Mr Devereux

By Ella and Chloe

In the John Muir project the P5 children did 4 parts to get the award. We did discover, explore, conserve and share. For the discover part we went to the John Muir birth place. It was a lot of fun and exciting. For the explore part we went to the Yester Estate and looked for minibeasts. At the burn we looked for water beasts. For the conserve part we planted herbs in the school for the bees which are getting extinct. It was fun and muddy. For the share we did this piece of text.

By Joe M-C

The p5’s are doing the John Muir Award.

In the John Muir Award we:

• Went to John Muir’s birthplace.

• Did a drama workshop.

• Went to Yester estate to find mini-beasts.

• Went to the burn at Yester Estate.

• Planted some plants to conserve bees like lavender, thyme, shrubs and rosemary at the memorial garden and the marsh at our school.

• Also wrote this article.

Archie and Lisa

For the John Muir Trust award we did 4 different things. They were discover, explore, conserve and share. For discover we went to John Muir’s Birth Place in Dunbar we found out loads about him. We also had a drama workshop with Margery Sweeny where we learnt about John Muir’s life. For explore we went to Yester Estate and a burn at Yester Estate. We went looking for mini beasts and in the burn we used nets to catch water creatures. For conserve we planted plants that bees like so the population would go up. For share we wrote this.

Lucy and Lewis

This year Yester’s P5 did the John Muir Trust Award.

First we did the discover bit and then we did the explore bit then did the conserve bit and last of all we are doing the sharing part. In the discovering part we had a drama workshop, we went to John Muir’s Birthplace which had a funny chair that made a funny noise when you sit on it and we made a John Muir stamp in art. We went up to Yester Estate where we found lots of minibeasts like black ladybirds with yellow spots when we shook the sheet under the tree. We also found centipedes, millipedes and beetles. Then we went river dipping near the park to find some minibeasts that live in water like tadpoles, fish, mayflies and the little beetles that live under rocks. After that we went to the park at the Bleachfield to have lunch and a play at the park. For the conserve part we planted smelly flowers like lavender and herbs. Our group was group 4 and we had to go down to the marsh to dig holes and plant a little plant. The next day we planted a silver birch tree. The other groups did planting in the memorial garden. They had to take all the stones off with their little trowels then put the black liner on. Then they had to cut a hole in the liner, dig a hole then empty the plant in with a bit of water. The planting was really fun and our hands got really messy and so did we. We will now tell you a bit more about the discover part. First we had a drama workshop with Marjory when we had to listen to a story then make a statue for a bit in the story then we had to do a bit of acting. After that we went to John Muir’s Birthplace which had three floors for different bits of his life. On floor two there was a timeline on John Muir’s life and a computery thing. We have just shared it with you as the end of our project. We had an amazing time.

Lulu and Daisy

P5 have been doing the John Muir Award. We have to do discover, explore, conserve and share.  For the Discover part we all went to John Muir’s birth place and did drama.  We did a minibeast hunt and we got into a group of 3.  My group was Emma, Lisa and me.  First we went to Yester woods and found a lot of minibeasts and to find minibeasts on a branch we had to put a sheet under the branch and shake it and all the minibeasts will come off it.  After that we had lunch at the park.  Then we stayed in the same group and went river dipping to find water minibeasts and we got a net and a bob to find it and I fell in the river.  At the school we planted lots of plants for conserving the ground.  The plants were to attract bees and there were herbs.  The herbs were thyme, rosemary and lavender and they were planted in the ground beside the sundial and we planated other plants beside the marsh and we planted the silver birch from the classroom.

Courtney and Emma

This year the P5’s at Yster have been trying to earn their John Muir Trust Award. There are four different sections of the award. The first section is ‘discover’, the second ‘explore’, the third ‘conserve’ and finally the fourth ‘share’ which we are doing right now.

Discover For this part of the award we did some drama to find out about John Muir’s childhood. Everyone found this very fun. After we finished the drama we went to John Muir’s Birth Place where we learnt a lot. There was a chair at the birth place and when you sat on it, it made a noise like a gun but when John was a boy he had a chair with a gun attached so when his friends sat on it the gun went off (but not at his friends).

Explore For the explore section of the award we went into Yester Estate where we did a minibeast hunt and we found loads of minibeasts. Here are the names a few of the beasts: millipedes, centipedes, slugs, spiders and quite a lot more. In the second part of explore we went river dipping to find water creatures. Most people were soaking when we had finished.

Conserve For this part we planted some plants around the school like lavender, thyme and rosemary. We planted these because bumble bees are running out and the flowers we planted are attracted by the them so they will collect pollen and not die out so fast.

We hope we all get the John Muir Award.

By Finlay G and Ewan

We plan to do the skipathon on Tuesday.  We were not able to take part with the rest of the school as we were on our trip to Edinburgh that day.  This hopefully leaves enough time to bring in sponsor money by the end of term.

Last week shooting wrapped in the P4/5 studios.  I am very grateful to Ms Traill for co-ordinating the composition of the musical scores for our animations, and to Paddy’s dad who gave up a day from his busy schedule to record the soundtracks for each of the five animated movies.  With this aspect of post-production under our belts, the producers will be heading for the editing suite on Monday to add the credits.

It’s the final week of swimming for P4 on Wednesday.  I also plan to send all the children’s artwork home that day.

This week all the maths groups finished their assessments which will be very useful to their teachers next year in planning their programmes of work.  We also found time to finish our drama topic on developing movement.

All aboard for our final, exciting week!  I’m sure it’ll be toptastic.

Mr Devereux

You may have heard of intensive farming, but this is intensive gardening!

That’s why I like puppets better. It was cool but the mirrors were still good.

By Joe S and  Joe M

All the movement work was done with a partner.

The puppeteers made their puppets do the strangest things.

Everyone had a lot of fun.

Smile, you're on Candid Camera.

"I wonder how bendy this arm is?"

By
Finlay G. and Harry T.

Here we all are.

The P4 violinists about to perform.

Then it was the turn of P5.

There was a certain colour for how hard it is to do. Green is easy. Yellow is medium. Red is for hard. And blue is for hard. The whole school did it. The primary 7 did it better than all of us but they are primary 7 so no surprise.

Paddy and Courtney

Everyone worked in pairs.

This one was very tricky.

The children kept going, even during the earthquake.

by Finlay G and Lulu

This is the first rehearsal in Yester's recording studio.

Paddy's dad is playing back the recording so the musicians can check that the timing is right.

Another group prepares to perform.

This is the microphone we used.

We needed a lot of laptops and other technical equipment. The music was played live while the film ran on screen.

                                          BY JAKE  & CHRISTOPHER

Thanks to Lucy Wrinn for helping everyone in P5 to enjoy their Ready Steady Bike over the last three weeks.

This week the children learned about 5 tests they could carry out to see if a group of words is a sentence.  This should help them when proof-reading their own work.  In maths all three groups took part in assessments of the work they have done this year.  We also finished the probability topic.  In music the children are continuing with the compositions they are developing to accompany their animations.

Next week we will be completing the shooting stage of the animations and entering the final phase of the John Muir Trust Award.  Hopefully the weather will be kind as we will be working outside.  It’s also Eco week and the violin concert on Thursday.

There will be no more maths, whole class reading or spelling homework this term;  however, most reading groups have a final reading activity to complete.

These producers are delighted with their latest footage.

With the help of a matte painting, a journey to the moon is easy for our characters.

The actors are very obedient!