The Tallest Class in Banton Primary
We had our Halloween party on Friday afternoon, hopefully we will post some costume pictures next week. On Friday Morning the Biggies had a microbit coding challenge.
The idea was to make the micro:bit show a face on the pumpkin if one button was pressed, a ghost if the other one was pressed. The next part was to scare the ghost away with a noise.
As you can see from the video the pupils rose to the challenge.
As part of our topic on Scottish Landscapes we did some painting. We looked at the work of Artist Katherine Sandoz.
and photos of Scottish Landscapes like this:
We abstracted the shapes and intensified the colours to make some interesting images (click for a larger version):
The next step will be to edit our images digitally and see if we can improve or change them.
Last session the biggies made a bee hotel and started making small gardens to act as a bee cafe.
Last week we had a ton of soil delivered to fill up our gardens. Despite the rain The biggies got down to work this afternoon and moved the ton of soil into the gardens.
Today in school we when outside and put down the little wooden gardens.
We set the up got a wheelbarrow, 2 shovels and buckets then started.
Mr Johnston took off the cover of the soil and turn after turn children got to scoop soil into people’s buckets.
It started raining no child cared but Mr Johnston did, with the buckets we had full of soil we dumped in the little wooden gardens and filled them up, We filled up all three little wooden gardens to the top. In the end we were all muddy and wet.
Olivia Rose
This afternoon we continued on our project with the Kilsyth rotary club. After lunch we came into the class and sat down like normal. After that we had to get suited and booted (as some people would say.)
After we got ‘suited and booted,’ we headed outside to finally take the tarp away from the massive ton of dirt. We adventured the playground getting buckets and shovels for the bug buffets (as it was named.)
Charlie
Today we put soil into our buckets and filed them up . We did it to help climate and bees were going to plant wild flowers in the buckets for the Bees to eat the-pollen soon . The soil vanished after we put all the soil in them.
Alex
This afternoon me and my class last year made collars for bee restaurants. There was 3 groups when we did this 2 of the groups just did grass and trees and 1 group did bees in space. But last year the soil didn’t come in time so we had to fill them up today. We all took shots of filling the buckets. When we were finished filling the buckets we poured them in to the collars. When we came inside we had to wash up and take our water proofs off.
Elise
We got a delivery of a ton of soil, an actual ton, and we filled up the bee buffets that the Biggies made last year. We will plant wild flowers in them so the bees can collect the pollen.
Rory
This afternoon me and my classmates where making bee restaurants. Last year some of the people from this class made a bee hotel and they painted planks of wood to make the bee restaurants. So then the soil got delivered a few days ago. Then today we filled buckets up with soil and when we finished filling them up we poured them in to the collars and then when we where finished we washed our hands and then took our water proofs off.
Mia
We had a short micro:bit lesson today. In maths everyone is quite enthusiastic about Dice Wars. making dice seemed like a good idea.
Some of the children even learnt how to embed the simulator to show their code on their e-Portfolios. I can borrow a few, with permission, to show you:
Here is Harry’s give it a shake.
And Hollie’s added a wee emoji check
Josh’s dice goes all the way up to 9!
For some of the class this was a bit of micro revision for others it was their first use of decision (if) Blocks.
here is the code Harry used:
Today the whole school had an outdoor learning day. The Biggies:
Went to Dow’s Wood, we collected a hoard of words to use later, had a treasure hunt and collected some kindling.
Next we prepared the fire pit, reminding ourselves about the safety rules and chopped some kindling with great care.
After that we read some of the playground poems we wrote last week to the rest of the class.
In the afternoon we made a fire and cooked some marshmallows.
Finally we went to help primary 1 & 2 to tour the village and take photos of some of the important places in Banton.
No photos of the fire pit or the preparation:(
These poems were written on a sunny morning in the playground.
We tried to describe what we saw and what was happening as clearly as possible without adjective or adverbs.
This morning the biggies went for a walk in Dow’s Wood, they took part in a photo challenge, kept their eyes peeled for animals and plants and played some big.
Today we went to the woods, we walked around the woods for a while taking pictures, stopping to look at wildlife, and wild plants. We eventually made our way to the Gladstone. Whilst at the Gladstone we sat down somewhere in the area, making sure to not go too far, and drew something like a small plant, a tree, or something similar.
Later we made our way to the school wood and played two team tag, after two rounds of it we made our way back to school.
Charlie
Today we went to Dows Woods, in Dows woods there was a cute tiny frog on Josh’s jumper (on a rucksack as well) and Hollie picked it up and put it in the trees.
When we were walking through the grass I found some hazelnuts that a mouse had eaten some a squirrel had eaten and some nothing had ate (and we also found conkers on a huge conker tree).
We sat on rocks and had to draw what we saw I drew some grass but there was a huge mushroom with a giant slug on it, Bobbi and I turned around for a few minutes and when we turned back it was gone.
Olivia Rose
There was a slug on a mushroom eating it. The slug was huge and then it disappeared.
I liked how we went and drew pictures of trees, leaves and other cool stuff I drew a tree that had no leaves on it.
At the start we got given a piece of paper so we could find\do things like make a rainbow, find a shadow and other things.
Mr Johnston found a shield bug it was green and had a little bit of yellow on its back he wasn’t scared of it.
-Bobbi
Hazel told Josh there was a spider on his head and he was rubbing his head saying get it off me. Hazel kept saying there’s a spider on your head and me standing laughing.
Standing there laughing,
We saw lots of bugs,
We drew stuff we could find,
We played a game it was fun ,
We saw two deer and a frog,
We had a long walk,
We saw mushrooms.
Amy
There is a bug out there that looks like a mosquito we called Tostito and we found a huge mushroom.
There is glass everywhere which is sad because we should be helping the environment.
There is a tiny green frog and a huge black beetle and they where really cool.
Hazel
At the woods we did challenges it was a photo challenge we are going to judge them soon the challenges were a rainbow, something moving (not a human), a shadow, something that makes you happy, a repeating pattern and a beautiful view it was hard because we went into different groups of three and four we couldn’t decide so we took tons of different pictures and we are going to pick them and Maybe win!
Hollie
Today we went to the woods and we did tones of stuff, all of it was very fun we played games and we drawn stuff, I drew a tree and everyone drew something cool, for the game we lay a game where you need to hide and then you need run, avoid the seekers and you need to sit on a log to get two points and if you just hide for the time limit you get one point.
Josh
Today at the woods we saw a frog and a huge ground beetle, we did a photographic challenge we drawn nature and we saw a rabbit hole. We played 2 team tag it was really fun even know my team lost. We saw a deer it was really fun and I can’t wait to go again
Rory
We found a beach tree and something came down it was a beach mast and it had seeds inside of it. There was spikes and it was green and when you opened it it looked like a flower.
Mia
We walked around the woods and we had a chart we had to find living things.
I enjoyed playing two team tig and seeing all the wildlife. We saw beetles, spiders, a wee frog, a shield bug and a pair of deer.
Daniel
I enjoined going through the long ferns and seeing how tall they were.
I enjoyed finding a spider and watching it walk on my hand.
I enjoyed drawing a plant.
Alex
Today I was in the woods with my class. I seen a beetle about 4.5cm big. It was black with a purple outline around it. We found the beetle Walking around on a rock. It was one of the coolest things I saw went we were walking in the woods.
Elise
I liked going to the Gladstone, the rocks surrounded by the oak trees and the old railway track.
I liked seeing the sheep and the deer.
I liked doing the game in the school woods where we have 2 teams and 1 team hides and when the team hides the 2nd team try’s to find them whilst the 1st team needs to get to the seat.
Harry
We had a try with our nature watch camera yesterday. 3 species of tit plus one other visitor you might just spot if you watch carefully.
The biggies each choose 4 words to describe what they would like to do this year. I hope we will manage most of it!
