Category: Primary 2

It was lovely to see so many of you at our drop in session this morning. I hope that you enjoyed spending time with the class.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

There is an update to PE days for P2. From Monday 7^th November, the days will be as follows:

P2D Monday and Tuesday

P2M Wednesday and Friday

Here is a summary of our learning this week.

Literacy

In literacy we have been learning the digraph sounds ou (found, loud, count) and ow (cow, owl, howl). We have used the following image to help us to remember the sound.

We particularly enjoyed making owls to link to both our IDL topic and the ow sound in phonics.

In writing we wrote about the story of Jonah and the whale. Our focus was on the beginning, middle and end structure of a story.

Ideas for learning at home:

• Your child should continue to work on the word wall related to the stage they are reading. They should become confident in reading these words.  Remember that they should recognise these words by sight. 
• An idea to practise spelling words with ou and ow is to play hangman.
• Handwriting. Here is a useful website which has animations to show how to correctly form each letter. Please note that the f and z that we use are in the ‘alternative / non scheme letters’ section.

Continuous Cursive letter choice 1 beginners (teachhandwriting.co.uk)

• Continue to practise reading and spelling the tricky words.  An idea is to play snap. Use 2 sets of cards with the words. Lay out a large piece of paper and a pen in the middle of the table. When the words match, rather than saying the word to win the cards, you have to grab the pen and write the word to win the cards.  

Maths

We have been counting in 2s and 10s as well as developing our addition skills.

Here are two games to reinforce these skills.

Duck Shoot – tablet friendly (ictgames.com)

Hit the Button – Quick fire maths practise for 6-11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk) (Select number bonds and then the range most appropriate.)

We have also been learning about symmetry. You may find this game useful to use at home.

Symmetry Sorting Game – Sort symmetrical and non-symmetrical images (topmarks.co.uk)

You could also practise making symmetrical models with lego or other building bricks. Or even making symmetrical pictures of funny faces or patterns using small objects from around the house.

Other Curricular Areas

• We have been learning about whales and owls and how both are specially adapted to living in their habitat.
• In RME we learned about the story of Jonah and the whale.
• Our PE lessons focussed on a range of skills: underarm throw, speed and agility and dribbling a football. We also incorporated number work into our stations!

Here are a selection of photos from this week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs McFarlane

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

We practised counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to find out how many seeds were in each pumpkin. The results were surprising!

Outdoor Learning

We worked with P2D to complete an Autumn scavenger hunt.

Our PE lesson focussed on balancing, hand-eye coordination and fitness.

Dear Parents, 

We hope you all had a lovely break. 

This week has been a short one for the children however we have been very busy. 

Our learning this week: 

Literacy 

We have focused on sentence structure and what to look for when writing a sentence. 

Our writing theme was ‘My magic spell’ 

 At home   

• We haven’t sent reading books home this week. Please return any books your child has at home.   
• Your child should continue to work on the word wall related to the stage they are reading. They should become confident in reading these words.  Remember that they should recognise these words by sight. 
• Handwriting, children could continue to practise writing their first and surname in cursive script.   
• Continue to practise reading and spelling the tricky words.  An idea is to play faster finger: have all the tricky words written or on cards you say a word and the first person to find it wins the card (or a point). Then hide the card and ask your child to write it (double points for this). 

Maths 

We have been learning to count in twos. We read the book ‘How many seeds in a pumpkin’ and estimated how many seeds they were inside the four pumpkins we had at school. We carved them and counted the seeds in twos! 

At home: 

• Continue to practice on number formation. 
• We have used this 100 square website to help us to count in twos and to see the number patterns when counting in twos: 

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/paint-the-squares

• Continue to work on addition skills: 

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/mental-maths-train

Other areas 

As part of the school focus on Black History Month we have been learning about Rosa Parks: her life, why it was important what she did, etc. We discussed about on fair/unfair rules and about being all equal no matter our skin colour.  

Here is a video of the book we read at school. 

We made a fantastic display at school! 

PE we have worked on listening, team work, balance and eye-hand coordination skills. 

As part of our outdoor learning we did an Autumn scavenger hunt. 

Other information    
  
   

• Loose parts on Wednesday 2^nd November. 
• Next Friday Drop-in of the session. The school will be open for half an hour from 8.55am until 9.25am and parents are invited to visit their child’s classroom during this time. This an opportunity to see your child’s learning at school.. 

• Please ensure your child brings a jacket every day to school.    
• 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!    
   

Another very busy week.  We are feeling ready for our week’s holiday!

Literacy

This week we learned the digraph sounds oi (boil, foil, coin) and oy (boy, toy, enjoy).  We used the following image to help us to remember the sound. 

We have focussed on what makes a sentence and have done some work on identifying sentences, ensuring that they each make sense on their own. 

In writing, we finished our unit on instruction writing with a piece focussing on our morning routine at school.  We are now confidently using bossy verbs, using words of order and sequencing instructions correctly.  We have been developing our skills in self assessing our work against these success criteria. 

We have been continuing to work on developing our spelling of tricky words and recognition of key words from our reading books. 

Things to try at home:

• Practise reading your new reading book with the illustrations covered up
• Continue to practise word wall words – we should know these by sight
• With an adult practise finding words in your reading books in isolation e.g. ‘find the word pulled’, ‘find the word stream’.
• Following on from parents evening your child will now have a copy of tricky words to practise – use post-its or small pieces of paper and make a pairs game to play – making the cards will further cement the spelling of these words.

Numeracy

This week in numeracy we have continued to practise our numerical skills by:

• Counting forwards and backwards starting and stopping at different points
• Recognising numerals
• Handwriting numbers correctly
• Using a counting on strategy for addition

Our main focus has been revisiting doubles facts using fingers unseen (1+1, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5) and extending this to (6+6, 7+7, 8+8, 9+9, 10+10). 

We also introduced the concept of near doubles (doubles plus 1.)

Things to try at home:

DOUBLES! DOUBLES! (*new* 1-10 version) – YouTube

Addition: Doubles + 1 / Growing Brain – YouTube

Loop cards (dominos) games – select ‘doubles to 15’ or ‘doubles to 20’ Loop Cards – 5-11 year olds – Topmarks

Hit the button game – select doubles to 10 – Hit the Button – Quick fire maths practise for 6-11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk)

Other Areas of the Curriculum

As part of our Polly Jean Pyjama Queen topic we have been learning about adaptions animals have developed to live in their habitats.  The two animals we learned about were: camels and how they have adapted to life in the desert and polar bears and how they have adapted to life in the Arctic. 

We enjoyed taking part in experiments to find out how polar bears have adapted to cold climates. 

We used lard to create a polar bear glove and tested this in ice with one hand gloved and one hand bare.  We found that the hand with the polar bear glove could not feel the cold ice at all!  The lard provided a thick layer of fat similar to that of the polar bear. 

We also used cotton wool to insulate our hand against ice, just like a polar bear’s thick fur.  It helped to keep our hands warm!

In PE, we have continued to develop our balance and coordination using a range of resources and activities.

We enjoyed working with the other P2 class to find and unscramble tricky words in the playground.

We learned about Black history month and some important black historical figures.

Other information  

• Please ensure your child brings a jacket every day to school.  
• 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!

Dear Parents/ Carers,  

This week in P2 we have been learning: 

Literacy  

In literacy we have learned two new vowel diagraphs oa (as in goat, moat, boat) and ow (as in blow, snow and row). They both make the same sound.  We talked about the fact that oa is usually found in the middle of words and ow at the end.

In writing we have continued to learn how to write instructions.  

In handwriting we have been working on how to form the letter s in cursive script. 

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. 
• Your child should also have a word wall related to the stage they are reading. They should become confident in reading these words. 
• Handwriting, children could continue to practise writing their first and surname in cursive script. 
• Continue to practise reading and spelling the tricky words. 
• Here is a fun game to practise at home. Select ow and oa to reinforce this week’s phonics focus. 
  
  Forest Phonics – mobile friendly (ictgames.com) 
  
   
  Maths  
  
  In Maths we have continued our unit of work on information handling. We have learned to make simple bar graphs. 
  
  We have continued to work on our numeracy skills through our SEAL programme.
  
  The main focus has been on number structures (using a ten frame) and learning about all of the different ways that the same number can be represented.  
  
  At home 
  
  This is a fun game to reinforce the work we have done on information handling. 
  
  Fishing Pictograph Game | 2nd Grade Math Games | Toy Theate
  
  We have used this game to explore ten frames. 
  
  https://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Illuminations/Interactives/Ten-Frame/ 
  
  Here is an interesting link which demonstrates how the numbers 9 and 10 can be represented. 
  
  Representing 9 and 10 – Maths – Learning with BBC Bitesize – BBC Bitesize 
  
  You could extend this at home by exploring different numbers and how they can be represented.  
  
  Other areas  
  
  In PE we have worked on working as a team (outdoors) and ball skills (indoors): hand and feet skills.  
  
  IDL We have continued to work on our topic Polly Jean Pyjama Queen and our focus has been learning about habitats.  
  
  
  Other information  
  

• Please ensure your child brings a jacket every day to school.  
• 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!  

Sorry for the delay in posting the blog this week. Technology issues!

This week in P2 we have been learning: 

Literacy  

In literacy we have learned the new vowel diagraph ew as in -oo-. (examples of words with this sound are flew, stew, crew).  We have used these picture symbols to remember ew and oo.

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

In 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 their name and other names in cursive handwriting.
• 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  

In Maths we have been learning about handling information, we have learned to make bar charts.

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 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! 

Other information  

• Parents Consultations on Wednesday and Thursday. 
• Please ensure your child has appropriate clothing. We will be outdoors no matter the weather (unless torrential rain).  
•  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). 
• 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 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 McFarlane