Welcome back, parents and carers to Primary 1/2’s class blog. We hope you are enjoying the Spring weather. We cannot believe we are reaching the end of our Primary 1/2 journey, but we are excited to share a few more adventures before the Summer holidays.

 

We are delighted to announce that our class trip has been booked! We will travel to the Riverside Museum for a ‘Toys from the Past’ workshop on the 11th of June. More information will follow via our ParentPortal.

As we approach the end of Primary 1/2, we have been continuing to work hard to develop our skills across the curriculum. Here’s a little insight into what we have been up to…

Numeracy P2

We have continued to work with three teachers for our Numeracy inputs. Mrs Lafferty has been teaching us about measurement and symmetry. Ms Clarke has been teaching us about maths in the real world and data handling.

With Ms Craig, we have been looking at times tables. We have learned the 2 times table and 5 times table so far. We are making great links to nature (2 arms, 2 legs; 5 fingers on each hand)! We can also see the link between the 2 times table and our previous learning in doubling and halving.

“We have been learning the 5 times table and the 2 times table.” – Parker

“We had to fill in missing parts of a number sequence. It was a good challenge.” – Amelia S

“We have used arrays. They help us see groups of numbers. You do little dots and you can count them and write a calculation.” – Jessica C

“We did halves with Ms Clarke. That’s when one bit is broken into two bits. It has to be the same on each side. We also learned about tally marks.” – Joshua

We have been doing amazing partner work and peer assessment in our Numeracy lesson. We are getting very good at Number Talks and using hand signals to join in with discussions.

“Number Talks helps us count. We work with our friends. We use hand signals. One of them means I agree.” – Lilly

We have continued to use our ‘Floor Book’. This is the big pad that we make notes on. Check out how excited we are to get a turn to write in it:

We are excited to do more Maths outside as the nicer weather is approaching.

Literacy P2

Ms Craig is so proud of our progress this year in Literacy. We are becoming more independent and trying very hard to write full sentences with our sounding out strategies. We have started to develop our unique handwriting styles. Many of us are applying what we have learned in handwriting lessons, such as joined handwriting and consistent sizing, into all of our work. Well done, P2!

In reading, we have all moved up a colour level in our reading books again! We love our reading lessons and have gotten to be so good at predicting, answering questions and making connections between stories. We have even started to discuss book themes and genres. We have continued to have Reading Champions who represent our class. They also do a great job of helping their peers. We have had lots of additional help from our P6/7 Reading Buddies. Thank you so much P6/7!

“We have moved up colours in our reading books. That means we are getting harder books and we are reading more.” – Billie

“On our reading challenge sheets we have to match different words to pictures and answer questions.” – Reuben

“I have a P7 reading buddy. We pick a place to read and we read together.” – Jessica C

In phonics and spelling, we have been learning all about ‘Magic E’. We know that ‘Magic E’ is silent and gives all of its ‘magic’ to a vowel. ‘Magic E’ makes the vowel say its capital letter name! We had great fun designing magic wands for ‘Magic E’ so we could fix broken words.

“We have learned about magic e. It makes other letters say their capital letter name.” – Cameron

“We work in partners. We read words and sound them out and the partner has to make it with their magnetic letters. Then they practise writing it.” – Lilly

In our taught writing lessons, we have been looking at imaginative writing. We have learned the story of the Little Red Hen and worked in partners to retell this story. This helped us learn about the structure of a story. We learned that good stories have a beginning (where we learn about the character and setting), a middle (where something important or exciting happens) and an end (where the important or exciting thing gets resolved). We are using what we have learned to write stories of our own! We have started writing about a time machine. We hope to turn our stories into a class book!

“We have started writing about ‘The Old, Strange Time Machine’. That is imaginative writing. We had to pick characters and setting.” – Christopher

“We have learned about nouns, verbs and adjectives. You can take pictures of nouns – like a crab. Verbs are where you do something – like *watching* TV. Adjectives tell us more about nouns – like a *cute and fluffy* owl.” – Jessica D

 

Health and Wellbeing 

In our in-class Health and Wellbeing lessons we have learned about different emotions and even created some poetry about this:

We are also beginning to look at Fair Trade and how we can help farmers around the world. We know that we need to try and look for fair trade logos when we are in the shops. This makes sure that farmers are getting paid a fair amount of money.

We have been splitting our PE timetable between using the gym hall/dining hall and the outdoor MUGA:

In indoor PE (Monday) we have started to learn to do yoga, gymnastics and kick-ball-rounders. We select a different focus each week. We are listening well to instructions and having a lot of fun!

In outdoor PE (Tuesday) we are playing parachute games. This is the best fun; we need to have good listening so that we can play lots of different games.

“We have just started gymnastics. We were doing balances and staying still.” – Jessica C

“We need to get better at our warm ups. It is good for our heart beat.” – Carmen

“We played mouse and cat with the parachute.” – Cameron

“We learned about fair trade. We get food from different countries. Some farmers don’t get paid very well. We need to look for the fair trade sticker when we buy food so we can help.” – Jaxson (P2)

We ask that all parents and carers please ensure their child is dressed appropriately for the outdoors, including a light jacket and leg coverings (e.g. trousers or leggings/tights). Thank you.

 STEM (with Mrs Lafferty)

In term 3 we have been learning about living and non-living things. We have explored food chains that are present in the sea and on land. We have also learned about the features of a plant, and every child in the class had the opportunity to plant a seed to take home and grow. Towards the end of the term, we looked at materials, and we discussed the difference between man-made and natural materials. We also looked at why certain materials have certain uses within the world.

In term 4 we will be learning about electricity. We will be exploring where electricity comes from and how we use electricity. We will also be learning how to make simple circuits that contain lights and buzzers.

Across the Curriculum

Monsieur Perroquet has been helping us learn objects in the classroom and stationery in French. We love singing songs and playing games to help us learn. We love spending time with Mrs Brock for French!

In our topic we have been learning about ‘Toys from the Past’, starting from 1900-present day. We have had so much fun with this topic and have even designed a few toys of our own! Thank you so much to all parents/carers who donated some ‘junk’ for our junk modelling. We loved turning the junk into robots!

We have been inspired by our topic to sketch our favourite toys. We will work with special  paper to create art prints in the style of Andy Warhol’s ‘pop art’! Stay tuned to X for our finished masterpieces!

“We have learned about toys from the past. We made peg dolls. They used to be wooden because they had not made plastic yet.” – Emma

“We made robots. We used tape to wrap up the junk and then we put tin foil on top.” – Jaxyn (P1)

“For our Scotland topic we made tartan sheep. I liked making it.” – Colton

“We looked at old toy cars. It was good fun!” – Amelia Mc

 

We will have our class assembly on the 31st of May at 1.20pm. We hope that you will be able to attend to see our showcase of what we have learned.

Thank you for reading our class blog and sharing our learning with us. We have loved being in Primary 1/2 and look forward to all the adventures which still await us! 🙂

Welcome back, parents and carers to Primary 1/2’s class blog, and Happy New Year. We have started 2024, and cannot believe we are half way through our year together; time flies when you’re having fun!

First of all, thank you to everyone who donated to our class hamper – the winner was very excited. We also really enjoyed our visit from Santa and Jingle the Elf. Thank you to all parents and carers who were able to attend.

We are excited to see which challenges the new year brings, and have already gotten started on some very grown up work.

Numeracy

We have been so lucky to have three teachers teaching our Numeracy and Mathematics: Ms Craig is teaching us time, Mrs Lafferty is teaching us money and Miss Clarke is teaching us fractions.

With Ms Craig, we have been looking at identifying o’clock and half past times. Some of us took it a step further and tried adding on and taking away 1 hour from a given time. We are so very clever!

“I have enjoyed reading the clock.” – Alana (P2)

“Time helps you know when you need to leave for something, like when to leave for school or gymnastics lessons.” – Reuben (P2)

“Miss Clarke has helped me with fractions. When we do fractions, we go in a big circle and some people got chocolate and then the people who didn’t get chocolate got pizza. Half the people got chocolate and half got pizza. Then we coloured in half of a shape in our jotters.” – Ebony (P2)

“Mrs Lafferty has been teaching us about money. I know about two pence and twenty pence. I even know fifty pence!” – Christopher (P2)

In Febraury, we will begin investigating multiplication and division. We will explore the relationship between doubles and the 2 times table, and we will use this to share to 2 equal groups.

We have continued to use our ‘Floor Book’. This is the big pad that we make notes on. Check out some of our pages:

We are developing our understanding in numeracy so well, we are so excited to work independently and in pairs to find our answers.

 

Literacy

We have all come on so far in our literacy journey. We can all write most common words independently, and we are developing beautiful handwriting in our jotters. We have even started to join our letters together. This will help us as we get older to become quick and neat note-takers.

“Handwriting helps my brain grow. I need to take my time to keep things neat and on the line.” – Cameron (P2)

“I like handwriting – it is fun!” – Lilly (P2)

In reading, we have all moved up a colour level in our reading books – well done, team! We have started answering simple questions about what happens in our books. We are learning how to write these answers in a full sentence so that our reader understands all the information.

“I like reading because I like reading to my friends.” – Amelia S (P2)

In phonics and spelling, we have continued to look at joined phonemes, and are now looking at different letters which make the same sound (e.g. ‘ew’ and ‘oo’). We are trying very hard to learn how to choose the correct sound when spelling a word. Some sounds go at the beginning, some sounds go in the middle and some sounds go at the end of a word. This is tricky!

“I know ‘ow’ and ‘ou’ sound the same!” – Jessica C (P2)

“We use trains on the wall in the class. Inside the trains are sounds that sound the same. ‘O’, ‘oa’ and ‘ow’ sound the same!” – Abigail (P2)

“Learning our sounds helps us learn words, too.” – Jaxson (P2)

In our taught writing lessons, we have been looking at information reports. This type of writing tells you facts about something. We are learning the difference between fact and opinion. We can’t wait to show off our writing on X when it is ready.

“Writing is fun because it helps you to write to your friends and it will help you when you get a job so that you can earn lots of money and have a nice life.” –  Reuben (P2)

 

PE

We have been splitting our PE timetable between using the gym hall and the outdoor quadrangle:

In indoor PE (Monday) we have been learning to dribble and pass a football. We are learning where we need to look and which parts of our feet to use to control the ball. We are absolutely loving this!

In outdoor PE (Tuesday) we are developing our fitness with a range of activities, and we are sometimes playing games of football to link fitness and our dribbling/passing skills.

“Football is fun because we can get our feet and kick the ball.” – Amelia McS (P1)

“I like to watch other people playing so I can learn.” – Colton (P1)

“PE is fun when we play games and when we are dribbling.” – Emma (P1)

“Football helps you make muscles when you kick the ball.” – Cameron (P2)

“PE is good for your muscles and helps your bones be strong.” – Euan (P2)

We ask that all parents and carers please ensure their child is dressed appropriately for the outdoors, including a warm jacket and leg coverings (e.g. trousers or leggings/tights). Thank you.

 

STEM

Last term during our STEM lessons we were learning about the life cycles of different animals on land and in the sea. This term we are leaning how plants grow. The children will learn the features of a plant and what a plant needs in order to grow. The children will also get the opportunity to plant some seeds so they can see this process and document how the plant grows over the coming weeks.

“The leaves die when it is winter because it is very cold.” – Billie (P2)

“Leaves grow back in spring because it gets warmer.” – Ashton (P2)

 

Other Areas

Monsieur Perroquet has been helping us learn our colours and numbers to 20 in French. We love singing songs and playing games to help us learn. We sing Tête, Epaules, Genoux et Pieds and play Jaques a dit…. to help us learn the names of our body parts in French, it is great fun!

We have continued to learn about social studies and,  since our last report, where we were learning about the Foodbank – we have learned about life on a Scottish Island vs Mainland, and are now on to learning about Tartan for our Scots topic.

“Tartan is colourful squares and rectangles.” – Parker (P2)

“Tartan art is fun to do because it looks cool.” – Joshua (P2)

In the next few weeks, we will develop our knowledge and understanding of Scottish identity and we will get to take part in a Burns Supper taste test (please note all allergies/intolerances/dietary requirements will be accounted for).

We are having so much fun in Term 2 and look forward to catching up with you again in Term 3. Bye for now!

 

Welcome, all parents and carers, to Primary 1/2’s class blog! We can’t believe it’s October already – we’ve been busy learning so many new things. We have settled into our new routine and classwork brilliantly. There have been lots of new challenges, but we are all working together to learn and develop each day. Primary 1/2 have been so looking forward to our infant nativity and we can’t wait to share it with you!

 

Numeracy

We started the year revising addition and subtraction. We learned how to use number lines, cubes and pictures to help us complete tricky calculations. We loved playing lots of games to help us develop our fluency with number bonds to 10 – we managed to use what we had learned to help us solve calculations faster.

“We have been writing numbers.” – Joshua B

“We have been learning how to take-away by using a number line.” – Reuben G

In November, we will begin investigating doubling and halving. We will talk about the words ‘equal groups’. Can you ask your child what they think it means?

We have started to use our ‘Floor Book’. This is a big pad that we make notes on. Everyone gets a chance to write in the floor book. We use this to help us remember how to complete calculations. We are excited to see the pages getting filled up as we learn more and more.

We are so enthusiastic during our numeracy lessons – let’s see what we get up to next term.

 

Literacy

We have been working so hard in our literacy lessons; we have risen to the challenge of new work and were very proud to show you our jotter and worksheets work during the Parent/Carer Evening.

In reading, we have spent lots of time discussing our stories and completing written tasks about them. We are getting very good at predicting what might happen in a story book, and are even able to justify our predictions by explaining which clue from the front/back cover helped us create our prediction. We have also been looking at skimming and scanning – this helps us find important information so that we can develop our vocabulary and deepen our understanding of the order of events in our story books.

“We have been learning new common words.” – Cameron C

“We have been learning to do nice, neat letters in handwriting.” – Carmen W

In phonics and spelling, we have continued to use the strategies we learned in Primary 1. We are now looking at joined phonemes and have been using what we learned last year to support us. We also use our common word wall to help us with tricky words when we do our writing.

“Phonics is the best!” – Lexi McK

In our taught writing lessons, we have been looking at recounts and descriptions. We have worked really hard to write events in order and have a go at common words on our own. We are getting very good at writing on the line and presenting our work neatly. First, we described a book character, ‘Mrs Brown’. Next, we described someone we all know well… Can you ask your child who we have been describing recently? (Hint: She is a very important lady at our school who does the job of Headteacher!)

“Writing is really good because it makes me feel happy.” – Jessica D

“I would like to do more writing jobs like writing about what we like to do.” – Lilly B

 

PE

We have been splitting our PE timetable between using the gym hall and the outdoor quadrangle:

In indoor PE (Monday) we have been developing our fitness skills using lots of games and stations to increase our heart rates. We also talked about what we can do to make us fit and healthy when we are not in school.

In outdoor PE (Tuesday) we have been playing playground games to develop our listening skills and have worked together as a team towards a shared goal.

“You get to run lots and play games with friends.” – Emma C

“I really like playing toilet tig!” – Kye C

As we approach Christmas, we are trying, where possible, to complete fitness videos in our classroom.

 

STEM

Primary 1/2 worked with Ms Smail to complete some STEM learning. We know that STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM is an important thing to learn about for jobs when we are older. Sadly, Ms Smail had to leave our school at the October break – we miss her very much. We are so lucky to do STEM with Mrs Lafferty, now! We have been learning about classifying living and non-living things. We know that things need to breathe, eat and have offspring to be living. We liked learning about the life of frogs, very much!

“We make stuff in STEM.” – Alana S

“We learned about living things and non-living things.” – Reuben G

 

Other Areas

Ms Craig has been giving us music lessons! We learned what ‘body percussion’ is, as well as learning about different musical instruments and musical notes. We are so clever!

“We learned about different sounds that instruments make.” – Euan B

We have been learning about The Foodbank for our class topic. We have been able to discuss our ‘wants vs needs’ in relation to food, and have learned what a foodbank is. We have even visited the Neilsland Primary School foodbank to check the dates on food and make sure the correct items are on the correct shelves. Ms Craig is so proud of how thoughtful and compassionate the children have been during this topic.

“We learned about food, and toilet paper – that is in a foodbank.” – Ebony E

“We went with Miss Aitken to see what was in date and out of date in our foodbank.” – Amelia S

We are about to begin our next topic, Scottish Seaside Towns. We are going to learn about life in the more remote parts of our country and see what is the same and what is different about how they live, vs how we live. We can’t wait to start learning!

Thank you for reading our first class blog – we look forward to updating you again in at the end of Term 2!

 

Welcome to blogs.glowscotland.org.uk – South Lanarkshire. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!