What a quick week!

This week in P2/1 we’ve been doing lots of reading. We’re enjoying reading in our groups and talking about the characters in the stories. On Monday we looked at -in words and came up with a huge number of rhyming words, including longer words like robin and dolphin. In writing this week we looked at recount writing and wrote about the time a robin came into our classroom. We looked at the verbs (doing words) we would need to build our sentences.

We’re practising correct letter formation and ensuring our letters are a similar size and all sitting on the line. In our handwriting lessons we start by working on our core, then our shoulders, then a ‘crossing the midline’ activity and finally work with playdough to help make our fingers strong. Then we practise our letter formation. This week we’ve looked at r and n.

In numeracy we’re continuing with our addition to twenty. We’ve been adding three numbers and also used our subtraction and problem solving skills with missing number addition. We also set up a Kingsland Shop to help our adding and subtracting, working out how many items we could buy with our money.

On Wednesday we watched an assembly with Mrs Hope, who told us all about St Andrew’s day and read a lovely poem. There was also a quiz and we found out about some of the other patron saints in the UK.

We’re continuing to talk about filling our buckets. In circle time we drew little pictures and talked about what had filled our buckets this week.

We’ve had a great week doing lots of reading in P2/1 looking at the books for the Bookbug Picturebook Prize.

On Monday we started reading My First Book of Birds. We talked about our favourite birds and birds we have seen in our gardens and on walks. Later in the week we went for a bird watching walk around the school grounds. We learned how we have to be still and very quiet when we’re looking for birds. Around the school we saw a robin and crows and on the hill we could see some birds in the distance in the trees at Hay Lodge Park and seagulls over the parish church.

On Wednesday we read Brenda is a Sheep. In the story Brenda pretends she is a sheep but secretly plans to eat her sheep friends with mint sauce! We all enjoyed the story and were not fooled by Brenda’s antics. We did black pen pictures of Brenda, taking our time on the detail of her jumper, and wrote about the story, focusing on the who and what and using finger spaces and full stops in our writing.

On Thursday we read This is a Dog! We made our own dog masks and while they were drying we did some drama, acting out the different animals in the story and thinking how the different animals might eat, drink and play.

This morning we voted for our favourite picturebook, watch here for the winner…

Also this week we’ve been doing some more rhyming. We’re reading Scat, Cat! and are looking at the rhyme patterns. We’re making up real and nonsense words and writing sentences with lots of rhymes in them.

We’re doing lots of reading, with our partners and with Mrs McGilp and Mrs Ward. Finlay and Rowan have been reading a book about magic tricks and today showed us all a magic trick with a spoon!

On Tuesday afternoons Mrs Thomson is teaching us all about time. This week we made some fantastic clocks to take home. Also in numeracy this week we’ve been looking at how to show numbers to 100, odd and even numbers and are trying to use strategies to add up in our head (for example. for 7+8 you could do a double 7 and add 1).

This week we continued to use rhyme to help us read and spell. P2 are great at suggesting rhyming words, including ‘ma’am’!

We looked at the shapes in tangrams and made pictures of our own.

Our story this week was about ‘playing’, based on our story ‘Who wants to play with a troll?’ Our writing is always improving in terms of sentences, spelling, ideas and handwriting. And more detail is being added to our drawings.

Here we are during play time, where we create, discover and imagine!

We enjoy our weekly reading books, reading them alone, in pairs and in groups. There is always plenty to talk about in the pictures!

Each week we use our rhyming words in dictation. Our sentences are beautifully written and correctly spelled!

It’s been a busy few days in P2/1. We’ve been learning about Remembrance and why we all wear poppies. Yesterday we did a great job making our own poppies to hang in our windows. Today we watched a short video about the effect the First World War had on animals and it inspired our own pictures and writing.  At 11am we sat quietly to remember those who have lost their lives fighting in the various conflicts and those serving in the Armed Forces today. We all enjoyed listening to Mr Johnstone and Archie play the pipes.

Also this week we revisited the pictures we took six weeks ago of the trees around the school field. We knew the leaves had changed colour and were falling but we were quite amazed at the difference (photos by Daniel, Noah and Amber). We also did an autumnal scavenger hunt, looking for something autumnal that makes a noise and evidence of wildlife around the playground.

Enjoy the long weekend and we’ll see you on Monday!

Today P2 observed a two minute silence in remembrance of those who died in wars. They were very respectful and dignified, and shared stories about people they know who have been affected by war. Well done, P2. They made poppy pictures this week to display in windows at home. Firstly, they painted a grass field in the style of Monet, an Impressionist, using green, white and yellow paints. Then they cut a small, medium and large red tissue paper circle and circled them around a finger to create a 3D effect when glueing them on the grass. Lastly, they glued a black circle in the middle of the poppy petals.

Our story this week was about something that was caught. We have been reading about The Mungle Flap which is a hen that was caught.

We are continuing to think about filling each other’s buckets by being kind, and about how this helps us to feel good too.

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. 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 this week we’ve been doing lots of addition, looking at the different ways to make 11, 12 and 13. We’ve been doing this inside and out, using cubes, stones, conkers and imaginary sheep! We’re also still practising our numbers and making sure they’re all facing the correct way.

We’ve been concentrating on –et rhymes this week, for example, vet, met, wet etc. We wrote a list of real and nonsense words and a silly story with lots of –et words.

In our writing we’re concentrating on imaginative writing. This week we wrote three part stories with an introduction, a problem and a solution. Our title was ‘The Broken Toy’. We’re trying really hard with our capital letters and full stops.

This week we marked Bonfire Night by creating a fireworks sky using oil pastels on black paper. Then we put our ideas onto a large black sheet for the nursery display. We talked about how to keep safe on Bonfire Night.

We read a rhyming story The Mungle Flap and learned how to read and spell words that rhyme with hen and cap.

In numeracy we are learning number bonds to 20 and have been solving problems around these facts.
We made more 3D shapes using mini marshmallows and cocktail sticks following last weeks’ witches hats.

Have a great weekend!