P2 combined science and outdoor learning this afternoon. We are learning about different types of materials and how their properties make them suitable for different things, for example, glass is good for windows because it is see through and plastic makes good bath toys because it is waterproof.

Today we looked outside for natural materials that we thought would make a good paintbrush. We tied things we collected around a stick and tried out our paintbrushes! We remembered what to do if things went wrong, and sometimes we had to change our design and start again. After we had painted a picture we reflected on why our brush was successful. We used words like ‘fuzzy’ and ‘moves easily’.

We’ve made a good start with our Wild Challenge in P2/1. We’re regularly spotting chaffinches, great tits and blackbirds among many others on our bird table and in the playground.

On Tuesday afternoon we learned about what birds and other animals need – Shelter, Water, Air and Food (SWAF). We talked about where the birds could find each of these things and then made our own fat balls and kebabs for the children to take home for the birds where they live.

We had great fun with the fat balls in particular – squidgy, slimy and absolutely disgusting were just some of the words used to the describe the texture!

Also this week in literacy we’ve been doing recount writing, reading and writing lots of rhymes and have been practising spelling some tricky words. We’re also doing lots of reading with the grown ups in the classroom and to others in our group.

In numeracy we’re continuing with our subtraction, linking subtraction and addition facts and sequencing numbers to 100. We’ve also been doing some problem solving, working on our communication skills and working together as a team.

This week ended with a riddle challenge from Mrs Wilkinson. Many children solved these riddles, can you try them at home?

What goes up and down but never moves?

I am tall when I am young but short when I am old. What am I?

You can only put this type of coat on when it is wet.

Answers will be posted next week!

Everyone planted some flower seeds this week and decorated the pot. Keep them watered and in sunlight! We talked about what the seeds looked like and what they need to grow.

A group challenge was set – arrange the flowers in height order while working as a team. We discussed team work, good listening and talking and keeping everyone involved. It was an opportunity to think of different strategies for solving problems and how to change strategy if it doesn’t work.

The highlight of this week has been World Book Day on Thursday. The bell rang at 10 o’clock and everyone in school stopped to read. We have been reading books all week including some silly stories from The Stinky Cheese Man including Chicken Licken, the Princess and the Bowling Ball and Little Red Running Shorts. We then spent some time talking about our favourite stories.

After break we did some descriptive writing about the Stinky Cheese Man (an alternative of the Gingerbread Man story). In the afternoon we read another version of the Princess and the Pea and drew some fantastic pictures using oil pastels. We then painted them using watercolours before adding a little glitter for the crown. We learned lots about using these different materials, including how the pastels resist the paint.

At breaktime we did a book trail around the school, looking for characters from some well known picturebooks. We had lots of fun and found all the clues.

This week the children helped to write the blog. Here are some of their highlights of the week:

‘The book trail was exciting and everybody loved it!’ Isabella

‘I liked reading The Princess and the Pea’ Kyle

‘I liked reading The Stinky Cheese Man’ Leah

‘I loved subtracting’ Rowan

‘I liked painting’ Finlay B

‘I enjoyed reading A Child of Books’ Finlay D

We started our week by going our the months of the year because it was a new month. We talked about the four seasons and when each of our birthdays were. In maths we learned about duration in time, and counted how long something took if we know when it starts and finishes. We are practising subtraction from numbers up to 20 using number lines or counters.  In the playground we worked in pairs to make a chalk clock with stick hands to practise telling the time. We wrote a recount of ‘The bird and the cat’ and are remembering to write our opinion too.
Thursday was World Book Day and we listened to the teachers read ‘It’s a Book’ on screen. We found picture book clues in the playground and started to make our own book. In health and well-being we learned that we have similarities and differences but are all unique. We made prints of our fingerprints to show that we are unique.

We have been learning to tell the time on analogue and digital clocks and today we learned about hours before and after. We made our own clocks to take home so that we can practise telling the time.

Our story corner has been turned into a bookshop and today some children made a food shop.

It’s great to be back together in the classroom and see everybody again. We’ve had a lovely but tiring week.

We’ve been getting used to being back in the classroom and remembering our routines.  We’ve been talking lots about good listening skills and have been doing lots of activities to encourage us to problem solve and work together.

In literacy this week we’ve been looking at spelling patterns and continuing with our rhyme work – writing some real and nonsense words. We’re focusing on using our sounds to help us with our spelling and also that there some irregular words that we need to try and remember.

We’ve also been revisiting some of our double sounds.  We looked at the ‘sh’ sound, reading Julia Donaldson’s Sharing a Shell and used our plasticine to make our own friends sharing a shell. We’ve also been reading and writing lots of ‘ar’ words, focusing on a shark theme. We read lots of shark stories, learned lots of shark facts and even have a shark in our classroom! We  started an underwater shark scene and did some great black pen shark pictures which we labelled to help with our descriptive writing. We’ve also been doing lots of reading and practising key words.

In numeracy we’re continuing with our work on subtraction as well as looking at numbers to 100.  We’re spending a lot of time discussing the language of numeracy and the different ways of wording things, for example how ‘one less than’,  ‘the number before’ and ‘subtract one’ all mean the same thing! This gets trickier when working with bigger numbers.

This morning Mrs Collins told us about the RSPB Wild Challenge which we’re taking part in for our outdoor learning. This coincided with us being very kindly donated a bird table by local trademan Mr Lee Darker. We’re setting up bird hides in the classroom so we can see which birds we can spot – we’ve already spied a curious chaffinch!

We really enjoyed our first week back and are feeling tired out today! It has been great to play together again and we have worked hard on our learning. We have practised spelling common words and rhymes, read books, told the time, counted and subtracted.

Our story corner has been turned into a book shop where we have money to buy books, name tags and price tags. In science we talked about the different types of materials that things are made from and what makes them suitable materials. We even learned about a fibre glass bridge!

Our recount writing was about the story ‘Rosie Revere, engineer’ and we gave her great words of encouragement about not giving up so that she could share her talents and achieve her goal! We are also writing the days and months as we write the date each day.

Hello

It was great to welcome the children back into school today and they were very happy to see each other.
We were busy with rhyming ‘ad’ words from the story ’Bad day, good day’, reading books and spelling tricky words.
In maths we played number bond bingo, counted patterns within 100 and made subtraction stories from 13.
We talked about our goals in health and wellbeing and we drew and coloured an owl using pastels.
Everyone remembered our hygiene routines and why they are important.

Mrs Lloyd

Hello P2

Here is the final chapter of ‘The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’, chapter 7, ‘Dark is Beautiful. We hope you enjoy it. Perhaps you can think about the novel when you have listened to it all. Talk to an adult about

• Your favourite chapter
• How would describe Plop?
• Have you been afraid of something but aren’t any more?

If you were the author how would you write another chapter? You can use these sheets to plan and write an extra chapter if you wish.

Mrs Lloyd and Mrs McGilp