Chuck Close Portraits

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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Wonderful Water!

It has been a busy week of science in The Draatsi Class!  We have begun to explore our new Water Topic and it has been lovely to see the class working in co-operative groups to take turns, share resources and support each other in their new learning.  A great start to the year!

First we tried some floating and sinking experiments in small groups.  We made our predictions, tested the items and shared our results.  We spent time asking questions and making suggestions as to why certain items floated and others sank.  Some children thought that if the item was light, it would float and if it was big and heavy it would sink.  The apple caused some confusion as it was big and heavy, but it floated!

The next day we investigated different liquids and if they would mix if we put them in the same jar, one at a time.  We used syrup, water (with purple food dye added to make it easier to see), vegetable oil and milk.  We discovered that some liquids sank to the bottom of the jar and some sat on top of other liquids, without mixing.  The class suggested that some liquids were heavier than others. and that is why they sank.  This was when we learned about DENSITY and how this differs from items simply being heavy or light.   Some of the floating and sinking items were then added to the jars to see if they were more or less dense than the liquids in the jar.

We also had great fun making paper boats speed off in a tray of water using only washing up liquid to make it move!  I wonder if someone in the Draatsis can explain to you why the boats moved when we added some washing up liquid…?

Wednesday afternoon was spent working with a partner to design a tinfoil boat that would be strong enough to hold as many coins as possible.  Mrs Henderson hadn’t anticipated how strong the boats would be and we had to find some more pennies from the office!  Then it was time to design boat number two, based on the results of the first test.  Some pupils are still to test their second design, so next week we will be prepared with LOTS of spare change as i’m sure these new designs will be even more successful!

Great team work everyone!

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Curricular Overview for Block 1

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.  😊

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Look what we found!

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!

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Week 1…done!

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That’s the end of week 1 already!  We had fun getting outdoors today to play some team games in the sunshine.  We spent time exploring the various natural items in our school grounds and then used these to make some art work.  Here is a small selection of some of the masterpieces created today!

 

 

 

Welcome back!

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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Light

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It has been a busy scientific term in P4/5/6!  Over the past few weeks we have explored all aspects of Light.  We learned about shadows, reflections and how light can bend when it travels through a different medium.

We had fun with a periscope, looking around the room for a secret message being held up on a whiteboard.  This was made possible with the mirrors reflecting the light.

Our camera obscuras showed us how light is reflected into our eyes.  This appears as an upside down image.  Our brain flips this around so that it makes sense to us.  But in this camera, it is projected upside down on to the tracing paper screen.  One pupil decided to do some handstands so that she would be seen the “right way up” in her friend’s camera obscura!  It was lots of fun to experiment with.

 

Platinum Jubilee

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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Star Fundraiser!

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!

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We got mail!

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!  🤞

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