Middle school community

Middle school are continuing to look at the question: do we need community?

Group work on what community is and services we use:






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Selling yourself!

Middle school have been looking at how to make themselves stand out from the crowd in job and further education applications. They are learning that they need to start building up a resume of activities and interests now...

Here, the class are typing a page called 'All about me' on their iPads. Lots of them are including interests that have developed as a result of broader curriculum.









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S1/2 French

S1/2 have used Strip Design to create cartoons of topics they have done this year. We'll use them to decorate the walls of our new classroom.

One group covered a mix of different topics:





One looked at the topic of pets:


One group looked at the topic of school:





And two others looked at arranging to go out somewhere :








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Primary 7 French

This week in French, primary 7 finished the posters they made using phrases they've learnt this year. Have a look at the last few ...





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Middle school were carrying on some of the design work they had started last week. Today we were looking at some practical examples of prototypes that had been designed by former pupils as well as their design process.












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Location:Design!

Middle school community

Middle school spent time this week using their iPads to research the plague in Europe. Today, we are asking why people stayed in Edinburgh during out breaks of the plague.

We are looking at our community poems from the start of the unit and comparing our communities to 17th C Edinburgh. We are using the comparisons to examine the question 'do we shape our community or does our community shape us?'

Here, the class are researching diseases that people died from according to the Bill of Mortality from one week on August 1666.









Do you know what these mean?...

Kingsevil
Quinsie
Rising of the Lights

Ask a Middle Schooler!


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Design

Following on from our architecture studies, middle school pupils began looking at other areas of design this week. We focused on some of the key aspects of the design process and discussed a number of design examples with relation to them.




Pupils also worked in groups to practically critique some objects for each of these aspects - they had some fascinating opinions!

Happy and healthy learners

Middle school are improving their understanding of how physical activity improves their mental and emotional health.

Here they are creating an action plan in groups for someone who currently does no exercise:







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Display

This is the latest display for the middle school room - Keith Haring style street art:

Gaudi again

We were looking at the work architect Antoni Gaudi again today, in particular Casa Batllo in Barcelona and some of his mosaic work. Pupils then created their own mosaics, inspired by Gaudi....







Somehow, PAC MAN became the theme of a group project:

Art Nouveau - Gaudi

Middle school were learning about the work of Spansh architect, Antoni Gaudi today. We had an excellent discussion and discovered lots of interesting facts about him, his work and his style.

Here are some of his buildings we looked at:

S1 French

Today, S1 started a new topic in French: sports and hobbies. Have a look at them telling us what their favourite sport is!

Today, middle school pupils were further developing their photo editing, image manipulation skills, and use of layers, this time with a focus on contemporary, abstract art. Pupils discussed a number of images in terms of interpretation, meaning, visual elements, motivation and impact, before creating their own works. Each pupil started with a simple photograph and then used a range of apps and techniques to develop and transform the image. Here are some of their results:

Photo Ping Pong

On Monday, middle school pupils were developing their photo editing, image manipulation skills, and use of layers in an artistic game of "Ping Pong"...

Each pupil chose a photograph and emailed it to their partner. Their partner then had to use one of the iPad apps to change the image in some way - the image could be added too, distorted, partly erased, flipped, duplicated, etc. The image was then emailed back to their partner whose turn it now was to alter the image again, in a different way. This was repeated for a number of rounds. The possibilities were endless! Here are two complete "ping pong" games, the first by Jack and Lyle and the second by Toby and Georgina: