Category Archives: Learning Stories
P5A Art Gallery 6/6/18
P1W Teamwork in Art
Some pupils worked in teams…
P1W 5/6/18 Free Art
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…
Sara Barker-inspired Strangely Fragile Sculptures in P5A and P7
The Second Level pupils in Art have been looking, thinking and wondering about the Glasgow-based young artist called Sara Barker. She creates fragile-looking sculptures from metal and paint that we tried to describe. Her artwork is on display in Edinburgh at the NOW exhibition and there is one work outdoors at Jupiter Artland. The Edinburgh exhibition is free:-) Some saw deconstructed people, butterflies, airplanes, mountains, coastlines and even a coat hanger! We tried making our own structural forms from paper Artstraws and pipecleaners. It was a challenge to make the 3-D structures stable to stand on a plinth or to attach to a wall. Some of them worked collaboratively.
Next week we will add a painted element or use another of our Art skills. I can’t wait to see what direction they will take…
Digital Learning Week in P2
This week, as part of Digital Learning Week, Primary 2 have been developing their digital skills with a little help from the Technical Troopers. The children were keen to use Scratch Jr to explore coding. The three Technical Troopers from P7 and P6/7 provided lots of help and encouragement, and their great enthusiasm was soon inspiring P2 to try new things.
We also used Puppet Pals 2 to explore animation. First, we had to choose a space themed background, then think about different characters and objects that we could include as part of a simple story. Finally, we added sound effects and words to tell the story. The results were fantastic and we were very impressed by our efforts.
As part of our Moon Mission IDL work, we also designed rockets on Purple Mash.
Digital Leaders for Digital Learning Week 2018
To celebrate Education Scotland’s National Digital Learning Week, our Technical Troopers have been working extremely hard to make a #digitaldifference in Mid Calder Primary School. They have delivered lessons across all stages of our school, teaching our pupils how to use a range of digital tools to enhance their learning. P3 received a lesson on how to use the Glow tool Forms, while P4 learned how to the Glow tool, Sway. The Technical Troopers helped our Nursery children to develop their positional language by using the Bee-Bots, as well as supporting P1 with creating an animation using Puppet Pals 2. Primary 6 and 7/6 were given a range of coding sites on their Yammer page to explore, while P2 developed their programming skills using Scratch Jr. Primary 5 were shown how to use the different features of iMovie.
The Technical Troopers received lots of positive feedback from both the teachers and the pupils, and they did a fantastic job at sharing their own digital skills confidently to make a #digitaldifference. Check out the video that they scripted and edited to showcase what they got up to:
Digital Week in the Nursery
This week we have been continuing to explore and develop our digital learning. Some children were using the iPads to scan QR codes to unveil which well being indicator character was hidden. Displaying confidence and leading their own learning, they were able to demonstrate to their peers how to do this. We have enjoyed learning how to turn our Adventure Ted adventures in to a comic using comic life, displaying these in our foyer for everyone to read. Using our iPod we chose which song we would like to dance to, also enjoying a game of musical statues. We recorded our indoor and outdoor play with our GoPro then enjoyed a visit from The Technical Troopers who helped develop our directional language when teaching us how to program the Bee-Bots.
Digital Learning Week in P3
To celebrate National Digital Learning Week, Primary 3 have used a range of digital technologies to enhance their learning across the curriculum.
In maths, we have been taking part in the UK National Sumdog Contest to develop our mental maths skills, as well as using Purple Mash and Table Mountain to help us to learn our times tables. In literacy, we have been looking at the genre of Science Fiction, and we used Puppet Pals 2 to bring some our stories to life. We also completed a ‘Space Race’ quiz using QR codes. We had to follow clues to locate QR codes hidden around the school, then use our skimming and scanning skills to to answer space questions using the links.
As part of our IDL context, NASA Juniors: Mission X, Primary 7 led a Virtual Reality session using their own devices. They rocketed us up into space, allowing us to explore the International Space Station, take a closer look behind the scenes of the Moon Landing, and explore a space museum. One of the Primary 7 Technical Troopers then helped us to use the Glow tool, Forms, to create our own space themed quiz. We posted these onto our Yammer page and completed each other’s quizzes.
We love using digital tools to enhance our learning in lots of different ways and Primary 3 feel like they have become ‘Digital Divas’ this year 🙂
Evie: “When I was young, I never used to use technology but then I discovered how good it was when I got my own iPad. Now I like using Yammer on the iPad and computer because I like commenting about what the teachers and people have posted.”
Rose: “I like using digital technologies because it is fun and it helps your learning.”
Sam: “I like playing games on the iPads and using paint on the netbooks. It makes learning fun.”
Digital Manipulation
On the 18th of May P6 started to do digital manipulation which means when you take a picture of still life and then turn it to black and white. We took some pictures of outside and then we took some of people. We used an app called Snapseed to change the fond of the picture.
Here’s some examples of some photos we took.
