In Literacy and English, the children have continued to make excellent progress in reading, writing and listening and talking across the curriculum. In reading, we have been focusing recently on context clues and how these can be used to support us in understanding unfamiliar words within a text.  The children are continuing to focus on reading with fluency, sounding out words they find tricky and blending. Giving it a go is the best thing they can do, and the children's reading has came on so much thanks to the opportunities they have to read aloud both in class and at home. Thank you, as always, for your support with this. 

In writing, the children have been working hard to enhance and extend the texts they are creating. We have been looking at expanding our bank of adjectives that we can use when writing. The children in Primary 2 seize opportunities to write daily, be it through their targets, across other curricular areas or when playing. Of course, ensuring the children are reading as much as possible has helped them broaden their understanding of language which is being applied within the texts they create. I have been blown away by some of the imaginative texts that have been created throughout Primary 2 - excellent progress has been made!

The children are continuing to enhance their listening and talking skillset by using hand gestures to support them and by speaking clearly and articulately. It has been lovely to see the children's continued and growing confidence in sharing their thoughts and opinions in whole class discussion. 

Our mental maths focus recently has been on solving increasingly complex word problems, possibly involving more than one step to solve them. While word problems can often appear challenging or labour intensive at first, the children have worked hard to develop a determined mindset to crack the problem by identifying the mathematical language within the question and sharing a strategy for what to do to solve it. They have enjoyed working with their learning partners to share solutions and ro recognise the value of working together to achieve. 

Across Numeracy and Mathematics, the children are making excellent progress across number, measure and information handling concepts. Plenty of consolidation takes place in class, however, we know that much of the Numeracy and Mathematics that sticks with our children is the concepts that they are using in everyday life. Myself and Mrs Allan ensure that our role play area and the other areas of our classrooms allow children to apply what they have learned in different contexts - such as calculating change, telling the time and measuring length, weight and volume. Please continue to support this by encouraging your children to use their fantastic numerical and mathematical skills when they are outside of school. Your support is invaluable and so appreciated. 

Across the curriculum, the children have thoroughly enjoyed our Percy the Park Keeper context for learning and it has been lovely to hear about their home learning projects linked with the life cycle of a plant. 

We are looking forward to seeing lots of our families at the STEM Fayre on Wednesday 7th June 2023. We won't share too much about what we have been doing just yet - all to be revealed when we see you!

The children have recently enjoyed learning about the different musical instruments and having opportunities to play them. We are now extending our knowledge to following a beat and rhythm by counting in and out. 

In Art and Design, we have been looking at different artists such as Matisse and Kadinsky and using what we have learned to create artwork of our own. There is an abundance of wonderful designs being created - what an artistic bunch we have!

In Health and Wellbeing, we will be focusing particularly on transitions, considering the importance of change and how to cope when we find change tricky. The resilience in Primary 2 Bravo is excellent - I am so proud of you all and how much you've grown throughout the year. 

A short message below from Mrs Allan about our scheduled trip on Tuesday 6th June 2023!

We are all so excited for our summer trip to Rouken Glen park next week! Thank you so much to all of the parents and carers who came forward to help to support us on our trip. School trips really couldn't happen without you and Mr. Milligan and I are overwhelmed and so grateful for your support. We aim to depart Maidenhill at around 9.30am, returning from the park at 2.30pm. Although some parent helpers might be making their own way there, we would be grateful if everyone could please meet at the school before departure so that we can share parent helper packs and meeting point arrangements. 

All children should come to school dressed in school uniform with appropriate footwear, jacket, sun hats and suncream applied, weather dependent. Children should bring a water bottle, snack and packed lunch along in a bag that is easy to carry independently. If you would like your child to have a school packed lunch, please get in touch to let us know. 

We would kindly ask that parents make sure that children please leave special belongings and toys at home so that we don't lose anything precious on our journey around the park. 

We are all so excited and keeping all fingers and toes crossed for a lovely sunny day to celebrate the end of a wonderful year in Primary Two!