Category Archives: Curriculum Areas

Health & Wellbeing, Primary 5, Primary 7, Sporting, Uncategorized

West Lothian Triathlon

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Yesterday, over 40 pupils from P5, P6 and P7 took part in the West Lothian Triathlon at Deans CHS. Pupils had to swim, cycle and run through a course laid out by a team of brilliant volunteers, high school students and members of Active Schools and Triathlon Scotland. In all, hundreds of pupils took part throughout the day. By all accounts, it was a fantastic time. The pupils really enjoyed the opportunity to take part in something totally different to what they had previously experienced. Staff and parent helpers were so impressed with the level of determination and enthusiasm shown by the pupils and also the confidence to have a go at something new. Well done to everyone involved. Bring on next year’s event!

Digital Learning Week 2018, Early Level, Primary 1, Technical Troopers, Technologies, Uncategorized

P1P get Digital! #NDLW18

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As part of National Digital Learning Week P1P have been using digital technologies to enhance their learning accross the curriculum.

We started the week with a fantastic session from P7. We were introduced and shown how to use VR Headsets! We were able to explore emersive virtual tours of castles which linked brilliantly with our Castle IDL context. P1P loved how the VR Headsets made them feel like they were really in different locations. We also used Purple Mash to digitally paint castle related images using different textures.

We have continued to share our learning on our class Sways that you can find on the blog and our twitter. In class, we independently scanned QR codes linked to our Sways to recap and discuss our previous learning experiences. We love looking at pictures from our previous lessons.

The Technical Troopers also visited our class to introduce us to a new app ‘Puppet Pals’. We loved animating the different characters and adding our own pictures and voices to our stories. Some of us were able to record our digital puppets and show it the rest of the class through mirroring on our Promethean Board.

This week we have also continued to develop our reading skills on Teach Your Monster to Read, practise our numeracy and maths on Sumdog and explore coding on Scratch JR.

Digital Learning Week 2018, Primary 5, Second Level, Technical Troopers, Technologies

iMovie Masterclass in P5

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On Thursday this week, some of Primary 5A and Primary 5C were lucky enough to receive a lesson in how to use the iMovie app as part of Digital Learning Week. Jamie, Dylan, James and Euan came to our class to show us how to record and edit movies. We then all had a chance to go off and make our own short films, which was a lot of fun; these were then shared with the rest of the class. The p5s who were lucky enough to take part in this lesson will now have a chance to teach the rest of their class -they say the best way to learn is to teach someone else, so watch this space! Thanks to Miss Sherlow and the fab Technical Troopers for their input, we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Digital Learning Week 2018, English & Literacy, Interdisciplinary Learning, Primary 1, Technical Troopers, Technologies

P1W Digital Learning Week 2018

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This week we have enjoyed participating in a lesson run by our fantastic technical troopers! They came into our class and demonstrated how to use Puppet Pals 2 on the Ipads. We then developed our tinkering and experimentation skills by trying out all the different features of the application. We really enjoyed taking pictures of our friends and making them into different characters. We even managed to create some fantastic videos, using our voices to make stories and sound effects!

In class we have also been continuing to enjoy using digital technology to enhance our learning. We have been using teach your monster to read in language. You can access this at home using your password at the front of your homework jotter using our special class link:

https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/u/8145

We have even been using Purple Mash, as part of our learning for our IDL castles context, to create patterned and symmetrical flags, decorate a castle with different types of materials and lots of other games. You can access all our castles learning tasks by visiting the purple mash link below and entering your login details at the front of your homework jotter. Then visit the red to do section at the top of the page.

https://www.purplemash.com/sch/midcalder-EH53

Digital Learning Week 2018, Maths & Numeracy, Technical Troopers, Technologies

Primary 4 enjoy Digital Learning Week and National Numeracy Day!

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On National Numeracy Day, Primary 4 enjoyed using digital learning to support their work in Maths. As part of our Nasa Missions, the boys and girls had to collect data from children across the school about day and night time. Using digital technology each Nasa home team used their data to create a pie chart on the netbooks. Have a look at their fantastic pie charts:

During Digital Learning Week, the boys and girls have enjoyed several activities. In particular, they loved creating sun and moon fact files using Microsoft Word. After identifying the features of a fact file and conducting research using netbooks, the children then put their notes together to create their final fact files. They enjoyed setting up tables, adding pictures, changing fonts and laying out their fact file in an attractive way.

The Technical Troopers also came to visit Primary 4 this week. They took a mini lesson where they showed the boys and girls how to create a SWAY document about their chosen theme. The Technical Troopers did a fantastic job and were very helpful and patient. Have a look:

 

Digital Learning Week 2018, Technical Troopers, Technologies, Uncategorized

Digital Learning Week in Primary 6

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This week in Primary 6, we have been taking part in Digital Learning Week. We have trying out a variety of resources for practising coding, a key part of the Technologies curriculum. Examples of the activities pupils took part in include creating their own games using visual programming language and designing a new Google logo.

A list of resources is given below to allow pupils to carry on their learning at home. This list is also on the P6 Yammer page.

Carry on coding!

https://www.codeforlife.education/rapidrouter/

Code for Life – Rapid Router
www.codeforlife.education
1: Can you help the van get to the house? 2: This time the house is further away. 3: Can you make the van turn right? 4: You are getting good at this!

https://scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch – Imagine, Program, Share
scratch.mit.edu
Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

https://hourofcode.com/uk/learn

Learn – Hour of Code
hourofcode.com
Try a one-hour tutorial designed for all ages in over 45 languages. Join millions of students and teachers in over 180 countries starting with an Hour of Code.

https://studio.code.org/s/express

Code.org
studio.code.org
Express Course Learn the basics of computer science and internet safety. At the end of the course, create your very own game or story you can share.

Tutorials for Scratch:
https://codeclubprojects.org/en-GB/scratch/

Modules – Code Club
codeclubprojects.org
Scratch. Learn how to program your own interactive stories, games and animations.

Digital Learning Week 2018, Primary 7, Technologies, Uncategorized

P7/6 Digital Learning

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As part of digital learning week, we had a choice from a range of new digital skills to learn.  As a class we opted to improve our coding skills. Our technical troopers Zack and Ben gave us a demonstration and explained to us about different things we could do, when programming games. We had great fun coding new games and pictures.

‘We had fun teaching people things about scratch that they did not already know. We taught them how to properly code things. Feel free to share what you learnt at class at home’. – Zack and Ben

Anytime Anywhere Learning, Digital Learning Week 2018, Expressive Arts, Primary 5, Primary 7, Second Level, Technical Troopers

Capturing the Decisive Moment

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Second Level have been working on digital photography leading up to and during Digital Learning Week. Primary 5s led the way after their successful photography trip to the National Museums. The latest challenge involved the young photographers looking at the work of French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who specialised in street photography in Paris and who was describes as trying to capture ‘the decisive moment’.

They went round the school trying to hunt down interesting subjects and then had the advantage of digitally manipulating their efforts – a luxury in the digital age of i-pads and apps that Cartier-Bresson did not have. They used Art Set, Snap seed and Photoshop express to change a few selected images. The children had to narrow down their winning shots to one and these were then printed off for a school exhibition. They were helped by the Technical troopers from P6 and P7 and Miss Sherlow was on-hand to offer advice on downloading and printing.

A lot of the school-life images focussed on portraits and here is what the pupils said, thought and felt. Some captured the moments of school life in black and white just like the master himself.

Digital Learning Week 2018, Second Level, Technical Troopers, Technologies

Primary 7 Digital Learning Week 2018!

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In P7 this week, we have completed lots of different exciting tasks using digital technologies to enhance our learning!

We completed a VR session with P1 and P3 all about space.  We looked at the International Space Station and taught our P3 buddies how to use the VR headsets.  We also looked at a variety of castles with P1.

Calum – “It was very fun teaching the P3s how to use the VR headsets and seeing their faces when it came up!”

Jamie – “It was good listening to what they thought about the VR headsets.”

Zachariah – “It was an immersive experience.”

We also had a teaching session from a young, budding teacher – Miss Murchison – who taught P7 and P3 about how to access and use Glow FORMS.  We learned how to create a range of questions, upload them our Yammer page and how to answer the surveys we had created focused on our transition to high school.

We also spent some time on our newly formed class Yammer page – which will be used until the end of term as an excellent way to share our learning and successes in P7.

#ndlw18

 

 

 

Health & Wellbeing, Nursery

Active Alfie!

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To develop our understanding of the well being indicators the children created names for them one being ‘Active Alfie.’ We spoke about how we keep ourselves active during nursery by taking part in enjoy a ball sessions,  sticky kids and our outdoor activities. We know that this is a good way to stay fit and healthy but the most important thing is that we have fun.