I hope you all had a relaxing October break and are ready to embark on the forthcoming Hallowe’en and Festive celebrations!! We are certainly ready for another busy term of learning in Primary 1/2, while still managing to get caught up in the fun and excitement of the Christmas term.

Literacy

Primary 2

In phonics we will continue with our joined phonemes (2 letter sounds) and become more confident in reading and writing these.

As we learn new common words, spelling will continue to be an important focus for us to ensure we can develop our independent writing skills.

We are working our way through the Bug Club texts, appropriate to our stage of learning. Please continue to login to these as required for our homework tasks. If there is any issue with logging on, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

During this term, we will focus on our word attack skills using our phonics knowledge and we will be developing our understanding of texts by answering literal questions. We will also be deepening our prediction skills by using the title, blurb and illustrations to justify our responses.

Primary 1

This term we will be continuing to practise our letter formation and pencil control skills to ensure we can write the letters we have been learning.

Now that we know some of the sounds the letters of the alphabet make, we will be “blending” these together to make words. These words will help us with our reading and writing tasks.

In writing, we will continue to describe people and objects, orally and pictorially focusing on colour, shape and size.

In reading we will be predicting what a text is about using the title, front cover and blurb. We will also be sequencing parts of the story in the correct order to check our understanding.

 

Numeracy

Counting will always be a focus in P1/2, ensuring we can count on and back from any number to give us the fluidity needed for mental addition and subtraction.

Primary 2

Our main focus this term will be addition within 10 and 20. Some children will be exploring the number stories (facts) to 20 including the tricky skill of “bridging” 10!

Within addition we will think about the mental strategies we use to answer calculations including counting on, doubles and near doubles.

Primary 1

Now that we have explored the numbers to 10 fully and have looked at “more” and “less”, we will be focusing on the concept of addition. We will begin by combining two quantities and understanding that when you do this, the quantity gets bigger. This will lead us on to learning our number stories, where we learn the different ways to “make” our numbers to 10. These number stories (or facts) are the building blocks to which all the other number processes are built upon, so we will spend a lot of time on these, ensuring they are well embedded before moving on.

Writing numbers can be tricky, so number formation will also remain a focus.

As a class we will also be exploring the properties of 2D and 3D shape, identifying the different types of shapes and describing them in relation to their number of faces, edges, corners etc.

We will also begin to look at the many aspects of “Time”. We already start each morning by looking at the days of the week and finding the date on our calendar, but we will also be learning the sequence of the months and their corresponding seasons. We will start to look at telling the time (on the hour and half past) using digital and analogue clocks as the topic progresses.

 

 

Health & Well-Being

We continue on with our PATHS programme by reflecting on the emotions we have been exploring and learning of ways to manage these. Our favourite PATHS puppet, Twiggle, will be helping us with this as he shows us how to do “Turtle”, giving us a strategy to calm ourselves when things get a bit too much.

Friendships continue to be a general focus and we will also be considering the importance of our mental health and who we can ask for help.

In PE we will begin our first of two blocks of gymnastics. The main focus for this block will be to develop our skills in travelling, jumping and rolling. During outdoor PE, the focus will be football, developing passing and receiving skills.

In preparation for the social event of the year (the Mount Carmel Christmas Party!!) the children will also be learning social dancing.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO TAKE EARRINGS OUT FOR GYM DAYS ON MONDAYS AND THURSDAYS.

 

RE

We have been learning about the importance of the bible in RE and have already read the story of “Creation”. We will continue to thank God for giving us a world of natural beauty and think about what we can do to help look after it.

Throughout November our theme will be remembrance. We will learn  what it means to be a saint, before exploring the lives of St Andrew and St Francis of Assisi.

As December arrives, we will celebrate advent together, preparing for the birth of Jesus by showing love and kindness to those around us as much as we possibly can. We will be exploring the story of the nativity through songs, role play and craft activities.

 

Inter-disciplinary Learning (Topic)

Our topic for the term ahead is Forces and Electricity. We will learn what a force is before exploring “push” and “pull”. Magnetic force will also be introduced and we will be experimenting with magnets and magnetic materials.

To develop our understanding of electricity, we will consider the items we use which need a power source to work. We will identify those which use a battery or mains electricity and will have the chance to construct a simple circuit.

We will consider the ways in which we can conserve energy and make power last longer.

Expressive Arts

Our art, music and drama work this term will be centred around the Christmas Nativity.

Thank you for your continued support.

Mrs Duff