The Tallest Class in Banton Primary
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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
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.
Robert
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.
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.
Chloe
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Tony
Snow
White soft cold
Falling with the wind
Covering the wild grass
No ears to listen to birds
Oh! look a crow look! look! What ?what happened CRASH!!!!!!!!
Calum
Look what I found
Noah
A fish swimming
I wonder if a cat will find it? MUNCH!!!!!
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 woodsWith friends or family
Juliet
Old and young
Old and young in joy it
Days go bye and the woods changes
So go to the woods
Look what I found poem
Billie
Look what I found
a A stick
Moss and shaped
Next to the rocks
I wonder if it will break?
Look what I found?
Xander
A rock
Staying still
Sitting on the grass
Wow! It looks amazing
Tanka
Leaves
Multicoloured, thin, wavy
Sailing off trees
No eyes to see where they’re goingLook at what I found
Alexia
Look what I found
Moss
Growing and sitting still
On top of old cranky rocks
Will it ever stop?
Look what I found
Lexi
Moss
Growing and still
On a old tree
Does the tree like it?
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.
Tony
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gene
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.
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.
Back in class we though a bit about food chains & webs.
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.
Meik told us a lot about bees, this is some of what we remembered:
Juliet
- 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.
Chloe
- 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
Olivia Rose
- 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.
Harry
- 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
Rory
- 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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
