Category: Primary 2

Hamish McHaggis visits P2/1

What a mysterious week we have had!  Late last week our friend Hamish McHaggis unexpectedly disappeared without a trace. It was the most peculiar thing. Nobody knew where he had gone to!!!

We made lost posters using fancy adjectives to describe him….but still no Hamish…..  

 

We were beginning to get worried when all of a sudden Mrs Stevenson got an email from him. What a relief!

It turns out he’d been off on an adventure to Edinburgh…lucky Hamish. He sent us loads of pictures which helped us learn about some famous Edinburgh landmarks.

We especially loved the story of the Greyfriar’s Bobby dog. Some of us even decided to write our own stories about the little dog.

All of this drama has helped us to prepare for our class assembly. We have also been learning our national anthem ‘Flower of Scotland’ and have come up with some very imaginative actions to go alongside the words. As well as a song we have also learned to perform a Scottish country dance, it was great fun. We can’t wait to share it all with you tomorrow.

 

 

A busy week in P2!

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!

Terrific Teamwork in Primary 2/1

This week we have been focusing on improving our collaboration or team work skills.

Mrs Stevenson set us a challenge where we had to work in small groups to make a days of the week poster with all the days in the correct order. We started off our challenge by discussing what a successful team would act like. Here are some of our ideas.

We will help each other.

We will share and take turns.

We will listen to each other and take turns to speak.

We will always follow our class charter and remember our school values.

We will all try our best to finish the task together.

We then got to work on our posters.

There were some excellent examples of collaboration such as…

Emma  -‘ It’s Nathan’s turn now’.

Elkie ‘ Tyler can go first then we can all take turns’.

Andrew ‘I shared the pencils with Ethan’.

Alfie ‘Friday begins with F so it goes next’.

Well done boys and girls for such a super afternoon of collaborating with each other. Our fantastic posters will go on our Maths working wall to help us with the rest of our learning on Time.

Here are some of the finished posters. The boys and girls even all helped to hold the poster together for the photos because that was fair.

Happy New Year from Primary 2/1.

Happy New Year everybody!

It’s been a quick and busy break but we are all back to school and raring to get learning. We’ve had a hectic first week back in Primary 2/1 and have packed lots of exciting learning into our days.

One of the topics we have been having a focus on, is developing our 4 social Intelligence skills which are, leading, communicating, feeling and collaborating. These are essential skills for everyday life and will provide us with the appropriate skill base for entering the workplace, which is a little while off for us but its good to make a start early!

Primary 2/1 have become something of experts at leading number talks, so much so that we don’t even need Mrs Stevenson to help! We are able to discuss and share with the class how we see the number patterns and can confidently record our calculations using the correct symbols, all whilst talking to the class and writing on the board. We really enjoy taking on the role of the teacher and helping our friends learn. Here are some photos of us in action….

 

We have also started investigating the concept of time in maths this week. We  explored different calendars and found out how many days in total were in each month as well as how many Monday, Tuesdays etc there were. It was tricky at first but we soon got the hang of it. We also discussed why it is helpful to have a calendar and how it can help us remember to important dates and get organised. We decorated our very own calendar to take home, not forgetting to circle the most important date of the year….our birthdays! Just so nobody forgets!!! Here are some examples of our work.

With Burn’s Night fast approaching we have decided to start a mini topic featuring a special visitor to Mrs Fleming’s on Wednesday……Hamish McHaggis. It was all very mysterious indeed. We got a note to tell us that a visitor was hiding somewhere in the class. After a frantic search we found Hamish wrapped up in a tartan scarf. He had brought a number of books with him to help us with our learning. The first book he introduced us to was called the ‘Edinburgh Adventure’. Here we saw lots of famous landmarks in our capital city, like the Edinburgh castle and the Forth Road Bridge. There was also lots of funny Scottish words which Mrs Stevenson couldn’t pronounce, so we helped her out! We are looking forward to learning lots more about our beautiful country with Hamish and his friends.

We had a big think about all the things we already know about Scotland and what we would like to learn about in the next few weeks, we enjoy planning together and having a say in what we would like to learn about.

 

Welcome back from 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.

 

A fabulous final week of term for P2!

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!

Christmas Countdown in Primary 2/1

We’ve made it to the last week of term and we have been truly embracing the holiday spirit in our classroom. We have still been busy with numeracy and literacy in the mornings (with a Christmassy twist) but in the afternoons we have been working hard to create a number of festive pictures, decorations and take part in various festive activities.

Here are some pictures of what we have been getting up to…..

   

We made Christmas wreaths using paper plates, green paint and a variety of sparkly decorations. The finished wreaths look fantastic and we are very proud of our hard work. They are the perfect addition to a festive front door.

In this activity we used green paint and a fork!!!! to create the effect of the pine needles on a Christmas tree. This was incredibly messy but once they were dry and decorated they looked great.

Here we were using our cutting, gluing and designing skills. We had to cut out triangles to make the shape of Christmas trees and glue them onto a snowy background. Then we used chalk and different types of line to decorate the trees.

We have also been using technology to get festive. We all got the chance to decorate our own virtual Christmas tree and the highlight of the week has definitely been using ‘The Santa Dance’ as a brain break.

As well as all the fun and games we’ve been having, we have also been reminding ourselves of the reasons behind which we celebrate Christmas.  We read different versions of the Christmas story and we are getting very good at retelling it in our own words and remembering all about the different characters involved. We had a go at sequencing writing about the story and drawing pictures to go with our sentences.

Seeing Christmas is the season of goodwill and love we read the most beautiful story called ‘Little Robin Red Vest’ by  Jan Fearnly.

This is a heartwarming story about a kind little robin who gave away all of his lovely cozy vests to other little animals he met on his walk who were cold and in need. It started us talking about giving gifts at Christmas time and showing love and understanding towards others especially those less fortunate than ourselves. We also got to design our own snazzy vests for little Robin. Check out some of our cool designs…..

It was been  busy week so far and we are looking forward to the arrival of Santa soon and having some relaxing time at home with our families and friends over the holiday period. We would like to thank you for your continued support and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Feeling Festive in Primary 2/1.

It has been a busy week in Primary 2/1 and we are now in full festive mode. We decorated our classroom with Christmas trees, tinsel and fairy lights and we have even been enjoying having a ‘real’ fire crackling on our smart board whilst we work.

      

On Tuesday we had our Christmas jumper day and our Christmas dinner, it was very yummy!

Despite all the festivities we have still been working hard in the classroom. We have been learning all about the sound ‘e’ and are making great progress using the vowels we know to help us build and write new words. We have been writing more silly sentences using tricky words and the sounds we know to blend together and create CVC words.  We also had a go at some functional writing and created some wonderful invitations to our Nativity performance.

In numeracy we are continuing to develop our skills using number bonds for 10, we are enjoying using games on the smart board to help us and practising using concrete materials to help us. We are still practising our mental maths skills every day with our ‘Daily Five’, we are coming up with lots of strategies to help us such as, counting on, using our fingers or using a ten frame.

In Health and Wellbeing we are continuing to develop our focus on Celebrating Differences. This week we have been investigating the qualities which make a good friend. We have been working alongside Primary 1 where we came together to watch the story of ‘The Rainbow Fish’, this helped us to think about what makes a good friend and what doesn’t!

We designed a Friendship Token which displayed a quality which we would like in one of our friends. We had lots of lovely ideas which reflected our class charter and school values and we were able to share our thoughts confidently with the group.

   

This week we have also been having a big think about our learning environment. We spend so much time in our classroom everyday and it is important that we all have a say in how we would like it to look and what resources we have to help us learn.  We talked about all the things we like about our room and all the things we don’t. We then made a list of what we would like changed or included. The main items to come from this discussion was the inclusion of a ‘computer den’ and to improve our class library, making it more colourful. Here are some of our detailed designs. What this space to see what happens to our classroom in the New Year………

   

To round off the week we finally got to perform our Nativity ‘It’s a Baby’ to all of our friends and family. We have been working very hard over the last few weeks to perfect the actions and words to our songs. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and hope all the audience did too! We would like to thank everybody who attended for their valued support.

Dressed up and ready to perform!

We are looking forward to another festive week before we break up for the holidays. Please remember our class party will be held on Thursday afternoon, get those party clothes at the ready!!

 

 

An exciting week for P2!

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!

Feeling festive in P2!

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!

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