Colgrain, St Josephs, Arrochar and Hermitage

It's been a brilliant first week travelling around the Helensburgh area - I've got it right this time - one student asked me how to spell 'Helensborough' which is how I spelt it the first time - what a numpty I am!! And then I couldn't spell 'Peregrine' - where did my brain disappear to?? - I love being able to spell words the right way!!

So as you can tell, I've been getting some great stories from the pupils - they've mostly been P6, though the class in the groovy little school of Arrochar (in Tarbet!) were made up of P5-P7s.

We've been warming up with some Musical Scribbles and Drawing Relays, before zooming in on our Doodle Earth drawing activities. We've had some great descriptive answers starting with 'On my way to school today, I saw...', memory maps of the route to school, 3 minute, 2 minute and 30 second drawings, and some beautiful picture postcards with stories to send to our exchange schools.

The standard of homework has been excellent, with pupils doing some really amazing pictures of their schools and landmarks/wildlife/people/and different landscapes. I have varied the 'timed drawings' a little, but on the whole the list of class activities have stayed the same.

Well done everyone for taking part so enthusiastically, and hope you stick your well earned certificate in pride of place somewhere!

Jenny

Pictures from the top include written homework describing landmarks, countryside, buildings and people; postcard front and back to be sent with the others to their chosen exchange school, and a couple of 'Memory Maps' from the pupil's home to their school.

Zoom! Zoom! Doodle Earth Artists!!

Greetings fellow Earth Dwellers! Ever been curious about where you live, and whether others live in a place just like yours? Ever wondered if your school is the coolest, most interesting school on the planet, or if other pupils have a different but 'just as cool' school as you? Are you up for an adventure into a different type of learning, where everybody gets to join in the arty fun?

Val O'Regan, Michelle Letowska and Jenny Soep are the 3 artists who will be travelling around schools in Argyll and Bute to spread drawing fun UP and DOWN and ALL AROUND your classroom.

The project this year is to see how your school is different from other schools in the big ol' county of Argyll and Bute: is your school in the town, in the country, up a tree, down a rabbit hole? How do you get to school - plane, train, car, scooter, bicycle or your mighty springy feet? What do you see on the way? If you were directing someone from your house to the school, what landmarks would help them find their way?

Like Google Earth, we will be zooming in to see where you live, how far away it is from every where else, in particular your exchange school, and look at how your school might be different from them. We'll be playing some fun drawing games that will help us look at 'the bigger picture' and how to 'zoom in' on details, and after all the arty madness you'll be making beautiful postcards to put in a big special sack to send to your exchange school. Then you can wait to see what your exchange school will send to you! Whose special sack of postcards will be the best? Whose postcards will be the most bright, the most colourful, the best souvenir of where you live?

Grab your coloured markers and let's all go drawing mad!