Author: wlanna.prince@glow

In Maths we have been learning about time – analogue and digital, o’clock and half past. We are very good at telling the time! Some of us need to remember to check what number the hour hand has gone past when telling the time half past. Next week we will be working on addition – adding 3 single digits.

In French with Miss Devonshire we have been learning to talk about the weather. We have fun actions to help us remember. We know how to ask ‘What is the Weather?’ Ask us to tell you what the word for rain is.

In Literacy we listened to the story ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. We learned what a story setting is and we drew settings from the story. Then we acted out the story and thought of WOW words to describe each story setting. After that we wrote sentences to describe a setting from the story. Our writing was outstanding!

We’ve had a very arty week. At the start of the week we finished our dragons ready to send off for the National Gallery competition. We don’t think they will believe 6 and 7 year olds drew them!

Yesterday we focused on the book ‘Wild’ by Emily Hughes. Click on the link below to listen to the story:

We re-created the front cover using collage, you can see our works of art in the corridor when you are in for parent evening.

In Literacy next week we will be making a storyboard of the story ‘Wild’.

There are still some appointments free for parent evening if you haven’t already booked.

Have a lovely weekend,

Love P2A, Mrs Bell and Miss Devonshire x

We had a fantastic time today, we loved New Lanark!

First we played with the toys children would have played with in New Lanark in the Victorian Times. We found them really tricky to master but we were resilient and kept trying. The hoop and stick game was the most popular (Mrs Bell has forgotten the Scottish name for this – the children might remember!)

Next we went on the Annie McLeod experience which took us on a fascinating journey of discovery into what life was like in New Lanark in 1820.

Then it was the highlight of the day for some – lunchtime! (We had been asking if it was nearly lunchtime since about 9am)

After that we went for a run around in an amazing adventure playground, the sun even shone for us.

Finally we had a look around the Victorian school room and watched a video about how Robert Owen changed history with his new ideas. We had a bit of a trek back up the hill to the bus – they will all sleep well tonight!

It was a pleasure taking the children on a trip – they were very well behaved and showed lots of enthusiasm. The lady who did the toy session with us commented on what a joy they were to work with 🙂

Here are some photos from our day:

Enjoy the rest of your week,

Love Mrs Bell and Miss Devonshire x

We are going to enter the National Gallery’s Art competition – the focus is dragons. We began by researching dragons and thinking about the key features our dragons must have. Next week we will begin drawing our dragons. We are very excited about this and have lots of great ideas!

In Maths we have been learning about number families. We know that we can somersault an array and write it as a multiplication and division sum. For example:

2 x 4 = 8

4 x 2 = 8

8 ÷ 2 = 4

8 ÷ 4 = 2

Some of us were finding it tricky writing the division as a sum, we must remember that we always start with the big number when we write a division sum.

Here’s a website to practise these:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/number-facts/number-fact-families

Well done SF who showed resilience and confidence when learning about number families, Miss Baillie was very impressed!

In Literacy we learnt how to write a question using a question mark. We know that we use a question mark instead of a full stop. We can tell if a sentence is a question by looking for question words like why, what, who, where and when.

We looked at strange photos and wrote fantastic questions:

We also had a look at pictures of New Lanark and came up with some questions we want to ask on our trip:

Admin for next week:

Tuesday: New Lanark trip – please send children to school with a packed lunch and a waterproof jacket.

Wednesday: PE with Mrs Reid will be outside as the hall is being used for Scottish Opera. If it looks like it’s going to rain please send children with waterproofs and jogging bottoms.

We will have a week off spelling words next week as it is our trip and we have still have a few phonics check-ups to complete. We will still give out new reading books.

Love P2A and Mrs Bell x

In Maths we have been working on division. We know that we might hear the language – divide, share, equally, equal parts. We can share objects into equal groups and write the sum using the division sign.

Here’s a good website for working on division:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=sharingv2

On Monday we used the internet to research Victorian toys. We found that most toys were made out of wood as they didn’t have plastic. After that we made a Victorian toy called a thaumatrope. I’m sure the children have shown you their creations! In Literacy we wrote instructions on how to do this. We all put the instructions in the correct order and took our time to present our writing neatly.

On Tuesday we worked on our volleyball skills with Miss Devonshire. We learnt how to do an overhead pass to our partner.

On Wednesday we listened to a talk on Fairtrade. We learned about Fairtrade foods and we tasted our favourite – chocolate! We designed Fairtrade superheroes with Miss Devonshire for the P6’s competition – they were really impressed by our creativity. EN drew fantastic Fairtrade Fruit!

In Phonics we have finished learning all our sounds. This week we have been revising ‘magic e’. We also learned about the ai sound – we know there are 3 ways of spelling it:

ai as in train

a-e as in cake

-ay as in pay

We wrote ai words using the correct spellings. This is tricky as they all sound the same! We know that if the sound is at the end of the word we use -ay.

Next week we will revise our common words and complete a check-up. This will help Mrs Bell see which sounds we need to revise before moving onto the Springfield Spelling Progression.

Wee reminder to send in New Lanark forms if you haven’t done so already. We’re very excited for our trip!

Have a fab weekend,

Love P2A Mrs Bell and Miss Devonshire x

Today we had a farewell party for LH who had his last day with us today. We will miss him and we wish him all the best as he moves to his new school.  Good luck LH!

A highlight of the week has definitely been learning the Victorians song.  I’m sure you’ve already heard it but here it is if you’d like to singalong at home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXOcArf8seg

On Monday we made clothes for Victorian people. We learnt the differences between what the rich and poor people wore.

On Tuesday the Language Ambassadors visited us to teach us some Spanish. We listened to the Gruffalo in Spanish and learnt the parts of the body by singing Cabeza y hombros pierna y pies (heads, shoulders, knees and toes!).

Here’s a link to the song:

On Wednesday we made Valentine’s Day cards, we took our time to do careful cutting and learned how to make a heart by folding and cutting a number 2 shape on the fold.

On Thursday morning Mr Wells and Miss Baillie came to see our writing lesson. We wrote diary entries as a Victorian chimney sweep. They were very impressed with the standard of our writing! We are all trying hard to make our sentences longer by using joining words and WOW words. Well done to AK who wrote a fantastic diary entry – it is going on the Springfield star writer wall!

On Thursday afternoon P3 took some of us to play with the blocks. We had a great time constructing a castle!

In Maths we rounded up our work on multiplication and the 2 times tables. Next week we will begin learning about division.

We are really enjoying free play in the Victorian classroom; we take it in turns to be the teacher. Mr Wells was put in the corner with the dunce hat on when he visited us!

Don’t forget – no school on Monday and Tuesday, we will have a break from homework next week too. Enjoy the long weekend!

Love P2A and Mrs Bell x

We’ve had lots of fun in P2A this week!

On Monday our P6 Pals came to play games with us. They designed and made the games themselves, we were very impressed. The games had bulbs that lit up when we got the answer correct. We can’t wait until we’re in P6 and can learn how to make our own games!

We LOVED our trip to the park on Tuesday…

On Wednesday we learned about Chinese New Year. We learned that in China people traditionally use chopsticks instead of a knife and fork. We had a go at using chopsticks to eat noodles; Mrs Bell and Miss Devonshire were very impressed with our resilience, it was tricky but we kept trying! To celebrate Chinese New Year, Chinese people have their fortunes told. We made our own fortune tellers and decorated them with red as that is a lucky colour in Chinese culture.

In Maths this week we continued with our learning on multiplication. We are all doing very well with this and have a good understanding – we are able to show multiplication sums in lots of different ways:

Here’s a song we’ve been learning to help us to remember the 2 times tables:

In Phonics we have been working hard to spell our common words correctly. We can all spell word, world and little correctly.

For our Victorians focus this we learned about the jobs Victorian children did. We were very interested in the chimney boys. Did you know that children as young as 5 went up the chimneys?! We know lots about chimney boys; next week we will use this information to write a diary entry as a chimney boy.

Have a great weekend when it gets here.

Love P2A and Mrs Bell x

This week we met Miss Devonshire. Miss Devonshire is training to be a teacher and she will be with us lots from now until the summer. We all made her feel very welcome; she was very impressed by our enthusiasm for learning.

Our focus in Phonics this week was ‘magic e’ split digraph o-e. We are able to identify ‘magic e’ words in our reading books – this is something you could do at home too.  Here’s an o-e memory game you could play:

http://www.galacticphonics.com/longvowels/o-e/interactive/memory/memory.htm

In Maths we started our new focus – multiplication.

We know that we might hear these words: sets of, multiply, times, arrays.

We learned how to draw an array to solve multiplication problems. When pictures or objects are put into columns and rows, it is called an array.

We know to use the first numbers to tell us how many dots to draw in the column. Then we take the second number to tell us how many rows to draw. As well as drawing arrays we made arrays using objects. We picked this up really quickly and loved making arrays with pictures:

We began our Victorians topic by making a mind map about what we already know and what we would like to know. Lots of us were interested to learn about toys Victorian children played with, jobs children did and what school was like in the Victorian times. Next week we are going to learn about the jobs children did.

In Art we looked at Victorian buildings and identified the features. We noticed that all Victorian buildings had chimneys and criss-cross windows so we made sure to include these in our drawings:

Some of us painted a cobbled street with Miss Devonshire. We are going to create a Victorian street in our classroom.

Weather permitting we will be going on our trip to the park on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend!

Love P2A and Mrs Bell x

This week we learned about Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner who won gold for Scotland in the 1924 Paris Olympics. On Monday we used the computers to carry out research about Eric, then on Tuesday we wrote fact files using the information we found. Ask us about him, we know lots of fascinating facts.

On Wednesday we created abstract art of Eric Liddell running, his running technique was unique – ask us to show you how he ran!

In Phonics we began learning about ‘magic e’, we’re all doing really well with this. It helps to sound out the word before and after adding the ‘magic e’ for example;

mad

…sprinkle on the magic e…

made

Here’s a ‘magic e’ song we’ve enjoyed singing in class:

In Maths we began learning about money. We are all able to recognise coins up to £1. Now we are counting coins, remembering to start with the biggest coin. Some of us are getting muddled when adding 10p and only adding 1p. We will continue to work on this next week. Here’s a game you can play at home to practise this skill:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/coins-game

In PE with Mrs Bell we worked on our fitness and coordination. We loved working out to music and having a go at each of the stations.

On Wednesday we visited the new library for the first time. We will be going to the library every Wednesday so if you would like a new book remember to bring back the old one on Wednesdays.

Next Thursday afternoon we are having a Burns celebration in Primary 2. We will be tasting shortbread, weaving tartan, singing Scottish songs, highland dancing and performing Scots poems.

The children have been given a selection of Scots poems. If they would like to, they can learn and perform one of the poems at our Burns Celebration.  If your child has anything tartan, please send it in for them to change into. Please don’t buy anything especially for this as we have some tartan sashes the children can wear.

If you have any Scottish books, artifacts or skills please get in touch! I have been hearing from the children that we have lots of parents who can highland dance. It would be fab to have an expert to show us how it’s done 🙂

Have a great weekend!

Love P2A and Mrs Bell x

Happy New Year! What a lovely welcome back the children gave me!  It was lovely to see their happy faces on Monday, they’re all very good at calling me Mrs Bell (better than I am at recognising it as my own name!)

On Monday we learnt about New Year and how we celebrate it here in Scotland. We sang Auld Lang Syne and shared our New Year resolutions.

In Literacy we wrote about our Christmas holiday. The children had lots to write about, what exciting holidays they have all had! We also worked on spelling the days of the week, remembering to use a capital letter and the tricks to spelling them, for example, sounding out Wed-nes-day.

In Maths we learnt how to lay out a chimney sum. We know to add the ones first, then the tens. We are able to use this strategy to add together 2 2 digit numbers. We worked in pairs to complete this first, we were good at teaching each other and working as a team.

Here are some to have a go at:

44 + 32       62 + 15     81 + 12

We were full of energy on Tuesday afternoon, we had a special visitor who did some running and fitness games with us. We were determined to get to a higher level that P1 in the bleep test – well done to RM and OW who both reached Level 13! Lots of red faces at the end of the session!

Our focus over the next few weeks is Famous Scots. We began the topic by completing a mind map on what we know about Scotland, looking at a map of the UK and finding where we live on the map. MH did a super mind map:

We also started reading a story called ‘Tom’s Sausage Lion’ by Michael Morpurgo. Michael Morpurgo has written lots of short stories, if you have any at home you wouldn’t mind us borrowing please send them in.

Next week we will begin to look at ‘magic e’ in Phonics and Money in Maths. Homework, reading books and Sharing the Learning sheets will go home on Monday.

Have a great weekend,

Love P2A and Miss…Mrs Bell x