All posts by Mr Balfour

Are you a supertaster?

January 31, 2017 Mr Balfour Leave a comment

Have you ever heard of supertasters? This week, pupils in primary 4,5,6 & 7 were investigating.

Supertasters experience bitter tastes more strongly than other people because they have a higher number of taste receptors within their fungiform papillae – the big pink bumps on your tongue which contain your taste buds.

By counting the number of fungiform papillae on a tongue, you can determine whether someone is a supertaster, a taster or a non-taster.

We did an experiment to find out.

Our results:

We discover that 20% of pupils were ‘non-tasters’, 54% were ‘tasters’ and 26% were ‘supertasters’.

We can’t wait to try the next experiment with…

Story Sacks!

January 27, 2017 Mr Balfour Leave a comment

Each week secondary 1 pupils and primary 1 & 2 pupils meet up to share and discuss a new reading book and enjoy the accompanying activities. Both secondary and primary pupils find this a very worthwhile and enjoyable experience.

Christmas Jumper Day

December 16, 2016 Mr Balfour 1 Comment

It’s beginning to look at lot like Christmas!

A Visit from Scottish Badminton .

September 23, 2016 Mr Balfour Leave a comment

This week…

These guys from Scotland who play badminton came up. They showed us how to play badminton (the basics).We learnt how to showboat, to do keepy uppies. At the end we played an educational game of badminton. It was really fun!We loved it so much.

We also had a new topic in gym. We had gymnastics. For some people it’s fun but some probably find it more difficult

By Storm😎 And Ishbel😜

Task Force 2016

September 16, 2016 Mr Balfour 1 Comment

We have started new task force groups for this year. We were put into ten groups, with a mix of ages ranging from p1 to p7. The older pupils help the younger ones, however, the p1s weren’t with us because they only have a half day for this term, but they will take part in Task Force activities during the year. The first thing we did was write cards all about ourselves and shared them with our group. Everyone gets a chance to talk in turns. Then we moved onto our trophies, which would later be displayed in the primary area. There were two designs of trophies, star and cup. In the groups we chose the name that our group would be known by, for example there was the Swaggy Sausages, Da Local Trouts & Finding Dory. Then we decorated them, and got together showed the other group in the same classroom. We gave them to the teachers Mrs Scott and Mrs Nicolson to cut them out. The task force groups look after things in the school, e.g. there is the Interior Designers who take care of the wall displays and the Gardeners. Written by Asia and Ishbel

Scottish Ensemble

June 23, 2016 Mr Balfour Leave a comment

Today the musicians from the Scottish Ensemble came to our school. They taught the fiddlers a song by Mozart. Also they taught us about plucking, and how to do Vibrato. We performed to primary 4/5/6 and 7. The Scottish Ensemble played different notes when we played the bits we knew. And we practiced for 2 hours. By Holly and Asia.

Voxter Trip – John Muir – Primary 7

June 15, 2016 Mr Balfour Leave a comment

Ancient Greece – science

May 26, 2016 Mr Balfour Leave a comment

On Wednesday we made Archimedes screws out of plastic bottles, tubes and wire. First we had to get a bottle and some wire and plastic hoops. We put the hoops onto the bottle to hold the wire. Then we tied the pipe onto the bottle with the wire in a spiral. Then we put baking soda and vinegar into the bottle to make them expand and tougher. We took them outside and tried them out using basins of water. We found that the water always went to the lowest point and towards the top.

Then we set up mirrors in a semi-circle to reflect the sun onto a thermometer that told us how hot is was getting. It got hotter and colder as the clouds came and went. We had to keep adjusting the mirrors. The hottest we could get it was 39.5 degrees. The coldest was 12 degrees. by primary 6 & 7

Scottish Opera Fever

May 20, 2016 Mr Balfour Leave a comment

On Wednesday the P5, P6 and P7s went down to the hall to practise their opera called Fever with Scottish Opera. Bairns from Nesting, Skeld, Happyhansel and Whiteness came too. There was a man called Roger that came up from Glasgow to help us with the opera. On the 6th of June his colleagues will come up and help us with the actual performance. Mums and dads can come too. By Joann and Asia