Outdoors – Banton Biggies

Outdoor Learning May 2025

This week is an outdoor learning where each class has one day when they try to spend as much time as possible outside. The Biggies, minus the primary sevens, had a day on Tuesday this week.

Pendulum Art

We startedthe day with some pendulum art.

In the morning we did some pendulum art, we did pendulum art by attaching a cup with a hole at the bottom onto a piece of string them we put paint in it and then we swung the pendulum over paper to make some art. We did it outside because we didn’t do it inside because the floor would get too dirty. We attached the cup by having a bit of string hanging A bit of string from a stick suspended between 2 chairs, we put some weights and a carabiner and we put a wire to hold the cup onto the carabiner.
Robert

I got back just after playtime when my class was doing a huge piece of artwork. There was a huge giant piece of black paper and there also was a long thin thread over the basket ball hoop. At the end of the thread there was knot tied to a karabiner holding twisted wire holding a cup with a hole and paint in it. Robert my best friend was holding the thread keeping everything up. I was amazed.

This is pendulum art. How it works is if you push the cup or let go of the cup from not where the cup gravitates to the cup will swing in cool patterns letting paint out to mark those patterns. We did three different colours and it looked amazing in the end. It was nearly lunch time so we had to bring the gigantic art piece in when the rain decided to come.
Gene

Yesterday was outdoor learning day. In the morning we started by making some pendulum art we needed to have a cup, two chairs, string, metal wire, some paint, rocks, paper, sticks and a pencil. We made a pendulum by placing the chairs opposite each other then placing the stick on top. We used the pencil to pierce the bottom and the sides of the cup for the paint to leak through. We used metal wire as a hook to put in the 2 holes on the sides to hold the cup up then we connected the metal wire to the string with a carabiner. We added some washers for some weight we then rotated the string on the stick till it was about 5-10cm off the ground then we got some paper and placed it down after we placed the paper down we then got some rocks to weigh the paper down. Then we put the paint in the cup and started to swing it, it made some cool art so we tried it on a bigger paper with more colours too.
Jason

Firepit

How we did this is we used a sharp knife to chop the wood. First the person with the knife will put their hand on the wood chunk about 3/4 down. Second they will carefully grab the knife and put it about in the middle of the wood chunk and remove their hand. Third they would say tap and another person with a large and thick wood stick would hammer the knife into the wood and repeat this until the top of the knife was in. Lastly the wood hammer the edge of the knife until the wood chunk was split in two.
Gene

Around the Fire

We didn’t get any photos around the fire. This does keep happening. The pupils all know the rules and are very respectful fo fire.

We did a fire in the fire pit we did some fruit over the fire pit and marshmallows, the fruit tasted really nice so did the marshmallow but i burned it a bit but the bananas tasted nice.it was really fun
Billie

Then we got the fire pit roaring. We told some spooky stories and then we had some marshmallows on sticks (I accidentally burnt mine ). Later on, we had our fruit skewers.
Xander

After lunch we made a fire, we tried using our flint and steels but we couldn’t get them to work so we just used a lighter, we light a cotton pad and put it to the wood. When the fire was good enough we started cooking our marshmallows, mine kind of went black but it tasted amazing! When the fire went down a bit we put on our fruit kebabs that we prepared earlier. They where quite good.
Robert

A wee while later, we had a fire pit, we had fruit skewers and toasted marshmallows. I didn’t have any because I don’t like it, I would rather have something different that I like. We also shared some stories and also made some up with a sentence each, Mr. Johnston also came out with a talking stick and asks us loads of questions about ourselves, shortly after it was home time.
Chloe

We also made some fruit skewers to grill we were also toasting marshmallows. Most people burnt/dropped they’re marshmallow but I didn’t I burnt mine but I didn’t drop it in took the crust off and ate it and repeated that till i finished my marshmallow. We played a game about creating a story everyone got to say one sentence to create the story. Then we gone inside to get our fruit skewers then we put them on the grill for about 5 minutes. The apple didn’t taste the best the banana taste quite good and the strawberry was very sour. After everyone finished they’re skewers we told some stories until 2:50PM then we went inside and started cleaning up then it became 2:55PM and the first bell rang. We put on our jackets and bags and then we went home.
Jason

Windball

The biggies used their practical skills, communication, working together and a little maths to make a large windball.

It was quite tricky to follow the apttern and get the ball into shape, but as you can see the bigges did a great job.

Working with Others Badge — Working With Others

Communication Badge — Working With Others

Maths & Literacy in the woods

On Wednesday the Biggies spent the morning in Dow’s wood. A beautiful day.

Children in woods — We are sure there is a right angle in here somewhere…

We started with some maths, finding or creating angles, right, obtuse and acute and sets of parallel lines. We too photos with out iPads and then labled them.

Next we worked on bearings and directions, using compasses to create instructions to follow to find ‘treasure’.

The chidlren were so engrossed in following instructinons we had to delay play time.

After a break the class settled down in very peasful surroundings to write & draw.

We also had time to find some wild life

WEveryone was astonished when it was suddenly 10 to 12 and we needed to walk quite quickly back to school in time for lunch.

The Biggies made a spring visit to Dow’s wood on Thursday afternoon. The sun shone and it was a lovely day. We started by gathering photos of mini beasts for our primary 1-2-3 pals. We will share that next week.

We also spent some time drawing the early bluebells, siting in the quiet and sun dappled slopes.

Children sitting in a sunny wood, sketching

Outdoor Learning Day – Circles in the Rain

We had outdoor learning day today. We had to change our plans a little because of the weather, or maths went turned from a shape photograph safari to working with chalk & circles. It was too wet for iPads outdoors.

It was not too wet for the Biggies, we all had lots of waterproofs on.

The first thing we did was to gather some nice straightish willow branches for cooking later in the day.

Next Maths, we worked on by drawing circles on the playground using 2 different methods. This helped us think about the properties of circles, and the shape they make when they cross each other. Some folk just had fun with spirals too.

Although some of the Biggies were a bit dismayed at the weather, they all got really involved in making circles and were surprised when it was time for playtime.

After playtime we went back out for some P.E. The rain had really started to pour, this made the wet ground extra slippy and there were some exciting bumps and skids. After about half an hour of this we went back inside got our clothes sorted out and made some bread dough in the hope it would dry up in the afternoon.

Fire pit

In the afternoon the weather brightened and we went out to ‘bake’ our bread on the fire.

When working around a fire we need to follow quite a lot of rules to help us stay safe. One pupil acts as the Fire Chief, and controls all the movement around the fire. When approaching the fire to light it or add wood pupils need to adopt the respect position. The Biggies are really good at this and manage to both stay safe & have fun.

We cooked some ‘damper’ this is bread dough wrapped around a stick. It doent always cook evenly, but almost everyone manage to make something they enjoyed, right of the fire without jam or anything. It takes quite like wookd cooked pizza crust.

Mud is the New Glue

The Biggies had their first Trip to Dow’s Wood this year. Ice Hair, Adjectives & Land Art.

On Wednesday the Biggies had a trip to Dow’s Wood for some outdoor learning. The plan was to make some Land Art and gather some adjectives.

Our new pupil and Miss Baxter, who is working with the Biggies this term had their first trip to the wood so we had a look around first.

Eagle eyed Noah spotted some Ice Hair:

Ice Hare on a dead stick. — Ice Hair a rare find.

It is quite rare to find ‘hair ice’ in Scotland so I was quite excited. We also had a look at some hazel catkins.

On the way we gathers a few straight sticks and dead stems. We had been looking at some images and video of Land Art. This is art made from natural materials, that can be left in place after taking some photographs. We were careful not to damage any living things.

Most of the class were quickly absorbed in putting together some abstract shapes, some using their engineering skills to balance, and construct strange shapes. These things often go wrong, this class are becoming expert in making mistakes, meeting failure and pushing on to success.

Pupils 'land art' — Weaving a tangled web

Delicate work, land art — Weaving a tangled web

The first thing we did in the woods was collect sticks and make art. We could work in partners or by our selves, I worked with Gene. The first idea I had was to make a circle but me and Gene couldn’t really get it very Sphere like. We tried making a stick out line first and filling it in with smaller sticks but that didn’t really work. Gene then had an idea of how to make a better one but we ended up making a monster on a giant mossy rock. Gene made a really cool stick line down for hair. I built the face out of muddy leaves and mud which made my hands freezing. But It was really fun.

Mud is the new Glue
Juliet

One morning we went to the woods. About half way through the trip, we made some sculptures next to the big rocks. I started making some gigantic but also wee structure, first I wanted to make a ball but I found out it was too hard to do it, instead I made Some pillars and connected them. I made it all with sticks. It was very hard but it turned out very well! It kind of looked a bit like a circle of pillars with one in the middle and a roof.
Robert

Me and Juliet built a sphere and a rock monster. First we built the sphere. It didn’t really look like one. We built it only out of twigs/sticks. Just a sphere. But I thought of a different way to build it. We didn’t build the different version because Juliet thought of and excellent idea. We built a rock monster on a mossy rock. It went tremendously. It went better than I thought. I’m still baffled that the twigs/sticks didn’t fall off. I had a lovely time working with Juliet.
Gene

This morning, we went to the woods. We made some art, we used sticks, rocks, and leaves, and maybe some moss. Me and my friend Alexia Were partners with each over. Luckily we both have creative minds. We started off putting a bunch of twigs together, and then we added the big sticks. Then Alexia’s strange but creative mind took over, she added hats to all the sticks! It was strange but it was also cool because it was a cup of an acorn, after a little while I asked Alexia about putting clear rocks in it and she put it around the centre we called these moon rocks. After that Mr. Johnston showed us other people ideas, after seeing Mr. Johnston’s we decided to do a leaf circle like him and then we were finished.
Chloe

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.

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.

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.