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.

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
Autumn Colours

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.

Buzzing with the bees

On Wednesday it was the Biggies turn to work with Meik and the beehive.

First we got suited up: Trousers inside wellies, Fully zip head mask, no gaps, gloves.

A tip: Don’t push face mesh onto face cause a bee could sting you!

If a bee gets in the mask you stay calm and squish it with your gloves. 

At the hive we learnt about bees. We pulled the frames out to check on the bees and make make sure the queen was there. 

What we learnt

Meik told us a lot about bees, this is some of what we remembered:

  • The different colour of the cell things on the frames you could tell the flower the pollen was from 
  • If there was a new queen the queen would get some of the hive and swarm 
  • You need to destroy the queen cells 
  • If you take the queen away for 2 or 3 minutes and bring her back they will kill her and raise a new queen 
  • They try to clean the queen after she’s in the cage on the hive 
  • Only smoke calms the bees 
  • There is a strap around the hive so it doesn’t blow over. 
Juliet
  • We pulled out all of the frames to see the buzzy bees 
  • To make honey bees take nectar the digest it vomit it up then an other bee takes in and vomits it up till it makes honey!
  • He destroys the other queen been eggs so that they don’t develop to bees and take away the other bees to start a new nest 
  • The nectar that is in the middle are different colours because it is from different flowers
Chloe
  • Only one drone mates with the queen.
  • The queen mates once in her life.
  • Different colour of cell – different flower.
  • The paint on the queen depends on how old she is.
  • Drones don’t do anything but eat the food.
  • Bees eat the nectar and vomits it up, another bee eats it. It keeps going until honey is made.
  • The hive is really clean, you could eat your food out of it.
  • If a new queen is born the queens swarm.
  • Bees dance to communicate. 
Olivia Rose
  • Different coloured pollen depending on the plants
  • The queen will be killed if left for only 2-3 mins
  • The queen bee cells grow on the side of the honeycomb
  • The drone bee cells grow on the centre of the honeycomb
Harry
  • I learned that the queen does not control the hive
  • I learned that the different colours of pollen cells can tell you what flower was used.
  • I learned that bees vomit into each others mouths to make honey
  • I learned that they have to destroy the queen cells to make sure no more queens are born.
  • I learned that bees dance to communicate.
Rory

Outdoor Learning day June 2024

Photoblitzer

The first thing we did was Photoblitzer. At it’s core, photoblitzer is a website that Mr. Johnston gave all of us. The web page had a small list of photo ideas, then we had twenty minutes to take pictures going along with the list.

Nathaniel

Capture the flag

playing capture the flag

Next we had a game of capture the flag in the playground. This is a new game for the Biggies and went down really well. Lots of running, laughing and thinking.

After our photo blitz challenge we did a game of capture the flag, I had never played it before but it was really fun. Mr. Johnston split us into two teams team red, & team yellow. My group started off as team yellow, my team had me, Olivia, Lexi, Alexia, Rory & Tony. In the first round most of them came sprinting and I tug Juliet, Harry, & then Xander. Team yellow won the first round

Chloe

Dow’s Wood

After the interval we headed down to Dow’s Wood. We started by searching the wood for new creatures to add to our collection at the Banton Beasties. This is a new site that well will make public soon. We found quite a few interesting ones and a few more got away.

One Beastie was not very welcome. We were attacked by swarms of midges. This made our other activity in the woods more difficult than usual, we stopped to spend some time writing and drawing. It is a credit to the Biggies that they got some done!

In the woods, a thick tree canopy shades mossy rocks. 
In the woods, big blue flys lurk uncatchable. 
In the woods, midges bite continuously and with no mercy. 
In the woods, ferns are everywhere.
In the woods, there is no escape from midges.

Juliet 
King of the Forrest
For he is king of the forest 
He has a centurion of bugs
For he is king of the forest 
There’s a smile on everyone’s mug

For he is king of the forest 
He cares for the children 
For he is king of the forest
He has a crown of ferns 
Placed on by a hern 

Nathaniel
The Nature Poem

Deep down in the woods,
Through the lush leafy forest
At the heart of the woodland,
This is how it starts.

Xander

Pendulum Painting

We constructed some painting pendulums in the playground in the afternoon. This was messy but fun and gave some interesting results. The next day we took our art, edited it in Snapseed to boost the colours. We then but it on a virtual gallery wall and added ourselves as a visitor.

Natural Sculpture

We have been searching the playground for different creatures, and today had a go at making some of our own.

Inspired by work done in the Biggies in 2018:

And by  A garden alive with art: all-natural insect sculptures 

We searched the playground for natural materials and created these amazing insects.

Earth Day in the Woods

We celebrated Earth Day a little early on Friday last week. We went to Dow’s Wood. We went firstly to see what sort of living creatures we could find. We also spent some time just sitting quietly by ourselves drawing or writing. The idea was to spend some time appreciating the world around us.

Creatures

A 3x3 montage of creatures found in Banton. A flatwork, a snail, a slug, a millipede, an earthworm, a millipede and a earwig, creatures in a plastic box, a pilot ground beetle, a spider.
We found a variety of invertebrates, in the undergrowth and under logs and rocks.

We are building up a collection of creatures we can see in Banton. We will classify these and find out about their lifecycles.

Drawing & writing

Deep in the heart of the forest, lied an oak tree. This tree however, was
different from all the others. Not tall or with fine bark or posture.
Instead covered with disease.
One of the oldest trees you’d think would be colossal compared to the others, not short and plump, even surrounding trees, far younger, would be taller.
It was widened with deformed bark that form a distance, looked soft and fluffy, however when touched was solid.
At the bottom was kale-green coloured moss, this feature however was ordinary among oaks, unlike deformed bark.

Rory

Tae Mother Nature, I like the wee beasties you hide
Tae Mother Nature, I like the wind you blow fae other countries
Tae Mother Nature, I like the moss it’s like a cushion
Tae Mother Nature, make the tree go high and the breeze go low

Tony

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