Primary 2, 8th March 2019
What an exciting week we’ve had in P2! On Thursday we went on a trip to Edinburgh Castle. The rain stopped shortly after we arrived, hurray! We enjoyed seeing the castle rock, bridge and dry ditch before entering the castle. Once over the bridge, we stood under the massive portcullis before going up to see the cannons and counting the gun loops. We then trudged up the 74 steps of the Lang Stairs to see the huge spectacle of Mons Meg at the top. Once in Crown Square, we saw the Honours of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny. We especially liked the Great Hall with it’s wonderful ceiling and the spy hole, the Laird’s Lug, next to the fireplace. The climax of the visit was watching the one o’clock gun being fired.
It was also World Book Week this week, so we’ve been very busy reading books of our choice and listening to the teacher read a variety of stories. We liked ‘The Haunted House’ and ‘Green Eggs and Ham’. We also listened to ‘The Gruffalo’ and made character masks, which you can see in the photo above. Finally we drew pictures of our favourite characters for the school display.
Primary 2, 22nd February 2019
This term our topic is castles. In art this week we looked at Paul Klee’s ‘Castle in the Sun’ and inspired by his beautiful paintings, we designed our own castles in the sun. We drew round 2D shapes and used bright oil pastels or coloured pencils to complete our work. We are very pleased with the results and they are now on display outside our classroom.
Primary 2, 1st February 2019
This week in gymnastics we have been working on rolls, jumps and landings. Using the springboard and tables, we have been practising star jumps, tuck jumps and landing with control on two feet. We are also trying to perfect our forward rolls, pencil rolls and teddy rolls. Yesterday our challenge was to do a jump with a quarter or half turn.
In topic maths we are working on money. We are able to recognise all the coins and have enjoyed playing at shops and ‘Top Marks Money Toy Shop Game’ online. The photos show our pair work task in which we had to make an amount in three different ways. Although we found this tricky at first, we managed well in the end.
In ‘Building Resilience’ this week our focus was discussing the things about ourselves that we’re proud of. We made rainbows coming out of the clouds and wrote the things we’re good at or proud of on the colours of the rainbow. These now brighten up our classroom!
Primary 2, 25th January 2019
Over the past fortnight we have been working hard on our Scots week mini-topic. We have learned a number of new Scots words, and today we had fun playing Scots animal name bingo. This week our focus has been learning about some of the animals that are found in Scotland, including the Capercaillie, Red Deer, Red Squirrel, Golden Eagle and Salmon, and we worked together to create posters or models to show our learning.
In art we looked at the work of artist Steven Brown, and used his Huey McCoo as inspiration to create our own McCoos using oil pastels. His bright rainbow colours made us happy! Last week in art we made our own tartan kilts, learning how the tartan pattern is made from repeating horizontal and vertical stripes.
Well done to everyone for making a big effort to learn their poems – the standard for reciting them from memory was very high and it was very difficult to choose winners! Congratulations to Maya and Austin who performed their poems beautifully in assembly today.
Primary 2, 7th December 2018
On Friday this week we all made Christmas snowman biscuits with the help of one of our parents. We worked in small groups and followed instructions well. We used digestive biscuits, marshmallows, icing and little pieces of chocolate. We took them home and couldn’t wait to eat them!
In maths this week we were learning the names of 3D shapes: cube, cuboid, cone, pyramid, cylinder, sphere and prism. We watched videos describing the shapes and played a game, where we had to match the shape to its name. We then built models in pairs and had to name all the shapes we used. We did well. Next week we’re going to learn to describe the properties of each shape using the correct mathematical language (faces, edges and vertices).
Primary 2, 23rd November 2018
This week we all went on a trip to the Observatory at Blackford Hill. Although it was VERY cold, we enjoyed our visit and learnt a lot. First we were shown one of the oldest telescopes in Scotland, which is huge but is no longer in use. Then we were taken up a spiral staircase to the roof, where we had an excellent view of Edinburgh. We also saw the castle close up through a telescope. Afterwards we had a workshop in which we learnt that the sun is a huge burning ball of gas, very far from our Earth. We learnt how the moon moves around the Earth and the Earth with its moon moves around the sun. We made sundials and learnt a little about how they work. Finally we got to hold a meteorite from outer space. It was very heavy!
Above you can see a few photos of one of our ‘Read, Write, Count’ activities. We made little cardboard characters and used them to retell the story ‘A Tale of Two Beasts’. The children have really enjoyed working on the books and we hope you will too!
Primary 2, 9th November 2018
We have had a very artistic week this week, with lots of art and music! We did some work on the seasons, learning about why we have them and P2b used sponges, paintbrushes and oil pastels to create a piece of art showing a tree through the four seasons. Students from Edinburgh University Music Department come to teach us every Monday and this week we were learning about rhythm, happy music and sad music. We sang action songs and learnt the terms ‘piano’, ‘forte’, ‘adagio’ and ‘allegro’.
On Tuesday we had a visit from a harpist and a fiddler. We really enjoyed the music and clapped along with the melodies. We also learnt a Gaelic song.
In maths we’re continuing to work on 2d shapes, learning the names, the number of sides and corners. We also learnt that squares and rectangles have right angles. In the photos above we worked in twos or threes to make pictures with the shapes. On Thursday we sorted shapes into groups and explained our choice of groups to the class.
Primary 2 Learning, 2 November 2018
We’ve been very busy in P2 starting our new topic – Sun, Moon and Stars – and our new maths topic – Shape.
In P2a all this came together on this week when we discussed the seasons and the fruits and vegetables that ripen in Autumn. Pumpkins came to mind and we shared ideas for healthy delicious meals – pumpkin soup (David), stuffed wee pumpkins cooked in the oven (Devyn), and dried pumpkin seeds (Lachlan). We then used lentils to make pumpkin pictures and triangles to give them faces.
We also used shapes to make symmetrical rockets, and pairs of triangles for stars.
P2 have three trips coming up this month, two to Dynamic Earth and one to the Royal Observatory. Dates will be on the website but if you are interested in being a parent helper please speak to Mrs Carson or Mrs Sutherland or the school office.
