Tag Rugby

Change of time for tag rugby - instead of going to the 3G pitch on Friday, we will be doing it in school tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

LEPRA workout

Today primary 2 and 3 joined together to do the LEPRA workout to raise money for the charity that helps people with Leprosy.  Here we all are working very hard.

Tag Rugby Fun

We braced ourselves against the wind and were lucky enough to have mainly sunshine for our Tag Rugby today.

Author's Live event

This morning Chae Strathie read us some of his bed time stories, sang songs and helped us create a crazy character with made up words.
We chose a comfy seat, listened well and joined in with the songs.  To keep us nice and cosy we put the lights off, shut the curtains and had a hot chocolate too.
Here are some pictures of us.  Sometimes we are relaxing, other times we are having lots of fun joining in with songs and rhymes.

Authors Live event

Tomorrow (Thursday 21st May) there is an 'Author's Live Event' organised by the Scottish Book Trust.   Jumblebum's, author Chae Strathie, will be reading some bed time stories live to children across Scotland.  P2 will be taking part in this so feel free to bring a teddy and some pyjamas to change into for our cosy reading time.

Information Handling

Our maths recently has focused on finding, organising and displaying information.  This week we are looking at Carroll and Venn diagrams.  The children are able to sort items based on their own criteria and problem solve how others have sorted their Carroll diagrams.

Update on learning this week

Sorry folks, not had any posts on here this week - been busy moving into and out of another classroom but that is us all settled back into our own classroom.  Here is what we have been up to since my last update:

On Friday we worked on being super speedy at maths.  I took small groups of children and gave them mental maths challenges.  While I was working with groups the rest of the class played maths games. Here are Thorfinn and Alida being super speedy at solving sums.

On Tuesday we had Karyn Tait visit us to talk about Oral health.  The children joined in well and were an enthusiastic audience.

Busy day

Busy day today!
1.  We welcome Katie to our class, thank you to everyone for being so welcoming.
2. We learnt lots about Russia, we even learnt some Russian words!
3. Found out we have a disco on Thursday night, so get your dancing shoes ready for that (eldest and only's got a letter tonight about this)
4.  We have done really well with our long 'a' words.  Here we are practising the 'ai' sound.

 

Having fun with halves

Today we learnt how to half a shape.  We realised that it gives you two pieces and they are equal.  Everybody had a shape to half, then we put them together to make some pictures.

Tasting Herbs

We have been growing a basil and strawberry plant in class, we don't have much to show for it yet but the children were curious about what basil was and asked about some other herbs.  I brought in some basil and parsley, our cleaner Rosemary brought in mint and chives from her garden.  I took in some cherry tomatoes to have with the basil.  Children tasted and smelled the herbs and talked about if they had eaten them before and what kinds of food it would be nice with.

Recent art work

After reading 'The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark' the class made their own owls in art.  Here are some of the class sharing their pictures.

P2's very own book!

Primary 2 have made their very own book; Moppie Visits Stromness.  Claire has worked really hard over the holidays to turn our handmade copies into a professional, finished product.  The class are delighted with the book and soon we will host an assembly to share our new book.
Thank you so much Claire and very well done to Primary 2.

Welcome back

It was nice to see everyone back after the holidays, ready to start a busy new term.  Today we began  spelling with 'wh' words.  Some of us found it tricky to hear if it was a 'w' or 'wh' word but we will be practising a lot through the week and the homework will help too.  Today we played Chinese Whispers, trying to pass round a 'wh' word we had thought of.

Here is the action to help children remember the 'wh' sound.  You can feel your breath on your hands if it is a 'wh' word.

Enjoy your holiday

Hope you all have a nice Easter break and I look forward to seeing you all again next term.

Walk down the street

We had a very short walk along the street today to have a good look at Stromness - we went to Julia's to warm up with some hot chocolate and a tasty tray bake.  Here are some pictures of us enjoying ourselves.

Show and Tell

We had lots of lovely news today and have seen lots of nice things during show and tell.  Murray got an extra big round of applause because he decorated an Easter bunny for everyone in the class.  Here we are enjoying our personalised bunnies.  Thank you Murray :)

Eclipse

SPS had great fun experiencing the solar eclipse today.  We had a few different ways of doing this; pinhole camera's, welders glass, eclipse glasses, colander and a welders mask.
Despite a lot of cloud cover, the children were able to get a good view of the moon passing the sun.

Visiting Author

Claire came to visit our class today and answered a lot of questions about her job as an author and illustrator.  The class listened really well and asked lots of sensible questions.  We are making a book as a class and Claire has helped us.  She also kindly gave each child 5 postcards of Moppie in different places in Orkney.  Later the children used these cards to help them with their own art projects.

Solar eclipse

On Friday morning, as the children come to school, there will be a solar eclipse occurring. On Thursday we will discuss how to protect your eyes during that time by highlighting

• You should never look directly at the sun
• Sunglasses will not be a suitable way to protect your eyes if looking at the eclipse
• Any damage caused could be permanent 

Please help to spread this safety message to keep everyone safe on Friday morning. 

Red Nose Day Fun!

Our school did a brilliant job of raising money for Comic Relief on Friday.  We had 'make your face funny for money', stalls, face painting, nail bar, cake sales and a talent show.  Here are some pictures from the day.

P2 Book

P2 are working with Eden's mum Claire to make a class book.  We are sending 'Moppie' on a journey around Stromness.  The children have written the story, put it in the correct order and are now working in pairs to create a rough draft of the pages.  We have seen some excellent team work and brilliant ideas.

Today's numeracy and a wee reminder

Today Primary 2 were drawing funny monsters and had to write a dividing sum related to their monster e.g "My monster has 4 legs, how many monsters would there be if there were 16 legs?"
We swapped monsters and questions to solve each others problems.  Some of us did this mentally, using a number line or putting cubes into groups.

Wee reminder:

Auditions for Friday's talent show will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) in our classroom.  We will then choose 2 acts to put forward into Friday's talent show.

World Book Day!

We have gotten off to a good start.  Primary 2 have had the chance to show off their characters to each other and the wholes school.  We all met in the hall this morning to show off our costumes.

Strictly...

Today we were treated to the winning performance from Orkney's Strictly Come Dancing.  Mr MacIntosh and Mrs Aberdein were in costume this time and thoroughly entertained the school.  They have helped to raise a fantastic amount for charity. Well done!

Spelling

Today we have been working on words that have i with magic e.  Children worked in small groups to come up with words in that group and some used class dictionaries to check their answers.

Today's numeracy

We have been grouping and multiplying today.  We have been using towers of cubes to help us see how numbers can be grouped equally.  Many children understand that this is dividing and can now write a sum to match their practical work.  Other children were interested in learning about times tables and square numbers so we spent some time using counters to help illustrate what this meant.

World Book Day Assembly

Today we have been putting the finishing touches on what we would like to say/show in our WBD assembly.  Scripts will be ready to go home tomorrow to give children the chance to practise at the weekend as well as throughout next week.
For the assembly it would be helpful if children had their favourite book to show and have learnt their lines.  The assembly will be at 9.45, Friday 6th March.

Sketching Stromness

Today we took advantage of our beautiful views and the sunny weather to sketch parts of our town.  Children worked in pairs, armed with a pencil, paper and clip board to set about their creations.

Sharing and grouping

We used counters and whiteboards to show how well we can put a larger number into groups (divide).  Some children can now show what happens when some counters are left over and others have been taught the link between dividing and times tables.

Numeracy, monster trucks and fish?

We have had a busy day today.  We used monster trucks to help us with our maths.  Then some p6's came to visit to teach us all about brown trout and let us look at the fish.

Maths:  children knew they were going to draw some monster trucks, they had to decide with a partner how many wheels they wanted each truck to have.  I gave them some counters (wheels) and they found out how many trucks they could draw and if they had any counters left over.

P6's science project is about caring for brown trout, today they shared what they had learned with the class.  P2 listened really well and asked some interesting questions.  They enjoyed getting to look at the tiny fish that still have their egg attached.  The little fish still gets its food from the egg "It's like it is carrying its packed lunch!"

Special visitor

We had a special visitor in P2 today....a Chinese dragon!  The nursery dressed up and came to see us playing Chinese music and jingling instruments.  P2 were interested because we already knew a little about the Chinese new year and could tell the nursery some facts.  After the nursery left, our interest had been sparked again, some children 'worked' in the class Chinese restaurant, painted Chinese dragons or wrote words and letters from the Chinese alphabet.  We were surprised how some letters looked similar to our alphabet - R, F, J and I were quite similar. 

Computer skills

Primary 2's have been learning how to use a computer.  Here are some of the skills they have already:

• properly turn on/shut down the laptop
• store and put on charge safely
• open a word document

Some children have further developed their skills by learning how to:

• change font
• change size
• change colour of writing. 
• highlight their writing
• use "Ctrl" and "A" to highlight their writing as a short cut
• use "Ctrl and "Z" to undo a mistake

Pancake Day!

P2 have been having fun measuring and sharing.  We made pancakes and shared them out. 

Directions

We have been learning how to give and follow directions as part of our maths topic.  We know right, left, forward, backwards, half turn and full turn.  To put this into practise we designed routes and made our remote control car travel along, following the directions. 

Planting fun

Primary 2 planted 3 different things today - strawberries, basil and a venus fly trap!

Today's numeracy and literacy

Our recent focus in number work is making 'lots' (groups) of numbers and finding the total.  For example, we would roll the dice and know we had to build 4 towers.  Roll the dice again, each tower must have 5 cubes in it.  How many cubes do we have altogether. 
We now know that would be 5 + 5 + 5 + 5.  Today we learned that we have actually been learning the beginnings of our times tables!  So we could write 4 x 5 or we know there are 4 lots of 5. 

We have been using our reading skills to help us with topic work.  Today we went to the school library and found books about Stromness.  We found lots of interesting photos from the past and liked looking at some of the maps too. 

Trip to Argo's Bakery

P2 had a wonderful time visiting Argo's Bakery.  We got to see lots of different machines, found out about the hundreds of different foods they make and how far they send the food.  As we left everyone got a peedie sausage roll and a bag of fudge.  The class asked some really good questions and showed they were very polite.

Class Trips

As you've seen in the homework this week we will be venturing out of school twice this week.  On Wednesday morning we will be going to Argo's Bakery and on Thursday we will visit J & S Allan.  We have been learning about the businesses of Stromness so thought it would be a good idea to visit a few. 
Please wear your hi-vis vest and wrap up nice and cosy!

Welcome Back!

This week we have been looking at long and short vowel sounds.  Here is Eden, Eve and Emilie showing how their names have vowels at the start of their names.