This week West Barns is running a book fair. Come and visit us to buy some books. Each class gets to visit the book fair next week but if you cannot wait for after school on Monday come to the christmas fair tomorrow and it will be open. If we raise enough money from the books our school libary gets new books for free!
P2/3 Story Writing Through Drama
Last term and this term we have been throwing ourselves into the wonderful world of story writing! Shonagh Davidson, a drama teacher from East Lothian Arts Services, visited us to deliver a drama workshop on fairy tales. We built on drama skills from the workshop to help us write a Celtic fairy tale and a Roman warrior story. We enjoyed using the Roman and Celtic weapons and shields that we had made when acting out our story ideas!
Story Writing Through Drama on PhotoPeach
This term we have chosen to study Jeremy Strong’s science fiction novel ‘Krazy Cow Saves the World’ as our class story. During the second week of term we chose a character in the story and developed the character in the same style as the author. We were amazed at the amount of adjectives and fantastic wow words we were able to think of when working with our writing buddies! During the third week of term we chose a really funny part of the story to stop at and then continued the story on in the same style as the author. Last week we wrote a letter to Jeremy Strong to ask if he could give us feedback on our story writing. Well done Lucy Townshend and Ryan Dunn for being voted writing stars of the week and getting your excellent letters on the wall of success!!
Wonder Room Project – Art from Ecuador
Artist, Eileen Hall, visited to share her experiences and objects from Ecuador. P2/3 enjoyed telling Eileen about their ‘Wonder Room’ and why the objects that had been taken in were special to them. The carved wooden dolls, paintings, images from books and ideas from a story were all used to help P2/3 create a chalk pastel drawing of their representation of Ecuador. When Eileen left P2/3 talked about how they could develop their imaginative and observational pastel drawings by blending pastels in different ways and adding detail. We shared our work in groups and liked the fact everyone’s pictures were completely different!
Ecuador Pastel Art on PhotoPeach
Archaeological Experts in P2/3!
This week P2/3 chose learning that they wanted to share on the blog. Here is some of their fantastic work and experiences from the last eight weeks or so!
In October, to link in with our Celts and Romans project, we ventured to Bothwell Castle to work alongside experts on an archaeological excavation! We worked in teams to find objects like bones, teeth and pottery. We enjoyed listening to spooky stories about what was thought to have happened in Bothwell castle and nearby areas of Haddington long ago. It rained all morning but the weather didn’t stop us from having fun!
On Thursday afternoon, head archaeologist, David Connelly came into class to share more of the weird and wonderful objects that had been found by archaeologists. He helped us work together to write a poem on archaeology.
Archaeological Excavation! on PhotoPeach
Halloween Disco
Once again the Parent Council transformed our school into a ghoulish disco hall to celebrate Halloween. Many pupils from across the school came dressed up in their spooky costumes. A night enjoyed by all, thank you to the Parent Council.
Ghost and Ghouls on PhotoPeach
P7 Dounans Camp
I’m sure that our P7 pupils have had fun this weekend reliving their memories
of our week at camp and here are just some of the photos I took to help you
remind you of all of the fun you had.
P7 Dounans Camp on PhotoPeach
Good Morning West Barns!
Here is a wee comment from each of our P7’s about their experiences so far.
Finlay – I did the cat-walk this week, it was really high and we had to climb up
a tree and then walk along a beam. Then we could jump off the beam or hang off. It was
really good and fun. It felt quite scary when I got to the top because I didn’t think it
would feel that high – but it did!
Thomas – Hi Mum and Dad. I really enjoyed the tree climb. We had to climb up a tree which
was twice the height of the cat walk. Half way up I didn’t think I could go any more and
only wanted to do a few more steps but Mrs Hay and my group encouraged me to do it
and get all the way to the top to ring the bell. I felt relieved when I returned
to the ground!
Dillon – Yesterday I did the mohawk walk with my team. It is a team building
activity where you have to work together to figure out how to get across the
low-wire obstacle course. I kind of liked the activity, I had a new experience
and I’m pleased that I tried it because now I know that I like it.
Euan – Yesterday I did the night-line activity and I really enjoyed it because it
was a fun, new experience. Also, Mrs Hay gave me a pile of muddy pine needles and
because I was under sleep-shade I didn’t know what it was but I did know that my
hand was then very muddy.
Ben – Earlier in the week I did the mohawk walk, it was really fun and it was a
team-building activity where everyone in my group had to work together to solve
the problem of how to get across the wire. I really enjoyed this activity and
I think my team did really well.
Jack – I did archery this week and we were taught different safety rules and
how to use a bow and arrow. I hit the target board three times. I really enjoyed
it and would like to do it again.
Cameron – Yesterday I did the night-line walk, I really enjoyed it and we were
blind-folded so we couldn’t see where we were going. I walked into lots of trees
and fell over lots of times. Mrs Hay put pine needles down my back because I kept
peeking out of my uncomfortable, wet and soggy goggles.
Today is our last day and our pupils are taking part in a mixture of the following
activities – the day hike, tree climbing, archery, cat walk, raft-building, night-line
and the mohawk walk. Tonight is also the disco and we are all excited for it!
Mrs Hay’s Daily Update!
Hello everyone!
What a day we have had today but despite the rain (and when we say rain, we really do mean rain)
we all managed to enjoy our day.
Ben, Jack, Thomas and Finlay were off-site for most of the day on a hike. They built shelters on their way up the hill, had lunch at the top and then came down the rocky path to return to camp. I will let them add details of their hike when I meet with them later tonight.
Mrs Hay’s moments of the day:
1. Dillon on the night-line activity. Pupils are under sleepshade for this activity and
have to navigate around an obstacle course. A perfect opportunity for staff to ‘get their own back’ on pupils, and now Dillon wants his revenge – something about mud-balls.
2. Jasmine was an excellent shot in the archery activity today.
3. Euan and Cameron on the ‘cat-walk’. Both were incredibly supportive of their peers which was lovely to see.
4. Trying to wake Ben up this morning at 7.15 (at his request) to go on the school 2 mile run. After quite an effort to wake him up he decided that this morning was not the morning to go for a run, but he did change his mind and joined in for the run.
All messages are being passed on to our pupils so please feel free to leave more.
Tomorrow is our last day of activities and the event of the year – the Dounans disco. Check in tomorrow for another update.
Mrs Hay
News From Dounans!
Hello West Barns!
We are having such a wonderful time at camp. We are all in different activity
groups so we get to meet lots of new people and make new friends. We have been
doing different activities and really challenging ourselves. We have taken
part in archery, raft-building, a night-walk, mohawk walk, pole climb and tree climb.
Mrs Hay would put pictures online to share with you but she forgot her camera cable!
Mrs Hay’s moments of the day:
1. Thomas really challenging himself to reach the top of the tree climb activity.
2. Euan and Cameron soaring through the air in the flying fox activity.
3. Capturing Finlay’s and Thomas’ friendship on camera – picture to be revealed when we are home.
Keep checking back for more updates!
P5/6/7 Politics in Progress!
As you may have gathered P5/6/7 have been very busy today blogging website posts about all
the latest going’s on in our very busy classroom!
We would be very grateful if you could spare a few minutes to complete the survey below.
The results of the survey will be used to help us form manifestos in our political parties.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Cie7KEJIrYM3kw0w4DuYMheDB5PVRSrjy6-dXvw0Huk/viewform
Copy and paste the link above into your web browser. Thank you in advance 🙂