Category Archives: Curriculum Areas

Expressive Arts, Second Level

P6s’ Trip to the Jupiter Artland the Best Ever!

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Last Wednesday all the P6s headed for a visit to the Jupiter Artland sculpture parkland at Wilkieston.

We took the children to see the magical amethyst grotto before we met our guides for the day.

The day started  with an introduction from the Art educators Sara and Lauren and a guided tour of some of the sculptures. We split into two groups and had some brilliant discussions about the artworks and their settings in nature.

Then it was off to sketch out our design ideas to add to the wonderful meteorite-like Coppice Wood by Andy Goldsworthy. This was quite an honour as this was the first time pupils have been creating to add to this land artist’s works.

The P6s rose to the challenge and we had amazing explanations of the works as they carried out their ideas. Please ask your child what they made and what they thought about the day. Finished works will be in an online gallery soon. We had a follow-up lesson back in class digitally manipulating our photographs using apps such as Be funky, Mixala, Art Effect, Snapseed and Art Set. These are free apps.

Our teaching staff had a wonderful day seeing such engaged and enthusiastic pupils. One staff member said it was the best trip ever!

Early Level, Expressive Arts, First Level, Primary 1, Second Level, Star Pupil

ART WINS in our STEAM SCHOOL

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Art Winners who all were shortlisted to enter, along with 7000 others, the National Tesco Bank Art Competition at The National Galleries in Scotland  a few months ago were celebrated today at our Assembly. They created these imaginative artworks over a few weeks. They were judged by the PSWs who chose exactly whom I would have!
P1 – Oliver  created an eye-catching blue cat with spots. He has an excellent eye for detail and painted a colourful background in acrylics. He always makes very interesting choices for line and colour that are sometimes unexpected.
P4 – Isla W designed a bright, vibrant Pop Art drawing in the cat theme with bold geometric shapes. Her artwork made the judges smile with her two cheeky cats. She has shown very detailed and thoughtful drawing skills and some interesting stripy-coloured cats against a multi-coloured sky background.
P6 – Mhari  started her magical dragon with an exquisite line drawing in graphite and pencil. The theme was Makers of Magic. She drew all the scales and texture of the creature and then added some pearlescent colours such as emerald green. We all agreed that she created a beautiful beast.
All of our fabulous finalists are all on display on three boards around the school with one school-chosen WINNER on each board. Please tell us what you think. Perhaps you would have chosen another winner. Can you explain why? Why do some artworks shine for you?
As we continue to develop our art skills we hope next year to go on and win in the competition. The winners are on display at MOD 1 in Edinburgh off Belford Road. I hope to take the new P5s to see this in September 2018 as part of their outdoor workshop there. A little inspiration is all we need to BELIEVE, ACHIEVE AND SUCCEED! Let’s go from STEM to STEAM. STEAM is an educational approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking.
Maths & Numeracy, Primary 7, Sciences, Technologies

STEM Workshops in Primary 6 & 7

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Today, Primary 6 and 7 had a great opportunity to hear from some experts working in STEM careers. Michael from Jacobs engineering and Daniel and Rob from GE Power spoke to the pupils all about their jobs and backgrounds in STEM. Also, pupils took part in two activities to put into practice some of the concepts they had been learning about. Daniel and Rob demonstrated how to create circuits using a battery pack, led lights and play doh! Michael led a session in creating bridges using everyday materials such as paper, blu tack and sellotape.

Many thanks to our visitors and well done to P6 and P7 for enthusiastically taking part in the workshops.

Health & Wellbeing, Sporting

Primary 6 Cross Country

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Last week, Primary 6 took part in a cross country competition at East Calder park. Several schools from the local area were involved with over 150 pupils participating. Our pupils embraced the challenge and ran their hearts out! We enjoyed taking part in a large event like this which was run very professionally. Special mention should go to Joel Greig who achieved 3rd place in the boys’ race and was rewarded with a bronze medal. Furthermore, all pupils taking part did their very best and should be proud of themselves.

Events, Health & Wellbeing, Primary 1, Primary 2, Primary 3, Sporting

P1-3 Sports Day

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Despite a slight Scottish drizzle yesterday morning, P1-3 took to the field and gave it their all in a fantastic Sports Day.  There were a range of activities on offer including football shoot out, welly throwing, obstacle races, hurdles, sack races and lots more. A big thank you to Mark, our Enjoyaball specialist, for organising such a successful and enjoyable Sports Day and thank you to all the parents and families who came along to support the event. Thank you to the PSA for providing ice poles as a refreshment, which we enjoyed despite the wet weather.

A big congratulations to Cunigar who were the overall winners!

Health & Wellbeing, Primary 5, Second Level

Kuksool Masterclass in P5

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On Wednesday this week Primary 5A and Primary 5C took advantage of the beautiful weather to go outside get involved in a brand new type of physical activity.

Emme from P5A was the latest pupil from her class to offer a Masterclass in a skill she has been learning. This week it was Kuksool – a traditional Korean martial art. Emme began by organising everyone into groups and teaching us a warm-up game. She then showed us a series of warm-up moves and chants to go along with them. We then practised a variety of  techniques to take our partners to the ground (safely!). Everyone participated very well and got involved. Miss Anderson and Mrs Campbell were particularly impressed by Emme’s organisational skills and her ability to hold the attention of more than 40 children on the field – not an easy task! Very well done, Emme

We had a brilliant session and are looking forward to the next time someone is able to come into school and share their skills with us – watch this space…

Enjoy the sunshine this weekend

Mrs Campbell and Miss Anderson

Technologies

p6 amazing adverts

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P6 made their own toys as you probably know if you read last weeks blog. We made adverts. Our adverts had to be 60 seconds or less you also had to tell how much your toy was and where you can get it from, what it does, how it works, what age is it for, why do you want to buy it. We used the green screen to help us pick backgrounds to go with our product. We also made our product and we used it to it in our advert. We watched the adverts and gave feedback to the toy creators. All the adverts were really good because they gave lots of detail about their prouduct. This is one of the products.

Expressive Arts, Primary 1

P1W 5/6/18 Free Art

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P1W were immersed in the freedom of Art outside.

Those with painting togs could choose from all the messy art materials in our new Creative Boxes. Here is what they chose for their expressive arts and mark making:

dripping and spattering paint, mixing paint

collage with found objects

drawing and painting with sticks and stones

If you have any washed bottle tops, fabrics, sellotape, masking tape, large paintbrushes, polystyrene or other items for collage and sculpture such as plasticine they would be much appreciated!

Please can the pupils have painting togs for these lessons…