Author: Miss Borsbey

This week in P2 we have been learning how to take notes using bullet points. From these notes, we have been working on writing facts in our own words.

During numeracy, we have been learning how to calculate one hour after and one hour before on both digital and analogue clocks. Some of us have been learning how to calculate durations in whole hours.

We have also been learning about St. Valentine this week. We learnt why he is known and why Valentines Day originated. We wrote wonderful poems inside Valentines cards for our loved ones which we made by ourselves.

We even had the chance to see the baby guinea pigs! Ask us how cute they are and we will be happy to tell you!

Numeracy
We have been continuing to learn about time.
 
Scarlet - "We have been practicing quarter to and quarter past."
Brendan - "We know about half past and o'clock."

Writing
We have been learning about writing notes. 

Ethan - "You don't need full sentences when you write notes."
Lexie - "We have been learning to write a sentence from our notes."

P.E.
We have been learning different jumps. 

Isla - "We did bunny jumps over a bench."
Darby - "You need to bend your knees when you land."
   

Topic
We started our new topic of Castles. 

Finlay - "We learned the different bits of a castle."
Lexie - "There is a moat around the castle which is hard to get over because it is super deep."
Isla - "There are pointy towers."
Sophia - "There are tiny windows called arrow loops so that you could shoot arrows out of them."


Today was Participation Friday. We had a special visitor come in to work with us and help us begin the design process of our products for the spring fayre. Keep an eye out to see the finished products!

This week we have been learning about Scottish words for body parts. We created a life size picture of Katie Morag and labelled her body using Scottish words.

We have also been learning more about telling the time. We have started learning about quarter past and quarter to.

Brendan – “I enjoy working in pairs during maths.”

Mia – “I find it tricky but I’m going to keep trying and never give up!”

This week we went to the school library to explore all of the different books.

Sarah-Louise – “The library has so many interesting books for us to choose.”

Calvin – “I had fun reading all of the different books.”

In Science we went on a material hunt around the classroom to find different textures.

Lucy – “The carpet is rough.”

Charlie – “Some things were soft, like the library rug.”

Sophie – “The plants are a bit jaggy.”

Ethan – “The tables are smooth.”

 

Our P.E. days are now a Monday and a Tuesday. Please ensure all children have a suitable P.E. kit on these days. Thank you.

We have had another busy week in P2.

In P.E. we continued learning more gymnastics skills. This week, we were learning different types of rolls. We learned how to perform a forward roll, a teddybear roll and a pencil roll. These are tricky skills to master!

In Art, we focused on primary and secondary colours. We learned what the primary colours are and then we were set a challenge to see what secondary colours we could make by mixing the primary colours together. We were amazed to see the colours changing as we mixed them together!

Our shell art from last week has now been framed and all of our work looks absolutely beautiful. We are so proud of how well we did. You’ll even find some of our creations in the display cabinet outside of the gym hall.

One of our topic lessons this week involved recreating a story through drama. We read “Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins” and then worked collaboratively to tell the story through our own dramas. We discussed what makes a quality audience and then provided each team with strengths and next steps.

This week in science we began investigating the properties of materials. We had to work collaboratively and our communication skills were really put to the test when we found that we had differences in opinion. We loved investigating all of the different objects on the tables.

We practised our knowledge of French numbers to 20 this week by playing a game of Bingo. We had to choose 9 numbers between 0 and 20 and when Miss Borsbey called out a number in French we had to circle the number if we had it. It was so much fun!

We are continuing to practise our skills when telling the time. We have been working on identifying o’clock and half past on both digital and analogue clocks. Have a look at us playing a super fun time board game with our friends!

We are also continuing to work on our spelling, with each group learning a different sound each week. We love doing active spelling tasks and building words using different resources around the classroom. Our favourite resources include magnetic boards, beads and scoobies, and letter jigsaws. We have also been using these resources to build upon our knowledge of the alphabet. We are becoming really confident with the order of the alphabet, the number of letters and the identification of the 5 vowels. We have decided to play a short game of quizmaster every day so that we can keep practising!

Wow what a busy week we have had in P2.

We started two new maths topics this week – shape and time. We began our shape topic by recalling what we already know about shapes. Then we played lots of fun games to help us remember what different 2D shapes look like. Later on in the week we all had our own small clocks to help us learn about o’clock and half past. This can be quite tricky because it can be hard to remember which hand is which on a clock but we will keep working on it! Look at the wonderful work we have been doing!

In P.E. this week we started learning all about gymnastics. Firstly, we spoke about safety during gymnastics because it can be a dangerous sport if we are not being safe. This week, we focused on balance and how we can balance on different body parts. By the end of the lesson, Miss Borsbey would call out a number and we had to collaborate as a team to create a balance on that number of body parts. This is also building upon our social intelligence skill of collaboration in different settings and contexts.

We started learning about materials in science this week. We spoke about different materials we find every day and those that are a bit less common. We then collaborated in teams to sort different materials based on whether we think they are hard or soft. Miss Borsbey was so impressed with the leadership and communication skills some of the pupil’s were displaying, which are more of our social intelligence skills that we have been working on.

Wednesday was a super fun day in our class. We started the morning off with a skype call to a P5/6 class in Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae. We were so nervous as we waited for them to join the call but we spoke about how nerves can be a good thing and how we can turn our nerves into excitement and confidence, building on another social intelligence skill of feeling. We introduced ourselves and explained to P5/6 that our topic is Katie Morag and that we had some questions to ask them as we would love to know what it is like to live on an Island. We were so shocked to find out that they have lots of beaches around their school but there’s no McDonalds on their Island! All of the children did such a great job before, during and after the skype call.

Wednesday afternoon brought even more fun and excitement as we had an artist in to work with us. Seonaid Sandham creates her work out of shells and stones that she finds on the beach. We explained our topic to Miss Sandham and she said that she would love to come in to show us her work and even help us have a go ourselves! The artwork that Miss Sandham brought in for us to see was beautiful. She gave us a demonstration and we couldn’t wait to try it out for ourselves. We definitely have some young artists in our class! Some of us even discovered that if we held the shells to our ears we heard what sounded like the waves at the beach!

This week we set ourselves the super tricky challenge of learning how to tie our shoe laces. Almost all of us managed the first part, but creating bunny ears is very very tricky. A few of the children showed fantastic resilience and perseverance and managed to tie their lace perfectly! Well done P2!

We have had a great first week back in P2.

We started the week off with a lovely new floor in class! Our furniture has also been re arranged a bit and we have a new kitchen in our role play area. We love our new learning environment!

 

On Tuesday, we learned all about New Years’s Resolutions and even set some of our own including learning to ride a bike, eating healthier and improving our football skills. Have a look at some of our resolution stars.

We also created 2020 scratch pictures. We used special scratch paper and a wooden tool to scratch away the black paint and reveal different colours underneath. The pictures look wonderful! See if you can spot them on our winter wall the next time you pass it!

This week we started our new topic of Katie Morag. We read the first book of the series and had a discussion about islands and what they are. We also learned that next week we will be video linking with a P5/6 class who live on the island of Millport. We are so excited to speak to them about the differences between island and mainland life. In addition to our video link, we are learning how to write a letter. We have started learning the basic layout of a letter and will be using our skills to write a letter to our new friends in Millport. We can’t wait!

During spelling this week we have been revising what we learned last term before moving on to new sounds. Have a look at all of the active spelling activities we have been participating in.

Throughout last term we have been working on developing the following 4 social intelligence skills: communication, collaboration, leading and feelings. These skills have been woven throughout our lessons and we are developing confidence when displaying them. We are looking forward to continuing the development of these skills in different contexts throughout this session.

 

Wow what a fun week we have had in P2 for the last week of term!

On Monday, we joined with P3 and worked collaboratively to use instruments to play Christmas songs. We experimented with various instruments including glockenspiels, tambourines and maracas to accompany Mrs Buntin on the piano. We learned about playing in a certain key and about how some instruments are bangers, some are blowers and some are scrapers.

We all had the chance to take home some books from our classroom to read at our own leisure. Miss Borsbey set out over 100 books for us to choose from and we all got to choose 4 books each. We put a lot of thought into our choices and chose based on the front cover and our personal preferences of genre.

Some of us used the blackboard in class to challenge ourselves to count forwards and backwards. We managed to count in 2s, 5s and 10s! This is such a big improvement since the start of Primary 2 and Miss Borsbey is so proud of how everyone’s number work is coming on.

We have done lots of Christmas craft activities this week! Our salt dough hand prints finally dried out, giving us the chance to decorate them. We had to be really careful and try our hardest not to mix the paints together but this was a super tough challenge as the salt dough was very hard to paint.

We also had one of the P4 pupils come into our class to teach us how to make paper snowflakes. This activity really put our scissor skills to the test but we managed to produce some absolutely beautiful snowflakes after a few practices. Ask us how to make them and we will be happy to teach you!

Instead of using paint brushes to paint, Miss Borsbey brought us some forks and we had a discussion about what and how we might be able to paint using forks. We all agreed that with some support we would paint Christmas trees using the forks. It was very tricky but the results were lovely!

Another method of painting we tried was using our hands! We all painted one of our hands and then made a hand print on a piece of paper. Once dry, we turned our hand paintings upside down and used colouring pens, pencils and crayons to make our hands look like Rudolph. Look how well they turned out!

During choosing time, some of the pupils had an idea about using their bodies to make shapes. Look at us making a Christmas tree! See if you can spot who is the star, the branches and the trunk!

On Thursday, we had our Christmas party. The pupils all looked absolutely fabulous in their party clothes! We had the chance to dance with our friends, play some party games, have some party food, and we even got to meet Santa! We had such an amazing afternoon!

Miss Borsbey and Primary 2 would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Merry Christmas and New Year! See you all in January for some more fantastic work!

This week we have been so very excited. We finally got to perform our Nativity in front of our friends and family after spending the last few weeks rehearsing. We did such a great job in all 3 performances and we are very proud of ourselves.

Some of us have been working on our teamwork and collaboration skills this week. The group were tasked to construct a mini world out of wooden blocks and make sure that it was stable enough that it didn’t fall. Look how well they did!

On Tuesday, some of us wore our Christmas jumpers to school. We enjoyed a special Christmas lunch together whilst listening to some great Christmas songs. We all had a wonderful lunch in our jumpers!

We have also started our solo talks in front of the class. Everyone has been asked to prepare a short talk about winter and deliver this to us so that we can keep working on our listening and talking skills. The first few presenters have done a wonderful job and Miss Borsbey is loving learning all about everyone’s favourite and least favourite parts of winter.

Everyone is very excited on the run up to Christmas Day. On Tuesday, we had some fun after break time and did the Crazy Santa Dance! We were all exhausted after it and there were lots of red faces. It was so much fun!

 

One of our classmates asked for an extra super hard challenge in numeracy on Wednesday. He was given the challenge of seeing how many number bonds to 10 he could get correct in 60 seconds. Look how amazing his score was! There was definitely some celebratory dancing at the end of the challenge!

This week, Jigsaw Jo was helping us problem solve in different bullying situations. She gave us some scenarios and we collaborated in teams to act out the scenario and think about how we could make the situation better. We definitely have some young actors and actresses amongst us!

 

During art, we used paper plates to make our very own Holly Wreaths. First, we had to paint them and wait for them to dry. Once dry, we had to plan out where to put our decorations. We chose different sized and coloured pom poms to put on our Wreaths and finished them off with a lovely bow.

We would like to thank everyone again for coming to see our Nativity this week. We have had so much fun rehearsing it and had a brilliant time performing for everyone. Miss Borsbey couldn’t be more proud of everyone who took part!

Our classroom has turned very festive this week. Have a look at the decorations around our room!

As part of the festivities starting, we all have a pair of Christmas reading glasses. We each chose a pair from the selection and wear them when we read with our friends, when we read the class novel and when we read our reading books. Check out how cool we look!

For art this week, we each took turns to make a batch of salt dough. Once we measured out the ingredients and mixed them together, we printed our hands into the dough and have left them out to dry ready to be pained next week. Can you guess what we are going to paint on them?

We also created winter landscapes. We began by choosing colours that are appropriate to winter and then sketched out our winter scenes. Then we brought them to life using oil pastels. Once finished with the oil pastels, we learnt the technique of flicking paint off our fingers to create a snowy effect – this is harder than we first thought! We challenged ourselves not to give up and in the end we created some wonderful winter landscapes.

During health and well-being this week we have had a look at different things. Firstly, Jigsaw Jo explained to us what bullying is and how it has a big effect on people. We collaborated in small groups to come up with solutions to different bullying scenarios. Jigsaw Jo asked us to think about how people may feel when they are being bullied and how we could help someone who might be in this situation.

Secondly, we had a lesson designed by the NSPCC on how to keep our bodies safe and private. We watched a video all about Pantosaurus – a dinosaur who sings a very catchy song to help us remember the PANTS rule. We all designed our very own pair of pants and had a discussion about the importance of privacy and what to do should we feel the PANTS rule has been broken.

This week, we had a super challenging lesson involving STEM. We had to use our collaboration, communication and problem solving skills to build a boat to help take Bracho the dinosaur safely back to Dinosaur Land. We had a choice of materials and had to predict which material we thought would be best to float in water and hold the weight of Bracho. We had so much fun during this lesson and only one of our boats capsized – however there was a lot of soggy cardboard by the end!

This week was Participation Friday. As a class, we had a look at the results of our questionnaires that we sent home last month and we have decided on the products that we will be selling at the spring fayre in April. We also used our numeracy skills to work out budgets, costs, and selling prices of the products. Keep an eye out to see what we will be making!

We are all looking forward to another fabulous week in P2 next week!

We have had another busy week in P2! We have started our nativity rehearsals on the stage and are having a lot of fun practicing our best singing voices! With a few weeks to go it is all staring to come together!

In maths this week we looked at volume and what this means. We experimented with different containers to see which would hold the most water and which holds the least. We had a great time measuring out different volumes of water and recording this in our books.

In writing, we have been looking at rhyming words. Some of us found this challenging to begin with so we split into teams and worked together to come up with rhymes for the words Mrs Anderson was writing on the board. Both Mrs Anderson and Miss Borsbey’s team scored 8 points each! On Thursday, we split into teams again and took our learning outside. We played a game which involved running to different areas of the playground if we heard a rhyming word.

Jigsaw Jo came to visit us again and this week she was helping us learn about the differences between people in our class. We spoke about things such as appearance, age, likes and dislikes. We collaborated in pairs to create our very own difference shields which we then shared with the class.

In P.E., we used our safe jumping skills in a different context – we learnt how to hurdle! We started off with small hurdles which then got bigger and bigger every round! It was really tricky by the end as the hurdles were up to some of our waists but we challenged ourselves and came up with different strategies of how to jump over them. Look how shocked Team 1 were when they saw how big the last one was!

Our cosy reading area has been updated this week. We now have books featuring winter stories, measurement and feelings.

The children all sat down last week as a class with a budget and decided on new books to fill our reading area. The majority of the class voted to buy books from the “Little People, Big Dreams” collection, which is a collection of books each focusing on the life of a historical figure/celebrity. The books tell the story of each person’s life and how they became famous, but are worded in such a way that are great for children to read. The books look wonderful in our bookshelf and we can’t wait to start reading them.