Welcome back to all of our lovely parents and carers! We hope you had a fantastic Easter break — it’s been wonderful having all the children back, ready to learn and have fun with their friends. We have so much to share with you about what we’ve been learning as Primary 2 draws to a close. We can’t believe how quickly this year has flown in! We also have a few updates of events we are looking forward to before the end of the year.

Firstly, we said goodbye to our friend and classmate Lucas. Lucas had been with us since the beginning of Primary 1, and has moved school with his brother. We are going to miss him very much! We are looking forward to him coming back to visit us and can’t wait to hear all of his stories from his new school.

Numeracy

We have been really enjoying the challenge of silver, gold, and platinum activities, which we choose ourselves after the teachers explain each task. This challenge system is helping us reflect on our own learning needs and build confidence in choosing tasks that help us improve.

“Platinum, Gold and Silver are good but I want them to be even harder challenges because I feel that I am ready for Platinum Plus.” – Isla

In Beyond Number learning this term we have been learning how to tell the time on analogue and digital clocks. It has been fun playing games and singing songs and using clocks to help us learn. We have been practising saying the months of the year and seasons and used a calendar to design a birthday invitation. This term we will be learning about repeating patterns using shapes and numbers. We are going to be learning about capacity too and are looking forward to getting outside to use lots of water and containers! (Mrs Brock)

“Patterns can be used with everything, like when you see a repeating pattern of zig zags.” – Lewis

In number and operations, we’ve been focusing on partitioning two-digit numbers and using this to help us add confidently within 30, 50, and even 100! We have also been exploring shape and colour patterns, spotting them around us, and creating our own repeating patterns.

“I liked using Gattegno charts to tap out tens and ones.” – Elliot

In our money topic, we’ve been learning to recognise all UK coins and have been practising adding totals within 10p, 20p, £1, and £2. We’ve also started calculating change — a tricky skill, but we’re making great progress! Please keep encouraging your child to help with small purchases when you’re out and about, as this really helps reinforce what we’re doing in class.

Literacy

We have been working hard on consolidating all our Primary 2 phonemes, and we are now beginning to group similar sounds like ai, ay, and a_e because they all make the same ‘A’ sound. This will give us a big confidence boost in spelling and help get us ready for Primary 3!

“I think phonics is fun and it teaches us new sounds that we’ve never seen before. This will help us when we are grown up to understand tricky words in books!” – Tutsi

In reading, we are so proud of how far we’ve come. We are practising skimming and scanning for key information and answering both literal and inferential comprehension questions. We are also paying more attention to expression when reading aloud, especially when we spot exclamation marks and question marks in our texts. We are beginning to explore commas and their purpose, and are trying to remember to take a small pause when reading out loud with commas.

“Reading is fun because we get to learn and I like seeing the illustrations in the book, too.” – Kaela

“Reading can make you go around the world in your imagination.” – Wallace

“Reading helps us learn new words that we haven’t heard before.” – Cameron

In writing, we have been working on Information Reports, using our growing vocabulary (especially adjectives) to describe things in detail. We are now moving on to Narrative (Imaginative) Writing — and we’re creating some amazing stories. We are currently rewriting the story of Little Red Riding Hood with our own creative twist, transforming it into Little Blue Cozy Scarf. This was the children’s brilliant idea! We’ve changed the setting to a jungle, and the villain is now a tiger instead of the Big Bad Wolf. The children are having so much fun bringing their ideas to life. Look out on X for any upcoming pictures of our writing in this topic.

“I like putting lots of detail in my writing. I want to be a great writer and I am always looking to get better and correct my spelling.” – Katie

We have also been working on independently writing our news to show what we have learned about capital letters, finger spaces, full stops, adjectives and conjunctions. We are getting very good at this, and are writing in so much detail! Take a look at some of our news.

Health and Wellbeing

We have been setting personal goals and working towards them across all areas of learning. In PE, we’ve been learning new sports, including badminton and kickball rounders, which are helping to build our coordination, teamwork, and stamina. We’re also learning about what makes us fit and healthy, and each week we set new targets to help us improve our physical fitness — the children are showing great determination!

“Kickball is fun because it is fun to see how far you can kick the ball and the other team have to go and get it.” – Georgia

Other Curricular Areas

In Social Studies, we are continuing our topic on Climates and Habitats. The children have been fascinated to learn about the adaptations animals make to survive in different environments. We have been using Chromebooks to do a bit of research on animals that interest us.

“Our topic is fun and cool because I am learning more about animals. I want to learn more about sloths!” – Jack M

A huge thank you to all the parents and carers who came to watch our class assembly — the children were absolutely thrilled to perform for you, and we think they did an amazing job!

We’re also very excited about our upcoming trip to the Burrell Collection on Thursday 15th May, where we will be revisiting our previous topic on Ancient China. It’s sure to be an inspiring and memorable day! Please ensure your child has a packed lunch and apply sunscreen, as we hope to spend some time outside enjoying Pollok Park for part of our trip.

Thank you so much for reading our blog update, and for all of your support over the course of this session. Ms Craig and Mrs Brock have loved teaching the boys and girls of Primary 2, and wish you all the best as you continue your journey in Neilsland. We will update again at the beginning of our Primary 3 learning journey — see you then and enjoy your summer holidays when they come!

Welcome back to all of our lovely parents/carers. We hope you have had a lovely New Year; we are so glad to have our children back in school, learning and having fun with their friends. We have lots of updates since our last blog:

Numeracy

We have been continuing to enjoy the challenge of silver, gold and platinum activities (that we choose ourself, after Ms Craig explains each task). We are really running with this challenge system now, and are becoming skilled at reflecting on our learning journey so that we can choose challenges that suit our own needs best.

With Ms Craig and Miss Paterson, we have explored trickier addition and subtraction, estimating and measuring using rulers and data handling (using tally marks and graphs).

“I liked measuring stuff with rulers because it is a fun challenge.” – Elliot

“I liked measuring things with my hands.” – David

Since coming back from the Christmas break, we have been trying to enhance our number fluency. This is where we practise reciting numbers forwards and backwards. We are aiming to become fluid in all numbers up to 100. We have been using this knowledge to answer addition and subtraction calculations confidently, quickly and mentally. So far, we are aiming to work within 30 for subtraction and up to 50 for addition. We are using lots of partner and whole-class games for practice.

“I found doing o’clock and half past times fun!” – Katie

Literacy

We have all developed our reading skills since our last blog update – Ms Craig is so proud! We are underpinning this with our knowledge of phonics where we are continuing to look at joined phonemes, but are starting to learn about split phonemes. Split phonemes are where 2 letters work together to make one sound, but they are split up by another letter. We sometimes also call this ‘magic e’.

“I found split phonemes really fun, writing them down in words was easy for me.” – Lewis

“Split phonemes are cool because they have spaces in them, but they still sound out together.” – Georgia

Can you ask your child to discuss the split phoneme in these words?

these

rope

cute

kite

June

We have continued to develop our common word knowledge by creating a ‘class dictionary’. The children take ownership of this area and use it often when independently writing.

“I liked it when people got to write in the common word strips.” – Isla

As mentioned, we are using our sounds to help us read. Since our last update, all children have made good progress. We are learning to read with confidence and expression when we are reading out loud. We are using our knowledge of ” ! ” and ” ? ” to help us express words appropriately.

We are demonstrating our understanding of our reading books by completing a variety of jobs based on word knowledge, predictions on what might happen in a book, and summarising. When we complete all of these jobs, we understand the purpose and structure of our book a bit better each time. We love to read as a group!

“It was nice to make our wee books. I liked folding them at the end and seeing it turn into a book.” – Elliot

In writing, we are continuing to use 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. Since the New Year, we have started focussing on information reports. By the end of our topic we should be able to write appropriately about something that interests us (a toy, a hobby, a pet etc). Stay tuned to our school ‘X’ account (FKA Twitter) for sneak peeks of our excellent writing.

“Writing information reports is fun because you learn different words for sentences every week.” – Wallace

“I like to write because it helps us when we are older.” – David

 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 dance and gymnastics skills using lots of games and stations to increase our heart rates. We have also spent time discussing how to increase our energy and the impact of getting a good night’s sleep with Miss Paterson.

“Dancing is a lot of fun!” – Millie

In outdoor PE (Tuesday) we have been creating our own playground games, using a variety of outdoor equipment. We are enjoying using our creativity and team work skills to play and enjoy our new games together.

“A lot of people played with me in my own game of tig.” – Jack McC

In class, we are also discussing our emotions. Take a look at our emotions alphabet:

Other Curricular Areas

Last term we looked at Ancient China:

“Ancient China was a fun topic. We got to mix colours in paint to make masks.” – Gabriella

“I liked how we learned about and made dragons.” – Jack S

In our in-class topic, we have begun to learn about Scotland. This is to celebrate Burn’s Night! We will look at Scottish holiday destinations. So far, we have looked at the Isle of Arran and compared life, nature, transport and housing to our lives in Hamilton (mainland).

Last term were learning all about Water, and how it can change form by freezing, melting and boiling. We enjoyed doing lots of water based experiments and predicting which materials would dissolve in water, then testing it out! This term we are going to be learning all about sound, how our ears work and doing lots of experiments to produce sound from vibrations and change the pitch. Sounds like fun! (Mrs Brock)

Thank you for reading our blog update – we look forward to updating you again in at the end of Term 3!