🎃Halloween Fun! 🧁

We celebrated Halloween in style today with a fantastic day of fancy dress and creative sweet treat decorating!

The children arrived in classroom wearing an incredible variety of Halloween costumes—from witches, masked figures, and movie characters to giant caveman suits and superhero costumes!

To add to the festivities, the pupils got creative in the kitchen area decorating spooky Halloween buns and cookies. Using icing, colourful sweets, and strawberry lace candy, the children designed creepy-crawly spider cupcakes, funny monster faces, and spooky treats to take home.

It was a brilliant, fun-filled way to wrap up our learning before the Halloween break. Wishing all our pupils and families a safe and Happy Halloween! 🎃👻✨

Spook-tacular Halloween Animations!

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Our class brought some spooky creativity to our ICT lesson by creating animated Halloween scenes using Adobe Express!

The children explored digital animation tools to construct eerie scenes filled with haunted houses, glowing jack-o'-lanterns, floating ghosts, bats, and skeletons. To make their projects extra exciting, each pupil added animated text transitions—making bold "BOO!" titles zoom, flash, and reveal custom spooky backgrounds. They even paired their visual animations with atmospheric music and sound effects to give their digital creations a true cinematic feel!

Digital Skills & Creative Learning:

• Animation & Layering: Working with object layers, timing transitions, and animating elements to bring scenes to life.

• Graphic Design: Experimenting with dramatic lighting, lightning effects, and spooky color schemes.

• Audio Integration: Matching background music tracks and sound effects to complement the mood of their animation.

Check out some of our frightfully good animations above—well done to all our young digital animators! 🦇⚡🎬

 

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Framing Our Art: Geometric Cardboard Frames! 🖼️✂️

Our autumn printmaking project is coming together beautifully, and this week the pupils turned their focus to constructing custom display frames using recycled cardboard and 2D shape design!

Combining art construction with geometry skills, the children measured, cut, and layered a variety of cardboard 2D shapes—such as squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, and hexagons—to build relief patterns around their picture borders. Once the shapes were arranged and glued down into layered compositions, the pupils applied a smooth base coat of white paint over the cardboard, creating a unified textured surface ready for final finishing.

Skills Practised in Lesson:

• Geometry in Art: Identifying, cutting, and arranging 2D shapes to create balanced, symmetrical, or repeating border patterns.

• 3D & Relief Layering: Stacking and overlapping cardboard elements to produce a raised, textured frame effect.

• Craftsmanship & Precision: Applying glue neatly, using paintbrushes to cover detailed edges, and carefully assembling frame structures.

These bespoke 2D shape frames are going to make our etched autumn nature prints look truly spectacular when mounted and displayed! 🍂🖼️✨

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Welcome to Our Class Solar System! 🪐🚀

Our World Around Us (WAU) Space project has officially reached completion, and our classroom ceiling has transformed into an extraordinary galaxy of original, pupil-designed planets! 🌌✨

Taking inspiration from their own passions and boundless imaginations, the children completed their 3D papier-mâché models and attached custom "Planet Profiles". Each profile highlights unique planetary data—including surface temperatures, composition, colour schemes, number of moons, and length of days!

Featured Planets in Our Galaxy Include:

• Dinosaur & Dragon Worlds: Complete with ringed orbits and prehistoric landscapes!

• Peace & Earth-like Planets: Vibrant, lush worlds filled with oceans and greenery.

• Pop Culture & Brand Worlds: Creative designs based on Roblox, WWE, Mr Tumble, and Pepsi!

Skills & Learning Achieved:

• Scientific Research & Imagination: Establishing logical environmental facts—such as extreme temperatures, atmospheric gases, and orbital cycles—for imaginary planets.

• 3D Art & Engineering: Building papier-mâché structures, adding painted textures, constructing rings, and securing miniature surface features.

• Literacy & Data Presentation: Writing clear, concise profile sheets to present planet facts to visitors.

Come take a glance upwards next time you drop by our classroom to see our incredible suspended universe on display! 🪐💫

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Barclays Financial Capability Workshop! 💳💰

We were delighted to welcome Billy, an Education Officer from Barclays, into our classroom for an engaging Financial Capability workshop!

The session introduced the children to key real-world money management skills and financial concepts. Through interactive matching activities on the interactive whiteboard, the pupils explored modern banking terms—such as debit cards, contactless payments, mobile banking, and online banking.

The children then put their problem-solving and budgeting skills to the test during practical scenarios. Working with sample budgets, they calculated expenses, discussed the difference between 'wants' and 'needs', and made informed choices on how to spend and save wisely.

Key Learning Highlights:

• Financial Literacy: Understanding everyday banking terminology and how digital money works.

• Budgeting & Planning: Evaluating costs for daily activities and making decisions on spending within a set budget.

• Numeracy in Real Life: Applying mental maths and addition skills to practical financial scenarios.

A big thank you to Billy and Barclays for delivering such an informative and practical session to help prepare our pupils for the future! 🧮🏦✨

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Making Maths Fun 

Active Mental Maths Games! 🎲🔢

Our pupils have been sharpening their mental arithmetic skills through interactive partner games in the classroom!

To build rapid recall and mental calculation strategies, the children took part in two engaging maths challenges:

1. Connect 3 (10x Tables): Using spinners and colourful counting cubes, pairs took turns spinning a number, multiplying it by 10, and covering the target answer on their game grid. The race was on to strategically connect three cubes in a row!

2. Wipe Out! (Addition & Dice Probabilities): Each player wrote down the numbers 2 through 12 on their whiteboards. Rolling two dice, the children added the scores together to find the sum—if they had that total remaining on their board, they got to 'wipe it out'!

Key Learning & Skills:

• Multiplication Recall: Practising swift, confident recall of the 10 times table.

• Mental Addition Strategies: Rapidly adding two numbers together on the spot.

• Strategic Thinking & Turn-Taking: Partnering up, encouraging peers, and sharing resources.

It was wonderful to see so much focus, energy, and enthusiasm for mental maths! 🧮✨

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Nature-Inspired Haiku Poetry! 🍃📝

Our pupils have been exploring creative writing in literacy by composing their own traditional Haiku poems focused on nature and wildlife!

After learning about the structure of a Haiku—counting syllables to follow the traditional 5-7-5 pattern—the children wrote their poems about animals and the seasonal environment. They then brought their poetry into the digital realm during ICT by typing their work using Just 2 Easy (J2e / JIT5). The pupils combined their text with striking background images to showcase their poems, featuring subjects like deer roaming, wolves in the snow, and seasonal themes.

Key Literacy & ICT Skills:

• Poetry & Syllables: Structuring poems accurately using the 5-7-5 syllable rule.

• Word Processing in J2e: Using JIT5 Write to input text, change font colors, adjust text sizing, and align poetry over images.

• Digital Publishing: Selecting suitable picture backgrounds to complement the mood and theme of their nature writing.

It was wonderful to see the children using digital tools so confidently to publish and present their literacy work! 🐺🦌🍂

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Nature-Inspired Block Printing! 🍃🎨

Our young artists have been combining outdoor exploration with printmaking in a wonderful creative art project!

The activity began outdoors on our Eco Hill, where the children took photographs of local nature, flora, and landscape features. Taking inspiration from the beautiful work of Irish printmaker Gail Kelly, the pupils translated their photographic studies into detailed line drawings. They then carefully etched their designs into polystyrene tiles to create custom printing blocks, finally applying black ink and pressing their designs onto colourful, painted backgrounds.

Skills & Learning Journey:

• Outdoor & Digital Photography: Observing natural forms up close and capturing compositions on our Eco Hill.

• Art Appreciation: Studying the style, line work, and nature themes of Irish artist Gail Kelly.

• Printmaking Techniques: Learning how to etch fine detail into polystyrene tiles and apply rolled ink evenly to produce bold relief prints.

• Colour & Composition: Pairing dark, high-contrast block prints against vibrant, multi-coloured backgrounds to make the artwork pop.

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Autumn Photography & Art Inspiration! 🍂📸

As part of our preparation for an exciting printmaking project, the children stepped outside into our school grounds and Eco Hill to gather creative inspiration from nature.

Armed with cameras, the pupils explored the changing season through a photographer’s lens—searching for interesting textures, leaf patterns, branches, and garden features across our outdoor space. Taking time to observe the fine details of the environment helped everyone gather ideas and reference images to draw from.

Skills in Action:

• Digital Photography: Practising focus, framing, close-up shots, and experimenting with angles to capture natural textures.

• Observational Skills: Identifying the distinctive shapes, lines, and patterns found in trees, leaves, and plants during autumn.

• Artistic Preparation: Using digital photography to collect visual primary sources that will inspire our upcoming etched print designs.

The children captured brilliant shots that will form the foundation for our upcoming autumnal prints—we can’t wait to see their ideas transition into block artwork! 🌿🍂✨

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Wild About Shapes! 🦁📐

Our numeracy and ICT learning combined this week in an exciting crossover project! Having explored the mathematical properties of 2D shapes, the pupils put their knowledge to work digitally by creating their own 'Animal Shapes' posters using Adobe Express.

The children sourced striking animal textures, prints, and images—from leopard spots and lion fur to scales and feathers—and used digital editing tools to frame them into various 2D shapes. To complete their designs, they added custom text detailing the key geometric properties of each shape.

Skills Practised in Lesson:

• Maths & Geometry: Identifying and describing 2D shape properties, including sides, vertices (corners), and right angles.

• Digital Media Tools: Mastering the Crop Tool to shape image textures, using Remove Background to isolate animal subjects, and applying Copy & Paste effectively.

• Graphic Presentation: Formatting and styling text using the Text Tool to clearly present mathematical information alongside visuals.

It was fantastic to see the children applying their mathematical vocabulary so creatively using digital design! 🟢⏹️🔷

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Taking Centre Stage: Drama Workshops! 🎭🌟

Our young actors have been stepping into the spotlight during our exciting drama workshops!

Working together in small groups, the children have been diving into creative role-play, exploring a wide range of characters, emotions, and voices. Through interactive drama games and freeze-frames, they have been learning how to bring different personalities to life on stage while building their confidence and expressive skills.

Key Skills in Action:

• Character Exploration: Experimenting with body language, facial expressions, and vocal tones to create believable characters.

• Collaboration & Teamwork: Working together in groups to brainstorm ideas, share roles, and devise mini-performances.

• Speaking & Listening: Developing confidence when performing in front of peers, as well as practicing active listening during group rehearsals.

It has been brilliant to see so much imagination, energy, and supportive teamwork on display. Bravo to all our enthusiastic performers! 🎬👏

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Adding Colour to Our Solar System! 🪐🎨

The wait is over—our papier-mâché planets are completely dry and ready for phase two of our World Around Us (WAU) project!

This week, the children traded in their paste for paintbrushes to bring their celestial creations to life. Using custom color blends, precise brushwork, and plenty of concentration, everyone worked hard to capture the distinctive features of their chosen planets—from swirling oceans and icy poles to fiery gas clouds and deep craters.

Skills in Action:

• Art & Design: Mixing shades, applying brush technique, and building up texture for realistic planetary surfaces.

• Topic Knowledge: Applying key facts learned about planetary atmospheres, landforms, and colors.

• Focus & Fine Motor Control: Carefully painting detailed surfaces on round 3D objects.

Our classroom is quickly transforming into a vibrant gallery of the solar system. Stay tuned to see the complete cosmic display once everything is finished! 🌌✨

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Fantastic Mr. Fox Inspired Word Processing! 🦊💻

Our pupils have been combining ICT and literacy by typing up their creative writing pieces using Microsoft Word on the Chromebooks.

Taking inspiration from Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox, the children stepped into the shoes of Boggis, Bunce, or Bean! They wrote imaginative letters requesting camping gear to help stake out the hill and catch that clever fox.

Skills We Practised:

• ICT Skills: Navigating Microsoft Word on Chromebooks, using the keyboard efficiently, and learning basic word processing layout.

• Creative Literacy: Writing in character, using persuasive vocabulary, and structuring a formal request.

• Editing & Proofreading: Checking spelling, punctuation, and grammar directly on screen.

It was wonderful to see everyone so focused while bringing their stories to life digitally!

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Digital Art Blast Off! 🚀🎨

Our World Around Us (WAU) Space topic went digital this week as the children traded in physical brushes for digital canvases on Adobe Express!

Following an online tutorial video, the class explored how to use digital art tools to construct vibrant, galactic scenes. Using glowing effects, custom brushes, geometric stamps, and layered backgrounds, the children created stunning cosmic artwork featuring glowing stars, distant planets, nebula clouds, and space probes.

Digital Skills & Creative Learning:

• Digital Art Techniques: Experimenting with glow filters, opacity, brush textures, and layer blending.

• Graphic Design: Working with digital shapes, lines, and color gradients to create depth and light.

• ICT Confidence: Navigating the Adobe Express interface to crop, arrange, and design unique visual projects independently.

The pupils loved seeing their creative ideas light up the screen—the final results look like real sci-fi book covers! 🌌✨

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Out of This World! 🚀 Earth and Beyond in Primary 6/7

Things got a little messy—and a lot of fun—in our classroom this week as part of our World Around Us (WAU) topic, Space!

To bring our learning about the solar system to life, the children rolled up their sleeves and put their hands to work creating their very own 3D papier-mâché planets. Using balloons, paste, paintbrushes, and layers of newspaper, everyone worked hard to build a smooth base for their chosen celestial body.

What We’re Learning Through Our Space Topic:

• Science: Exploring the features, sizes, and order of the planets in our solar system.

• Art & Design: Developing fine motor skills, layering textures, and experimenting with structure.

• Teamwork: Sharing resources, helping peers hold balloons steady, and keeping our workspace clean!

Once the layers are completely dry, the real artistic magic begins—painting our creations to match the swirling gas giants, rocky landscapes, and icy surfaces of the planets.

Keep an eye on our class page soon to see the finished, fully painted solar system on display! 🌌✨