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.