Dear parents,
I hope you all had a good Christmas. The New Year has certainly come with some challenges. In this new lockdown period I will post a blog everyday with home learning activities for your children to continue their learning at home. I will also communicate via Tapestry. This will involve additional home learning resources and responses to observations posted by parents. Tapestry provides us with a great opportunity to continue to work together and I am looking forward to keeping in touch with your children using Tapestry. Please email the School Office if you are encountering any difficulties accessing Tapestry online.
On behalf of Mrs Solakova, Mrs Reid, Mrs O’Connor, Mrs Heffernan, Mrs O’Connell and myself, I would like to being by expressing our thanks for all the generous Christmas gifts. As usual, we were overwhelmed by parents’ generosity and kindness.
Communication and Language
This activity will help your child enormously in terms of their sense of well-being and give some structure to this new routine in their lives. Additionally, your child will learn about the meaning of ‘when’; this can be a challenging concept for children to grasp.
Talk about your child’s day and ask questions relating to ‘when’ particular things happen eg. “When do we have lunch?” “When do you have a bath?” “When do we put the lights on? ” Model appropriate responses as required eg. “We put the lights on when it’s …. (pause allowing for your child to continue the sentence). ”
Additionally, you could look at story books or pictures and ask similar questions.
Draw up a timetable of the child’s day with pictures for activities that happen throughout the day. Encourage your child to contribute ideas and their own pictures. Above is an example but it obviously assumes your child is at school. Please feel free to create the chart in a way that makes it fun for your child. Depending on what you have available at home, you could use large sheets of paper and arts and crafts materials.
Maths – Measure
The learning sequence that I had planned for your children involved looking at objects and making comparisons in terms of length, thickness and weight/mass.
Our objective is to teach children to use everyday language to compare quantities and objects and solve problems. This is moving on from the more general language of big/bigger and small/smaller.
Having recognised that items can be compared by an attribute such as length or weight, children should be encouraged to use a full sentence to explain what they think or have found out. This learning sequence will move onto ordering a small set of objects.
Here is step one of the learning sequence.
This activity is also great for developing your child’s language skills.
Letters and Sounds
Using the laminated sound mats sent home last term, play ‘Sound Bingo’.
- Collect a felt tip pen (the mat can be wiped clean).
- Call out individual sounds and ask your child to mark off the sounds on the mat.
We have covered all of the sound on the orange side (Phase 2). You will see in your child’s Letters and Sounds book the sounds learnt so far. We will learn the next set of sounds together via home learning.
If you feel your child is ready for an extra challenge, ask your child to write down each sound using correct letter formation as you call out each sound. Letter formation can be found in your child’s Letters and Sounds book.
For a little bit of extra fun, ask your child to test you! Your child will still be learning as they choose sounds from the mat.
Religious Education
Our next RE topic is that of celebrating.
Core vocabulary: family, community, celebration, celebrating, party, memory
Today you could talk to your child about the elements of celebration and how people celebrate.
Begin by discussing the different ways people celebrate eg. family dinners, New Year’s Eve, birthday activities, Chinese New year, weddings.
Talk about which celebrations do/do not take place in Church and how we gather together to celebrate in Church. What are their favourite memories of celebrations they have shared?
Hopefully your children will still have Christmas celebrations fresh in their minds! I look forward to hearing all about the Christmas festivities and your child’s home learning experience at home via Tapestry. Please don’t feel you have to post a photo with every Tapestry entry; photos are not essential.
Sending you all my best wishes.
Nicola Palmer
