What a fantastic term, Term 2 has been!! All the pupils in P1b have really settled into school life and school routines and this has really shown in the fantastic progress they’ve made this term! They have had many compliments over the term from other teachers who have commented on their excellent manners and listening skills. I am so proud of them all!!

In reading, we have been learning more sounds and tricky words and are now able to blend our sounds together to read words.  We were introduced to reading books at the start of this term and have been looking at the features of fiction books such as author, illustrator, blurb, front cover, back cover, character and setting. Every Monday we have been using our prediction skills to make a sensible guess about what our reading book might be about.  We have been answering simple who/what/where/why/when questions orally about our reading books and completing comprehension tasks such as sequencing the events in our books, cutting and sticking a sentence from our book into the correct order and looking at true/false statements.

In writing, every Monday morning for soft start we ‘have a go’ writing about what we did at the weekend.  The children have lots of opportunities to ‘have a go’ with writing during the week using their knowledge of sounds and tricky words and the word wall and sound mats on their desks to support them.  We also have weekly writing lessons every Thursday morning.  The children have been working on counting how many words are in a sentence, using capital letters at the start, finger spaces in between each word and a full stop at the end.  Our handwriting lessons are linked to our phonic lessons and the children have been self-assessing their work by circling the best letter on each row.

In talking and listening, the children have been working on good listening skills such as making eye contact, sitting still and thinking about their body language.  They are now very good at taking turns to speak!  The children have been encouraged to speak slowly, clearly, use the correct grammar and pronounce words and sounds correctly.  They are now able to follow two/three-part instructions and answer questions more confidently.

In numeracy, the children have been counting up to 100 and backwards from 50. And they have been skip counting in 2s, 5s and 10s.They have been exploring numbers to 12 as well as recognising the number names from 0-12.  In mental maths, they have been looking at pictures of tens frames, dice, dominoes and dot patterns and discussing different ways to represent the numbers (I can see 7, 4 and 3 make 7, 2 and 5 make 7), they are able to tell me one more/one less than a shown number and can identify missing numbers on a number line. They have been using ‘Number talks’ to explore number bonds and create number stories from a picture. This is to begin to prepare them for tackling word problems later. They have also been learning how to add and subtract within 10 using counters, cubes, tens frames and using their fingers to help.

In maths, the children have been working on time, information handling, measure and we have had an introduction to money. In Time we looked at months of the year, days of the week, seasons and daily schedules. We used both analogue and digital clocks to explore “o’ clock” and we explored time durations of 10, 30 and 60 seconds. In Information Handling we practised recording numbers to 10 using tally marks and we gathered a variety of information and represented that information on a pictograph. This included a visit to Paisley Road West to count vehicles! The children were also able to answer specific questions based on the information in front of them. In measure we explored estimating and measuring in non-standard units and we used language such as shorter, longer, taller, less and more. We just made a start on our money topic, this will be continued in Term 3 when we will be able to do some fundraising during Lent to donate to a charity of the children’s choosing. For the two weeks in the run up to Christmas we explored symmetry through play and Christmas activities! The children absolutely loved this and were creating some very complicated symmetrical shapes!

In RE, the children started the term off learning all about Mary.  They know who Mary is, why she is important and that there are different names for Mary.  They understand the importance of prayer – how we pray, why we pray & when we pray.  We have been discussing the importance of family and how we all belong to God’s family.  We also looked at the importance of friends, how to be a good friend and that Jesus had lots of friends called disciples. During the month of November, we kept loved ones who are in heaven in our prayers and prayed ‘Eternal Rest’ for them every afternoon. During the season of Advent, the children helped prepare the altar with a purple cloth, a crib and every day a different child got to open our Advent calendar and offer up a special intention for the whole class to pray for. The children loved listening to the story of the Nativity and were able to explain what happened and who was present at the birth of Jesus. And of course, we cannot forget their angelic singing at our Nativity Show!

Our topic this term was a Geography topic and our learning was based around what it is like to live in Scotland in terms of travel, weather and the features of our local environment. We went for a walk around our local area and we were able to spot local businesses, different types of houses, things in our local area that are there to help the environment such as bins and recycling points and afterwards we drew a map which included lots of what we saw! We carried out a transport survey of traffic on Paisley Road West and we completed a weather diary showing the type of weather we get at this time of year in Scotland and how the weather affects us and the types of activities that we do.

In Health and Wellbeing, the children have been taking part in weekly meditation activities and using Jigsaw Jack to help us discuss similarities and differences between everyone in our class. They know that it’s good to be different and differences should be celebrated as life would be boring if we were all the same!  They know who they can talk to if they are hurt or upset and they know how to be a good friend and why our friends are special.

It has been a brilliant term, I have really enjoyed it! It has been particularly lovely to be around young children at this time of year. I’d like to wish all my pupils and families a very happy and restful Christmas and I’ll look forward to seeing see you all in the New Year!

Merry Christmas!!