Yesterday, the Draatsi class watched a video all about ‘The Poppy Story’ and they took notes as they watched to help them recall details for their writing today, on Remembrance Day. Note taking is a really tricky skill but they all persevered and tried hard to just write down the main points! Please see the photographs below of some of the completed pieces of writing. Perhaps you’ll learn something about how the poppy became a symbol of remembrance.
We also spent time looking at John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ which was written as he looked out over the poppy fields in Ypres, Belgium. We took his very famous poem and blacked out some of the words to create a new piece of writing by choosing words we felt were important. It was amazing how many different versions were created using this technique! Some are still to be completed but please see some of the finished examples below.
It’s taken us a while but sometimes you can’t rush a good job! The children have all created beautiful self portraits in the style of a famous artist that we found out about. They were shown his work and we talked about how we could recreate it. The children were given the choice of working with larger squares or smaller squares in true Chuck Close style. We talked about drawing 2D shapes within each small square or taking the opportunity to make each small picture more personal to them and some chose to do a mixture. We talked about the use of shading to make certain parts of their picture stand out and used black pen to make each portrait more visible than the shapes and squares. When the pictures were complete, we looked at the colours used and they picked backing colours to help display them to their best advantage! They will be displayed in our ICT Suite so please look out for them when you next visit.
Below are three examples from our P6 pupils.
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Scott’s portrait really catches your eye! His small shapes fill his page and I like that he’s left some of the background white. This works particularly well on his face. He’s still used skin tones to create the colour of his face.
Innes chose a bright background and his small shapes work really well on this! I really like the way he’s captured his hair line…very effective! Best of all…Innes thinks it’s his best portrait!
Robbie worked tirelessly! He chose the bigger squares, but within each one, he drew something special to him. Robbie chose the backing colour green to compliment the colours in his picture and to represent his favourite team!
Please see below our learning overview from now until Christmas. This can be subject to change depending on interest but hopefully, you’ll be able to get a ‘feel’ for what is going to be going on in the Draatsi classroom over the coming terms.
One exciting project that has not been included on the emailed copy is that our class have an amazing opportunity to work along with the Children’s Parliament and staff from the Alan Turing Institute finding out about Children’s Rights and Artificial Intelligence. You will be receiving more information about this soon. 😊
Some pupils from the Draatsi class were delighted to start the school day by finding a frog! We carefully took it to the pond area but not before we’d had a good laugh at it jumping on Mrs Smith’s shoe! Happy Friday everyone!
Before the holidays, we decided on a class name and P4/5/6 chose the Draatsis. Please look out for a photo of your ‘Draatsi’ in the Home/School Diary today!
For these first two days, we have been settling in again and those new to this classroom, have been getting used to their teachers and routines. We have talked about our holidays and completed camera snapshots of our summer memories. We have started our self portraits for the year in the style of Chuck Close, an American portrait artist. We have tried a Maths problem solving activity that required us to persevere when our answer didn’t quite work out first time. We have worked on various Team Building games that have helped us work together, communicate well with each other and be patient and encouraging! They did very well. I think it will be a good year!
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One team building activity asked them to work together to create a pyramid of cups. They could not touch the cups, only use the rubber band and string provided.
When the first layer was done, and a system agreed on, it got easier.
We found out that for the task to succeed, we all needed to play an important part.
Some groups worked quickly. Some had the added problem of what to do if one fell on the floor! No hands allowed!
Great team work…
And delight when it was achieved!
Nearly there…
Oh no! Try again!
😀
Well done you two and thanks to Mr Feeney for helping.
This week P4/5/6 have been finding out about the history of our school and they have been looking at all the amazing artefacts that have been kept following the Queen’s visit to our school in 1969, when she opened it. Some pupils were surprised to hear that there were once 5 small village schools in the South Mainland and that these schools were all closed to make the school that we have today….although it’s grown over the years too!
We invited Mary Andreas in to talk to us and prepared questions to ask her about her memories of the Bigton school and how she felt about moving to a much bigger school, out with her community. She also recalled how the children and teachers prepared for the Queen’s visit and talked to us about her feelings on the day. We looked at photographs and enjoyed spotting some relations.
Our discussions this week ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, have definitely sparked an interest in the pupils to go home and ask their older family members about their experiences of school. Well done everyone!
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The outside brick work of the original school was kept when the new office area extension was built. The commemorative plaque that the Queen unveiled is still displayed and we still have the curtain she used to unveil it!
Here you can see the bunting that was used to decorate the school. There is a photo of the Queen with the plaque and two signed photos of the Queen and Prince Philip that were gifted to the school. We have also enjoyed looking at the photo of all the pupils who started at the new school!
This piece of writing explains some of the history of our school and how it quickly grew in the coming years. It also gives a little more information about the Queen’s visit.
Any former pupil will remember the excitement of the annual magazine coming home! This one is from 1971 and we found pieces of writing by lots of our relations. Leah’s Grandad and Uncles had lots of entries!
When the school was up and running, there was another official ceremony in November and this programme details what the new school looked like at the time.
The school was opened officially on Wednesday 12th November, 1969. The hall was full of pupils, parents, photographers and members of the Zetland Education Committee.
These photos are an amazing reminder of the past.
A big thank you to Mary for giving us her time and sharing her memories. Thanks also to Carolyn Smith for sharing her recollections of the day too.
A huge well done to one of our pupils who recently cut her long locks in aid of The Princess Trust. To date, she has raised an amazing £743 . Very well done!
Five pupils were delighted to come back from their Easter Holidays to find that they had received replies to the author letters they wrote for World Book Day! Some were standard replies from very busy authors but we were still grateful! One was a lovely, handwritten, personalised reply. The rest of the class are patiently waiting! 🤞
It’s been a beautiful day and what better way to start it than a walk to school! Our JRSOs have been working hard behind the scenes to organise the final activity in The Big Walk and Wheel Challenge. They’ve been encouraging all classes to be physically active during the day, especially when some pupils can’t manage to walk or wheel to school. Today, they helped organise the buses to drop everyone off at the football pitch to walk to school together. Some pupils even managed some laps of the pitch while they waited for the buses to arrive. The website tells us, we have logged 368 physical activities and we are in 295th position in the Uk for participation and 74th in Scotland!
For the rest of our day, we enjoyed time reading our own books, finishing our Easter cards, problem solving Maths using Tangram shapes, active time with P6/7 and Assembly time with Mrs Finch! Now time for a rest! Fingers crossed 🤞 for a holiday filled with weather like today!
To continue being active this week, we took a walk up to the shop to post our World Book Day author letters. We are hoping that, in time, we’ll get some replies! We took a detour on the way back to make our walk a bit longer. Thank you to John and Eilidh’s Mum for joining us. (1 votes, average: 1.00 out of 1) Loading...
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