Month: November 2020

Hello!

Another busy week in Class 2 with lots of fun activities!

In Maths this week, we have continued learning about fractions, consolidating our understanding of halves and quarters. We are getting quite confident at finding one half and one quarter of a shape or a number and are now developing confidence in writing and understanding fraction notation for a half (1/2) and a quarter (1/4). We designed our own pizzas with different fractions of toppings.

Subhan – It was fun making the pizza fraction toppings

Bilal – I am feeling good about fractions

In Literacy this week, we have continued to work on using interesting adjectives to create character descriptions. We wrote or recorded a description of our Highland cow characters.

Kareem – the cow had lots of hair!

Ivo – the cow goes moo!

In Phonics we have been learning spelling patterns for words that end in a -y making an /ee/ sound. We noticed that all the words in our list had two syllables and the words with a short vowel sound had a double consonant in the middle.

IDL – Scotland and its Heritage

On Monday, we learned about the Scottish artist Steven Brown (https://www.stevenbrownart.co.uk/) and used his rainbow Highland cow paintings to inspire our own artwork.

Kit – I like his art

Hector – it is colourful!

We created our  McCoo pictures  using oil pastels and gave our Highland cows a name.

Bilal – that’s me with a McCoo face

We also learned a socially-distanced version of the famous Scottish country dance, the Gay Gordons.  Sadly, the video was too big to upload.

On Wednesday, we listened and sang along to some traditional Scottish children’s songs in Music and had lots of fun in our Outdoor Learning session with Miss Cohen. We learned  about Scotland’s history, flora and cuisine. We especially liked making and eating Cranachan – yum!

Subhan – we are looking for clues. The clues took us to  the sensory garden and the eco garden  – all over the playground!

Kit – Miss Cohen told us about animals that live in Scotland

Khadija – we ate raspberries

Today we made and decorated shortbread biscuits…

…and we had two very special visitors to say farewell to Ross, who will sadly be leaving us next week. 😢

Digital Literacy – we have been learning how to use the app Book Creator and have started work on an eBook all about ourselves. Hector made a fabulous example which he agreed to share with everyone…

A new book

His creation also earned him our Gold Star of the week award. Here he is getting his award…

Have a lovely weekend!

Goodbye for now.

Mrs Chapman

PS Unfortunately, we will have a few less pictures from now on, as we are running out of storage space on the Blog!

Hello !

It has been wonderful to finally meet all of the children in Class 2 this week. It has been a busy week with lots of exciting learning. Miss Cohen, Mrs Crosbie, Mrs Bennett  and the children have been very helpful in showing me routines in Class 2.

In Maths this week, we were beginning to learn about fractions, especially recognising one half and one quarter of a number and shapes.

Kit – it was an interesting game

Subhan – the pizza game was fun!

In Literacy this week, we have been looking at Character, and we made some Chatterpix videos about familiar characters from our reading books and class novel;

IMG_7359

IMG_7358

Ivo – they have hats on!

In Phonics this week, we were learning the ‘ar’ sound. We played snakes and ladders with ‘ar’ words, and some card Snap/pairing games.

IDL – Scotland and its heritage.

As we are looking at traditions around the world, we thought we would start exploring St Andrew’s Day and Scottish heritage before the end of November. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🦄

We discussed tartans – and how certain tartans could be traced back to particular clans and surnames in Scotland. We made our own tartans, through weaving paper together to create a “sett”. We also went outside on Thursday to create our own tartans with oil pastels and watercolours. It was nice to finally enjoy some sunshine!☀️❄️

Here’s a link you could use to see how Scotland was divided into clans and their associated tartans;

https://www.scottishfinegifts.com/tartan-clan-finder.irs

Ross – I’m doing my kilt in this picture.

Khadija – we used paint to make the tartan   

Kit – I’m putting a tie on. 

Bilal – This is tartan!

Ivo – I am dressed like a man

Kit – It was freezing cold outside!  

When the rain stopped, some of us went outdoors and spent time on the trikes and scooters on the MUGA.🚴🏼‍♂️🛴

Kareem – I am riding a bike.

We also got a new resource delivered to the school…a slackline! Ross and Hector trialled it out this week, but we all can’t wait to have a turn ASAP!🤟🏽😍

Our School focus is Book Week Scotland. Here are some funny photos below which Kit and Hector entered into the ‘Reading in a unfamiliar/funny place’ competition! I think they must have been bats in a past life…🦇

We used our I-pads to read and listen to Ebooks using the suggested websites in the previous blog post. We then completed book reviews using the mark-up function on our photo editor, and air-dropped them to Miss Cohen. What a tech savvy class you are!📲💻

Subhan – I watched  my book on the couch

Rate your week;

Khadija: 11/10

Ross: 10/10

Kit: 8/10

Ivo: 4/10

Subhan: 10/12

Bilal: 11/11

More fun to follow next week – over and out!💜🤩

Mrs Chapman & Miss Cohen

Hi all,

Our focus this week in school is Book Week Scotland. 📚🤩

I have saved some age and stage appropriate Ebooks to your child’s Bug Club account. To login, please visit:

https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/login?c=0&l=0

, and use your child’s name and surname – all lowercase – as the Username, along with the instructions below.

Here’s an example of Khadija’s account details and the correct format to use;

Username: khadijaishaque

Password: MissCohen123

School code: rcxw

The password and the school code are the same for all members of Class 2! 

On Tuesday afternoon – we enjoyed reading electronic books, and then giving them a star rating on an online book review (using the Mark-up feature on our Ipads).

I thought I’d share with you some online sites where you can access free Ebooks suited to your reading level;

Book Trust; https://www.booktrust.org.uk/

Story Nory; https://www.storynory.com/

In PATHS, we were discussing overcoming difficulties, and what strategies we could use in school if we found something particularly tricky (so tricky – it felt like we were pushing ourselves up a steep mountain). 🏔

We went litter-picking and collected a LOT of litter that had blown in to the school grounds or had been dropped by litter loiterers over the weekend. #keepourschoolbeautiful!

Subhan – We used the litter pickers to pick up the litter! It’s important to look after our community.

Bilal – We looked after our local area.

In Maths, we were practicing doubling and halving single and two-digit numbers. We used lots of concrete materials like cubes, finger-painted spots, Numicon and Tens and Units dienes. Remember, doubling or halving is like a repeated addition or a repeated subtraction sum.

Bilal – It was awesome. I love to use numicon.

Subhan – Everybody should use numicon, it will make Maths easier for you.

Ivo: I loved this!

I

Literacy

During Hammer the Grammar time, we were learning about singular and plural nouns, and how if we have more than one of something (plural), we might add s, es, ies to the noun’s ending. There were quite a lot of rules…and we will definitely revisit as it was quite confusing hehe!

We read the story of Rama and Sita, and sequenced the plot using keywords and story-mapping.  We answered Reading Comprehension questions on The story of Dipal’s Diwali.

Khadija and Kareem were learning the D sound, and making great CVC words like den, dig, dad etc.

On Friday afternoons, Duncan does some karate with us. It was great fun!

Hector: It was good!

This week, we have been exploring the Hindu festival of Diwali. Here are some interesting facts that we have learned this week;

• the Story of Rita and Sama
• We made Rangoli patterns with rice and dye colouring. 🍚
• We made diva lamps using paper plates and decorating them with paint, glitter and tissue paper.🪔
• We learned about Goddess Lakshmi, and how Indians and Hindus give her presents and blessings at the temple.🕌🛕

In the spirit of exloring Indian culture, during Dance time, Miss Cohen taught us the Indian Bharatanytam routine.🩰🎭

IMG_7198

Subhan: We used food colouring and put our hands in the bowl!

Subhan: I loved when me and Miss Cohen took a photo together.

We made Diwali ‘Coconut Ice Squares’ by …

-mixing coconut, icing sugar and condensed milk! We rolled it into a rectangle and put in in the fridge to set. We think it will be super tasty!

Today will mark Miss McCafferty’s last day working with Class 2 🥰💜😪Thankfully, she will still be around the school for us to see her and continue our positive relationship!

Times we enjoyed and things we love about Miss McCafferty;

Subhan: Miss McCafferty is so nice.

Khadija: Miss McCafferty does nice work and has soft hair.

Bilal: I like it when Miss McCafferty helps me learn. I will miss her so so much and I’m sad.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Miss Cohen

Hi everyone 😁

Mrs Chapman, the class’ new teacher will be starting next Monday 16th November.

We are doing a visual countdown in class, as well as learning lots of lovely new facts and asking questions about her interests. We have her photo on display, and a little Class Passport Mrs Chapman has written about herself;

My name is Mrs Chapman. I am 43 years old. I am originally from Aberdeen and moved to Glasgow in July to be closer to friends and my brother and his family (especially my nephew Keir in the picture). My husband is Australian and we have been living in Sydney for the past 12 years before moving back to Scotland at the start of last year. I like spending time with friends and family and going on big walks in the countryside. Nice smells and stroking things that feel soft and smooth (like nice material or a cat) makes me feel relaxed. While noisy and busy places sometimes make me feel stressed. When I feel stressed, I take deep breaths or count in my head to calm down. I like to use technology to help make jobs quicker and easier and I like to help children to use technology to help with this too, but I am not so keen on playing computer games. However, I do love playing board games and other more active games. I have been a teacher for 18 years. I chose to become a teacher because I wanted to help children and make learning fun.

Here is a video Mrs Chapman has made that we played today in Class 2;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nv8Ypu2YwwjpWwJBBHK2BlyQMW__1M_s/view

I hope you enjoyed learning new things about Mrs Chapman 🥰 Our first impressions were that she sounded really friendly and personable.

Have a good week! 😌

Miss Cohen

Maths

-Finding the next number in a sequence on a hundred square or thousand square, counting forwards and backwards in sequences of 2 and 4.

Bilal Sarwar: I found it easy to count forward in 2s and 4s! It was a bit tricky counting backwards.

Kit: I enjoyed this activity. It was really good!

2D Shape

Bilal: We went outside and looked for 2D shapes in the playground!

Khadija: We found squares and triangles and even pentagons and hexagons! Pentagons have 5 sides!

Ivo: That’s an oval that I found!

IDL; Water and its symbolism in different cultures and religions:

Inspired by the South-African ‘Gumboot dance’, we took our choreographed routine to the streets and puddles for extra sensory fun!

Kit: It was nice and wet!

Khadija: We wore our wellies and counted 1, 2, 3, 4! Splash!

Ivo: It’s the water cycle!

Subhan: We learned about condensation and evaporation.

Literacy

Mark-making and fine motor control;

Learning the ‘m’ sound; Khadija and Kareem did some FANTASTIC blending reading CVC words like man, men, miss and him.

Grammar focus: Adding -ly (adverb) openers.

Playing Adverbs Charades – more videos posted on Microsoft Teams!

Here was our Guided Reading text, where we read the important instructions in red and yellow font about ‘How to keep safe on Bonfire Night’, and made this into a Health and Safety video (also posted on Teams).

Window Wanderland

School focus; Inter-faith week

Music

Choosing Time

Rate your week: 😁🤓

Ross: 8/10

Subhan 10/10

Khadija: 10/10

Hector: 8/10

Kareem: 9/10

Ivo: 10/10

Bilal: 10/10

Kayden: 10/10

Kit: 7/10