One of our pupils got bagpipes for his birthday. Amazing Skill. Happy Birthday and we hope your bagpipes return to give us another tune.
Author: John Johnston
All natural insect sculptures: Banton Beasties
We were inspired by A garden alive with art: all-natural insect sculptures to make our own bugs:
Autumn Poems
Playground trees
This morning we were finding out about the trees in our playground.
We measured the height of trees with our clinometers.
We measured the circumferences of the trees and used a webpage to estimate how old the trees were.
We took photos of the trees, their leaves, bark and fruit.
Skills: maths skills: measuring, calculation to find out the heights. Team work. Taking pictures. Web browsing.
Bye Bye Biggies
It is the end of term. The last of the Biggies will be leaving although many will return next session to be Biggie again!
Here is what I’ve been most proud of this session I am giving:
- Heather An award for having a great imagination and the skills to share your ideas in drawing and writing.
- Fulton An Award for your great smile. A bonus one for your art work, you should admit you are an artist!
- Jonah An award for your mental maths, you can explain how you partition and move numbers around to find an answer.
- Rhea What a smile! An award for becoming a lot more independent over primary 4
- Aaron An award for the best questions, you are always wondering and thinking, great for your learning.
- Rylan An award for most improvement in Art in the shortest time. Keep slowing down!
- Alana An award for always working hard and enjoying the work you produce. Dream Catcher Champ.
- Jessica An award for creative thinking. I Love the art.
- Hannah An award for working to improve and enjoying your learning. You will kill p6!
- Max An award for bringing your own ideas to the table. Bonus for when you work them through! Magazine Master!
- Emily An award for independent learning. You drawing has improved by your own hard work. Animal artist of the year!
- Logan An award for your sense of humour. Bonus for joining in more and more in P6
- Islay Attitude award, always learning, alway trying!
- Aaliyah An award for enthusiasm and bringing your ideas and finding into to school everyday!
- Jack An award for being the Times Table King! fastest in Class!
- Colin An award for best meme. Creative words in poetry too.
- Zara An award for careful detail in all of your work. Beautiful Art.
- Emma An award for self awareness. Great understanding of your own learning. Most thoughtful e-Portfolio posts.
Dippy’s naturenauts
Dippy’s naturenauts is an immersive experience designed to help children explore, understand and care about the natural world around them.
Dippy the dinosaur and Fern the fox will guide your child on mini adventures in nature. Along the way, they’ll discover the colourful side of nature, learn about the UK’s native birds, flowers and trees – and hear stories from the Jurassic period, too.
We have use the app a little round the playground here is what some of the pupils thought.
What the app does
Lets you find nature feel nature and learn more about it.
How I got on
I got on well on doing the colour game. I found all the things like red=spinning top yellow=butter cup brown=tree green=grass and purple=flower thank you for making this app.
What I think about the game
It’s a very good game for letting people see more nature.
By Heather p4
The naturenauts game is one when you scan things and look for things in the wild.
I thought it was great because it worked smoothly but when you scan the colours is has to be exactly red e.c.t
When I used it I done the colour scan thing and I done the bird one too ( I didn’t see the birds at that moment but I have seen them before ).
Max P.5
Naturenauts is a cool app about getting kids excited about going outside. The app is mostly about nature that’s why it has got nature in its name. It’s a kids game about trying to get kids interested in nature and getting them outside rather than playing all day on there phones.
I think the game could move a bit smoother because the camera needs to be a little less laggy and it could use a bit more explanation on how to use the camera also it kept glitching me back to the start on the first few games of colours. Overall I think it was a cool and fun app but it needs to be a little more adjusted to the lag.
Emma, P7
The app is a good way for kids to go outside and explore the world outside. It was a good way to get some exercise and have fun.
I got on ok. I think that some people and I found it a little hard taking the pictures cause we all thought that you had to tap the screen to take the picture when you didn’t need to do that at all.
I found it fun but my camera kept on freezing and it was driving me bonkers but I really enjoyed it. It was good.
Hannah p.6
We got to play the app naturenauts. The game is about going out and recognising things and just noticing what’s around you in nature. There is lots of different things you can do like go on a colour hunt or look for certain trees and flowers.
I logged on and a thing I liked was that you got to name yourself and make a character. Then it just asks you a few questions like do you like nature and do you agree to be a naturenaut.
I played the colour hunt I liked it because I got to go around and find natural things with different colours even though I struggled with purple. At first I didn’t understand about taking the picture because I thought you had to press the button to take the picture and I thought that I was taking pictures of random things so I kept cancelling out and going back in again. Shortly I realised that it automatically took a picture when it saw the things. After that it was pretty easy to use.
Zara p7
My Naturewatch Pictures #mynaturewatch
We have made a mynaturewatch camera which we are using to take pictures of the birds in the playground.
The biggies also had a bit of fun with a cheeky jackdaw:
Dow’s Wood Spring Watch
On Wednesday Afternoon the Biggies went on a walk down to Dow’s Wood with Mr and Mrs. Carter. The focus was on trees, but we kept ours eyes and ears open to other experiences.
“Lost Words” Poems
We have been reading some of The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane. We wrote acrostics poems of our own. Click the thumbnails to see bigger versions.
Update: We had a nice comment on Twitter from Robert Macfarlane
What a bursting, vibrant Bramble spell Zara has written, John! Full of all those ripe verbs. Beautiful to read aloud and taste on the tongue. please send her my congratulations on her work.
— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) May 4, 2018
and:
And – just followed your blog link to see some more of the spells. Amazing work! Look @JackieMorrisArt at the spells these children are casting…
— Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) May 4, 2018