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!

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, identified which type of trees were changing colour first and even saw 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 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 this week we’ve done lots of writing. We drew a picture of a pet (either ours or someone else’s), labelled the picture and then used it as a plan to do a longer piece of writing. We’re also doing a great job with our reading. We read to the teacher, to ourselves and to our reading partners.

In numeracy this week we’ve enjoyed doing some data handling. We asked the class whether they preferred dogs or cats, pizza or chips and apples or bananas and discussed how to present this information. We then did our own mini surveys and shared our results.

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

This week we revised the ee and ea sounds and used them to write sentences such as ‘The sea is deep.’ Our descriptive writing was about a favourite toy. It’s great to learn more about the children through their writing.

Miss Muir taught us Signalong signs for ‘wash, here, there, up, down, boy and girl’.

We were busy creating an art piece too. Part one was to draw a large lion and decorate it with fine details. Next, we mixed warm colours to paint a sunset. Lastly we cut out black silhouettes and placed them all together on the background.

Play provides a rich learning experience. Through our play we

discover

create

cooperate

we try, fail and try a different way

we imagine

we explain

we decide

we practice

and we make sense of things

We show what we know and what we think.

Following the Skipper assembly earlier this term we have been learning different ways to think positively. We regularly talk about what we are grateful for.

We identified adults we trust who we can share worries with.

Everyone made and received an ‘appreciation card’ to remind them about what makes them special. It was great to watch the children’s faces as they received their card from whoever made it.

This week p2 revised the ‘ai’ and ‘ay’ sounds and collected words contains them. In dictation we wrote sentences including ‘May I play, Ayla?’

We have been building and interpreting bar chart, and played a game in pairs rolling a die to chart the numbers rolled.

Miss Muir taught us some new Signalong signs; bubbles, brush, doll, cat, duck, shoes and socks.

We are continuing to count odd and even numbers. The odd sock keeps appearing in different places in the classroom!

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 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 stickmen 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 literacy this week we’ve done some fantastic writing about Kingsland Primary School as well as some writing ‘All about me’.  We’re also revisiting some of the phonics that are frequently mixed up, starting with b and d.

In numeracy we’ve been finishing our block on numbers to 20 and subtraction, looking at words like difference, less than and more than.

We’ve also 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 the different trees in our stories!

In phonics this week we’ve learned the final Jolly Phonics sound ‘ar’. We’re doing a great job with our writing, this week writing a descriptive piece all about Floppy the dog. In numeracy we’re continuing with subtraction, numbers to 30 and ensuring correct number formation too.

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 had a robot theme!

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 p2 learned the sound ‘er’ and noticed it in many words, including our classmate River. We wrote a description of ‘A Special Person’ which was heartwarming to read. We are continuing to order numbers to 20 and are also counting in odd and even numbers. In science we are describing what living things do and non living things can’t do. Miss Muir came to teach us some signalong signs. Ask us to show you signs for ‘hello, goodbye, please, thank you, good morning and mummy’. We wrote a book report about our class novel, ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’ and said what we thought of it.