All posts by Mrs McGilp

The school garden

Hello Primary 2!

We were very pleased over the summer to see all of the seeds growing that we sowed in Primary 1.

Earlier this week we harvested the courgettes and passed them to Mrs Clyde in the kitchen. Mrs Clyde and her team cooked them for us today and we ate them with the chicken tikka at lunchtime. They were delicious!

Mrs McGilp and Mrs Collins

The Kingsland Festival

We’re having a fantastic week in P1 and P2/1 celebrating the Kingsland Festival.

On Monday morning we put up bunting outside and made some bunting for classrooms. We then all worked together to create a giant piece of bubble artwork with bubbles floating from one page to another. In the afternoon we watched our films and had an ice lolly treat!

Yesterday we did a scavenger hunt in the morning. We had to see how many different things we could fit in our little boxes – we all did a great job helping each other!

In the afternoon we played some parachute games and had a picnic in the playground. We finished our wonderful afternoon with some bubbles.

It has been a lovely end to the term – thank you for all of your support and to the children for being such fantastic learners in a tricky year.

Hedgehog Rescue

We had an exciting start to the week this morning.

We were signing with Mrs Ryalls when a hedgehog ran past the classrooms! It then ran to the garden before running back. It was quite confused and zigzagging across the playground.

Mrs McGilp opened the door to check where it was and very nearly stood on it! It had stopped outside the P2/1 classroom door. Mrs Collins scooped it into a box and Mr Collins collected it and contacted the SSPCA.

We had regular updates and later found out the hedgehog is expecting hoglets. Mr Collins released it back to a safer spot in the school boundaries where it can hopefully have its hoglets in peace.

We did some fantastic drawing and recount writing about the hedgehog.


Data handling in P2/1

We’ve had another busy week. We had Mrs Thomson on Monday and we learned the ‘ng’ sound as in sing, ring and finger.

On Tuesday we had great fun at Sports Day. We then wrote about this and drew some lovely pictures on Wednesday.

Also this week we’ve started looking at data handling, learning what a pictogram is and creating our own class pictograms on our favourite flavours of ice creams and favourite pets. Today we looked at making tally marks to collect our data, finding out our favourite thing to do at school. Numeracy was most popular, followed by PE and lunch!

This week we’ve also started doing some junk modelling which we will continue next week. We’ve had robots, ramps for cars and tunnels for a guinea pig!

In our art this week we stayed on the ice cream theme and made a collage of our own favourite flavour, painting the background a summer shade then taking our time to cut out and glue lots of little squares. We finished off with a choice of sprinkles.

We were also very excited this morning to see our tigers on the wall outside our classroom. Thank you Mrs Ryalls for the great display!

P1 Sports

We had great fun at our sports day today.

We were running, hurdling, playing basketball, zigzagging around poles and collecting bean bags from hoops!

We all had a great time. Thank you to Mrs Fletcher for organising this for us and our Active Schools Coordinator Paul Murray for helping too. We had great fun!

Summer scenes in P2/1

We’ve had another busy week. On Monday we learned the ‘oi’ sound as in coin, foil and oink! We did a great job cutting out a snail’s coil and have been enjoying the Oi Dog , Oi Cat and Oi Frog stories.

To mark the start of June and the warmer weather this morning we worked together at our tables to make summer scenes using plasticine. We took turns to share our ideas, negotiated a theme  – from an ocean to a garden to a desert island – and then everyone contributed a plasticine model. 

The children’s highlights this week have been:

  • Reading Oi Puppies
  • Making the plasticine models
  • Reading
  • PE
  • Lunch!

Our week in P2/1

We’ve had a lovely week in Primary 2/1.

We started the week learning the signs for the characters in the Gruffalo with Mrs Ryalls. We then watched the story and learned lots more signs including ‘terrible!’

One of our highlights this week has been taking our plants home. We were astonished to see how much they had grown over the weekend! On Wednesday we wrote instructions about how to look after these at home – they can now be planted in the ground or in a bigger pot. We have been learning how plants need water, sunlight and the right temperature.

Our sound this week was ‘er’ and we have enjoyed reading the Tiger who came to Tea and making our own Rosseau inspired tigers. We painted the tigers using black paint, cut them out and then added tissue paper leaves.

We’ve also being doing lots of reading this week – by ourselves, in our groups and to a grown up. We have also been sharing books with children in different reading groups.

Walk to School Week

We’ve had lots of fun this week learning about the benefits of walking for Walk to School week. We’ve been enjoying the videos and powerpoints from the JRSOs introducing a different superhero each day – we’ve had Super Strong, Super Smart, Super Smiley, Super Safe and Super Sustainable.

On Wednesday we worked together at our tables to draw a map of Peebles and discussed our different routes to school. We talked about safe places to cross and all of the lovely things we see on our walks to school.

At the end of the week we had great fun tinkering with the beebots. On Thursday we learned how to program them to go through or around obstacles and this morning we put them on our map and instructed them to go for a drive around Peebles!

This week we’ve also been planting, learning the ‘ue’ sound and writing about the rabbit in the school playground. In numeracy we’re continuing our work on subtraction and linking addition and subtraction facts. The children’s highlights include:

  • Writing about the rabbit in the garden
  • Playing with the beebots
  • Planting pumpkins in the garden
  • Making statues (for ‘ue’)
  • Pressing the buttons on the beebots
  • Drawing the statues
  • Sharing and taking turns with the beebots

Sunflowers in P2/1

This week in P2/1 we’ve been learning about sunflowers – we planted our own, drew very detailed black pen pictures and wrote a descriptive piece about their life cycle. We also did a sunflower collage in art that we’ve put up in the corridor.

This morning we planted some lettuce in the school garden and are keeping a close eye on the radish that we’ve already planted. Our mangetout seeds have germinated in the windows and the runner beans will shortly be coming home for the children to continue growing there.

This week we’ve also learned the ‘ie’ sound, as in tie, pie and fries.  In numeracy we’re coming to the end of our work on money, this week focusing on subtraction. We’re continuing our problem solving, this week using our communication skills to decide how to sort shapes.

In health and wellbeing we’ve been talking a lot about how things are constantly changing and while some change is expected, like moving house, some isn’t, like the coronavirus. We used the seasons as a starting point and then in circle time thought about what else is changing – we realised how much we are all changing – from height to hair to wobbly teeth to our intelligence!

Planting runner beans and radishes

We’ve had a busy week of planting this week. On Tuesday we planted runner beans in pots and this morning we planted radish in the school garden.

We’ve also enjoyed learning the ‘ou’ sound this week and had lots of fun making a mouse in a house.

Some of our  highlights this week include:

  • Making mice – Arthur
  • Planting – Amber
  • Making a house for a mouse – Finlay D
  • I liked learning the ‘ou’ sound – Brooke
  • Planting with Mrs Thomson – Daniel