I can respond to the work of artists and designers by discussing my thoughts and feelings. I can give and accept constructive comment on my own and others’ work. EXA 1-07a

I can create and present work using the visual elements of line, shape, form, colour, tone, pattern and texture. EXA 1-03a

We have been studying an artist called L.S. Lowry. 

We can recall some facts about him:

“He draws matchstick men” – Archie

“Lowry became an artist because he missed the train and when he looked at all the buildings he thought he would start to be an artist” – Joel

“The people look like stick men” – Lily D

“He liked to draw pictures of buildings” – Jessica

“He liked to draw factories” – Ivy

“He drew mills” – Olivia

“His pictures are quite dull” – Sydney

“He drew things in Manchester” – Christopher

We looked at lots of examples of his paintings and were able to give responses to these, discussing our thoughts and feelings. 

“This picture makes me feel happy. I like the background because it looks misty.” – Ivy

“this picture makes me feel shocked. I like the colour on the buildings. I don’t like that it doesn’t have much detail. ” – Ava

“I like the buildings because of the colours” – Lyle

“This picture makes me feel excited. I like the buildings because they look realistic” – Archie

“I like the detail in the buildings. I don’t like the people because they don’t have a nose or mouth” – Iona

We discussed Lowry’s use of line, colour and shape.

We noticed that he used rectangles and triangles and lots of straight lines. We spoke about how most of his colours are dull and he uses lots of black, white, grey and brown.

Inspired by one of Lowry’s paintings, we used LINE and SHAPE to draw factories, mills and chimneys.

We then painted our buildings inspired by the types of colours Lowry used.

We chose a partner and took it in turns to give positive feedback to them about their work. 

We then drew round our buildings in black pen and added our own little matchstick people.

Didn’t we do a fantastic job!?

We have had a very busy start to 2017 and have all been working super hard!

We have been learning how to total coins and also how to select coins for an amount.

Our class shop

We came in to find our classroom had a new area – a supermarket! We were allowed to choose items we wanted to buy and then had to select the correct coins for the price.

We took turns to fill our baskets and waited in line to get to the check out.

Toyshop bingo

We took turns to uncover a money card. We had to add up the coins on the card and try to find a toy with the matching price on our bingo board.

Add the coins

We were able to choose any 3 coins we wanted and try to add them up. We tried to challenge ourselves to have £ and p.

Make the amount

Here we had to make the amount at the top of our board by selecting the correct coins.

Next steps

Next we will learn to choose the least amount of coins to show an amount and we are even going to learn to calculate change!

“We were learning about pence and pounds” – Nathan

“Paper money is called notes and you get ten pounds, fifty pound, twenty and five pounds” – Lily D

“We were trying to sort out the coins” – Archie

“We had to write down brown coins, round ones, silver ones and the ones with pointy bits” – Ava

“We were rubbing the coins under the paper with the same colour as the coins. ” – Iona

“We had to press the number that the coin is” – Jessica.

“When we were at the board game you had to press the £1 if there was a picture of a £1, you could make it faster and it made a noise if you won” – Christopher.

“We were learning magic e, it makes a say A and it makes i say I.” – Jessica

“Magic e makes o turn to O and e turns to E.” – Ryan

“Sometimes you can hear the e but sometimes you can’t” – Christopher

“The letters that change are vowels and the magic e makes them long” – Lily R

“We were doing stations about magic e like play-doh, bingo, flour and sand and magic spinners.” – Iona

“We were making words with the play-doh” – Sydney

“You had to put the magic want on the word and say it with magic e like cod but it turns into code” – Christopher

“We were doing a game a bingo and I was being the master and Ryan won the game!” – Archie

“We were making up words with magic e” – Jessica

“When we were playing we were writing words like cube and useless” – Lily D

“Magic e goes at the end of the word” – Austin

We had a great time at our Christmas party. We played lots of games and even had a visit from a very special visitor. We sang jingle bells and Santa came! Santa gave us all a present and some of us told him some jokes.

We went back to class for a snack and opened our presents. 

Buddy Wiggles Glang Glang, our Elf, has been upto mischief this week. Each morning  he has made us smile and laugh with his funny antics.

Monday

On Monday morning we arrived to find Buddy hanging on the ‘e’ on the washing line.

We were a little bit sad as we didn’t think that Buddy had brought our fabulous elf pictures back from Santa, however Buddy had tricked us! Cole opened his tray and there was a letter from Santa with all of our pictures! We were so excited that Santa wrote to us. He loved our pictures and said they looked just like Buddy.

Tuesday

This morning we weren’t sure where Buddy was. We found him in our role play area with Eddy the teddy. He had dressed up and they were playing doctors.

Wednesday

On Wednesday Buddy ate sweets from our advent calendar! We couldn’t believe it!

Thursday

On Thursday Buddy was playing in our art area and had painted a picture of himself.

Lily R decided to give her elf picture to Buddy. The next day Lily found Buddy’s picture in her tray! Buddy gave Lily R a gift in return – she was delighted! He even wrote a little note but Lily said he had messy handwriting , not like us in P2a.

Friday

Buddy was very cheeky and put his own name up as star of the week. He even went and hid in the prize box!

Writing

Instead of our own news, this week we wrote news about Buddy. Miss McCabe made us a book so we can keep a diary.

Here are some examples of our brilliant writing.

By Lyle

By Iona

By Ava

By Christopher

By Sydney

 By Ryan

On the 1st of December we arrived at school to find our classroom decorated. An elf had snuck in over night and had a very special letter from Santa. We voted on the name Buddy. Liam though Wiggles  would be a good middle name then Lily R suggested he should have a surname. We decided to call him Buddy Wiggles Gling Gling!

If we are good his magic will happen at night and we will come into school to find him. Please keep reading our blog to see what he gets up to!

“The day he came I was very excited because I had an elf in my house called Evie and I only though it was the people’s houses” – Ava

“The first day Buddy was there and I was really excited!” – Jessica

“The first day of December and there was an elf in our tricky word hat, we decided to call him Buddy” – Iona

“Buddy is very nice and I think he will visit again in the future, i think he is kind and I think I’ll visit the north pole one day” – Lily R

We also have an advent calendar and we learned about advent.

“I am getting sweets out the advent calendar” – Sydney

On the 2nd of December we arrived to find Buddy in the library. He had made friends with Eddy the Teddy and they were enjoying one of our chapter books together.

During Art on Friday we  created elf pictures. We have put them in an envelop and asked Buddy to take them to The North Pole to show Santa. We have asked for him to bring them back because we are so proud of them!

” We watched a video and copied it, my elf is brilliant!” – Cole

“I liked everyone’s because they tried very hard” – Christopher

Liam and Tony have been learning a new sound. Their sound is ‘th’. You have to stick your tongue our like a cheeky clown to help you say it.

They have been learning to read and write new words with this sound in lots of different ways.

” me and Tony are writing THs”

“

“I wrote bath in the flour”

” You roll the dice and you read th words. I rolled a 6 then a 5.”

They have also been learning tricky words. These are words like ‘said’ and ‘want’ that we can’t sound out. Here they are playing SPLAT which is their favourite game.

We invited our parents and carers to come in to our classroom so we could tell them all about Book Week and how they can help us at home.

“It was about Book Week and we got a book bag” – Jessica

JUST RIGHT BOOKS

We have been learning all about books and how to pick one that is JUST RIGHT!

“We are learning to PICK a JUST RIGHT book and when we got our book bags we got everything we could do that was exciting!” – Archie

“We were learning the 5 finger rule to help us choose a just right book” – Iona and Lily R

We have a new wall display in our classroom showing off our PICK reviews for the books we chose.  We even drew our own portraits in art.

BOOK BAGS

We received a book bag and told all of the visitors different ideas for helping us play and learn at home. you can find ideas here:

http://www.readwritecount.scot/ 

http://www.readwritecount.scot/activity-bags/ 

We watched an Author’s Live video and heard from the author about one of the books in our book bag.

We watched a clip of how to draw one of the characters and the illustrator showed us what to do! We are very proud of the characters we drew

Open Afternoon 

We were so pleased to have all of the adults visit our classroom! We were very proud when we read the comments left in our guest book!

“My dad really liked the pictures and I played with my little brother” – Olivia

“Was lovely to see P2a so enthusiastic about books!” -Ava’s mum

“Lovely to share the children’s learning with them. A super, bright classroom that is a great learning environment”” – Joel’s Mum

“It looks like they are working hard and enjoying it too!” – Sydney and Cole’s Gran

Thank you all so much for coming. We hope you love reading with us as much as we do. Please continue to watch out for our blog posts. 

Some of us have been learning about PLACE VALUE in maths. We know that the value of a number is how much it is worth.  We know that the VALUE of a number depends on where it is PLACED.

“Units are the number at the right hand side and tens are at the left” – Iona

We have played lots of games and used ICT to help us learn.

“62, you would need to get 6 tens and 2 units” – Christopher

“If you had 99 it has 9 tens and 9 units” – Olivia

“We have learned about putting tens and units together to make another number – Archie

“I learned how to add units and tens together “ – Ava

We were able to use materials to help us show different amounts.

“The small things are units” – Cole

“If you had 49 cubes you would have 4 tens and 9 units” – Lily R

“76 you would need 7 tens and 6 units – Jole

“100 you have 10 tens and 0 units” – Ivy