Primary 2 – Page 41 – St Ninian's Primary School

Taking off in P2M

We started our week off in P2M by learning about the ‘wh’ sound. This was quite tricky as it was hard to tell between the ‘w’ sound and the ‘wh’ sound. If we hold our hand up to our mouth and make the ‘wh’ sound we will feel a blow of air but you won’t feel that with the ‘w’ sound – this is how we can tell the difference.

We continued with our gymnastics block of learning in PE and this week we focused on partner balances and travelling. Have a look at some of our partner balances. What do you think?

We have been really enjoying our maths topic of measuring and this week we were focusing on measuring volume in millilitres. We have been estimating (we know that this means having a guess) the volume of different objects and then testing our estimations by measuring this in a beaker and reading the measurement in millilitres.

We have also been practising for our Katie Morag assembly which will take place on Friday. We will be filming our assembly so we can share this learning with all of you. Remember to practise your lines at home and have your costumes/tartan in for Wednesday.

You will never guess what happened to us on Thursday?! When we got to school, we were asked to check the security camera in the playground because Mrs McCabe had found some funny going-ons when she was checking the cameras. We checked and we found that there had been a rocket in our playground! We had a little think about what we thought had happened and then we remembered… Mrs Purdie and Miss Smyth weren’t in school… had they been taken away in the rocket? This called for an investigation! We checked that everyone in our area and the nursery were safe and then asked everyone to help us… if they heard anything about a rocket they had to let us know. When we got back to class we wrote down about what we thought had happened with the rocket.

Katie wrote: “The rocket landed in the playground because it wanted to take Mrs Purdie. A red rocket was going to New York. They were going on holiday. Mrs Purdie was going to a swimming pool.”

Teegan wrote: “Mrs Purdie was in the rocket because a space alien took her. She went to the moon. Miss Smyth was in the rocket.”

We are still enjoying our structured play with our friends in P2B as part of our Katie Morag topic.

Designing our week in P2B!

Miss Boyes started our writing lesson by showing us a film clip of a boy pushing a rocket into his garden. Next he climbed into the rocket. Miss Boyes challenged us to write the ending of the story/what happened next?

We took time to share our ideas and then we made a word bank which was visible on the whiteboard.
Here are a few of our great ideas:
– “The boy went to space in his rocket to see Mars.”
– “The boy went to space in his rocket and saw twinkling stars.”
– “He went to space but had to come home because he missed his mum and dad.”
– “The boy was scared and excited about going to space.”

Once we made our word bank we planned our own writing. We have been learning the importance of making a plan and then using our plan to support our writing.
This week we have been introduced to a new spelling pattern. We have been learning words with a consonant cluster at the beginning, short vowel and diagraph. We used our new cubes to build our words. The cubes are colour coded so that we could identify the different parts of each word.

Although we have progressed very well in addition and subtraction Miss Boyes thought it would be valuable for us to have some time to practise addition and subtraction word problems. This involved us using the mathematical language we have learnt in different contexts.
We now feel more confident about answering word problems and discussing our understanding of mathematical language. This will feature in our homework next week!

Other areas:
We used technology to research the weather and transport from The Isle of Coll. Through doing this we also learnt how to take notes from information. We successfully worked in trios and pairs to support one another in reading the information and writing the notes.

We loved this and as you can see by the pictures we were fully engaged in the lesson… you could’ve heard a pin drop!

We would like to tell you about our art lesson. We were learning how to plan and design an arrangement to make our own tartan pattern.
To begin the lesson Miss Boyes showed us examples of different tartan pattern designs. We discussed the different colours used in the patterns and how they blended together.

We also noticed that there are lines running through the tartan. We learnt the special words for the lines going down the way (vertical) and the lines going across the way (horizontal).
After our discussion we used the online tartan weaver to make our own designs and then we used different coloured paper to make our arrangements. This linked well with our topic as Katie Morag wears a green tartan skirt. If she ever fancies an update she can check out our designs!

Whilst researching transport on the Isle of Coll website we found pictures of boats. Using our creative skills we designed our own boats.

Miss Boyes- “Some of the children were so interested in designing the boats that they went home and made one. However, we will be using our designs in class next we to construct our boats from recycled materials.”
The recycled materials that we included in our designs were: water bottles, paper, straws, buttons, boxes and milk bottle lids.
We had to think of materials which would float best and decided that wood will be too heavy and plastic will perhaps be a good solution.
Check out our blog next week to see our boat designs turn into models.

Have a lovely weekend, from Miss Boyes and P2B!

Mapping our way through the week in P2B!

In numeracy we have been learning how to identify, sort and order even and odd numbers. Miss Boyes showed us lots of patterned gloves. We were wondering why she had all of these different gloves. However, Miss Boyes challenged us to find the odd gloves and the even gloves. We put them into the correct categories and then had to count how many odd gloves and how many even gloves there were.

There are 2 special rhymes which we have learnt. These rhymes help us to remember the odd and even numbers.
0, 2, 4, 6, 8 even numbers are GREAT!

1, 3, 5, 7, 9 I love odd numbers all the time!

This rhyme tells us that if a number ends in 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8 then it’s an even number.
If a number ends in 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 then it’s an odd number.
In our maths carousels we have been completing many different activities to develop our learning of odd and even numbers.
We played an interactive odd and even number game on the netbooks. At another station we had to match the patterned socks and find out which ones were odd.

We have enjoyed reading our new books. To show our understanding of the stories we have been completing task maps. This involves us using a variety of different skills to complete the tasks. We complete two tasks each time and we have come up with some great answers.

In literacy we have been learning how to use openers in our writing. We know that our writing will be more interesting and make sense if we use different sentences openers. We wrote a summary for the story “Katie Morag Delivers the mail.” Here are some examples of the words we used to start our sentences: first, last, next, after, at the beginning and at the end.

Through topic we have been learning lots about geography. We have been learning about the differences and similarities in human and physical features of mainland Scotland and the Scottish Islands.
We worked together to find the Island of Coll in the Atlas, we then used technology to compare looking in the atlas to looking at google maps.
On Google maps we wanted to find Livingston. This then lead us to making our own whole class maps for The Isle of Struay and Livingston (We will show you the maps next week once they are complete.)

Structured play was great fun this week. We really enjoyed completing different activities with our friends from P2M. There were lots of different stations such as, completing subtraction sums in the shop, learning new words (related to Katie Morag stories) at the playdoh station and using the smartboard to complete different Katie Morag challenges.

Have a lovely weekend and check out our blog again next week!

Miss Boyes and P2B!

P2M Weekly News

What a busy week back in P2M. We started off the week by finding out what our sounds were going to be for our spelling this week. We have been finding the difference between the ‘e’ and ‘i’ sounds this week. This was done through lots of different fun and active spelling games. One of our active spelling strategies this week was choo-choo words. Why don’t you ask your child about how to make choo-choo words? We also played word bingo where we really had to listen for the difference in the ‘e’ and ‘i’ sounds. Bartosz was our bingo winner twice!

We have continued our numeracy topic of subtraction but our sums are getting much trickier now. This week some group have been working on finding a missing number in a subtraction number sentence. Other groups have been working on finding the difference between 2 numbers: they know that in take away sums we always have to start with the biggest number. Did you enjoy playing the interactive subtraction game for homework this week. Here is the link for you to play it again: (remember to select numbers within 20)

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=PostSortingcalculationsv2

Our maths topic of measurement continued this week and we learned how to measure volume in millilitres and litres. We tried to get the water right on the line so the exact capacity was inside. We also estimated a range of volumes e.g. how many cups of water would it take to fill this jug. We used lots of different sizes of jugs during this task.

We continued our Katie Morag topic this week. Our art lesson this week focused on the skills of using different tones and shades of colour. Using this knowledge we designed and created our very own tartan. We have put some of these on display on our ‘Katie Morag’ display and the rest in our class book. Have a look next time you are at our classroom.

When we created our ‘Katie Morag’ topic plan last week we decided that we would like to learn some Scottish songs. This week we have been learning ‘Caledonia’ and ‘Ye Canny Shove Yer Granny’. We are looking forward to signing these at our assembly in the next few weeks.

We finished our busy week off with some structured play with our friends from P2B. Each structured play station was based on our interdisciplinary topic of Katie Morag.

Terrific start to 2016 for P2B

In writing this week we have learnt how to write a personal account. Part of our success criteria was to write in first person. We chose a day from the Christmas holidays to write about. It is very important to include finger spaces, capital letters and full stops.

In numeracy we completed information handling tasks. We had to analyse a chart to find out what the most and least favourite toys were.

Working together in groups we gathered data by asking each other what our favourite toy was. We recorded the data by writing tally marks and then we made a bar graph.

We have learnt that for five tally marks you need to draw four and then draw one line through the middle.

Our new topic is Katie Morag. Miss Boyes asked us what we would like to learn about the topic.
Have a look at our mind map, it displays all of our ideas.

We spoke about New Year resolutions! We thought of different resolutions and chose one each to write on our star.
We also discussed our aims from term 1 and 2 and then decided on a new aim for our “Aim high app”. We had to think about one or two areas of our learning which we would like to work on. We thought about the steps we can take to meet our aim.

In PE we have started gymnastics. On Wednesday and Thursday we were doing different balances and exercises to develop our core muscle strength. If we make our core strong it will help us to balance. We traveled in different ways around the hall and then stopped to hold our balance.

This week focused on our vision and values. We chose to focus on the values of friendship and teamwork. To achieve this we went to visit our friends in P2M. We worked together in teams to present out favourite toys. We know when working as a team you must respect your peers. We used our listening skills to respect our peers whilst they discussed their toys.

Have a great weekend!

P2M Weekly News

Welcome to back to Primary 2! We hope that you all had a lovely holiday and we would like to wish you a happy new year. We’ve had lots of fun this week. This week was ‘visions and value week’. We know that it is stated in our school’s vision that we should live like Christ. The value we decided to focus on was ‘friendship and teamwork’. We related the school vision and this value together through the parable of ‘The Good Samaritan’. We know that through this parable Jesus teaches us to be kind to others and helps others. Based on this teaching, Miss Meechan set us a task… have a little look!

We began by looking at the value of friendship by meeting up with our friends from P2B. We worked in groups and showed each other one of our favourite Christmas toys. We discussed what was important in teamwork and we know that only one person should be talking at a time and the others in the group should be listening and Alexis told us that this is called ‘respect’.

We also started our ‘Katie Morag’ topic. We began this topic by reading a Katie Morag story and learning that Katie Moray stays on an island. Then, we made our very own topic plan about what we want to learn in this topic. Have a look at our plan.

We learned about the differences between islands and the mainland by looking at a map on the United Kingdom. We then worked in pairs or trios to sort 6 different pictures into 2 categories of our choice. Some of the groups spotted that some pictures were of islands and others were of villages. As a class we sorted out all of the pictures into the correct categories.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Meechan and P2M

P2 Christmas Party

Here are some photographs of us enjoying our Christmas party. Check out the school facebook page for some videos of our Scottish Country dancing.

Merry Christmas from P2M

On Monday we had PE with a difference. As the hall was being used for Christmas parties we transformed our classroom into a yoga studio and enjoyed some yoga. Our yoga followed the story of a dolphin who we had to help on an adventure. It was lots of fun.

Tuesday was so much fun and we all looked great in our Christmas jumpers. We also enjoyed our Christmas lunch too. All of our Christmas fun in the morning got us in the spirit for our party in the afternoon where we enjoyed some Scottish dancing, disco dancing, a snack and we even got to meet Santa. What a busy day! Have a look at the P2 Party post for some videos and pictures.

On Thursday we had great fun at the pantomime, it was the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and was very funny.

We are looking forward to our last day before the holidays tomorrow. In the morning we are having a Christmas sing-a-long where we will be singing Frozen’s ‘Let it Go’.

Have a lovely Christmas

Miss Meechan and P2M

Primary 1/2 Nativity – A Miracle in Town

P2B Performers!

This week in P2B we received a special letter. Miss Boyes left out some magic reindeer food at our classroom door on Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning we were sent on a mission to find something that had been left for us in the classroom.

It was a letter from SANTA!!!

Can you couldn’t believe it? We’re not sure if it was Santa who left the letter or if it was the elves.
Together we sat in a circle and read the letter aloud for all to hear!

We wrote a letter back to Santa. We learnt all about sentence openers and our aim was to use them in our writing this week.

Santa knows all about our dojo points and he even knows how many we have. He also said we have being doing a fantastic job in the nativity.

Miss Boyes was extremely impressed and proud of our performances at the nativity. She knows how much hard work we have put in to learn our lines; sing our songs and play the musical instruments. I’m sure we will still be singing the songs at home! PERFECT PERFORMERS!

In numeracy this week we have been learning all about fact families. We have used our knowledge of addition and subtraction sums to complete the fact families. We have been learning about the inverse of addition and subtraction sums.

In maths we have been learning all about measure, so far we have measured with our feet and this week we used the scales to find out objects that weighed the same or different.

We have continued to learn our Scottish country dances. We have been learning the Virginia Reel, The St. Bernard’s Waltz and the Military two step.

Our confidence is growing with each dance and we can’t wait to show off our moves next week at our Christmas party!!