo and found out about a fish none of us knew about, the flapper skate.
We then heard the story of the Mermaid of the Clyde, told by Allison Galbraith. The last workshop was by Joe Wilkin-Oxley from Keep Scotland Beautiful. He explainsd about water, how much we use and how to save it.
This was all very interesting. During the week most of the primary sevens were off to Kilsyth Academy, but the rest of the Biggies got busy writing stories about mythical water creatures and working on scale in maths using the Flapper Skate to practise scaling down & up.
