Please find curriculum information for Primary 2 for Term 4.
We will be enjoying the sunny outdoor weather in Term 4, please consider sunscreen in your child’s bag and a sun hat if you have one.
Author: Mrs Sjoberg
Outdoor Learning – Our Local Beach
Our term 4 topic is “Sea and Seashore.” P2’s 3 key questions are:
- What living things do we find at the seashore?
- Where in sea do different creatures live?
- Who keeps us safe at the seashore?
We started by remembering our road safety rules that we learned when we were the JRSO’s for the school in Term 2 as part of pupil leadership. We lead the walk to the beach safely. Today we were learning what we find on the seashore at the stoney beach, we were particularly interested in different shapes, patterns, sizes of shells and stones. We were trying to find Grotti Buckies but we did not have any luck today. Some of us were aware of litter on the beach and began to discuss with our peers and our teachers the impact of litter in the sea.
Pupil Voice:
“This is a nice shell, it has a straight pattern”
“This rock has a smiley face on it”
“Rubbish is not good for the beach, I have picked up plastic, I will put it in the bin”
“This is called a rock pool, my dad and me found a crab in one of these once”.
Meta-skills: When we got back to class we washed our sea treasures and will have them in our play provision. We discussed what meta-skills we were using. Children felt they were using their– Collaborating, Focusing, Leading, Curiosity skills.
Puddle Splashing
With the endless rain today pupils were really interested in where it comes from. We had some impromptu learning about the water cycle and rain this afternoon where pupils asked very insightful questions. After watching the forecast for the next few days then the class asked to get their wet suits and wellies on and I wasn’t going to say no.
Symmetry
We’ve just finished our symmetry learning. We can recognise symmetrical patterns, create our own and we learnt about symmetrical animals such as butterflies.
We can recognise 1 line of symmetry in shapes and know how to test if a shape is symmetrical or not.
Pupil Voice:
‘Symmetry means the same on both sides’
’well… if I fold the shape and it isn’t the same then I know it is not symmetrical’
IDL – Fairytales
Our topic for term 2 has been fairytales. We wanted to learn about castles and dragons, we shared stories, folktales and learnt facts about where and why castles were built. We’ve enjoyed a range of art and design activities for IDL – we focus on the process of creating art work so all our paintings and drawings are unique and allow us to be creative in the design process.
In literacy we’ve been learning about ‘adjectives’ – we thought of adjectives to describe our dragons and added adjectives to our literacy working wall to help us with our writing.
‘castles were built on the hill to stop the bad guys getting there quickly’
’castles were built with stones because they don’t burn and are strong!’
We linked our World Book Day door display to our IDL too by creating a door that takes you into Fairytale land.
Outdoor Learning – Numeracy
We have been learning how to collect information/data using tally charts and how to display our data in bar graphs and pictograms.
P2 suggested our next survey be to gather data about the colour of cars coming down the Sound Brae. P2 really enjoyed this experience:
Pupil Voice:
“Silver was the most popular car, I have 34 tallies”
”Blue cars were the least, I only saw 4”
”I forgot to use a diagonal line for 5 so I have taken one off the end and put it diagonally… I have 9 red cars in total”.
P2 shared their data with each other, discussing the most frequent, least, any differences and some were counting in 5s to total their information. We added our data to bar graphs, using multiples of 2 as our number topic with Ms Mitchell is counting on 2s we were applying our skills from her maths into data handling.
We’re a moving on to chance and uncertainty as our next numeracy topic with Mrs Sjoberg.
Block Play
Look at our fantastic block play models from the year so far. The pupils block play has been progressing all term. Pupils are now really motivated to build at height, to make patterns with loose parts and to create stories around their buildings.
So many meta-skills are observed in block play in P2A, communicating, focusing, collaborating, initiative, critical thinking to name a few. Pupils are beginning to link their play to the meta-skills themselves here are some pupil quote from today:
‘We made a castle, with a pool and a rainbow bridge for diving in. Me and my friends were being focusing Fergus a – we couldn’t figure out how to balance the bridge then we moved some blocks and it worked!’
Data Handling: Nocturnal Animals
Our topic learning has been about nocturnal animals, today we sorted data about nocturnal animals into tally charts. We could remember this from P1 and we’re using the words ‘tally, total, heading, data, information’ – we were using our communicating cate meta-skill asking each other questions to gather data, giving instructions to support each other. We then used our tally chart data and put it into a bar graph which was new learning. We were able to answer questions about each others bar graph. Next, we will create our own surveys to ask our peers.
Lego Marble Runs – STEM
P2A were using their communication and critical thinking meta-skills to plan and build marble runs with a partner. They evolved quickly and included: mazes, dead ends, slides, flumes, tunnels, bridges.
We have been focusing on communicating as a group. Learning to use eye contact, turn take and share ideas. Our weekly STEM challenges are great for practising these skills.
Pupil Voice: ‘Look this is a false end so then you have to go back and through the tunnel to get to the end.’
‘We were using our communication Cate meta-skill by sharing our ideas with each other and he used eye contact when speaking to me!’
Outdoor Learning – Positional Language
Primary 2 we’re using their knowledge of positional language words (on, under, next to, to the left) in the wildlife area. We took turns suggesting positional language and had to show it with our bodies.
We were using our focusing meta-skills to focus our attention to show positional language using the natural resources.
Pupil voice ‘Look I am on a tree!’ ‘I am on the right of the wall.’ ‘I am under the branch.’
‘look I am on the puddle but only for like a second and then I am in it!’
Our next steps are to use our positional language knowledge to instruct others where to go by writing directions.
