Welcome back to our blog!

It has been a little while since our last update. Everyone has settled back into school and started off our last term in P2 so well!

I am so happy we are all together again and ready to learn.

 

Literacy

We started off the week with some news writing about the holidays- it sounds like everyone had a brilliant time!

In Literacy this week we have been revising the alternate ‘oa’ sounds!

We learned about literal and inferential questions. Everyone was able to read these and find information in the text to answer the questions!

We were even sorting the questions in pairs.

We have started a new class novel called ‘The Boy Who Grew Dragons.’

Everyone has a class reading buddy now! Every day after lunch we will read together for 10 minutes and give our buddies some feedback on their reading.

 

Numeracy

We have been tying up our ‘Data Handling’ topic this week.

Every morning we have used our knowledge of tally marks to answer the morning poll and have answered questions about the results.

We have also explored odd and even numbers within 100 and sorted ourselves into odd and even groups!

 

Planting

We have had a very exciting time  learning about plants!

We learned about the different parts of flowers by dissecting some daffodils! Then we made booklets about the parts of plants in pairs.

We watched an exciting video to find out what they need to survive and grow.

 

We planted our own broad beans and will be keeping an eye on them over the next few weeks.

 

 

In Science, we found out that plants can breathe! We conducted an experiment with leaves in water to see their oxygen turn into bubbles.

 

Finally, we took part in an experiment with celery and food colouring  to see how water and nutrients travel up the stem and veins of the plant.

Outdoors!

It has been so lovely and sunny this week for some outdoor PE, reading and play!

 

 

Numeracy

‘We have been counting in tens and we play Buzz.’- Caleb

‘We have been learning about numbers up to 100.’- Harry

‘I was counting up in tens and fives and I made 41 with Numicon.’- Aaron

‘We were figuring out the missing numbers on the 100 square and writing the answers down on the whiteboard.’- Ibrahim

 

Literacy

‘We were playing noughts and crosses. We had to take turns and read the ie words.’- Magnus and Archie

‘ I was reading my book called City Cat.’- Cameron

Growth Mindset

This week we have been focusing on the power of mistakes!

We read ‘Beautiful Oops’ by Barney Saltzberg and created our own artwork from our ‘Oops’ mistakes!

‘I did a rip in the paper and then I made it green to make a crocodile.’- Myles

‘I folder the top of the paper and made it a penguin.’- Matthew

‘If we make mistakes we learn from them and then we know what to do the next time.’- Eva

 

Woodland

‘I was pretending to be a scary spy.’- Willow

‘We were praying because we are Romans.’- Ben

‘I’m being a king in my tree throne.’- Miller

 

Science Week

For Science week we did an investigation about floating and sinking!

‘We were making ships with tinfoil and I was writing down the names of the ships, the predictions and how much 1p coins the ships could hold before it sank.’- Josh

 

‘Ours only took 1 coin and then it sank. It was quite hard to make but we covered up the holes and built sides so the water didn’t get through.’- Mia

‘Ours could hold 121 coins before it sank.’- Ethan

 

Play

‘We were making a McDonald’s because we wanted to eat food! We made it for everybody else too.’- Oliver

‘You can get ice cream. It was £20.’- Rory

 

 

 

It has been another brilliant week in P2b full of fun, laughter and learning!

This week we have continued to focus on our Wellbeing and have learned lots more about Growth Mindset!

We explored being stuck in The Dip and thought of strategies to keep going and try our best with tricky work.

‘When you get unconcentrated and distracted you are in The Dip.’- Cameron

‘To get out of The Dip you can take a break to do something you like and try again. You should never give up even if you feel like it.’ -Zack

We have been practising meditation every afternoon, focusing on our breathing and concentration. Each morning we can try some yoga challenge cards too!

‘Meditation is great fun because it was calm.’ -Rory

We have also been practising mindfulness and choosing activities which make us feel relaxed and happy. On Monday we went outside for some fresh air and could choose between the activity trail, drawing, reading or chalk art!

‘I drew Crookfur Primary School! It made me feel happy.’ – Harry

 

We have some new plants to look after in class too! This week it was Caleb and Sofia’s turn to water them. We are going to be learning about plants and planting some exciting things in the next few weeks!

‘We have Aloe Vera plants they are good for sunburn. They are like hand gel inside.’ – Miller

‘I need to water them once a week. You spray the leafs.’ -Caleb

 

Woodland

This week in Woodland we had broomsticks, balancing and some army bases!
Lots of people challenged themselves to make clocks from hula hoops and natural materials.

‘I was riding on a Firebolt like Harry Potter!’- Zack

   

Numeracy

We have started to explore number to 100 this week!

 

‘We have learned to make number flowers. You look at the number in the middle and then the one at the top is 10 less and the bottom is 10 more.’ -Rory

We have also been revising time through games and speedy skills!

 

Literacy

On Thursday it was World Book Day! We have started reading a new class novel- Esio Trot!

We watched an Author’s Live event to find out how to become an Author or Illustrator and shared out favourite  books with our friends.

‘We took our favourite books in to read and made a book review.’-Harry

‘ I was making a bookmark. Mine was a cat.’- Amelia

We have revised our alternate diagraph sounds again this week. We had an ee/ea hunt around the classroom to find pictures and spell the words!

In writing we have been focusing on punctuation, sounding out words and checking our writing makes sense.

‘We were playing a spelling game and you had to drag the sounds into the slug slime.’- Josh

Play

‘I was making a cat out of clay because I really like cats. I liked when I had to warm the clay up.’ – Willow

 

We are so lucky to be back in school and I was greeted with such happy smiley faces on Monday! We even got to enjoy some sunshine- it is definitely starting to feel like Spring!

I am so impressed with how quickly everyone had settled back into school,  it has been a very busy and exciting week. Please see the photos below for a flavour of all of our learning activities.

 

 

 

Our final 2 weeks of 2020 in P2b have been filled with creativity and excitement. It has been lovely to see the boys and girls having so much fun together! Please check out our P2 Christmas poetry recital on Google Classrooms  if you have not already had the chance!

Speedy Skills

Literacy

We have explored non-fiction texts and ‘ing’ endings on words!

Everyone was fantastic at sorting fiction and non-fiction texts and using the contents and index pages to find information!

Numeracy

We have finished off our measure topic with weight! We sorted and ordered items by weight and used everyday items to estimate and measure. Finally we learned about 1kg and how heavy this was.

We have continued to revise our number bonds to 20, missing nunber calculations and addition and subtraction calculations through some exciting online games!

Team Challenges!

This week we had 2 final team challenges- to create a Snowman outdoors and to solve a design challenge- a marshmallow catapult!

Once the designs were completed we tested them out! We discussed how to make it a fair experiment, then measured the distance using metre sticks. The longest marshmallow flight was 4 metres 20 cm!!

PE

In PE we have had lots of fun practising team games and football skills in the MUGA! We played elephant football, practised passing and trapping a ball and played ‘beat the goalie!’ (A very brave Miss McCann!)

Christmas crafts and a wonderful party!

Matthew and Ben were over the moon that their outfits were matching!

I

After some fun games in the hall, we came back to class for snacks, juice and a chat. I was very proud of everyone for being excellent sports and trying their best in all games!

We have made lots of Christmas crafts this week including wooden baubles, snowman tealights and Christmas cards!

We listened to ‘Walking in the Air’ and discussed the instruments and lyrics. Everyone then used this information to draw their own interpretation of what was happening!

On Friday, we decorated biscuits to look like reindeer! They were very messy to eat.

 

Play

 

Here are some photos from the last 2 weeks!

In Literacy we have been revising common words and diagraph sounds.

Miss Geddes delivered a very exciting final capacity lesson! The boys and girls worked in groups to create their own potions.

STEM challenges

Miss McCann challenged everyone to make a Lego maze for a marble! We had to plan our design and work in teams.

Miss Geddes asked everyone to create a support which would hold a swing- this proved to be very tricky! The boys and girls tested them out with Lego figures!

Our final team challenge was a paper chain challenge! Everyone got the same amount of paper, glue sticks and time. There were lots of interesting strategies used showing excellent innovation and team work!

We then joined them together to make a chain with over 250 links and used it to decorate the classroom!

French

Miss Geddes helped us to learn about the parts of our face in French! We labelled diagrams, played a pairs game and Miss McCann played ‘Jacques a dit’ (Simon Says) with everyone!

We were very sad to say goodbye to Miss Geddes on Wednesday, she has helped everyone to learn lots! We wish her the best of luck on her next placement.

Dinosaur Solo Talks

On Friday- we wrapped up our wonderful Dinosaur topic with some solo talks titled ‘My Favourite Dinosaur.’

I would like to thank everyone for their hard work and time spent practising these solo talks.

Everyone shared their knowledge confidently and we even had some jokes, quizzes and amazing posters and props to go alongisde!

   

Everyone got the chance to peer assess a friend’s talk. We were checking for eye contact, clear and loud speech and interesting facts.

 

Finally, we decorated the classroom for the festive season with our paper chain, christmas decorations and tree! Excitement is in the air!

 

 

Literacy

For our Literacy speedy skills this week we have been revising all of our words with diagraph sounds! We found them in books, wrote them, made them and played games with them!

Some boys and girls even independently found rhyming words in books! They enjoyed writing them on the tables with our special pens.

We are still focusing on sequencing as our reading skill this week.
We have sequenced pictures, sentences, events from a video clip and even acted out a sequence!

As part of book week Scotland we have read lots of stories this week!

We enjoyed reading Charlie and Myles’ dinosaur stories.

Everyone had a great time on Friday wearing their exciting hats for the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party! Everyone looked amazing!

Numeracy

We have continued to think about capacity with Miss Geddes this week. It has been very active! The children were making estimates and measuring with household items.

We then used our knowledge of capacity to measure liquids and make icing sugar! Everyone was very excited about making empire biscuits. We had some great discussions about measuring accurately and where we would need to use this in real life.

We have continued to learn strategies to answer missing number calculations and have moved on to think about linking addition and subtraction facts!

IDL- Dinosaurs

This week we have been archaeologists in the woodlands! Everyone used tools to carefully dig up and categorise dinosaur bones, eggs and fossils!

We have been reading a novel called The Dinosaur’s Diary! Miller drew some excellent pictures from the book.

Kayla made her own version of the dinosaur from blocks!

Charlie made a dinosaur from gems too!

We then used our knowledge of food chains and what animals eat from our Under the Sea topic to sort dinosaurs into carnivores, herbivores and omnivores!

 

Everyone got a chance to measure their foot against a scale stegosaurus footprint. We watched a news clip about these being found on the Isle of Skye!

Road Safety

For Road Safety week, we watched a video about crossing the road safely and went to the cycle track to practise this! After this, everyone enjoyed playing Road Safety snakes and  ladders!

Play

There have been some very complex buildings and race tracks built this week!

Here are lots of photos from another wonderful week in P2b!

Thanks again for giving your time for our parents night appointments this week. It was a pleasure to speak to you all and share your children’s progress and learning experiences. The boys and girls were very excited to come in and tell me how well they are doing!

As it has been such a busy week, we have not managed any quotes for our photos, but I am sure your child will be happy to tell you all about what we have been up to!

Literacy

Our sounds this week were ‘ou’ and ‘ue.’ We have finished revising our diagraphs and will be moving on to tricky alternate diagraph sounds next week!

We have been adding in WOW words to our writing and extending our sentences with ‘and’ and ‘because.’

 

Miss Geddes has been helping everyone to sequence the main events in stories this week. We did this with a big book called The Big Snowball then tried it with our own reading books!

 

Numeracy

Miss Geddes has been helping us to learn about capacity this week!

We have explored containers and their capacity outside. The children worked well in pairs to match the language of capacity and colour in containers.

HWB/PE

In HWB we have continued to learn about Friendships. This week Miss Geddes gave everyone scenario cards. The children acted these out in groups and decided if the scenarios showed people being friendship builders or friendship blockers!

 

We are now finished our block of ball skills. Everyone really enjoyed passing, dribbling and shooting in Basketball this week!

 

 

Outdoor learning

This week we have spent lots of time in our P2 garden.

We have been making dens, problem solving when playing ‘the floor is lava,’ and even having exciting chats about floating and sinking with dinosaurs in a very muddy puddle!

 

IDL
We have started exploring our new Dinosaurs topic in P2b this week!

On Wednesday afternoon we explored lots of exciting play provocations and started our new class novel – The Dinosaur’s Diary!

Thank you to everyone who has brought in exciting dinosaur pictures, books and toys to share with the class. We have really enjoyed hearing about everyone’s knowledge and experiences.

Play