Category: P2 Different Dashes – Mrs DeBonrostro

Dear Parents/ Carers, 

We hope you had a good week. We had a busy one.

This week in P2 we have been learning:

Literacy 

In literacy we have learned a new vowel diagraph -ew as in -oo-. ( drew, stew, crew, etc).

This week at writing we have continued to learn how to write instructions. This time we wrote instructions on washing hands.

Handwriting: we have been working on how to write on cursive the letters a, g and q.

At home

• Yesterday your child took home her/his reading book. We have been reading the book at school during the week therefore your child should be able to read the book without support (they might need support with some words). This is a showcase of their learning at school.
• The children also took home their words walls related to the stage book they are reading. They should become confident at reading these words.
• Handwriting, children could continue to practice writing in cursive their name and other names.
• Continue to practice reading and writing the spelling words of the block that your child took home.
• Ew as in oo song

• Another very useful resource that we use in class is Alphablocks. The children love this!

Maths 

At Maths we have been learning about handling information, we have learned to make bar graphs.

We have continued to work on our numeracy skills through our SEAL programme (different groups will work with different numbers and skills depending on their abilities to be able to make progress accordingly).

• Our focus has been on Number structures using a ten frame. 

At home

You could create your own bar chart gathering information about favourite fruits, favourite sports, etc. of the family members and friends.

We have used this game to explore number ten frame:

https://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Illuminations/Interactives/Ten-Frame/

This is another game that your child might find useful:

http://toytheater.com/fruit-fall/

Other areas 

In PE we have worked on working as a team (outdoors) and ball skills (indoors): hand and feet ball skills. 

IDL We have continued to work on our topic Polly Jean Pyjama Queen and our focus has been learning about habitats. We have loved learning about this!

Independent Learning

Other information 

• On Friday we will have Loose parts. Please ensure your child has appropriate clothing. We will be outdoors no matter the weather (unless torrential rain). 
• Parents Consultations on Wednesday and Thursday.
• Please ensure your child brings a jacket every day to school. As mentioned above children will be outdoors in all weathers. 
• Purple folder. Thank you for your support in emptying the purple folders each day.  
• A reminder to name all items of clothing and shoes, and to check names on items brought home in case your child accidentally acquires a jumper belonging to someone else. 
• We would appreciate donations of any unwanted empty or partially used notebooks or diaries (used pages can be removed). Also, any enticing writing implements (i.e., glittery pencils/gel pens/ pencils with feathers etc – anything other than standard school issue type pencils/pens). The children enjoy choosing resources from the table to use in their independent learning. 
• We are looking for small pieces of ‘junk’ for modelling e.g., toothpaste boxes, tea bag boxes, snack bar boxes. The more interesting shapes the better! 

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Mrs de Bonrostro

P2MN Blog 23.9.22

Another busy week in Primary 2!

Our highlight this week was another loose parts play session.

Literacy

In literacy we revised the ‘ee’ sound and also learned that ‘ea’ can make the same sound.  We found out that unlike some of the other sounds we have been learning there is no rule to tell us which ee/ea to use.  This video highlights the confusion that can sometimes arise!

Danny’s ‘ea/ee’ – Prankster Cam (The Electric Company) – YouTube

This image has been helping us to remember ee/ee.  ‘eee a mouse!’

We have also been checking which tricky words we can read and are focussing now on spelling these words correctly in our writing.  Some information will be coming home soon about which words your child is working on.  In the meantime, here are the lists that we work from:

Block 1: I, the, to, me, he, is, his, was, saw, put, want

Block 2: her, one, you, she, be, go, are, said, all, some, come, they

Block 3: so, very, every, two, only, over, any, water, many, would, should, could, where, what, who, why, find, kind

We learned about writing instructions this week and wrote our own set for ‘How to Clean your Teeth’. Some of the features we discussed were: the use of ‘bossy verbs’ (imperatives), steps which are numbered/ in sequence and words of order (first, then, next).

Opportunities for home learning

• Look at examples of instructions from around the house (lego instructions, recipes, flat pack furniture).  What features can you recognise?
• Practise tricky words using chalk or squirting water from a bottle on the ground outside.
• Using a highlighter and an old magazine or newspaper see how many of each word you can find and highlight.  Focus on finding one word at a time e.g. how many of the word ‘the’ can you highlight on the page?

Numeracy

We are continuing to practise days of the week and months of the year.  We learned a song for days of the week which uses the Adams Family theme tune. 

We focussed on ‘equal groups’ in maths, this is a precursor to multiplication and division.  We practised identifying items that were in equal groups; being able to say how many group, how many in each group and how many all together. 

We enjoyed taking our number work outside, working in pairs to do a scavenger hunt.  We had to answer questions asking for the number before or after a given number.  This was tricky as we sometimes get muddled between the concepts of before and after!

Opportunities for home learning

• Continue to discuss months of the year.  Can you remember which month your birthday fall in?  Can you say which month other family members birthdays fall in?  Are there any months that have special celebrations e.g. Halloween, Christmas?
• Practise writing numbers correctly.  Can you write 0 – 20 with all digits formed correctly?

Other Areas of the Curriculum

In PE, we are continuing to develop our balance and coordination through a range of activities and games.

In HWB we continued to focus on kindness and acceptance. 

We have been practicing forming the letters c, o, d using the cursive font. 

We completed wellbeing webs – a questionnaire about the wellbeing indicators.

(safe, healthy, active, nurtured, achieving, respected, responsible, included)

We have started to do our BEAR time Be Excited About Reading. We love it! Children can bring a book from home that fits on their purple folder and use it at this time of the day.

Independent Learning

Other Information

Last week P2 write letters to King Charles III.  We are going to send a copy to the Palace and we will send a copy home for you to keep as a memento.

Have a great weekend! 😊

Mrs de Bonrostro

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have had a very busy week in P2. Please check your child’s purple folder for their Learning Story. This contains a termly overview of the learning for P2 and also your child’s personal targets. We would be grateful if these could be returned by Friday 23^rd September.

Topic

Our highlight from this week was a visit from Zoolab on Tuesday! Natalie introduced us to a variety of animals including stick insects, giant cockroaches, frogs, a tarantula, a baby rat, a giant snail and a gecko. She taught us all about their habitats and how the animals were specially adapted to living in their particular environment. This linked really well with our topic on Polly Jean Pyjama Queen.

Literacy

In literacy we have learned the igh and y sounds. These are two ways of making the same sound.

We have also been consolidating the ay and ai sounds from last week. Both classes enjoyed taking part in a word hunt in the playground with ai and ay words and pupils practised reading and spelling the words.

In writing we wrote a letter to King Charles III. We learned more about the conventions of letter writing.  This activity linked to our topic as Polly Jean writes letters to the animals and the animals reply back to her. We are looking forward to hearing back from the King as we did get a letter back from the late Queen after our letters for her Platinum Jubilee.

Look at the reply we got from the late Queen after the summer holidays!

Opportunities for home learning

• Please revisit the following sounds:

sh,ch,th,wh,ee,oo,ai,ay,igh and y.

You could make up flashcards or play this interactive game below.

Phonics Pop || Listen to the sound, then pop as many bubbles as you can – mobile friendly (ictgames.com)

• Continue to practise cursive handwriting using the sheet sent home last Friday.
• Revisit blocks 1-3 tricky words.

Maths

In maths we continued to learn about the days of the week and months of the year. 

In our number work we have continued with the SEAL programme. Some of the skills we have been working on this week are:

• Counting forwards starting at different numbers (not always zero). Some of us have been counting in the 0-20 range, others in the 0-30 range and some up to 100 and beyond. We have also been counting backwards and we find this much trickier!
• Identifying 2-digit numbers.
• Saying the number before and after. Some of us have been doing this within in the 0-20 range, others in the 0-30 range and some up to 100.

Opportunities for learning at home

Paint the Squares – Interactive Number Charts (topmarks.co.uk)

Use the link above. This chart can be used in a number of different ways.

• Select the number range your child is confident in.
• Select the 1 more and 1 less puzzle to reinforce the work we have been doing on number before/after.
• Select the missing number puzzle to reinforce numeral recognition. Discuss how you might work out the missing number and draw attention to the patterns in the rows and columns.

HWB/Other areas of the curriculum

• We have been singing Fischy music songs which link to health and wellbeing.  
• We really enjoyed our outdoor loose parts session on Thursday afternoon. 
• We are continuing to focus on the theme of being respectful and kind. 

We talked about the wellbeing indicators. These are our pictures of being Nurtured.

PE

Independent Learning

Other information:

• We will begin to send reading books home on the week beginning 26^th September. Further information on this will follow.

• Please ensure your child brings a jacket every day to school.
• We would like to remind you that toys and Pokémon cards should not be brought to school.
• A reminder to name all items of clothing and shoes, and to check names on items brought home in case your child accidentally acquires a jumper belonging to someone else.
• We are looking for small pieces of ‘junk’ for modelling e.g., toothpaste boxes, tea bag boxes, snack bar boxes. The more interesting shapes the better!

We hope you all have a lovely long weekend!

Mrs de Bonrostro

Dear Parents/ Carers, 

We hope you had a good week. 

This week in P2 we have been learning. 

Independent Learning

Literacy 

In literacy we have learned two new vowel diagraphs -ai and -ay. 

This week at writing we created a piece of writing without support. We described our own animal that we created by ‘mixing’ two animals. We made very interesting animals!

 

Maths 

At Maths we have been learning about time. Our focus has been days of the week and months of the year. 

We have continued to work on our numeracy skills through our SEAL programme (different groups will work with different numbers and skills depending on their abilities to be able to make progress accordingly): 

• Counting backwards and forwards from a given number within the range of 30, 100 and beyond for some. 

• Adding two collections of items (uncovered and covered). 
• Sharing amounts equally. 
• Working on doubles to ten. 

Other areas 

In PE we have worked on balance skills (indoors) and ball skills (outdoors): hand and feet skills. 

We have started an interesting topic on animals across the world through the book ‘Polly Jean Pyjama Queen’ 

We have continued to work on our wellbeing indicators. 

Both classes have a special focus on Kindness. 

On Thursday we made the most of the rain. We learned how to do paper boats and tried them in the puddles in the playground. They sank…but we are going to keep trying different materials and designs. What a great time we had! 

Things to do at home 

Today your child will bring a sheet with how to from cursive letters correctly. Your child could practice how to write her/his name using cursive letters. 

Literacy online games 

• Choose the sounds we have worked on so far: https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/forestPhonics/index.html 
• Practice tricky words Block 1, 2 and three. Your child should practice how to read and write these. 

Maths  

We have listened to this song: 

Can your child’s name all the months on the year? Does your child now in which month she/he was born? 

Other information 

• Next Tuesday we will have a visit from Zoolab linked to our topic. 
• On Thursday we will have Loose parts. Please ensure your child has appropriate clothing. We will be outdoors no matter the weather (unless torrential rain). 

• Please ensure your child brings a jacket every day to school. As mentioned above children will be outdoors in all weathers. 
• Purple folder. Thank you for your support in emptying the purple folders each day.  
• Please we would like to remind you that toys and Pokémon cards should not be brought to school. 
• A reminder to name all items of clothing and shoes, and to check names on items brought home in case your child accidentally acquires a jumper belonging to someone else. 
• We would appreciate donations of any unwanted empty or partially used notebooks or diaries (used pages can be removed). Also, any enticing writing implements (i.e., glittery pencils/gel pens/ pencils with feathers etc – anything other than standard school issue type pencils/pens). The children enjoy choosing resources from the table to use in their independent learning. 

• We are looking for small pieces of ‘junk’ for modelling e.g., toothpaste boxes, tea bag boxes, snack bar boxes. The more interesting shapes the better! 

I hope you have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs de Bonrostro

We hope you have a great week. It was lovely to finally meet you all at school. The children were delighted to see you in their classroom.

Our learning this week:

Independent Learning

Children have taken photos of their proud moments while learning independently.

Maths

Our focus has been counting forwards and backwards, working out the number before and the number after a given number, sharing equally an amount of items and adding using a number line.

Literacy

We have continued to work on the tricky words from block 1, 2 and 3 and initial blends.

We have started to work on cursive handwriting: letters i, l and t.

At writing our theme was ‘ When I go home’.

Other areas

PE

We have worked on balancing skills: static and dynamic balance.

HWB

We are working on the wellbeing indicators. So far we have worked on being safe and active.

Outdoor learning

We made our oo words using different items.

Things to remember:

• We are looking for a missing blue raincoat. It has been labelled. Please could you check if your child has brought home the right one? Thank you.
• We are practicing reading skills at school. Reading books will be sent home after the week after September weekend. We will be sending books home on Thursdays and, as last year, it will be to show case the children’s learning.
• Thank you for the table to our generous donor!
• Please we will be grateful if you could continue with your junk donations for our STEM area (cardboard boxes, tubes, plastic pots, etc).

Ideas for learning at home

• Count backwards and forwards from a given number.
• Say the number before and the number after a given number: it could be a bus number, a house number, etc.
• Practice writing number formation. There are quite a few children who a reversing numbers after the summer holidays.
• Practice our tricky words.
• Talk about feelings after a nice time, tricky situation, etc. You can ask them the colours for different feelings .from the Colour Monster book

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs de Bonrostro

Welcome to our weekly blog.

We hope you all had a good week. We certainly had a busy one.

It is lovely to see how the new class is gelling together. The atmosphere in the class is lovely. We are looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday at Meet the teacher.

This week our focus has been working as a team. We all knew each other from last year however we are a new team. We have agreed our class charter: ready, respectful and safe and discussed what this looks like for us.

Every morning we are greeting each other in a different languages language, it is amazing to see how many different are spoken by the children in our class. So far we have said hello in: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Dutch, Serbian and Gaelic. If you would like to come and teach us about your language and culture we would love to hear from you.

We have been talking about our feelings, how to express them and what to do if we need help. We read ‘The colour monster’ book. Our writing focus was Things that makes us happy.

We have talked about racism. We watched this video:

We have talked about being kind:

We have been working on our tricky words. We did a word hunt outdoors!

We have been checking our maths and reading skills before we start reading and maths groups.

We had our first session of indoor PE too.

This week we have been taking photos of our independent learning. Now we have an iPad that we can use if we feel proud of something we have made or learned. Look at our photos!

Learning tips

We will continue to work on our tricky words please find attached Block 1 to Block 3 (revision from last year).

Things to Know

• Please remember to label all items. We have a few indoor shoes from the same brand without a name and this is causing confusion between the children.
• Please don’t bring toys from home.
• We will be out in all weathers therefore it would be useful to check the weather forecast just in case wellies and raincoats are needed at playtime.
• On Friday 9th September you will receive our term Newsletter with all the information about the learning that will take place in term one as well as your child’s learning targets
• The children are working hard on our STEM area and we need junk ( empty cardboard boxes, egg boxes, etc.). Please ensure that all items are empty and don’t contain nuts.
• A reminder that we have children in the class with severe nut allergy . No nuts are allowed for snack or lunch.
• Only one snack is needed at school.
• Lost indoor shoe ( no name). Please let me know if it belongs to your child, no left shoe found. Maybe you have the other shoe at home… like Cinderella’s story!

I am looking for a small wooden table, see photo below (Ikea Lack small coffee table model). If you have one that you not longer need it will be great for providing another learning area in our room (if you have small stools, preferably not bright colours, even better!). Thank you!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs de Bonrostro