We were inspired by P5’s Kindness Boomerang video and came up with our own ‘chain of kindness’. When someone is kind or helpful we add a link to our paperchain. We’re hoping it will soon reach across the classroom!

We’ve had lots of fun with fireworks this week. We designed rockets and fireworks with 2D shapes. We then painted these onto our black fabric with acrylic paints for the virtual fireworks display. We were so excited to see all of the brilliant banners in the field! We learned about why we celebrate Bonfire Night, who Guy Fawkes was and why put him on the bonfire! We also had a chat about bonfire, firework and sparkler safety.

In numeracy we’ve been doing lots of addition, this week focusing on the add (+) and equals (=) signs. In class we’ve been adding frogs on logs and outside we’ve been adding whatever we could find! We’re still practising our numbers in lots of different ways  and trying to make sure they all face the correct way.

In phonics this week we’ve learned the z and v sound, making a zebra and a vase. We’re continuing to put all of our sounds together to make short words and are starting to write short sentences, practising tricky words like ‘the’.

Our black pen picture and writing this week had the title ‘Cold Hands’. We’re concentrating on getting the detail in our facial expressions and our hands, and we wrote stories about a time that we had cold hands.

We’ve had a spooky end to the week in P2/1. Yesterday we learned the w sound and made webs and read stories about witches. We painted our wands with acrylic paints and added the finishing touches this morning. We had to promise not to turn Mrs McGilp into a frog! We also finished our Halloween masks and did some fantastic cutting and sticking. We also drew some scary pictures on our whiteboards.

Also this week we learned the j sound, and are doing a great job blending all of the sounds we have learned so far. We are enjoying reading in class and are doing lots of work on our key words, thank you for practising these at home.

In outdoor learning this week we talked more about the different seasons and how this affects some animals, in particular hedgehogs. We made hedgehogs out of plasticine and then collected lots of leaves and twigs to make them more comfortable. We talked about how the hedgehogs are eating lots of food before they hibernate for winter.

We’ve had a lovely week back after the October holidays.

We all got new reading books and have been reading to Mrs McGilp and our reading partners. In phonics we learned the f  sound and made foxes and fish and searched our books for f words.  On Thursday we had lots of fun learning b and looking for b sounds – we had Brooke holding a book, a banana, some biscuits and a bag among many other things! Today we had a play outside with a bat and ball.

In numeracy we’ve been finishing our work on patterns – making patterns with cubes, numicon and Cuisenaire rods and also in our drawings. We’re continually working on number formation and the language of more and less.

On Tuesday we had a virtual Skipper assembly. Mrs Wilson spoke about the importance of being kind and Mrs Ward read us a story about ‘filling our buckets’. When we are kind to someone, or someone is kind to us, it fills our bucket. When we are sad or mean, or someone is unkind to us, this lessens our bucket. For the rest of the week we’ve looked for lots of opportunities to fill our own and others’ buckets.

This included voting for our favourite picturebook for the UKLA awards. We re-read the remaining books and did various activities. We read The Visitor about a lonely lady who lives on her own, who is cheered up when a little boy accidentally threw a paper aeroplane into her house. Like the lady whose bucket was filled, we filled our own buckets by making paper aeroplanes and flying them around the playground. We read If all the World Were about a little girls whose grandfather makes her a notebook. We then made our own notebooks and started drawing pictures of our own families. This morning we looked at Julian is a Mermaid and in circle time talked about how we are all unique. We then voted (in secret) and the winner was Aree Chung’s Mixed!

To finish our week our very own Mrs Ward shared her illustrations in an alpabet book that is being published.  We asked some interesting questions about how Mrs Ward drew the pictures and how the book was made before giving Mrs Ward a big clap!

We had a great end to a busy week making our leafy lions! In the virtual assembly this week Mrs Wilson spoke about courage, one of Kingsland’s four values, and read us a story about a lion and a mouse. We spoke about how there are some things we feel brave about and some things we feel nervous about and need to have courage.

To make our lions we went for a walk around the school grounds and collected leaves in autumnal colours. Sycamore leaves were our favourite lion shade. We mixed orange and yellow paint to find the right shade, painted paper plates and then glued on the leaves, eyes and nose.

In phonics this week we learned the l and u sounds and are doing a great job of putting all the sounds together to make short words. We’re also becoming more familiar with the Oxford Reading Tree characters and key words like ‘and’.

In numeracy we’ve been looking at the different ways to make ten, practising writing our numbers the right way and have been using the language more, less, bigger, smaller and in between.

Have a great break and see you on 19th!

We’re shadowing the UKLA book awards, which means we have the exciting role of reviewing the shortlisted books and then voting for our favourite. We’ve read all of the picturebooks and are now re-reading them and carrying out related activities.

First we looked at Mixed by Arree Chung, a colourful picturebook where blue, red and yellow stop living separately and ‘mix’. We talked about how we’re all different and this makes us interesting. Then we painted our own characters. We learned about the primary colours and then mixed them to come up with some creative shades, including fiery orange, midnight purple and evergreen green among many others. We then added black pen detail to bring our characters to life.

Today for our friendship topic we looked more closely at Lubna and Pebble. In the book Lubna gives her pebble to her friend who is sad when she has to leave. We painted pebbles with smiley faces and gave them to our friends. We said if we’re missing our friends in the October holidays we can look at our pebble, or like Lubna, we could even speak to it!

What a busy week!

We started the week by taking a walk outside to be nature detectives and look for signs of autumn. We looked at the colour of the leaves, talked about which trees were changing colour first and even spotted a squirrel jumping from tree to tree! Photos by Isabella, Amber and Macaulay.

On Tuesday we had a virtual assembly which we watched from our classroom. We found out more about the school values and looked more closely at the Kingsland badge.

In health and wellbeing we’re continuing to talk lots about being a good friend. We drew around Isabelle, coloured our person in and then labelled it with what we think a good friend does.

We’re also continuing to talk about whether different scenarios are a big deal or a little deal. We agreed that losing our pencil is a little deal, but falling off our bike and banging our head is a bigger deal!

In literacy, we’ve learned the ‘g’ and ‘o’ sounds this week, making a ‘g’ goat and an ‘o’ octopus, and are continuing to put the sounds together to blend words. We’re continuing to develop our fine motor skills with lots of cutting, threading pasta and being creative with playdough. We also told stories about a time we were scared and made plasticine faces to show our emotions.

In numeracy, this week we’ve been focusing on the number ten. We’ve been counting out 10 items and then investigating what we can make with ten straws, cubes or blocks. We made a unicorn fairy, some of our names, houses and from Brooke a bench, two side tables and a gate!

We’re also reading lots of picturebooks for our very special role – more to follow next week.

We’ve had another busy week in P2/1. In health and wellbeing we’re continuing to talk lots about being positive in uncertain times and also about being kind to each other. In circle time we made an ‘Appreciation Station’ where we said nice things about our friends. We talked about how we feel when we are kind and when people are kind to us.

We’ve used all the techniques we’ve learned the last few weeks to paint stickman for a school display. We used thick brushes for the background, a thinner brush for the stickman and a black pen for the finer details.

In phonics this week we’ve learned the sounds m and d. Primary One are doing a fantastic job using their cutting skills to cut out the letters for their craft activities. They are also getting more confident blending and building words with the sounds we know so far. In numeracy we’re continuing with numbers to ten, doing lots of formation practise and looking at different ways of showing the numbers, for example using our fingers or numicon.

We’ve had a couple of birthdays in P2/1 this week and have all enjoyed a birthday dance and making cakes and presents with playdough!

We’ve had a lovely week in P2/1. We’ve had lots of chats this week about how we all have different thoughts and can see things differently, looking at stories from different perspectives and also looking at some optical illusions – how many animals can you see in this picture?

We’ve spent more time outside looking at trees, and on Monday collected more leaves from sycamore, oak and lime trees. We then painted roots, trunks and branches and when they’d dried did some leaf printing. We talked about the different parts of the tree before labelling them. We’re also getting very good at recognising trees in the pictures of our stories!

In phonics we’ve learned the h and r sounds and are continuing to put these sounds together to build words. In numeracy we’re continuing to do lots of formation and counting out items.

We’ve had lots of fun in PE this week. We are doing running, jumping and throwing in athletics and playing games to build stamina.

We’re also enjoying playing, inside and outside the classroom. This week our play seems to have a robot theme!

Written by P2/1:

The fire alarm went off this morning. It was loud but it wasn’t scary. It was important for us to practise in case there is a real fire. It went off just as we were about to start our number lines. When the fire alarm went off we lined up with our partners and we walked down to the field. Brooke’s shoe fell off but it was okay! Everyone in the school was on the field. We listened to Mrs Wilson and she said we all did well.

This week we started looking more closely at the trees around the school. We learned two big words – deciduous and evergreen – and looked at which trees were starting to change colour and might shortly lose their leaves. We started to identify different types of trees by looking at the shape of their leaves. Our favourite leaves were from sycamore and oak trees. We also saw birch and lime trees around the school but we couldn’t find a holly tree – the children have been asked to keep an eye out when they are walking around Peebles! On Tuesday we did some bark and leaf rubbings – we were all amazed at the detail in the leaves, and also how hard we needed to press!

In phonics this week we learned the sounds for c and e and are continuing to try and blend the sounds together to make short words.  In numeracy we’re continuing to focus on formation and the language of more and less.

As part of our ongoing Skipper work, we’ve been chatting a lot about being worried. We made worried faces with our plasticine and talked about what we can do to make ourselves feel better. We also made ‘helping thinking hats’ to help us think about whether our thoughts are true and whether our thoughts are helpful.

In circle time we talked about what a good friend is and what a good friend does.