Author: Mrs Keegan

Preparation is underway for our school Christmas Fayre next week when P2/3 will have responsibility for the toy stall. We’ve been busy learning about coins and making posters for our stall. We’re still looking for donations so please hand in any toys to the office before Wednesday.

We’ve had great fun celebrating Book Week Scotland and loved our reading lunch on Thursday. P2/3 found some really creative places to cosy up and read.

Everyone loved receiving their Read, Write, Count bags and were excited to share all the literacy and numeracy gifts with their families. We had a lovely time in class sharing the stories and used the ideas to plan our Mighty Writer lesson for next week.

We’ve made the most of Book Week Scotland and everyone enjoyed cosying up in front of our (virtual) crackling fire to enjoy stories.

In writing this week we used Mighty Writer to help us to retell the story of Goldilocks. Look out for our stories on our writing jotters. In our version Goldilocks didn’t eat porridge but something else that was scrumptious! Congratulations to Abu Baker and Lloyd who were this week’s Star Writers.

Everyone is looking forward to hearing about the children’s favourite books next week and it has been lovely to read of the children’s thoughts on our school values this week in homework jotters and in online profiles.

In our topic this week we have looked at the role of the dentist in the community and thought about the skills that a dentist needs.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Caskie and Mrs Keegan

Here are some of our highlights:

In writing this week we all wrote fabulous stories, recounting the story of Peace at Last.  We worked especially hard to reread our work and worked really well with our partners. Our focus was to use capital letters, full stops and fantastic openers.  Our star writers, Abby and Bernice, were delighted to visit the nursery to share their stories.

Primary 2 children were really excited to begin rehearsals for the Nativity this week.  We’re looking forward to sharing this learning with you.

Everyone worked hard during Smart Start, especially when investigating maths through play. The  children decided that the best way to record their learning was to use digital technology rather than paper – great idea!

Digital learning has been a focus this week and the children have worked hard to login to Glow at home.  We have been so impressed to read about the children’s wider achievements and to see the photos as well as to receive emails from the children.

In Number Talks we have been using the Rekenreks online to build our understanding of number.  “How many can you see?  How do you know?”  have been key questions in class. The children have been really confident in sharing their strategies.

We’re looking forward to Cool to be Kind week next week, especially Odd Socks Day on Monday.  You can get a sneak preview of the  Choose Respect song for Odd Socks Day 2018 by clicking the image below.  We can’t wait to join in with the song!

We’re also looking forward to our cinema visit next week.  Please remember to complete the permission slip and return it to school.

Welcome back!  I hope you all had a lovely break. It has been a short but busy week in Primary 2/3.

Topic

We made a start on our new topic, “Our Local Community of Livingston”   by investigating our needs and wants and creating posters.  We then made videos to share our opinions and developed our digital literacy skills by using the iPads. There was lots of great discussion and sharing of ideas.

Literacy

Everyone enjoyed spelling this week as each child chose the words they found particularly tricky to work on.  There was a choice of activities – word building with straws, finger painting the words using autumn colours of paint, creating word searches and working with whiteboards. Lots of great individual learning went on.

We have continued to build the reading culture in P2/3 and everyone loved BEAR time today.  Don’t forget to bring your bear every Friday!  The concentration and focus in the class is lovely as all the children read to their bears.

Maths and Numeracy

In numeracy this week we have worked on our addition skills and learnt to write lots of number words.  Everyone liked playing the Fruit Splat game to help us read number words quickly and we worked on ordering numbers on the net books using a Topmarks game.

Have  a lovely weekend from Mrs Caskie and Mrs Keegan.

What a fantastic week it has been in Primary 2/3!

In Science we investigated our sense of sight and learned that we see things upside down.  We found out that our brains puts it the right way round for us! We explored how blind people can cross the road and use braille without sight.  We also investigated our sense of taste and found out where our taste buds are then tried lots of different tastes – sweet, salty, sour and bitter.

In Literacy we had fun celebrating National Poetry Day and listened to poems, shared poems and read poems.

We wrote about our Most Magical Meal in writing – come and have a look at our writing jotters and read our wonderful stories.  We all loved reading the work of our Star Writers and sharing our stories with our talk partners.

Everyone loved visiting the library on Tuesday and choosing books to take back to the classroom.

In spelling, Primary 2 have been learning the ea pattern and Primary 3 have continued to work on their key words.  We all loved reading our new Word Boost Book, Beaten by a Balloon, then learning and using some fabulous new words – glance, bound, hideous, barrier, powerful and promptly.

In Numeracy we have been adding, sequencing and ordering numbers as well as improving our number strategies in Number Talks.

We’re all looking forward to welcoming you to our class next Friday for Stay, Play and Learn.  All the children have also been asked to bring a bear and a favourite book/ story/ comic to school next Friday too for BEAR (Be Excited About Reading) as we continue to build our reading culture in P2/3.

Have a wonderful weekend.

From Mrs Caskie and Mrs Keegan

Primary 2/3 have had a great week as we continue our learning adventure.

Literacy

In spelling this week P2 have explored the ‘ea’ sound.  They loved listening for ea sounds in a song and spotting ea words in the lyrics.  You can listen to our ea song by clicking below – can you spot the ea sounds?  Everyone decided that they would like to use whiteboards to reinforce their learning this week.

Primary 3 are working on key words and this week learnt the words must, now, off, old, only, our, or and other.

We all wrote a story about when we visited the doctor or the dentist.  Look out for the fabulous stories in our jotters and spot the capital letters and full stops as well as some openers and connectives.

The Obvious Elephant was our Word Boost  book this week and we learnt the words confident, curious, obvious and bewildered.

Everyone had a busy time on Thursday when we went on an adjective hunt and found a huge range of interesting adjectives in the class library.

Numeracy

This week we have continued our learning on addition and subtraction and counting to 100 for P2 and 1000 for P3.  We’ve been ordering numbers, counting on and back and building numbers with the concrete materials.   The Counting Caterpillar game will help you to use your knowledge of place value to put numbers into order.

In Number Talks we’ve been working with numbers up to 20.  How many ladybirds can you see?  How do you know? Can you think of another way of doing it?

Science

We have continued to explore our senses this week and went on a sensory walk on Wednesday to investigate textures in the playground.  There was much discussion on how we could record our findings but the children decided that the iPads would work best. We then made sensory collages when we returned to the classroom.

Finally, we had a wonderful assembly on Thursday to say farewell to John the Janny who retires this week.  We wish John all the very best.

Have  a lovely weekend.

Mrs Caskie and Mrs Keegan

It has been a short week but there’s been lots of learning going on in P2/3!

Literacy

In spelling we have continued to work on our P2 and P3 key words.  This week’s words for Primary 2 are they, two, we, when, with and you.  Primary 2 have now completed their key words so will move on to spelling patterns next week.   This week’s words for Primary 3 are like, little look, made, make, me, more and much.  Primary 3 will continue to work on key words next week.

We’ve had great fun working on our n, m and h in handwriting and everyone loved working with the chunky crayons.  Our focus this week was on using the correct starting point for each letter.

It has been a revision week in Word Boost this week when we’ve consolidated all of the vocabulary introduced in the last three books.  The children demonstrated a fantastic understanding of all their new words!

Numeracy

In maths Primary 2 have been working on numbers to 100 and P3 have been working on numbers to 1000.  We have had great fun ordering lots of numbers!  Everyone liked playing the Helicopter Rescue game to help us count on and back.

Primary 2 have been busy building numbers to 100 using cubes and Primary 3 enjoyed identifying numbers to 1000 on the smartboard using the Numbers to 1000 activity.

Topic

Everyone was excited to begin our new Science topic on the Senses this week.  We began by investigating our sense of touch – ask your child what they learnt about touch. The class worked together to create a report on their experiment and then illustrated it.  Look out for our report in our Talking Book.

Committees

The highlight of today was the start of Pupil Committees!  P2/3 loved heading off to do STEM, arts and crafts, mini glee, outdoor learning, one world, games club and book bugs then sharing their experiences afterwards.  What a lot of effective contributors we have in the class.

Have a lovely weekend!

From Mrs Keegan and Mrs Caskie

What a busy week it has been in P2/3! Thank you to everyone who came along to Ninian’s Natter on Wednesday.  It was lovely to see you all and for the children to share their Maths Week Scotland learning with you.

In Maths we have been investigating odd and even numbers.  We loved using the Coconut Odd or Even game to help us learn.  Do try it at home and let us know how you get on.  Look out for odd and even numbers when you’re out and about and tell us if you spot any.

Our Maths Week Scotland investigations have kept us busy and we’ve explored lots of concepts including numbers to 100, shape, number bonds, money and problem solving.

In Literacy we linked our writing to Emotion Works and wrote about feeling excited.  We thought about capital letters, full stops and connectives.  Next week we’re writing about a time when we had to say sorry. Well done to this week’s Star Writers, Abigail and Blake.

In spelling our focus has been on learning our P2 and P3 key words.  The P2 words this week were new, no, not, on, one , said, she and so.  The P3 words this week were from, go, going, has, her, here, if and into.  Everyone loved spelling their words with pipecleaners!

We loved reading The Cultivated Wolf in Word Boost and explored some fabulous new words – racket, improve, ignore, budge, emerge and ache.  Can you use these words in a sentence at home?

In handwriting we’ve been reviewing the formation of the letters n, m and h.  Can you find any creative ways of working on forming these letters?  It may involve pencils, crayons or paint!

In topic we were so excited to finish our class novel, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, and rounded off our learning by compiling Owl Fact Files.

Next week we start our new topic on The Senses.  Look out for updates on our senses experiments!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Caskie and Mrs Keegan

It has been another busy week in Primary 2/3 with lots of exciting learning.  The children would like to share their highlights.

Caspar and Aiden  – I loved running the Daily Mile.

Abby – I liked using adjectives to write a description of Plop the Owl.

Bernice – I liked making big numbers using Numicon.

Paul and Poppy  – I liked playing games in PE.

Rutendo – I liked doing handwriting warm up exercises.

Freda – I liked making a sparkly picture of nocturnal animals.

Daniel – I liked making a firework picture for our topic.

Mirren and Nathan – I liked writing u, w and e in handwriting.

Isla – I liked making number sequences in maths.

Abu Bakr – I liked working with my friends to make a 100 square.  Twice!!

Mark D. – I liked learning about the cogs in Emotion Works.

Mark K. and Blake – I liked Smart Start when we made star pictures at the collage table.

Lloyd – I liked playing the coconut ordering game on the SmartBoard.

Joshua – I liked learning about nocturnal animals.

We’ve had a great week reading about Six Dinner Sid in Word Boost.  This week’s boost words are agile, swoop, appetite, dare, require and defend.

P2 spelling words covered this week are can, came, for, had, have, him, his and my.

P3 spelling words covered this week are call, come, could, did, do, down, eat and first.

Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs Caskie and Mrs Keegan