Welcome, all parents and carers, to Primary 2’s class blog! We have been having so much fun in our learning journey and can’t believe how quickly time has passed! We have been working hard on our new routine and are learning together and supporting each other so well. We have enjoyed an Eco Fun Day and Halloween, and are looking forward to starting our Christmas show preparation.
Numeracy
We have been enjoying the challenge of silver, gold and platinum activities (that we choose ourself, after Ms Craig explains each task). We love to choose tasks that challenge us and are starting to learn how to choose the right challenge for each lesson.
We have been learning all about numbers, and how they work with each other, with Ms Craig. Mrs Brock has been teaching us about 2D and 3D shapes.
Estimating
We have been estimating ‘how many?’ in a group, and estimating numbers on a number line. “When I am grown up, and need to count to high numbers, I can use estimating to guess roughly how much and where things go on a number line.” – Tutsi
Addition Subtraction
We are looking at different ways to add within 20 or 30, and subtract within 20 or 10. We love to use Numicon to help us. Numicon are shapes with holes that help us count forwards and backwards in many different ways. We have started using them (as a whole school) this year and are finding the results to be great so far. “When you add the answer goes higher, when you take away the answer goes lower.” – Katie
Dividing and Multiplying
We are starting to use the term ‘multiplying’ to describe groups of numbers that we can see (equally) over and over again, and ‘dividing’ to describe numbers that are being shared equally. “I really like dividing. Numicon helped me to do my jobs.” – Hugo
Fractions (halves and quarters)
We have been identifying what makes a half or a quarter of a shape. We know that each part must be equal, or it is not a ‘proper’ half or quarter. Soon, we will learn about halves and quarters of numbers and the symbols for halves and quarters. ” I liked doing halves and quarters because it is fun. We talk a lot about pizza and cake!” – Isla
3D and 2D shapes (With Mrs Brock)
“When we did 3D shapes, we learned about their names. There were lots of ones I had seen before, but I didn’t know their names. My favourite is the cuboid!” – David
In November, we will begin investigating measurement with Miss Paterson (our student teacher). We will also start using 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.
Literacy
In Literacy, we have been building on the skills we learned in Primary 1. In Phonics, we have been using our Active Literacy boards to work with Ms Craig and our shoulder partners to say, make, break, blend, read and write our spelling and phoneme words. “Phonics is fun and we just learned about the /oi/ sound. I know the word ‘oil’.” – Amelia
“We use our phonics boards with our partners to practise our sounds.” – Elliot
“I practised my common words with a wordsearch yesterday.” – Macie C
The sounds we learn in phonics are helping us with our reading too. We all work in different groups to read books that are good challenges for us. They test our phoneme and common word knowledge. We are trying to read 3 times a week in class with an adult, and we would all like to read as much as possible at home to show off what we are learning!
“We get harder books now than we did in Primary 1.” – Roman
“The more we practise reading the easier it gets. When I get old I can read to my children.” – Hugo
“When I listen to the teacher, I learn when I am reading. I work with my reading group, too.” – Lucas
We have been working so hard in our literacy lessons; we have risen to the challenge of new work and were very proud of our jotter work, based on our reading books.
In Writing, we are using PM writing, and we will use it up ’til Primary 7! We listen to a story in ‘the big book’ and look at different aspects of grammar and vocabulary, During independent practice, we change small aspects of the story to make a new story (this could be changing characters, settings or adjectives, for example). By the end of the topic, we should be able to write our own stories. We have learned about recount and descriptive stories so far. Stay tuned to our school ‘X’ account (FKA Twitter) for sneak peeks of our excellent writing.
“Ms Craig asked us to have a go of sounding out the words on our own. This is because, when we grow up, we will be able to do things on our own and show other people how to do things.” – Jack McCall
Health and Wellbeing
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 and developing our skills with balls. We are trying to develop our listening skills and have worked together as a team towards a shared goal.
In our in-class Health and Wellbeing lessons, we have been looking at Children’s Rights and how we can work together to all have fun at school. We have developed two ‘class rules’:
- You are allowed to have fun.
- You are not allowed to ruin anyone else’s fun!
Take a look at our Class Charter, based on our unique qualities and the rights we thought were most important to us:
Other Curricular Areas
In our topics, we were learning about Fairytales and Rights before the October break, and have learned lots about what is fair and not fair in the stories we have heard. We really enjoyed Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes! Here are some things that are the same and different about Snow White and Red Riding Hood from that story:
Since the October break, we have started learning about Ancient China. So far, we have learned about Terracotta Soldiers and why Emperor Qin Shi Huang had them made. We learned that he wanted them for protection in the after life!
“Each soldier’s face looks different. The people that made them did that on purpose so that they looked more real” – Wallace
In Science this term we have been investigating how water can change from one form to another, from a liquid to a solid and a gas and then back again! We had fun constructing a 3D Water Cycle to help us understand the constant circulation of water in the Earth’s atmosphere. We learned about the temperature water freezes and boils at and painted fabulous ice art pictures with paint ice cubes! We are looking forward to lots of experiments where we will learn about what materials can dissolve in water and why.
Thank you for reading our first class blog – we look forward to updating you again in at the end of Term 2!
