This afternoon the children were set a challenge to melt a cup of snow the quickest.  We had to keep the test fair so we had to use the same size of cups with the same amount of snow and start at the same time.  The children came up with lots of ideas to melt the snow the quickest : put it on a radiator, cover with a hat, blow on it, hold cup in your warm hands, etc.  No-one expected the winner to be stirring it!

Our teacher told us about a hotel made of ice where she had gone on holiday.  We went outside for a short time and made snowbricks and built a snow wall.  We reached 5 rows high before it fell over.

Primary 2 showed that they were up to the challenge by thinking about what they know about money and receiving change- we thought of lots of important ideas.

Next came the challenge of finding out how much money Mrs Keith had left us in her box. We worked in groups to sort the coins into values, but we found out that there was pretend money there too so we sorted that from the real money.

Next we had to work out how much we had of every coin! This was good for our careful counting of 1p, counting in 2s and 10s. When all the coin values were counted we had to add them all together. The pupils added the units, then watched Mrs Macleod exchange to the 10 and 100 columns- all sums that we will be able to do before too long.

Mrs Keith was pleased that we could tell her how much money she had and it was a lovely surprise for her that the pretend money had been sorted out too!

Everyone had a go at buying an item and working out the change- we are all getting the hang of this and are getting quicker at choosing the correct coins for the change.

Have a lovely weekend and practise shopping if you can.

Today we were working with Mrs Keith . We were showing her that we have a positive, ‘I can’ attitude towards our number work. We were thinking about getting change when we buy something and how we don’t need to get any change when we have the exact money. Mrs Keith left us with a challenge which we are going to think about tomorrow.

Our catching skills are getting really good! We practised throwing and catching in team games and everyone was able to explain why they did not catch the beanbag – sometimes it was the thrower’s fault!

We all showed good sportsmanship in our warming up games too!

There was a lot of creativity in the Learning Zone today. Ask your child what they did today to develop their skills.

Today we have been thinking about what we learned to do last term and what we are going to learn this term.

We we are excited about the new things we will be learning.

In in the Learning Zone we have been demonstrating great co-operation in our different groups and are really enjoying the Space theme.

This afternoon we looked at some pop art portraits by Andy Warhol.  We liked the bright colourful blocks of colour he used.  We started a pop art portrait of Robert Burns.  Watch this space to see the final results soon!

This term p2 will be discovering different ways to organise information and how information can be used by different people.  Today we went on an information hunt to see some examples in our school.  We found labels, tables, lists, files, registers, signs, menus and timetables.  We took notes with our partners as we moved around the school.  When we got back to class we recorded what we had found in our jotters.  We organised our information as a mind map.

Homework from 11/1/16 until 22/1/16

Language

Phonemes

We are continuing to make up the phoneme families – the sounds are the same, but the spellings are different as in ee, ea and e-e sounding like E.

Next week we will be learning the phoneme igh which sounds like I.

Homework ideas:

• Create short rhymes using words from the E sound family: Experiment with words and sounds.

A girl called Eve can see the sea.

• Write phoneme words in different colours and different shapes.
• Look for the phoneme in your reading books and any other texts – comics, recipes, instructions etc. and print in the environment; signs in shops, street signs, etc.
• Try these games to reinforce spelling/phoneme patterns

http://www.spellzone.com/games/

Common words:

• Keep practising previous words and add in your new ones;

you     they     all       are     my     her

how     last     many     miss   more   now

and add in your new ones;

well     what     when   where   which   too

never   other   some     take     them   thing

two     three   four     five   six     number

• Ask someone to test you. How many can you read confidently?
• This is a great site for recognising sight and spelling words.

http://www.ictgames.com/wordreader.html

Reading

• A new reading book will usually be given each Friday. The days for reading are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so please make sure that pupils have their reading books in their bags so that they can complete reading activities.
• Look at the main events in your story. How does the story begin? What is the problem or the main event? How does the story end?
• Use your own words to tell someone what your story is about.

  Number

In class we have been building up our number stories.

• Practise building the number stories by taking turns with a partner.
• http://www.abc123kidz.com/fun_stuff.html
• http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum20.html

Continue to practise adding and taking away within 20

• Try these mental maths games:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/maths/addition_and_subtraction/play/

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/pyramid.html

Interdisciplinary Learning

We are going to be learning about traditional Scottish food and drink.

Ask an adult to help you make a list of Scottish food and drink e.g. at New Year adults might drink whisky and people eat shortbread.

Have a look at these interesting websites to give you some ideas –

http://www.visitscotland.com/about/food-drink/traditional

http://www.taste-of-scotland.com/scottish_food_products.html

If you eat any Scottish foods, bring in the packaging to add to our class display.

Remember your New Year’s Resolutions and keep up the good work!

Primary 2 has had a very interesting day. In the morning we were listening to one another read and thinking about our reading strategies. There was some gre at fluency and expression used in our reading today.

After break we had great fun at the Microfitness event. Even Mrs Macleod had a go through the assault course and luckily she did not fall on anyone!

In the afternoon we were learning about some of the important organs in our body. We were not sure about the interactive torso at first but soon everyone was really interested and I think we might have some future doctors and nurses in the class!

It was lovely to see everyone again after the holidays and all the children  had the chance to share experiences from Christmas and how good Santa had been to them.

We thought about the New Year and learnt about making changes by making Resolutions. The children have thought about and written their own New Year’s Resolutions. You should expect some tidy bedrooms, brushed teeth and less sweets being eaten if these Resolutions are going to be met! Ask your child what they said they would do for 2016.

Tomorrow we have an exciting Microfitness event taking place. Everyone must have their sand/ indoor shoes with them in order for them to use the equipment, so please remember to pop them into your school bag along with your new reading book.

We have been lucky enough to be offered a free day by Microfitness and this will take place in school tomorrow. Please make sure that your child has a pair of indoor shoes and their gym kit with them to enable them to take part. (P7 and P3/4 can wear their gym kit to school and can change into their uniforms after their session as theirs will start promptly at 9am!)
All school children will be given a 45 minute session on the Mobile Military Fitness equipment and the house winners from terms 1 and 2, ASH,  will recieve an extra session as their reward!
Hopefully this will be a fun experience for all of the children (and staff who are very welcome to join in!) Check back here tomorrow and on our twitter page for photos from the day.