John Johnston

MakerSpace Christmas Challenge

For the last few weeks the Biggies have been spending their time in the MakerSpace tackling a Christmas Challenge.

Design & construct a Christmas Model 🌶
Design & construct a Christmas Model that includes a moving part 🌶 🌶
Design & construct a Christmas Model that includes a moving part & a simple electrical circuit. 🌶 🌶 🌶
Design & construct a Christmas Model that includes a moving part, a simple electrical circuit, & a programmable element. 🌶 🌶 🌶 🌶

We started off by making plans:

We talked a bit about the skills needed for carrying out or plans and the design cycle.

He results show not only our pupils imagination but a range of skills.

For the last few weeks we made some Christmas models in the Makerspace. We could make anything we wanted, as long as it is Christmas themed. I decided to make a Christmas tree! I was the only one who made a Christmas tree.

There was a lot of problems we had. Here are some of the problems I had:

The motor didn’t work

The tree was moving when the motor was on

The motor was falling of a bit

Here are the solutions I had for the problems

Check and re-wire the electronics

Add some weights to the tree

Tape it on a bit

Robert

I made a train with a carriage carrying presents. I thinked about connecting both the locomotive and the carriage together. So I used pipe cleaners to hook them together. The final product was a success. I liked how I added presents to the carriage.

Problems & Solutions

I used wood to make the presents but they were too tiny so I used Lego to make the presents. I wrapped some wooden circles in tin foil to make some presents.
Xander

I used lots of my skills but I used five main skills. 1. I used planning and organising because I had a plan on what to do. 2. I used ICT for my micro:bit. 3. Numeracy for measuring things. 4. Problem solving for my short and tall stuff. 5. Creative thinking to add details.

Tony

For the maker space Christmas challenge I made a sleigh pulled by a rain deer. It had a light collar and a micro bit in the sleigh. It also moved. We had to make it max 30cm wide, long and tall.

A few problems I had were I didn’t have enough space to make two reindeer like on my plan so I had to move the micro bit to my sleigh. Another problem I had was that my reindeer was to heavy causing my sleigh to tip forwards so I had to pup my rubber in the back until I got the wires and batteries in which held it down.

Some skills I used were planning and organising, ICT, creative thinking and practical skills.
Juliet

First I made a net. Then I hot glued the net together to make a square then I made a roll for the front. Then I added 2 light bulbs and with then I wrote Santas express on it. Lastly I added an spoiler and an antenna and that was me finished

I used my practical skills and my ICT. My problem was the clips would not connect to the light bulb. My idea totally changed at one point because my original plan was a slay that you pull Back against an elastic band.
Noah

Practical Skills Badge — Practical Skills

Outdoor Learning Day November 2024

The weather outside was frosty, so the Biggies wrapped up well. We also popped in for hot juice and to warm up now and again.

The target for recognition today was “to stay on task” and the pupils were brilliant.

We started off in random pairs working on measure. We measured the length, breadth and height of different structures around the playground. The target was to measure accurately. After we finished we compared results and were almost all within a few centimetres of each other.

After the interval we worked on Art. The idea was to compare different medium. Looking at the bare trees, everyone made some pencil sketches, a charcoal picture and took some photos. The results speak for themselves.

1. The thing I like about the pencil sketch is the way I made the branches and how exactly I made the branches.
2. The thing I like about the charcoal sketch is how I outlined the thing and blended it together to make it look nice.
3. The thing I like about using a pencil to sketch is how easy it is to fix mistakes and how you can shade especially easy.
4. The thing I like about using a charcoal to sketch is that blending is very easy and blending can also be used to make very cool drawings.
5. The difference between pencil and charcoal is that charcoal is on black and can blend easily and pencil is grey and can’t blend together but you can make it lighter or darker shades of grey. I personally prefer charcoal because with blending you can make some beautiful artworks.
Robert

I like my pencil sketch because it looks a lot like the tree is used to draw it.

I like my charcoal sketch because it was my first time using charcoal for art because I have only used charcoal pens not actual sticks of charcoal.

I like using a pencil to draw because you can rub out mistakes when you make when drawing and you can also shade if your doing a black and white drawing because if you do it with only black when doing a black and white drawing it will just be black and white with no shading.

I liked using charcoal because you can smudge it with the drawing but it is really messy and it is like rubbing out because you can make the black lighter if you go to hard.

The difference between the charcoal and the pencil is that charcoal you can’t rub out with a rubber but you have to use your hand or arm to rub out mistakes and it is also smaller than pencils but you can rub out stuff with pencil unlike charcoal.
Jason

I like my pencil sketch, I’m pretty sure it looked quite accurate but I didn’t get all the details. I was quite alright with just doing a little bit of it.
My charcoal sketch was pretty good but I think it was a bit messy. But I quite like how it feels and how smooth it is.
Using a pencil to draw is quite easy and fun, the same goes for charcoal but it is a bit harder. But at least it’s good for shading and smudging in stuff.
I prefer pencil it is way easier but I would pick charcoal for shading stuff.
Chloe

In the afternoon we had a show rehearsal inside and then out for the final hour. The Children revisited their tress and wrote some poems. It was getting colder so we didn’t spend too long on that and finished the day with a game of capture the flag.

Football!

Yesterday the coaches from Clyde FC Community Foundation came to run some training sessions.

You can read a bit more on the Bairn’s Blog

We had a great time, here is what some of the class thought:

First we did a warmup called traffic lights, Chris had 3 cones a green cone, an orange cone, and a red cone. When he held up the green cone we were to dribble about, but we were to keep the ball close and have control over it, Chris calls this penguin taps. If Chris held up the orange cone we were to do this motion called toe taps, a toe tap is when you tap the ball with the tip of your feet one after the other. If Chris held up the red card we are to hold it still and sit on the ball
Chloe

The second game was hungry hippos. We had to dribble a ball Back to our team and to get the ball we had to high five a partner and go on my team was Jason and Juliet we won 2 times in a row.
Noah

I got better at dribbling the ball the session was really fun I like the football training a lot because it was very fun.
Jason

At that lesson I got a bit better at football. I didn’t really learn anything as far as I can remember. I felt competitive in the session and I really liked it. I had a lovely day yesterday in school and I enjoyed the session so much.

Thank you Clyde football club for coming to Banton.
Gene

Lastly we played football we split into teams then to. Then we started Calum was great he would find away to get the ball of you every time. It was 1&1 it was great
Tony

Finally we played a game of football the opposite team got a point then I got the ball under every ones legs and Jason got it in the goal.

I learned some new games practiced and got better at dribbling the ball. It was really fun and I really enjoyed it.
Juliet

Dow’s Wood November

We are trying to visit the woods at least once a month this session for some outdoor learning.

The weather today was drizzle with some windy spells. So it was rain-suits on.

This morning we headed to the woods. We putted on waterproof clothing and went. Leaves were falling down on the way to the woods. Different colours of leaves. When we entered the woods it was muddy, filled with leaves and sticks. We were on a scavenger hunt looking for many different things. We had a list. After a certain point we stopped and had a break. We wrote interesting poems and heard them. They were nice. Near the end we did something about natural disasters. We had to save stick people affected by a flood and make a shelter for them. Then we headed back for lunch and on the way I found a big leaf.
Alexia

It was quite muddy and beautiful leaves where falling on the ground and our faces.
Lexi

A group of children walking along a woodland path.

As we travelled through the paths we had a bit of a scavenger hunt, this was supposed to lead to making some art at the end of the morning but we ran out of time.

Poems of all sorts

Children sitting along at the edge of a wood a wall writing.

We stopped at the big rock pile among the oak trees and talked about different forms of poems. This included a couple of types we had not written before. Then the children found some quiet spots and did some writing.

We gathered back at the rocks and read the poem out as loud as we could over an increasing wind.

Tanka snow
Snow
White soft cold
Falling with the wind
Covering the wild grass
No ears to listen to birds
Tony

Oh! look a crow look! look! What ?what happened CRASH!!!!!!!!
Calum

Look what I found
A fish swimming
I wonder if a cat will find it? MUNCH!!!!!
Noah

The woods – acrostic poem

The woods is a place of beauty
Having fun in all weather sun, rain, snow, rain
Everyone finds one thing to remember about the woods

With friends or family
Old and young
Old and young in joy it
Days go bye and the woods changes
So go to the woods
Juliet

Look what I found poem
Look what I found
a A stick
Moss and shaped
Next to the rocks
I wonder if it will break?
Billie

Look what I found?
A rock
Staying still
Sitting on the grass
Wow! It looks amazing
Xander

Tanka
Leaves
Multicoloured, thin, wavy
Sailing off trees
No eyes to see where they’re going

Look at what I found
Look what I found
Moss
Growing and sitting still
On top of old cranky rocks
Will it ever stop?
Alexia

Look what I found
Moss
Growing and still
On a old tree
Does the tree like it?
Lexi

Some concrete poems written by a child, rock, leaf & squirrel — Concrete Poems Juliet

Stick People in Danger

After the poetry session we had some snacks, being careful with our litter then headed over to School Wood.

We have been learning about Natural Disasters in class, when we got to School Wood we found some tiny stick people who had been flooded out of their homes. The Biggies were challenged to create some shelters the right size. Some of the refugee sticks got together others made solo efforts.

We discussed the features that the class had created to help the sticks have warmth and shelter.

We also built dens for two refugees and we could team up with other people. (The refugees are fake small sticks). Our class built dens for them because a flood hit their homes. We needed to build dens that were flood proof, wind proof, safe, warm and some other things for them. We did all of this in this paragraph because our topic is natural disasters.
Gene

But the thing I liked the most was building houses for the little people also known as refugees who were in a flood. We did it because our topic was natural disasters.
They were made of wood they were also tiny.
We had to build them a house it was hard I had 4 sticks. I also put-put walls on it and added I fire place, a bed, and an umbrella to keep their fire wood dry.
Tony

Focus Day Sustainability

Today was a focus day at Banton Primary. We are looking at some of our Eco Schools Action Plan targets around litter.

We started the day by litter picking around the community and in Dow’s Wood. Banton is a very tidy place and we did not get too much litter!

Back in class we weighed the litter from different groups and categorised it into different types. We used numbers on our iPads to analyse and make graphs of the results.

The winning group was Juliet, Alexia & Robert. They found 41 pieces of litter weighing 450 grams.

We also read the stories of Litterbug Doug and Michael Recycle to our p1-3 pals.

In the afternoon we finished our graphs, started designing super hero logos for a litter battling super hero.

Finally we presented what we had been doing to the rest of the school. We had an enjoyable busy day that was a break from our usual program.

Exploring Levers

The Biggies spent the afternoon exploring levers by making some in our MakerSpace. They started work on some interesting and creative designs to incorporate these. We will work on that next Tuesday. For now here is a wee video of the progress so far.

Honey from our hive

Every Friday a group of Biggies make some scones which we eat as a snack in the afternoon.

Today we had an extra treat. The honey from our bee hive was collected a week or two ago.

Most of us though the honey made our scones extra delicious.

This was a great way to end the term.

A morning in the woods

On Monday the Biggies spent a morning in Dow’s wood.

We looked around for autumn colours, measured the ages of some oak and beech trees, kept our eyes peeled for plants and creatures we could put in a food chain. We also had time for quiet writing and drawing.

We saw an owl going through the trees, found spider web galore and walked a couple of miles. We covered some maths, literacy, our IDL topic about Food Webs and more. Lots of learning & fresh air.

Pupil thoughts

I enjoyed everything and I don’t have a favourite because I found everything very enjoyable. I had a lovely trip to Dow’s wood that day and I would love to go again.
I learned about the size of an oak and another tree that I forgot its name.
I drew, wrote, had my snack and a lot more.
Gene

I liked most of the stuff that we did, the measuring trees were a bit hard though. It was hard because we had not tall people (we were all small) We had a small paper notebook with us and we did activities in it like we made a colour list, we measured trees as you know, we wrote on blank pieces of paper you could do, a story, a poem, a picture poem. All that sort of stuff we also drew. We also had to find 3 interesting and cool leaves.
Chloe

I learned how different trees spread their seeds. For example a Hawthorn tree spreads its seeds through animals eating them.
I enjoyed walking where the old train track used to be because there was a really good view of trees and there was so many colours.
We did some measuring of trees, writing and some art work of things we could see.

I really loved it because I enjoyed how we did our colour list and we measured the trees. We collected 3 leaves and we stopped for snack time. We sat in a quiet space and we wrote and drew. Then we went back to school just in time for lunch.

We walked talked and sat on rocks.
We also wrote and did more walking and drew.

Writing & Drawing in the Woods

Some Food Chains

Back in class we though a bit about food chains & webs.

Completed worksheet showing 2 food chains

Harvest Sharing

Last Friday The Biggies took part in the School Harvest Assembly. As well as collection food for food banks we made bread to go along with the soup made by the younger children. We used Juliet’s recipe and the bread turned out really well.

We also shared some of our learning so far. The class discussed what to include and we settled on Wolves, Coding and Monsters as our topics.

The children then went into groups and discussed what they could say on these subjects, wrote their own scripts and made a slide to go along with their words. I pasted some of the reports they wrote below along with images from their presentation slides.

The class all did a great job, from deciding what to do, writing scripts, producing slides & talking.

Working with Others Badge — Working With Others

Planning & Organisation Badge — Working With Others

Wolves

Now here is some fun facts about wolves, did you know wolves don’t howl at the moon they howl to communicate, wolves are apex predator that means they are top of the food chain. Wolves has two layers of fur, the inside to keep them warm and the outside to protect them from the bad weather.
Alexia

First we brainstormed using post-its on the things we could talk about, our included: eye of the wolf book, wolf faces and information texts.
On Friday I felt nervous about talking in front of the parents.
I think my voice was clear because that is what my gran said.
Next time I am presenting to others I will try look up that the parents when reading.
Lexi

Last Friday the class presented to our parents and friends on our learning. My group talked about wolves, When talking in a group we need to think about, speaking clearly and all words should be understandable.
On Friday I felt good at first, but when it was my time to speak I got really nervous.
I Think it was really cool to be there and talk in front of all the parents, because they were there to listen to us and have a good time.
Next time I am presenting to others I will try to slow down a little bit.
Chloe

Monsters

We have been doing some research about wolves. First we we used Safari to find some websites. We used more than one site to check the information. The whole class gathers all the information on a big board. We wrote notes to help our writing. It was interesting and fun.
Noah

We then wrote text for different sections, I wrote:
We were working on our scissor action extenders. First we used 6 pieces of card and put them together with split pins. Then we drew and cut out our monster heads and bottom jaws and finally coloured in our monsters.

We practised in class. To help me speak I thought about starting with a nice and clear voice.
On Friday I felt happy and nervous. I think it went well.
Xander

We practised in class. To help me speak I thought about starting with a clear and nice voice.
On Friday I felt nervous at the start because I had a lot to say but I got through it.
I think I did a good job and I’m very proud of myself.
Tony

Coding

We then wrote text for different sections, I wrote:

We have been making a bee game because we have a bee man coming to our school every week. He comes to our beehive for a hour or less. He brings bee suits so we can come. So we thought of making a been game ,had some problems like when the bee wouldn’t move or the flowers wouldn’t disappear when they got to the end of the screen. But we fixed the problems so now we the bee can move, the flowers can disappear. Because we changed the code of the flower and bee.
Jason

We then wrote text for different sections, I wrote:

Recently we have been working on a bee game on scratch. Scratch is a programming web site and there is also a scratch junior for younger ones. You drag code blocks to create lines of code. There’s to many code blocks for me to explain them all but you can listen to the others for more information on our bee game though. But be for the others speak, I need to tell you some basic code blocks, move your number of choice, rotate your number of choice and one for scratch only, next costume.
Gene

We practised in class. To help me speak I though about speed, clearness, looking at the audience and speaking loudly.
On Friday I felt a bit nervous but when I spoke I was a bit less nervous.
I think it was a good experience that I will remember.
Next time I am presenting to others I will try to talk a little bit clearer and louder.
Robert

Last Friday we had our harvest assembly and presented to our parents and friends about our learning. My group talked about coding on scratch and micro bit. When talking in a group we need to think about being clear, looking up at our audience and not holding the microphone too close to our mouths.
First we brainstormed and wrote on post-its things we would talk about, ours included what scratch is, our bee game and the introduction or reintroduction to micro bits.
Juliet

Screenshot of slide showing micro:bits and the micro:bit cod editor.

Scissor Action Extender Monsters

We had our first session in the MakerSpace this week. We had to follow some instructions to make a Scissor Action Extender Monster.

After making their monsters the Biggies then made some short green screen movies using their monsters, you can see them at the end of this video:

Although the monsters seem simple and the videos were very short we learn or practises a lot of skills:

Communication, listening to instructions, asking good questions.
Practical Skills
Problem Solving, almost everyone made mistakes!
Digital Skills
- Taking stills and video
- Using the green screen
- Editing videos, adding green screen overlay & audio
- Recording audio
- Using WordPress to add our videos to our e-portfolios
Literacy Skills, we wrote about our learning.