We have been reading and listening to some Scots poems this week. Yesterday we had a try at writing out own. Click on the thumbnails to read them.
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.
Scratch Challange
This week we had a scratch challenge.
I asked the children to make a sprite in scratch that would draw a random rectangle every time it was clicked. Bonus points for asking what the Area was and then checking the answer. Lots of us managed to work out how to draw random rectangles, but Kaitlyn was the first one to get a working solution. Â She used lots of skills, using variables, comparison, repeats and operations! She show she was a problem solver and and independent learner.
The Green flag will give you a new question.
Some Scunners
We are looking at the Scots Language this week and the Biggies have been creating Scunners.
We got the idea from: Hunners o Scunners Scots in Schools
Hunners o Scunners means a lot of horrors, we created our own Scunner or Scots horror character.
We have not manages hunners, we are wee class and have a few folk off!
Christmas with the Biggies
Yesterday we had some challenges in the playground, make a sleigh, some decorations and a fairy grove.
Today some of the class worked in Minecraft on some the same tasks and a giant Santa:
Some of the Children worked more on their CodeClub Jazzy Jumpers:
And
The Banton Biggies Podcast Episode 5
The latest episode has been published on the Podcast blog:
I am really please by the way the pupils worked on this episode. They took responsibility for writing, recording, editing and publishing the episode.
Everyone in the class had their say, they worked independently and cooperatively to record and encourage each other.
Get Schooled on Climate Change
During COP 26 the Biggies were invited to contribute to digital book, passed from school to school for COP26. The children had to explain where they though and were doing about climate change and who inspired them. That had to do this in digital formats, audio and video. As I expected the Biggies did a great job, using their creativity and digital skills. Everyone can view the ‘book’ online now.
It has been selected by the Book Creator team to add to their ‘Social Studies’ library. It’s sitting on the bookshelf alongside other examples & sample of various history, geography and other social science books made by students around the world.
Save The Sharks COP 26 Â Code Along Project
The Biggies joined in the @digilearnscot and @CodeClubScot COP 26  Code Along Project. We joined in a Teams call with Schools from across Scotland to create a game in Scratch. This week we added some finishing touches to the games and published them. You can play them by clicking the thumbnails below.
Butterfly Gardens
Yesterday the Biggies joined in with 3000 other children learning Scratch from an expert. This was part of @digiLearnScot and @CodeClubScot’s #COP26 ‘Code-Along’ you can click on the thumbnails to see the results.
The topic was around the importance of polinators like butterflies and beets.
This was a great refresh of our Scratch skills, covering random and forever loops.
You can see some of the children’ animations in action by clicking the thumbnails.
Balloon Car Maths
After creating and exploring the science behind our balloon cars yesterday we used them for maths today.
We practised measuring distance in metres & centimetres and time in seconds. Then we calculated the speed of our cars by dividing the distance traveled by the time taken.
thanks to The Royal Institution for the idea Balloon car racers
Paper Plate Skulls
We took an idea from Darrell Wakelam to make some Day of the Dead skulls from paper plates.
We then took it a bit further taking photos of ourselves in front of the green screen. In Keynote we added backgrounds, our pictures and photos of our masks.
We used instant alpha to remove backgrounds to create interesting pictures.
A bit of fun but learning about layers and opacity. We also got the images from unsplash so they are copyright free. We also read about the the Day of the dead festival.
We told Darrell we had used his idea and this is what he said:
Brilliant John! Love the photo idea too, I bet the kids had a real laugh putting those together. 🤩
— Darrell Wakelam (@DarrellWakelam) October 31, 2021
