It's the most wonderful time of the year! The temperatures may have plummeted and the weather is certainly very frosty and cold but the spirits of Primary 2 Alpha are high and would warm the hearts of even the grinchiest Grinch this month! This month we have been continuing to develop our literacy skills through our Daily Literacy Learning program and I am so delighted to see the progress that the children have made. The children's enjoyment of and fluency in their reading continues to go from strength to strength and I could not be more proud. We have also been enjoying a whole host of writing activities from letter writing, winter story writing to creating our very own class novel - Oi Primary 2 Alpha! The children absolutely loved reading Oi Frog! together in class to which Aaryav asked...

"What would Mrs Allan sit on?"

From there our own class novel was born, with the children becoming the authors and illustrators of our very own story. Some names were a little trickier to find rhyming words with than others, but the children had such fun coming up with wonderful ideas of their own.

In maths we have been continuing to develop our knowledge of money - counting out and giving change, investigating weight in our Christmas post office, partitioning tens and units and of course our Countdown mental maths challenges which the children love! We definitely have some little maths whizzes in this class. Watch out Rachel Riley! The children have carried all that they have learned this term through to their play by creating their very own Costa Coffee Maidenhill in the class role play area - a super and enterprising idea by Lillie, Georgia, Remi and Mila! It has been such a joy to see the children creating their own menus and pricing, taking orders and paying for and giving change correctly, applying what we have learned across the curriculum. Well done boys and girls! Thanks also to Remi's dad for making some very professional coffee shop badges for the class, the children absolutely love them. Thank you!

In French, we have been learning vocabulary related to Christmas. We have also used this theme to help us consolidate our understanding of French vocabulary related to colours and numbers.

Of course, there have been lots of other fun activities happening around the school too: the House Christmas Carol Challenge, pantomime, festive lunch and winter parties have filled us all with lots of excitement - not to mention the cheeky antics of our Primary 2 elf! With the weather proving a little on the frosty side, the children have enjoyed taking part in dance and fun assault courses during P.E. using the school climbing wall as a special treat. We do hope to continue with PE in the MUGA in January, please be sure to pack warm and cosy layers for our unpredictable winter weather.

Finally, we have been spending our afternoons preparing and practising for our wonderful nativity play - The Big Little Nativity. The children have worked incredibly hard on their performance and Mr Milligan and I are so very proud each and every child. I know that I have had a lump in my throat on more than one occasion during rehearsals. We very much hope that you enjoyed the children's performance just as much as we have helping to direct it. From our actors and beautiful singers, to our talented dancers and stage hands who created all of our wonderful backdrops, props and even helped us to pull together our costumes... Our nativity play would not be the success it is without the contributions of each and every child. Well done boys and girls!