P2 Mrs Norris
Welcome to our P.2 Class Page.
We hope that you enjoy looking at
all our photographs and videos
of our school activities throughout the year.
Stephen and Chris from the RNLI came to talk to us all about keeping safe when close to the water during the Summer Holidays. They told us to always stop and think before we get into the water and to stay close to family and friends. They showed us different flags that are an important part of their job, and told us what they mean e.g. the RNLI flag indicates the Life Guards are on duty, red and yellow flags highlight the swimming zone, black and white show the surfing area, and a red flag means danger. Olivia (P.6) had the opportunity to drees up as a Lifeguard. She had to supervise the “swimmers and surfers” making sure they stayed within their designated zones. With Alanna’s help Stephen also showed us a technique to use if we should get into difficulty in the water. It was an extremely informative session and the children all loved taking an active part.
In Phonics we have been exploring the “magic e,” working with the letter “a.” This e is silent and found at the end of words, but it makes the vowel before it, call out its name. We had great fun putting the “magic e” onto words and changing the whole meaning e.g., cap – cape, mat – mate.
In ICT we had the chance to practice our keyboard skills and write about what we have learned so far about castles. We had to remember where all the different letters were on a keyboard, how to create a capital letter, how to put a space between our words and where to find a full stop. We also had to remember how we can correct our mistakes. Most importantly, we had to remember to “Save” our work regularly throughout the activity and before we logged off.
As much as we love our play activities in the classroom , nothing beats getting outsde into the sun and getting some fresh air. We had so much fun playing in the water tray, in the mud kitchen, on the scooters with the chalk and chalk board and in the play house.
The month of May is devoted to Mary Our Mother. We have set up our May Altar in the classroom and in Grow in Love, we have been talking about our favourite stories about Mary. We have also been learning songs and prayers devoted to Mary.
In Literacy our focus sound for the week was “er.” We learned how the “Robot Stealing R’s” steal vowels and all make the same sound. We met the words “there & their.” These words are known as homophones as they sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things. There – is to be used when referring to a place, and their when something belongs to someone. We had lots of practice on trying to use these words correctly.
Kings & Castles, Dressing Up Time.
In Problem Solving we had the important task of finding all the different ways the King could hide his ten jewels in three different places around the castle so that the raiders could not find them. We worked together to state how many jewels could be hidden in each place. We recorded our findings using numbers.
In our work on Capacity, we wanted to find out how much we could hold in our hand. We used red lentils to do this. We each grabbed a handful of lentils and then counted out how many spoonfuls we managed to lift. We recorded our results using a pictograph. We then had the opportunity to talk about and interpret our results.
As part of “Paper Free Thursday” we collected data on our favourite colour of Tee-Shirt and recorded our results using a pictograph on our ICT. We then had the opportunity to “interpret” the information using the “True or False” approach. We had great fun and discussion as we “voted with our feet” to do this.
In Numeracy we reinforced the concept and language of subtraction using ICT with the game “Mental Maths Train.” We discovered that there are many words that mean subtraction, such as, take away, minus, how many less and how many more. However, we realised that it is very important to always put the biggest number first when subtracting.
Paper-Free Phonics; This week our target sound was "ee." Another way this sound can be made is with "ea." Our task was to create an "ee" word using the correct variation. We had to pick one set of letters from each section in order to complete the word.
In WAU / ECO we had the very important task of creating bird feeders that are to be placed around the school grounds for our feathered friends. We covered cardboard tubes in butter, rolled them in bird seed and threaded some string through them so that they could be hung up.
To reinforce our subtraction knowledge we played "Subtraction Bingo!"
Comhghairdeas! to Cocca, Meara and Arianna who won 1st place and joint 2nd respectively at the “Féis an Dúin.” for reciting their poem, “Froganna.” Maith Sibh!
In Phonics this our target sound, was “ow” but this sound can also be made with “ou.” We had great fun playing “vote with your feet!” We were presented with a word we had to look at it carefully, decide if it was to be spelled with an ‘ou’ or ‘ow.’ We then had to move to the side of the room that spelling was placed on. If we were unsure, we had to check if “it looked right?”
We had some "treasure" hidden in the sand tray. Each child was given a collecting bag. They took turns to roll a dice. Every time a child rolled a skull and crossbones, they searched for a piece of treasure in the sand to put in their bag. When all the treasure was found, the bags were weighed to see who had collected the most treasure. Each child was then given the oppotunity to create a "dough ball" the same weight as their "treasure." Lots of Problem Solving, thinking skills and mathematical language happening.
There was so much excitment when the Easter Bunny came to visit. We had so much fun trying to find all the eggs that they had hidden. We were all rewarded for our efforts, when we recieved an Easter egg each.
The winners of our class "He is Risen!" Art Competition were; 1st Ava,
2nd Cassy, 3rd Lila-Rose. Congratulations girls!
As the season changes, we too, are showing the changes in our Seasonal Display. We have created some sheep to be placed in our scene.
In Numeracy we explored Grid Referenceson the IWB. We had to position coloured shapes on a certain position on the grid. We knew which square to set it on because we described it using a letter and a number. We also had the opportunity to describe the position the shapes too.
Our Doctor’s Area took delivery of a wheelchair and a new cot. Both were designed and built by Arianna. On the wheelchair, there are buttons to turn it off and on, levers to raise it up and down and a special arm rest on which to sit a mobile phone. When you have a cardboard box and the imagination, anything is possible.
Congratulations to Ava and Georgia who were very successful in their participation in the Newry Dancing Féis.
We had a visit from Maire, Aaron, and Shannon from the PSNI Mourne Neighbourhood Team. They came to remind us of the different ways that we must keep ourselves safe. They spoke to us about how we should safely walk to school, how we should sit and behave in the car, what we should do if we were approached by someone we did not know, what to do if we got lost in a shop or shopping centre, how to keep safe online. We were reminded of the number we should call if there was an emergency at home, and we were reminded of the importance of knowing our home address. Before they left the team presented every one of us with reflective stickers, key rings, and slap bands!!
We have been working on “time.” We are now practising telling the time when it is “half past” the hour. We have been looking at how the digital clock shows us that it is “half past.” We had great fun playing a time matching game on the IWB.
A new Doctor’s Surgery has been set up in our Play zone. This was instigated by the children themselves. As the resources for this area were not at hand, it was lovely to see them use their imaginations and “make” what they needed, together. We have a stethoscope, thermometer, throat light all made from pipe cleaners, two fabulous cardboard box X-ray machines, a waiting area with “homemade magazines,” and doctors, nurses and consultants all at hand. There has been no body part this week that has not been talked about, examined, or bandaged.
We had great fun as we tried to find the "ar" words in the picture.
Can you spot any?
Lots of Arts & Crafts this week as we got ready to celebrate both
St. Patrick's Day and Mother's Day. We were busy right to our finger tips.
In Numeracy we worked very hard to try to find out how many ways we could make "10." We had to make sure to record our answers using the correct notation.
In Play & ICT we had the chance to develop our coding skills. We had to programme the Bee-Bot to move around his enclosed space and gather up items that were needed to move to the next level. We had to think very carefully about the moves we wanted the Bee-Bot to make, so that he would not bump into things. We had to remember which turn was right or left, and most importantly we had to remember to “Clear the code” before we made our next move!
In Phonics this week, we were introduced to our target sound “qu” through the story “The Quick Queen!” We then had a “Meet & Greet!” session. We were all given a word that contained the diagraph “qu” and we had to walk around the room, when we met someone, we had to read the word that they were holding, and they had to read our word too. We discovered a lot of new “qu” words such as; quiver, quill and aqua.
We had such fun, reinforcing our "qu" sound with the "Break & Make" Activity. We had to select a letter or letters from each box and put them together to make a 'qu' word.
In Play & WAU we had such fun exploring our new "Pirates" area. We can all dress up and become pirates, sailing our “Box-Boat” across the stormy seas, fighting off those who want to rob us of our cache. We have made maps to show where we have buried our “treasure” and have ‘posted’ these maps in a bottle. We are really enjoying playing “Pop-Up Pirate!” together, playing fair and taking turns. We can help each other to complete the Pirate Themed Jigsaws that we have in our room. We have many books to read and stories to listen to, and we are looking forward to this. We discovered that there were women pirates too. One of the most famous being Irish, her name was Grace O’Malley.
To celebrate World Book Day, we were tasked with creating a "prop" for our favourite book. What fabulous creations came into school! Wilber the Pig (Charlotte’s Web), Dino Dana, Cassie the Fairy who needed glasses, The Singing Mermaid, a poisoned apple, to list but a few. Look at our pictures to see the others. We took time to tell our class about our books and our creations. We also had a great DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) Session. Some boys and girls from the P5 class then came to read a story to us. They talked to us about the characters, their feelings and encouraged us to predict what might happen as we went through the story.
We are learning how to use a number line that had all the numbers from 1 to 20. We realised that it is extremely important not to count on until you have “jumped” from the starting number, so our new Class Phrase is;
“Jump, then Count!”
In Literacy & WAU we concluded our “Space” topic by reading “Back to Earth with a Bump!” where we Hal was sent on a mission to find the sun. In pairs we sequenced the pictures to tell the story.
As part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival, and through the power of technology, we took part in an Animal Hunt. We met Terry the Corn snake, Jeremy the Treefrog, Carson the Cockroach, Rosie the Tarantula and Gwen the Gecko. We learned about their habitat, which countries they came from, the food they eat and their different body parts.
In Numeracy we reinforced our number work on Doubles. We used Numicon to help us do this. We had lots of practice in using our doubles, and then discovered that we could use them to calculate “near doubles,” too.
We created Space Rockets from cardboard tubes. We painted them, added circles for windows, placed a cone on top, and tissue paper flames at the bottom. We then had great fun, counting down to "Blast Off!" and flying through "Space!"
During PE we were "travelling through space." Our spaceship had run out of fuel and we had to reach our "sister ship" without stepping out of the "space circles" to get more fuel. If we stepped out of the space circles, we would end up floating through space. We worked in pairs with two hoops for each pair. We had to work together to decide what was the best way to travel. There was great discussion and decision making, with some trial and error too!!
As it was St. Valentine's Day, we created some cards for the occassion. These cards may look the same, but they are all in fact very unique, as we made them using our very own finger prints.
The Finished Product.
The boys joined in with the Valentine Theme, when they created a giant heart with the Giant Polydrons during our Play session.
In WAU we learned all about the Phases of the Moon. There were a lot of new technical words to be used when finding out about this process, waxing, waning, crescent, gibbous. We created Phases of the Moon spinners to help us understand better what happens in the night-time sky. We also used it to help us put images of the phases of the moon in the correct order. We had a look in the sky to see what sort of a moon we could see this week and we decided that it had to be a waning gibbous. But the best fun was had, when we recreated the phases of the Moon using Oreo biscuits. Especially when we got to eat them at the end.
We learned that a polar bear’s paw can cover the same area as a large dinner plate. We had the task of working together to find objects in our classroom that covered about the same area.
In Problem Solving we worked together to help the “Spaceship,” get to its destination in two moves. We had to figure out the best way to record our results and then figure out how many different results there could be, all giving the correct answer.
In WAU we learned all about the Phases of the Moon. There were a lot of new technical words to be used when finding about this process, waxing, waning, crescent, gibbous. We created Phases of the Moon spinners to help us understand better what happens in the night-time sky.
This week, we celebrated St. Bridget’s Day. We listened to some of the many stories that are told about St. Bridget. We heard how her cloak spread all over the field when she asked the king for ground to build her convent and he told her that he would give her as much land as her cloak would cover. We also heard how she made a cross from rushes when she was explaining to the dying Chieftain how Jesus died on the cross to save us. We all had the opportunity to make some St. Bridget’s crosses and take them home after they had been blessed.
Ava created the story of St. Brigid's Cloak using Lego.
We were ordering non-consecutive numbers, sometimes, from smallest to the largest, sometimes largest to the smallest.
In WAU we used the BeeBot to explore space. We had to programme the BeeBot to have him travel from one object to another object, without crashing on our “planet.” We started the process by programming in one move at a time. We then tried to programme the whole journey at once. It was a lot more complicated.
We had great fun in our ICT session, playing games where we had to decide if the next card turned would be higher or lower than the one previous.
This week, we celebrated Catholic Schools Week. The theme this year was “Walking Together in Faith and Love.” Each day we took part in a different activity to highlight how we love each other and the world we live in. We talked about the different events that we celebrate with our friends and families. We really enjoyed telling everyone how we love celebrating with our Grandparents and we had great fun creating a lovely keepsake for “Grandparent’s Day.”
Pat, from NI Water came to talk to KS2 pupils on the impact that “plastic pollution,” has on our water system. To help cut down on plastic waste, he gave a reusable water bottle to every pupil in the school.
This week in Literacy we continued extending our awareness of the layout of Non-Fiction Books. We developed our knowledge of Indexes. Indexes are at the back of the book. We practiced searching for topic words in the Index to find out what pages in the book, that we could find more information. We also worked on the Glossary of a book. They too are at the back of the book and are set out in alphabetical order. They help us to discover the meaning of new words we may encounter throughout the book.
We put the finishing touched to our "planets" this week. Compete with dark space and sparkling stars.
Here we have the girls modelling the lastest space wear in our class. It was made completely by reusing strong reflective insulated packaging from our IWB and camogie helmets. There was great discussion and suggestions from the children as we tried to decide what "design" would work best and how we could attach the ends together. You can tell that we worked with the practical rather than comfort, but Goodness! did we not have fun.
In Numeracy we were working on partitioning the numbers 6 and 7. We worked together to do this, using cubes to help. We also reminded ourselves, how to record what we had discovered.
We investigated “Area” this week. We looked at similar items in the classroom and had to decide which covered the greatest area. We then examined what shape would be best to measure area, circles, squares, or rectangles. Circles, left gaps, rectangles were too big, so we decided that squares were the best.
In Literacy we had great fun working together to sort a selection of books. At the start many of us organised them by size. We then realised that the content was important. We discovered that the books were about “real life,” and ”not real life.” Non-Fiction and Fiction. We then had lots of discussion as we looked closely at the Non-Fiction books to see what features they had in common. We discovered that the contents list can be found at the start of the book along with the page number of where the content can be found. We used “The Explorers Space Book” to help us with this and we hope that we will get the opportunity to learn more about the planets with this book.
In WAU we have been learning about the eight planets in our Solar System. We have learned the names to all these planets and have a “silly sentence” to help us remember their correct order from the sun. “My Very Energic Mother Just Served Us Nachos!” Earth is the third planet from the sun, and it is a rock planet. In Arts & Crafts, we had so much fun creating our own planet pictures with shaving foam and paint!
Our new WAU topic is "Space." We are having great fun exploring our "Space Area," We have been travelling through space in our "rocket" fighting off aliens, and we have been building rockets in the construction area. We have also been playing the "rocket Game." to see whose rocket will have the longest smoke trail into the sky.
We worked together to use a "Sorting Tree" to help use sort our 3D shapes. We had to follow the paths and then decide which way to go when the path split in to two.
It was great fun reinforcing our spelling, while playing "Read and Roll!" as well as reading the words we had to try to place 4 cubes in a row on the board. These cubes could be horizontal, vertical or even diagonal.
There was great interaction, discussion and decision making going on as we worked together to try to sequence 10 pictures to help us tell the story of "The Old Toy Room! " We than had the opportunity to recall the story in our own words, trying to remember the important words and phrases needed to do so. This is called "summarization!"
We have been exploring ""Doubles." We claculated all the doubles we could from 1 + 1 . We explored other “doubles” and found out that 12 + 12 made 24. We realised that we use ‘doubles’ in a lot of the games we play, Snap, Pairs and Dominoes. We used giant dominoes to search for doubles. We then had a very enjoyable class game of dominoes. Later we all played Dominoes in smaller groups. It helps us with our number recognition and one to one correspondence when counting.
We have had very special Show and Tell sessions, where the children had the opportunity to show, not only their own class but Miss Cunningham’s class too, a toy that they got over Christmas. We did this through a video link, where we could see and hear both classes. Both classes had the opportunity to ask questions and listen to the responses from their friends. It was great fun and we are looking forward to the others in our class participating next few weeks. Pictures will be updated each week.
It was great to see all the happy faces return to school after the Christmas Break. We celebrated our return by having our annual "Toy Friday," when we have the opportunity to bring in a gift we got at Christmas to show and share with our class. We had a lovely afternoon playing together.
We used handspans to measure different objects that are in our class. We sometimes got different answers, and we discovered that this was because we had placed the "handspans" facing a different way than our friends.
We sorted 3D shapes according to their properties. We used hoops to help us.
All done....
Using our collection of 3D shapes we were set the challenge of using as many different shapes as we could, work together to create a castle for our class elf Elise. We really used our imaginations for this project. Using the shapes, one group created a symmetrical structure, with cylinders and spheres to decorate the entrance. There was a "room" where Elise could relax. There was also a secret garden surrounded with a cylinder fence. The other group used their shapes to create the many different rooms in the castle, bedroom, kitchen and living room. All the furniture was created using 3D shapes. There was a "magic sphere" that Elise can press to get to the North Pole to see Santa. Elise loved lying in the triagular prism bed.
What an extremely busy week we have had. I’m sure you will all agree that we took the house down with our singing and dancing while we supported the P.1 pupils in their performance of “Whoops-A-Daisy Angel!” We had such fun performing for you all.
When we came into school this week, we discovered that Elise the Elf had been busy making a snowman, Christmas decoration. She left us everything we each needed to make our own individual decorations. So, we had to work carefully and make sure that we followed the instructions correctly.
The finished product..
In Numeracy we have been working with 3D shapes. We worked together to sort a variety of shapes in whatever way we wanted.
We worked together to measure the length of the mat in our room. We chose the units with which to measure. We used chairs, small tubes, large tubes, bottles, pencils, glue sticks, table baskets and cubes. At the start we sat the cubes side by side, but we kept knocking them over. Darragh suggested that we we stick them together, so we put them together in sets of ten of the same colour. This made it easier to count. The mat is as long as 16 sets of ten cubes and 5 more!!
Look at us all dressed up in our Christmas jumpers, to celebrate Christmas Jumper Day. Christmas is getting closer, and we are all getting very excited!!
Creating Snowflakes.
In Literacy, we continued our focus on instructional texts. We watched and listened very carefully as our teacher created “Paint Blob Pictures!” We talked about what was needed to create the pictures, and the instruction that would match each action. We then had great fun as we all had the opportunity to create our own, beautiful, colourful pictures. Then when we came into school the next day, we discovered that Elise the Elf had been busy during the night and had created her own picture.
In Numeracy we have been learning all about the different ways that coins can be used to create the same total. We have been playing “Money, Board Games,” as well as “Interactive Money Games!” to help us understand and remember better as well as having fun.
We have been working so hard on our sentence construction in school, that it was an absolute pleasure to witness these skills being used at home. Both Ava and Cocca have written books and illustrateed their books and we were thrilled when they said that they wanted to read them to their class. We heard about“Ava’s Adventure on the Rainbows in the Sky.“ and her encounter with Lovey the Unicorn. We also heard about Cocca’s adventures with her sisters. We were all so pleased that they “all lived happily ever after!”
We had a visitor in our classroom this week. Santa has sent Elise the Elf to keep an eye on us all as Christmas approaches. Can you spot her in our Christmas tree? We look forward each morning to coming into the classroom to see what mischief Elise has got up to during the night.
Congratulations to Alanna Morgan whose “It’s a Wonderful World,” entry, was awarded 4th place in the Credit Union Competition. We all received a pencil in recognition of our hard work and talent. We also got a whole tub of sweets for our class to share.
In Numeracy we have been working on identify the missing “middle” number in a calculation. This is an extremely hard task to carry out. We had great fun doing this as we got to use a variety of items to help us understand this concept. We even used different coloured pegs on a clothes hanger, that was so cool!
This week was Anti-Bullying Week. The week was started off with the traditional Odds Socks Day. Throughout the week through different stories and activities, we explored feelings and emotions associated with bullying. We identified individuals who we can reach out to help stop bullying. Cyril our Class Cat has asked us to be kind and caring to each other, not just this week, but every week.
We have developed our understanding of length. We gathered up a variety of related objects and had to sort them according to size. We then described them using the words, long, longer, longest, shorter, shorter, shortest. We then had the big task of putting our whole class in order of height.
Woolly Hat Day in aid of Mourne Stimulus.
Our focus number this week was 11. We explored the many ways that 11 could be created; in words, using objects, using ten frames, five frames and we had great fun exploring the "shape of eleven."
We are learning to read the time on an analogue clock. We have been focusing on how to identify "o'clock" but we have also been able to spot some "half past," too.
We all played cooperatively with our table top games. We learned to take turns, follow the rules and listen to each other as we talked and played together.
Emily's Dad sent us in some "Munchkin Pumpkins." We had great fun looking at and examining them.
We ended this half term with our Hallowe’en Fancy Dress Day. We had great fun as we came to school as witches, wizards, ghosts and ghouls.
We took part in the election for our School Council this week. We watched the videos of the P.7 boys and girls who want to become members of the council and then with the help of our teacher we cast our votes. We were all excited as we got the chance to go over to the “big school” and put our voting papers in the box.
In Numeracy we reinforced our number knowledge playing “Bingo!” This was no ordinary game of bingo. We all had six numbers on our boards. We had to listen very carefully to our teacher as she called out clues for the numbers, using the words; the number before, the number after, the number between.
This week was Maths Week and we had Numeracy Homework with a difference this week. Here are some of the pictures sent to us, of the boys and girls completing the activities.
As part of Maths Week, the KS2 children were set the challenge of developing a Maths game that they thought would be suitable for our KS1 children. They then came over to our class to play the game with us. It was a fantastic experience for everyone. There was a great variety of games involving number facts, number recognition, counting items, shapes and counting forwards and backwards.
In ICT we completed some of our allocated Matheletics tasks related to pattern work. We had to use our QR Codes to login. We really enjoyed the whole session and wanted to complete as many pattern tasks as we could.
In WAU we experienced how it might feel if we could not see. We worked with a partner who had to guide us around a mini obstacle course. Our partner had to hold us by the hand and give us clear instructions. We had to make sure that we listened carefully to what we were being told. It was great fun, but we realised that it is extremely difficult for blind people in the world.
PE was a whole lot different this week, when we all played the PE version of “Rock, Paper, Scissors."
We had photographs taken of only our eyes. They were all muddled up and we tried to match the eyes to the person they belonged to. At first, we looked for clues, such as eye colour and glasses. At the end we had to look extremely closely at eyebrows!!
In Literacy on the IWB we placed 6 pictures in a sequence that we thought created a sensible story. There was a lot of discussion and reasoning behind the decisions that we made. We then had the opportunity to complete a similar task on our individual Chrome Books.
In WAU we all put on our “magic glasses,” and went on an exploration around the school, to really look and examine the things that we could find all around us.
