Primary 2 enjoyed their trip to the Five Sister Zoo on Friday.  The class had a 30 minute handling session and then had the opportunity to explore the Zoo.

As part of our Fairyland topic, we have read Goldilocks  and the Three Bears. 

In Art we drew our own bears.  We have been learning about colour mixing and were able to mix the right colour of paint to make brown to paint our bears. We then cut out different shapes to help us make clothes for our bears.

In Maths, we have been learning how to count in threes.

The children worked in small groups to retell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Each group confidently preformed in front of the whole class.

The class had the opportunity to take part in a science workshop to learn about forces.  The class had to make predictions and conduct experiments to learn how things move, why objects fall when we drop them and why balls will never roll along the ground forever.

The activities focuses on pushing, pulling, friction and gravity.

Learning focus this term:

Through our topic Fairyland we will be learning about:

Lifecycle of a plant

• Features of castles
• Discuss good and bad choices within each Fairytale
• Stranger Danger
• Exploring events and characters in Fairytales

Core Skills learning focus:

• Working with others to complete tasks
• Being confident individuals when performing in front of others
• Recording our ideas in different ways
• Using ICT to support our learning

Through our Rights Respecting Schools characters we will be learning about ‘The Right to be heard and express our opinions’ and ‘The Right to be safe and happy and the responsibility to be kind and gentle to others.’

We aim to develop the following skills:

• I can use safe hands and feet
• I can respect personal space
• I can walk safely inside
• I can stay safe online

Literacy

Continuing to build on our phonics skills and opportunity to decode new words by using our knowledge of letter sounds, digraphs and spelling rules

• Reading and spelling tricky words within texts and using these words within our own writing
• Developing our comprehension whilst reading in small groups, exploring and discussing a variety of texts and building confidence as independent readers
• Continuing to practise letter formation through structured handwriting activities
• Extending our writing in terms of length, structure and content. Opportunity for personal and imaginative writing
• Creating a written plan for imaginative and personal writing
• Focused listening for information and instructions and opportunity to organise ideas then talk confidently to others expressing feelings, ideas and experiences

Numeracy

• The children will be continually developing their skills in addition and subtraction within 100.
• Measure – I can estimate and measure the length, weight and volume of objects.
• Symmetry – I can create and recognise symmetrical pictures, patterns and shapes.
• Fractions – I can work out halves and quarters of numbers

Our topic this term is Fairyland.  We will be focusing on different Fairy tales each week, this week our learning will be centered around Jack and the Beanstalk.

In Literacy we have been learning to identify rhyming words and make our own rhyming sentences using words from Jack and the Beanstalk.

Homework

As part of homework this term the class will have the opportunity to take home a toy dragon and write about what the dragon gets up to in the dragon diary.  Just a reminder there will be two reading books per week and reading days are Monday and Thursday.

Primary 2 have been learning how to spell and read words with a Magic e. The Magic e changes the sound and meaning of the word but remains silent.  In class the children have been doing a variety of activities over the last few weeks.  Today the children worked in pairs testing each other on their spelling.

As part of our Health topic we have been looking at similarities and differences between people.  For Maths we collected information about the class’s different hair colour, eye colour and how many boys/girls in our class. Each group conducted their own survey with the class and displayed the information in a bar graph.  Each group was able to answer questions using the information from our graphs.  We have been learning about the physical differences between themselves and their peers.

After reading Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers we have been comparing Isle of Struay to city life.   We looked housing, landscape, transport and leisure facilities.     In groups we completed a sorting activity thinking about what would Katie Morag see and do when visiting Grandma Mainland and what she would see and do when at home with Grannie Island.

In Maths we have been learning about money.  We have been learning to count different coins to make different amounts as well as working out change.

We have had practical experience of using coins using our Post Office in the shared area.  The children wrapped parcels to send and had to pay for their items to be delivered.  The children were learning to make specific amounts using different coins or work out the correct change.

Learning focus this term:

Through our topic about Katie Morag we will be learning about:

• Scots dialect – we will be able to say some Scottish words, count in Scots and sing some Scottish songs.
• Where Scotland and Alloa are on a map
• Islands in Scotland
• The differences between mainland Scotland and island life

Core Skills learning focus:

• Working with others to complete tasks
• Being confident individuals when performing in front of others
• Recording our ideas in different ways

Literacy

• The children will be continuing to use our topic as a stimulus for writing activities.
• The children will be extending their knowledge of sounds and learning that there may be more than 1 way to make a sound e.g. ee and ea, ou and ow
• Spelling will correspond with the sounds they have learned that week.
• The children will continue to practise sentences beginning with a capital letter and ending in a full stop. As we develop writing skills we will continue to use V.C.O.P. learning how to use different connectives to extend sentences and continue to incorporate adjectives into our writing.
• When reading, we will continue to work on reading fluent with increased expression and accuracy.

Numeracy

• The children will be learning about numbers to 100 and will understand the terms tens and units.
• The children will be continually developing their skills in addition and subtraction.
• The children will begin to learn about money and use addition and subtraction skills to work out how much something costs and how much change would be given.