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.







The Tallest Class in Banton Primary
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.
Today we opened to the public the Banton Beasties a web site where the content is created by the Biggies. The site consites of posts describing different animals that we have seen in Banton. The children research different creatures, find photos they are allow to use and design the page using WordPress (Glow Blogs).
This allows us to improve and practise our reading and writing information texts. We also think about attribution and giving credit. We also learn about animals, their lifecycles & classification. We are learning ict skills that are used in the real world.
This week we worked on some of the insects we have seen in the playground and Dow’s wood recently. We also shared some of the information about mini beasts with Primary 1-2-3.
The Beasties site is a work in progress, we can fix mistakes, add information ans more in the future.
We had a fair trade focus day on Friday. We have been learning about the Fairtrade story of bananas & chocolate this week.
We had a fair trade focus day on Friday. We have been learning about the Fairtrade story of bananas & chocolate this week.
On Friday we started the day by making banana pancakes. These are really simple, just banana, flour & milk along with a little baking powder, no sugar!1
As well as thinking about Fair Trade we practiced our Food Technology, linked to hygiene and some maths measuring. Following a recipe uses our literacy skills too. Cooking is also good fun and over half the class thought the result was tasty. Banana seems to be fruit marmite.
In our literacy lesson Miss Baxter work with us to create wrappers for imaginary Fairtrade chocolate wrappers. We were surprised as to how few chocolate bars are Fairtrade. We had to write in two genre, giving information about Fairtrade on the inside and designing a persuasive outside.
At the end of the day, the whole school gathered for an assembly, where we had a Fairtrade quiz and found out about the other classes about their activities: Fairtrade Friday! – Banton Bairns & Fairtrade Fruity Fun & Fitness for Fairtrade Friday.
At the start of the day I asked the pupils to let us knowwhat fairtrade was in a paragraph, here are some responses:
Fair trade is like a organisation that helps the farmers in the poor countries. Fair trade means the poor farmers can get paid a good amount for their hard work. Fair trade is an amazing thing that helps thousands of farmers that deserve a fair pay.
Tony
Fair trade is an organisation that makes sure that farmers get a fair price for their products that they are selling. You get fair trade bananas, chocolate, coffee and other stuff.
Juliet
FairTrade, it’s a wonderful thing, it has 2 ways it supports farmers, Fairtrade minimum and Fairtrade premium. Fairtrade minimum has a limit to how low the price for cocoa in any Fairtrade product can go with coco. Fairtrade premium gives money to the community for every ton of cocoa sold.
Robert
Fairtrade is an organisation designed to help farmers who grow our food. The price is increased a bit on some of the food we buy that the farmers produce. The extra money all goes to the farmers, not where you are buying it.
Gene
For the last few weeks the Biggies have been spending their time in the MakerSpace tackling a Christmas Challenge.
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
Robert
- Check and re-wire the electronics
- Add some weights to the tree
- Tape it on a bit
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
Yesterday we had a cardboard construction challenge as a MakerSpace warm up.
The challenge was to make something out of pieces of cardboard. The target was to make the tallest or most artistic creation. The limitation was only pieces of cardboard could be used and the biggest size you could use was 10cm.
No Glue, No Tape: Just Cardboard
We had a lot of fun, some successes, and some problems. All the pupils kept working until the end. The results were varied!
Some of the class aimed for height, some for art, some worked to their own criteria (Alex managed a miniature).
Primary 5-06-7 had a STEM challenge yesterday. The children had to create a sledge to carry a small assortment of sweets down a ramp. We were looking for the one that could go furthest without losing its cargo and the best looking on.
The Biggies are getting really good with their practical skills in the makerspace. The manages the whole thing In a couple of hours. Some beautiful solutions. Lots of problem solving, creativity and communication on display.
We have been working hard in our Makerspace on our Robots challenge.
The Challenge is to create a model Robot with elements of, Movement, Electricity & Coding.
The class has done an amazing job with lots of fun and failure. I’ve been especially impressed how the groups worked together and adapted their ideas as the went along.
I gathered quite a lot of quotes from the class and have added some below in their unedited glory.
This week the pupils all finished their Automata. There are a few photos in the video before footage of the machines in action:
Today we presented to the parents & guests about our STEM (or STEAM) learning, including a section on the automata Project. The children did a brilliant job of writing scripts, creating presentations and talking to an audience.
We have had a busy week this week. Highlights for me included our work on Earthquakes. The children did some research to find out the basic facts and yesterday made some model seismographs to explore how these instruments works.
We used our research skills to find how about earthquakes.
Mr Wevling started a new science topic, looking at the different states of matter.
One on our podcast the class has just posted a new episode. The first this session.
The class worked really hard and independently on creating this.
From scripting when we hard a brilliant literacy session, class showed iron concentration, talking, listening and editing for flow. Working on expression and talking for an audience.
And recording.
to making musical ‘stings’ and editing the audio.
And finally Publishing.