Author: Mrs Solakova

Happy Friday everyone!

Communication and Language/Literacy

Tell the story from The Giant’s point of view

Hopefully your child will be a little more familiar with this idea following our Gingerbread Man story telling.  As mentioned previously, this activity will help your child see the story from another angle.  Plenty of acting out the story and lots of modelling will help your child. 

Hot seating

Again, this is something we’ve done before – “hot seating”.  Pretend to be the giant and encourage your child to ask you some questions.  Or you could change roles and your child could ask the giant some questions.  Of course, you can play this game pretending to be Jack, the cow or Jack’s mother.

Maybe you could try the technique with another story – perhaps when reading one of your child’s favourite story books.

Letters and Sounds

Is it right?

This game will very much depend upon your child’s stage in their spelling skills.  It works by writing different variations of a word and asking your child to identify the right word.  Children love to tell us when we’ve got something wrong!  You can play it using words based upon the use of phonics or to help your child learn tricky words.

Using phonics

Tell your child the word you are going to try and write.  Write a couple of variations and ask your child to identify the correct word and tell you why the others are not.  Perhaps use your child’s word strips for this game.

For example, you may say ‘I’m going to write the word chips’

You write:  cip, chip, chips

Your child may identify the right word and tell you that you forgot the ‘ch’ sound and didn’t put a ‘s’ on the end of the other word.

Ask your child to write down the correct word.

Tricky words

Tricky words are the star shapes words in your child’s word bag.  These words cannot be sounded out and the correct spelling is learnt.  Here are some suggestions:

wos, woz, was

dur, the, thur

go, goa

migh, my

hur, her

Ask your child to write down the correct word.  Discuss – ‘How do you know?’ ‘How do you remember?’

Maths

I hope you have been able to start growing your own beanstalks.  Details on my blog dated 26 January.

How about creating a chart and begin to measure the beanstalks?  Here is a simple example of a chart you could create.  Use something like Lego bricks as a measuring stick eg. 2 bricks high.

British Values

Individual Liberty

Individual liberty is embedded within your child’s curriculum; Personal, Social and Emotional Development together with Understanding the World. For individual liberty we focus on children’s self-confidence and self-awareness and people and communities.  This value, therefore, links nicely into our children’s mental health week.

You are helping your child develop a positive sense of themselves all the time. Every time we provide opportunities for children to bake a cake, mix their own colours or take part in a running race we are helping them to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and increase confidence in their own abilities.

Every time we share a favourite book with a child, go for a walk or build a small world for favourite toys together, we are giving children the time and space to explore the language of feelings and responsibility; reflect on their differences and understand that we are all free to have different opinions.

So keep on enjoying the time together playing, learning and having fun!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Palmer

Hello everyone,

Welcome to Thursday’s home learning.

Children’s Mental Health Week

Dress to impress!

Today’s activity is to dress up for the day.  Wear your favourite colour or choose a range of colours that express how you are feeling.  Colour can be very personal and mean different things to different people, so this is a great way to express yourself.

Perhaps you could wear a favourite character from your dressing up clothes or your own special clothes.  Maybe a favourite outfit.  I’d love to see your outfits on Tapestry.

Literacy

Changes to the Jack and the Beanstalk story

If your child hasn’t already done so, we can now start adding extra bits or altering the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  The simplest way to move into addition is by adding in more description eg. they were very poor and only owned one naughty cow!

You could build on this by:

• adding in more dialogue eg. Jack said “Look Mum, I’ve got some magic beans”
• adding in a new character eg. Jack saw a hen and some golden eggs

Perhaps the giant tries to explain to Jack that he is happy to share his gold coins with Jack.

Make an alteration that is significant and changes the direction of the story – alterations that have a knock on effect!

You could try altering:

• the nature of one of the characters eg. the giant is kind and friendly
• setting eg. the giant lives in a spaceship
• the end of the story eg. Jack and his mother decided to ask the giant to live with them and built a bigger house
• a key event within the story eg. Jack made a magic spell with the beans

As always, acting out the story together really helps embed story telling skills.

Letters and Sounds

Fe, fi, fo, fum (fee, figh, foa, fum)

This game plays on alliteration and will also help your child develop their ability to read nonsense words (letter sequences that follow regular phonetic rules and are pronounceable, but have no meaning).  This is an important skill that will support your child’s use of phonics.

What to do:

• Show your child how ‘fee, figh, foa, fum’ can be written based on the sounds they know eg.  ‘ee’, ‘igh’ ‘oa’.
• Introduce a different letter in front of each word eg. ‘s’ – see, sigh, soa, sum.
• Play this game verbally first, taking turns to change the first letter at the front of the words.  I normally find using a ‘b’ brings about much hilarity.  You will see what I mean.
• Challenge your child to choose a letter and write the giant’s phrase eg. if your child chooses a ‘t’ then ask your child to write ‘tee, tigh, toa, tum’.

Adding a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) as the first letter will not work so avoid these.

This game will also really help your child consolidate their knowledge of ‘ee’, ‘igh’ ‘oa’.

Jellybean graph

I hope you have been able to buy some jellybeans for this game.  If not, you can use any small object eg. beads, Lego bricks. Before the jellybeans are gobbled up show your child how a graph could be made – see picture below.

Ask your child to make comparisons using the key mathematical words we are learning ‘more’, ‘fewer’ and ‘equal’.  You will be looking for your child to say ‘I notice there are more orange beans and fewer yellow beans’.   Model the language if your child hesitates.

For challenge

Ask questions such as ‘I can see four yellow beans and 5 orange beans? How many more orange beans are there?’.  Again model the mathematical language and support your child as required..

I hope you all have a good day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception children and parents,

Before we begin today’s home learning, I would like to direct you to the Memo Section of Tapestry.  I have set an ebook home reading task aimed at your child’s reading level.  Please read with your child at home and post a record of your child’s home reading on Tapestry. 

Children’s Mental Health Week

I’d like to draw your attention to the following links:

Wellbeing helpful links and tips:
https://stadrians.herts.sch.uk/2020/05/wellbeing-helpful-links-and-tips/

Five ways for home schooling family wellbeing:
https://f1y.6e6.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Five-Ways-for-Homeschooling-Family-Wellbeing.pdf

Today’s activity is to dance to a song that makes you happy!

Communication and Language/Literacy

Jack and the Beanstalk

Try some substitutions to the Jack and the Beanstalk story.  As mentioned before, the easiest substitutions to make are places, characters or names.   A simple substitution for Jack and the Beanstalk might start like this:

Once upon a time there was a very busy boy/girl called (your child’s name) ………

Then continue the story but use your child’s name throughout instead of Jack.

Once your child gets the idea, here are some other suggestions:

•             Change the name of The Giant
•             Change the beanstalk eg. ladder, stairs
•             Change the castle eg. spaceship

Perhaps your child could draw a new story map for their new story.

Letters and Sounds

Flipping Phonics!

You will need:

Word bag
New high frequency words/sounds to add to your child’s word bag are posted on the Memo section of Tapestry.
Frying pan
Fish slice or spatula

What to do:

• Place a selection of words in the pan facing upwards.
• Your child chooses a word by reading it.
• Your child flips the word with the fish slice/spatula and says the word.

To challenge your child:

• Place words face down one at a time (choose just a small selection).
• Ask your child to write the word.
• Your child flips the word to check their spelling.

Maths

Bank the difference game

This game will help your child use counting to compare and find a numerical difference.

Watch the following video – how to play bank the difference:

Expressive Arts and Design

Make a beanstalk in the clouds

You will need:

• Kitchen roll or toilet roll
• Paper (ideally green)
• Scissors
• Paper plate
• Cotton Wool
• PVA glue

What to do:

• Draw simple leaf shapes on the paper
• Ask your child to cut out the leaf shapes
• If you have paint, paint the tube green
• Stick the leaf shapes onto the green tube
• Stick cotton wool onto the paper plate (to represent clouds)
• Your child may also wish to draw a simple castle to add to the plate
• Balance the plate onto the tube

This activity will help develop your child’s scissor skills.  We focus on scissor skills frequently in Reception in preparation for Year 1 activities. 

Balancing the plate requires some problem solving skills.  Your child will discover that the plate needs to be balanced in a certain way to stay on top of the tube.  Do not stick the paper plate on at this stage because tomorrow we will use our beanstalk in the clouds for a maths activity that involves balancing.

I look forward to hearing all about your children’s learning on Tapestry.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception parents and children,

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend.  This week we will be celebrating Children’s Mental Health Week, playing letters and sounds games and begin a new RE topic – Eucharist: Relating.  We will also spend one more week exploring The Jack and the Beanstalk story.

Please find below my plan for the week. You will need to collect an empty kitchen roll, paper plate, cotton wood and pva glue for making our castle on Tuesday.  On Thursday will be using jelly beans for our maths game.

Children’s Mental Health Week – 1- 7th February 2021  

At St Adrian’s, we are committed to promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing to all students, their families and members of staff and governors.  We are proud to support Children’s Mental Health Week and the theme this year is ‘express yourself’. 

Expressing yourself is about finding ways to share feelings, thoughts, or ideas, through creativity.  This could be through art, music, writing and poetry, dance and drama, photography and film, and doing activities that make you feel good.           

Every child in each class are being asked to complete an assignment linked to Children’s Mental Health week and post a photograph to celebrate their home learning from the week.  You will notice from my plan that I will set an activity each day.  Please choose at least one activity to post on Tapestry during the week.

Today’s activity is linked to PE.  Take a picture of your child doing something outside or inside.  For example, a nature walk or taking part in exercise.   Below are some suggestions for indoor movement:

Yoga: https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga

BBC Boogie Beebies:   https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=Boogie%20Beebies

Runner Bean Game

This is a game we play during PE – it’s a good ‘warm up’ game.  Your child should be familiar with the game.

What to do:

• Ask your child to move around (walk, run, hop, jump etc) until you shout ‘stop’
• Ask your child to do a funny position with their body to match a bean name.
• Ask your child to move around again until you shout ‘stop’ again.
• Ask your child to do a funny move to match a different bean name.
• Continue ……

This game works best outside.  Each time you ask your child to move around, change the instruction eg. walk, jump, hop

Here are the different bean positions:

1. Runner Beans: Run on the spot
2. Broad Beans: Do a big, broad star shape
3. Baked Beans: Lie on the floor, curled up in a ball
4. Kidney Beans: Make a curvy C-shape with your body
5. Butter Beans: Pretend the floor is slippery
6. Jumping Beans: Jump up and down
7. String Beans: Stretch up tall like a pencil
8. Beans on Toast: Lay on the floor with arms and legs stretched out wide

Letters and Sounds

Wanted Poster

Ask your child to write a ‘Wanted Poster’ for either Jack or The Giant.  If you have printing facilities, I have added a template that you may wish to use.  Otherwise, just ask your child to draw the poster.

• Talk to your child about what they could write.  Here are some suggestions which support phonics:

The Giant

He is big.

He is tall.

He has long legs.

He took the hen.

Jack

He is small.

He can run.

He can chop.

• Remind your child of tricky word ‘all’ when writing ‘tall’ and ‘small’.
• Encourage your child to use capital letters and full stops.
• Encourage your child to use their sound mat to support their writing. 

Maths

I spy game – making comparisons

Play a ‘I spy’ game where you ask your child to spot objects and make comparisons. 

• Look for real objects around the house eg. “I spy with my little eye 6 cushions and 4 chairs”.  Ask your child how many more cushions? 
• Gather together a collection of toys “I spy with my little eye 2 dolls and 4 animals” How many more animals?

To support your child, you could line the objects up next to each other to show the comparison.

Take turns playing the game with your child. 

For Challenge

Perhaps your child could add the object together.   How many altogether?

Use larger numbers to extend your child. 

Maybe pretend to see some objects from Jack and the Beanstalk story “I spy 2 golden eggs and 8 magic beans”.  Perhaps use bricks or pieces of pasta to represent the eggs and beans.

Religious Education

Eucharist: relating

This week we are beginning a new RE Topic – Eucharist: relating.  Please see our Foundation Stage RE blog for details. Here is the link:

Today we will explore how and why people gather together. 

Talk to your child about activities that are better done together eg. playing a game.   Why is it more fun together?

Talk to your child about things we can do alone.  How does it feel to be alone?

Of course, being on your own can be something we prefer.  For example, praying is a very special time we may do alone.  However, the idea of this discussion is to help your child understand the collaborative nature of this topic.   Draw your child’s attention to times when the parish family gather together in church eg. wedding, baptism, Christmas and Easter celebrations.

Scribe your child’s ideas. 

• Make a chart of ‘All that we do together’ as a family at home.
• Make a chart of ‘All that we do together’ as a parish family in church.

Have a great day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception parents and children,

Happy Friday!  Hope you enjoy today’s learning.

Communication and Language

Understanding question words using stories

We played this ‘asking questions’ game when we were learning The Gingerbread Man story.  We’ve already explored the Jack and the Beanstalk story with lots of reflective questions.  I’ve compiled some more specific questions relating to our Jack and the Beanstalk story which will deepen your child’s learning.

• What did Jack’s mother ask him to do at the market?
• Where did Jack meet the lady who gave him the beans?
• What did Jack give to the lady he met?
• When Jack got home with the beans what did his mother do?
• When Jack got up in the morning what did he see?
• How did Jack get into the castle?
• What did Jack do with the gold coins?
• How did Jack get away from The Giant?
• What happened to The Giant?
• What did Jack and his mother do after The Giant fell on their house?

Literacy

Retell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk

Have a go at using your story map and begin encouraging your child to retell the story independently. 

Here’s a reminder of how you can develop your child’s story telling skills.  Begin by telling the story together.  Point to the story map as you retell the story.  Once your child seems confident, you can start to withdraw from saying the words.  Maybe you can just mouth the words or just keep prompting with the actions.  If your child falters in their telling, you can always leap in and keep the story going.  Tell your child ‘When I stop, you carry on’.    The aim is to move from you being the dominant teller to becoming a listener.  Your child moves from being the listener to becoming the teller.

I have sent a transcript of the story through Tapestry under Memos. 

Find an audience for the story

As mentioned previously, try encouraging your child to tell the story to someone else.  Maybe your child could tell their story to a collection of toys, telephone or Zoom a family member, record the story on your phone (with supervision) or set up a theatre performance. 

Letters and Sounds

Today’s new sound – ‘or’ (digraph two letters but one sound)

This video introduces the ‘or’ sound.

The following video supports blending and reading ‘or’ sound words.

Below is the action for the ‘or’ sound.

Show your child how to write ‘or’ using the correct letter formation.

Letter formation for ‘o’  and ‘r’ can be found in your child’s letters and sounds book.

Encourage your child to ‘have a go’ at writing the ‘or’ sound. 

For challenge

Only if your child is ready.  Write the following words:

For extra challenge

Write a funny sentence and draw a picture to accompany the sentence. 

Maths

Build a tall beanstalk

This is a fairly simple game.  Use whatever construction toy you have at home.  Play together ‘Who can build the tallest beanstalk?’

Make comparisons between your beanstalk and your child’s. 

• Whose beanstalk is the tallest?
• Whose beanstalk is the shortest?
• How many more bricks is the tallest beanstalk?
• If you add bricks to the shortest tower, how many more bricks would you need to make the beanstalks equal?
• If you took bricks away from the tallest tower, how many bricks would you need to take away to make them equal?

You could also talk about doubling or add the bricks in each beanstalk together.

British Values

Democracy within the early years is all about teaching children that their opinions are important and that each child’s thoughts and feelings should be listened to and valued. Democracy is also about teaching children that sometimes we are given the power to choose and make decisions as individuals and as a group. Turn taking and sharing all come under democracy, much of democracy is promoted through personal, social and emotional development within your child’s curriculum.

Although this appears to be a fairly difficult concept for children to understand, it is very easy to promote and much of this is done during daily practice at home.  Here are some ideas:

Polling station – the family vote for their favourite film to watch, story to hear or snack choice.

Turn taking – play games that involve taking turns, listening to others.

Emotions – help your child identify their emotions and talk about reasons for these emotions. Many emotions will be displayed by children in times when group decisions are being made.  Identifying emotions is an important step in children being able to manage their emotions.

Thank you for reading my blog and please don’t hesitate to comment or make suggestions about the blogs through Tapestry.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception class,

I hope you are all keeping safe and healthy at home and enjoying learning with your family.

Here is today’s home learning.

Communication and Language

Word webs

Let’s do another word web to continue to build upon your child’s vocabulary. I think there are many words we can explore in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  For example,

poor, market, crossroads, magic, amazement, potty, supper, colossal, humungous, greedily, dodged, slithered, axe, toppling

Reminder of what to do

• Choose a word to start a discussion.  
• Write the word in the middle of a piece of paper eg. ‘magic’.
• Ask your child what he/she knows about ‘magic’.
• If your child hesitates, look at a book or Google together and start the discussion from there.
• Encourage your child to lead the conversation and write down his or her ideas.  Perhaps your child could draw some pictures.
• This is a nice activity for you to model writing ‘scribing’.  However, you could just sit and chat about your word.

Talking about new words in this way helps your child remember the new words. 

Letters and Sounds

Today’s new sound – ‘ar’ (digraph two letters but one sound)

This video introduces the ‘ar’ sound.

Below is a short game – identify the long ‘oo’ or ‘ar’ sound.

The following video supports blending and reading  ‘ar’ sound words.

Below is the action for the long ‘ar’ – pretend you’re at the dentist, open mouth wide and say ‘ar’.

Show your child how to write ‘ar’ using the correct letter formation.

Letter formation for ‘a’  and ‘r’ can be found in your child’s letters and sounds book.

Encourage your child to ‘have a go’ at writing the ‘ar’ sound. 

For challenge

Only if your child is ready.  Write the following words:

For extra challenge

Write a sentence and draw a picture to accompany the sentence. 

Literacy

Story Map – Jack and the Beanstalk

Watch my Jack and the Beanstalk video first.  See yesterday and Monday’s blog. 

Once your child has listened to the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, draw a story map together. 

Below is my Jack and the Beanstalk story map.

Display the story map in a prominent position where it can be seen.  It can then be used as a visual reminder for your child when retelling the story. 

Maths

One small step for Jack, one giant step outside!  

What to do:

• You may wish to prepare this activity for tomorrow to surprise your child.
• Make a giant footprint ideally outside in some mud or sand.  If you do not have a garden just cut out a large footprint from a piece of paper and leave it by the door – or the old Santa trick in flour or talcum powder.  Try to make the footprint as large as it can possibly be.
• Write a letter from the giant:

• Pretend to find the letter from The Giant and read it to your child.
• Ask your child to look for the evidence.
• Once the footprint is discovered, talk about it eg.  ‘How long is the footprint?’ ‘How wide is the footprint?’ ‘How big do you think The Giant actually is?’ ‘Show me how long a toe might be!’
• Ask your child to wonder how tall The Giant might be if this is his footprint.  Encourage your child to visualise The Giant’s height by comparing it to buildings near your home.
• A good opportunity for you to model mathematical words such as wide, long, height.
• Encourage your child to measure the footprint.  At this stage, children begin measuring using non-standards units such as forks, bricks, sticks etc.
• Your child could use their measuring object to measure other items around the house.  For example, ‘The Giant’s footprint is 6 forks long, the table is 10 forks long’.  ‘I wonder which is the longest?’ ‘How do you know?’

Make a story chair/story area

Create a specially decorated chair or story area with your child. This then becomes a special place for your child to tell all sorts of stories.  All you need to do is choose a chair and drape different fabrics over it or your child may wish to make some decorations for the chair.  Maybe add dressing up clothes, fairy lights, some writing materials etc.  Of course, you could also use the castle (den) suggested in my blog yesterday.

I look forward to hearing all about your child’s home learning on Tapestry.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception parents and children,

Welcome to today’s home learning.

Fun writing idea

Plan a party

Inspire your child to write in a fun way by planning a tea party together.  As mentioned yesterday, celebrate any marks that your child makes to represent their writing; many children are still at the ‘emergent’ writing stage and only just beginning to gain confidence in their writing.  Therefore, letter shapes or symbols are just as important.  Of course, you can always write together and scribe your child’s ideas.

Plan a tea party together and invite either family members or a collection of toys.  Encourage your child to get involved in the writing.

• Prepare invites (where, when, who).
• What will you need for the party?  Music, games, plates, cups, table cloth, chairs etc.
• Signs to display the location of the party. 
• List of food to serve at the party.  Go on a shopping trip with your list.
• Name places or your child could create some place mats. 

Literacy/Communication and Language

Today we will begin learning the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  The activities over the next two weeks will help your child learn to retell the story and begin to remember key words and phrases such as ‘once upon a time’ ‘early one morning’ ‘unfortunately’, ‘luckily’.  Children learn to use these words in speech so that they have the words in their heads for when they’re ready to write stories.  In class, we would tell the story orally with actions each day.  In time, children begin to remember the actions and join in.  Listen to my story of Jack and the Beanstalk together first – hope your child enjoys it!

Letters and Sounds

Today’s new sound – long ‘oo’ (digraph two letters but one sound)

There are two types of ‘oo’.  A long ‘oo’ (boot) and a short ‘oo’ (look).  We are going to learn the long ‘oo’ first.

This video introduces the long ‘oo’ sound – Geraldine’s back! 

Below is the action for the long ‘oo’:

Show your child how to write ‘oo’ using the correct letter formation.

Letter formation for ‘o’ can be found in your child’s letters and sounds book.

Encourage your child to ‘have a go’ at writing the ‘oo’ sound. 

For challenge

Only if your child is ready.  Write the following words:

For extra challenge

Write a funny sentence and draw a picture to accompany the sentence.  Maybe your tea party could be on the moon!

Maths

Climb the beanstalk

This game will help your child learn the Jack and the Beanstalk story.  It also develops children’s ability to visualise length and distance and explores perspective.  Children begin to learn the impact that distance has on objects that are a long way away.  Before starting the game, you could explore this concept when on your next daily exercise or look at images on the computer.  Artists often use perspective in pictures.

What to do:

• Together with your child pretend to be Jack climbing the beanstalk.
• Wave goodbye to Mum and start climbing the imaginary stalk. 
• As you start, look at the house behind Mum.  Ask ‘What size is it?’ (big).
• After a short time, ask ‘Who is getting tired?’  Show your child that you are tired.  Perhaps you could wipe your brow with one arm then then hold onto the beanstalk again quickly for fear of falling.  Explain your arms are aching and your legs are tired.
• Talk with your child about how you have climbed a long, long way up the beanstalk and that you are nearly at the giant’s house.
• Ask ‘What was that noise?’  Explain you heard the giant and you all need to get home.
• Look down.  ‘Can you see your house?’ ‘How big is it from all the way up here?’ (It is very small; almost so small it cannot be seen!)
• Encourage your child to think of an item that is about the same size, for example a mouse.
• Climb down the beanstalk.  Look down again.  ‘What can you see now?’ ‘How big is your house now?’ As you climb down the imaginary beanstalk continue to ask your child to look down and explain how big their house looks now.  Depending on answers, you could comment on how close to the ground your child is.  Maybe say, you must have climbed down faster than me!

A variation could be to look up as you climb or descend to visualise or imagine the giant’s castle.

Understanding the World

Grow your own beanstalk

If you can obtain a packet of bean seeds, this is a great activity.   Top tip: broad beans are stronger.

What to do:

• Wet a large handful of cotton balls and place them in a clear container. The cotton should be wet, but not dripping, and no water should pool in the glass.  I have also used a plastic food bag for this activity.
• Wedge dried beans between the cotton balls and the side of the jar. Use at least two beans so that if there is something wrong with one of them, the other will grow.
• Make predictions about what will happen and observe your beans twice a day. Add a few drops of water to the cotton balls each day to keep them moist. You should start seeing changes after just a single day!
• After the skin splits, look for the roots to emerge. They will grow downward to help anchor the plant in the soil (or in this case, the cotton balls). A young shoot will appear, and then the first leaves will appear. Now the young plant is able to make its own food from sunlight.  You could introduce the word for this process – photosynthesis.
• Leave your beanstalk in the jar to continue making observations, or transplant it into a soil pot.
• With proper care and a little bit of luck, your beanstalk with grow tall and might even reward you with a fresh crop of beans to enjoy!

Enjoy your day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception children and parents,

I hope you all enjoyed the snow day yesterday.  If you’re outside making the most of the snow this morning, below is a link to fun snowy day activities. 

Enjoy the precious time together in the snow if you wish!  I don’t expect you to complete all the activities below as well!  Perhaps use the suggested activities on a different day. Once you’re cosy and warm inside, your child could watch the videos for our new sound ‘oa’ today.

Here is my plan for this week’s posts.  I’m going to focus on the story of Jack and The Beanstalk for a couple of weeks.  This was the second most popular story from the favourite story poll. If you are able to obtain some beanstalk seeds that would be great.  However, this is not essential.  Little tip, broad beans have a stronger stalk.

Fun writing idea

Home cinema

Here are some ideas of how to create your cinema experience at home:

• Choose your film.
• Create tickets for your chosen film – don’t forget about how much your ticket will be;are there different prices for different aged people?
• Create advertisements, for example recorded radio adverts, or posters for your chosen film – when is it going to be shown, where will it be shown?
• Write a shopping list for your film snacks and go shopping for your film snacks.
• Create a shop for your customers to buy their tickets and film snacks – add prices and use money to buy the item.

Letters and Sounds

Today’s new sound – ‘oa’ (digraph two letters but one sound)

This video to supports blending for reading ‘oa’ words. 

This video introduces ‘oa’ word sentences. 

Below is the action for ‘oa’

Show your child how to write ‘oa’ using the correct letter formation.

Letter formation for ‘o’ and ‘a’ can be found in your child’s letters and sounds book.

Encourage your child to ‘have a go’ at writing the ‘oa’ sound. 

For challenge

Only if your child is ready.

For extra challenge

Write a sentence and draw a picture to accompany the sentence. 

Game to help reinforce our new tricky words: they, are, all, was, her, you

Maths

Playing cards are a great maths resource.  Below are some ideas of games you could play.  The link is to a memory ‘matching pairs’ game.  I suggest you reduce the amount of cards to simplify this game.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+play+matching+pairs+with+playing+cards&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GB&oq=how+to+play+matching+pairs+with+playing+cards&aqs=chrome..69i57.10070j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_A8ANYM7rM4XFxgPqkaLQDg13

Wishing you all a fun day.

Nicola Palmer