This week we started looking more closely at the trees around the school. We learned the 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 double sound ‘er’ in flower, driver and (for the Pokémon obsessed) Charmander! We’re doing a lot of sentence building – looking at what a sentence needs and adding description. The children are reading well in class, thank you for practising the key words at home. In numeracy this week we’re continuing with subtraction and have been counting in twos and talking about odd and even numbers.

We’ve been chatting a lot about being worried recently. We made ‘helping thinking hats’ to help us think about whether our thoughts are true and whether our thoughts are helpful. In circle time we also talked about what a good friend is and what a good friend does.

This week in P2/1 we read the story of The Leaf Man and created our own leaf characters. While we were outside collecting leaves we looked at the different types of trees around the school and their leaves. We then gave our characters names, drew black pen pictures, labelled our characters and created our own stories focusing on the WHO, WHAT and WHERE.

We’re also continuing to learn Signalong with Mrs Ryalls – this week revising greetings and family members.

In phonics this week we learned the double sound ‘ue’ and designed our own statues – there seemed to be a Pokemon theme!

In numeracy we’re continuing with subtraction and numbers to 30. We’ve also been making our own number lines outside and jumping up and down them to show addition and subtraction.

In P2/1 we have been amazed by the results of our mouldy bread experiment. This afternoon we compared the bread we handled with  our pre-washed hands to the bread we handled with our freshly washed hands.

In all groups there is significantly more mould on the bread we handled with our dirty hands. We talked about why this had happened and the children learned that ‘germs are lots of little tiny beasties’ (Brooke) and that ‘bacteria can grow and spread’ (Rowan), as well as how important handwashing is!

Another week has flown!

This week we’ve continued with our double phonics, learning oi as in oil, coin, foil and coil.  We’ve also made a great start with our independent writing, looking at building descriptive sentences from a labelled picture of the Stickman.

In numeracy we’re continuing to focus on numbers to 20, for some revisiting formation as well as well as some addition and subtraction. We’ve been taking our learning outside, today going on a number hunt!

Also for our Stickman topic, we’ve been looking at the landscape in the book and using lots of different materials to create our own landscape scene. We also looked at the view from outside the classroom and talked about how the colours and detail fade the further away they are. We then painted our background, gradually going from dark to light, and drew and cut out trees – one that is here, one that is near and one that is far – and added leaves and branches with oil pastels. The next plan is to add stick frames.

In other news, in our bread experiment we are excited to see mould growing on the bread we touched with our dirty hands! We’ll continue to watch and share more next week. We’ve also had a robin visiting the table outside the classroom, and on Wednesday he decided to come into the classroom while the children were at lunch!

Following on from Mrs Wilson’s Skipper assembly encouraging us to ‘look on the bright side’, we’ve been sharing our experiences of being at home the last few months and talking about different ways of seeing things. In circle time this week we talked about some of the things that we’re grateful for.

It’s been another busy week in Primary 2/1. We are continuing our Stickman topic – we finished our stick children, made a story map of all the places Stickman visited and wrote postcards from his adventures. We then developed our sequencing skills to give our friends instructions to get the stickman safely home to the family tree, avoiding all the obstacles!

As well as The Stickman we’ve been reading lots of stories, including It’s Not a Stick. We then worked together to be imaginative with our sticks, which are not sticks but a boat, a fire, noughts and crosses, a snowflake, a house for a mouse, a ladder, a gate, Peebles and many more!

We’re also continuing with phonics, looking at the double sound ‘ou’ in mouse, house, cloud and bounce. In numeracy we’re consolidating our numbers to 20 and have been focusing on language such as before, after and in between.

We’re also having lots of chats about germs and the importance of handwashing. We’ve discussed how germs are spread and how they get into our bodies. We also carried out an experiment to see which bread goes mouldy first – the one we touched with clean hands and the one we touched with dirty hands. Watch this space!

It has been lovely to welcome the new P2s back to school. We have had such a fun and busy week.

We have been doing lots of learning inside and outside the classroom. For our Stick Man topic we’ve been looking at lots of stories, collecting sticks and leaves, making model stick men and acting out the story. We have also been drawing detailed Stick Man pictures with black pens.

We have also been working on our numbers to 20, and have worked really well in our groups to make number lines, and use our addition skills with the Cuisenaire rods.

We’ve also had lots of chats about how we’re feeling being back in school, and using plasticine to make our faces to show how we’re feeling.

The P2s have been fantastic role models for the new P1s, well done boys!