Author: Mrs Solakova

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

Good morning Reception parents and children,

Welcome to today’s home learning.

Communication and Language/Literacy

Tell a funny story – pass the story

I thought this game may provide an opportunity for your child to use all the imaginative skills we have been learning recently.  You can either use The Gingerbread Man story for the underlying plot or make up an alternative story.  This is a fun game to play together – it works for just two people or the whole family.

What You Need:

A soft, large ball.  Inflatable beach balls are ideal.   Or you just use a soft toy or cushion etc.

How to Play:

The person with the ball starts by speaking those magical words, “Once upon a time…”.  The first person will then roll the ball to the next person who continues the story.  After the next person has added one sentence or a few sentences, he/she rolls the ball to the next person.  A cliff-hanger for the next person who catches the ball would add to the fun – I expect you will probably have to provide these.  Continue taking turns as the story evolves and until you’re ready to finish the story with an ending.

Letters and Sounds

Play countdown

This game will help your child consolidate their quick recall of sounds/words, especially those digraphs (two letters/one sound).  It’s also a great way to help your child understand the concept of time and begin to talk about minutes and seconds – literacy and maths in one!

• Use the list of words below – today we are going to focus on ‘ai’ and ‘ee’.  Write the words onto individual pieces of paper.  Remember to keep modelling cursive ‘whoosh’ writing – perhaps this is something you are learning together.
• Use a timer – either kitchen timer or your phone.
• Explain to your child that the object of this game is to read as many words as possible before the timer signals ‘stop’.  I suggest perhaps 1 or 2 minutes.
• Repeat the game, the objective is for your child to beat their last score.

For support

Play the game using the words in your child’s word bag.

For challenge

Ask your child to write as many words as they can in a given time.  You could change roles, your child can be the teacher and reads the words for you to write.  Talk about the words and meaning.  Can your child say a sentence to include some of the words?

Maths

Classifying and sorting

This is a fairly simple game to play and you can use a variety of objects.

•          Gather together a collection of objects.  
•          Experiment with different ways of sorting the objects.

Examples:

A collection of toys.  Sort them into the type of toy eg. cars, bricks, dolls, animals.  Or the type of material they are made from, colour, size etc.

A collection of items collected on a walk.  You could sort them into things from natural or manmade items.  Or perhaps sort a collection of stones by colour or size.

Beads or buttons.  Perhaps sort them into shape, size, colour.

For challenge

To extend your child’s learning it can be fun to play ‘guess the category’:

•          Gather together a collection of objects.
•          Take turns to sort the objects into a category.
•          Can your child guess what your category is?
•          Can you guess your child’s category?

For example, I played this game with a collection of buttons.  We began with an easy category when my partner sorted the buttons into size.  However, at one point, my partner sorted the buttons into the amount of holes in each button which took me some time to guess!  This is a fun game once your child has really grasped the concept.

British Values

The Rule of Law

The fundamental British values of rule of law, democracy, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs are already implicitly embedded in your child’s curriculum.  We are going to focus on one value each week beginning with the rule of law.

The rule of law in the early years is all about children understanding their own and others’ behaviour and its consequences.  They are also learning to distinguish right from wrong.

Children enjoy participating in creating rules. If they are involved in making reasonable rules, they will know what is expected of them and others. Their participation will help ensure their willingness to maintain the rules and help develop self-control. 

• Talk to your child about the rules you have in the house.
• Discuss why the rules are important, for example, to keep them safe.
• Discuss what could happen if the rules are broken.
• Explore different rules you could adopt in the house. 

Ideas to explore rules:

• Make up a few funny rules eg. stay up all night and act out being too sleepy to play.

• Your child could be a ‘rule superhero’.  Pretend to break the rules and your child saves the day eg. leave all the toys out and trip over them.

• Make a poster together to display the rules.  This could be useful to refer to when the opportunity arises.

Wishing you all a fantastic weekend.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning children and parents,

I hope you enjoy today’s home learning.  

Communication and Language/Literacy

Tell the story from the Gingerbread Man’s point of view

This is quite a sophisticated skill and more difficult than a basic retelling with additions and changes.  Your child will have to see the story from another angle so I recommend you do this one together.  Plenty of acting out the story and lots of modelling will help your child.  However, the basic technique is something that your child will encounter many times throughout their school life so some exposure at this stage will be very beneficial.

Another way you could do this is something we call “hot seating”.  Pretend to be the Gingerbread Man and encourage your child to ask you some questions.  Or you could change roles and your child could ask the Gingerbread Man some questions.  Of course, you can play this game pretending to be any of the other characters eg. the little old woman, the cow, the horse or the fox.

Try the technique with another story – perhaps when reading one of your child’s favourite story books.

Letters and Sounds

What’s the Sound Mr Wolf game?

This is a fun game we’ve played often in class.

You will need:

• Your child’s word bag.
• Lots of space – outside is best.

What to do:

Take out tricky words (star shapes) from the word bag. 

You will only need high frequency words for the game (words that can be sounded out)

• Stand your child several large paces away from ‘The Wolf’ (parent).
• Pull from the word bag a word and ask your child to sound it out.
• Your child will then say the sounds loudly as they take strides forward.
• Make sure your child takes just one stride per sound.
• Choose another word and repeat.
• Once your child is close enough to The Wolf, turn round and shout ‘dinner time!’
• The wolf chases your child who runs back ‘home’ and start again.  Agree where ‘home’ will be prior to beginning the game.

I normally stand with my back to the children and turn round each time I say a word.

Perhaps swap places with your child who becomes the wolf and reads the words out to you.

For support

• Check the sounds with your child by clapping them first as you say them together.
• Show your child how to take one step per sound for each word before he or she begins taking their paces.

For challenge

Try these words which focus on our new sounds.

ai – wait, pain, sail, rain, main, tail

ee – see, weep, meet, week, feet, deep, keep

igh – light, fight, might, sight, bright, fright

This would also be a good opportunity to discuss word meanings and encourage your child to say a sentence to include the word.

Maths

The box game

Children often enjoy visualising how many toys are hidden in a box.  This game helps with adding, subtracting and solving problems.

You will need:

A box, number cards (or individual numbers written on pieces of paper) and some toys eg. teddies, small action figures

What to do:

• Put the toys into the box one at a time, counting the toys with your child as you hide them in the box.  The amount of toys may depend on your child’s understanding.  Perhaps start with 5 toys and increase the number as you play.
• Ask “Can you show me using your fingers how many toys are hidden?”
• Ask your child to find the number.
• Add one to the box, without showing the toys inside, and again ask your child to show you using their fingers “How many are there now?” “Show me the number”.
• Check your child’s answer by counting the toys in the box.

Extend this game by using larger amounts of toys and numbers.  Instead of adding toys to the box, take a given amount of toys out of the box.  “What if we add two more?” “What if we take two out?” 

Questions to ask your child:

• How many were there at the start?
• How many are there now?
• How do you know?
• How did you work it out?

Tricky words

Here’s a reminder of our new tricky words.

I’d like to share with you a great idea from one of the children.  Create your own words to add to your child’s word bag.  Perhaps your child could cut the star shapes out themselves to keep learning those scissor skills. 

Revisit the words on a daily basis and play ‘spot the word’ in story books.  Replay the ‘tricky word’ videos posted on Tuesday, 19.01.21.

Expressive Arts

Gingerbread Man ‘See How He Runs’ song

Attached to the Memo section of Tapestry is another song to learn with your child. 

Enjoy your day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning parents and children,

I notice from your posts on Tapestry that many children are enjoying The Gingerbread Man story.  We’re going to do some more learning about the story for one more week.   So watch this space for more Gingerbread Man fun next week.

Communication and Language

 Understanding question words using stories

Asking questions about stories is a way of finding out what children know, understand and can remember.  It also encourages children to be reflective. 

We’ve already explored The Gingerbread Man story with lots of reflective questions.  I’ve compiled some more specific questions relating to our Gingerbread Man story which will deepen your child’s learning.

• What did the Little Old Woman do to make the Gingerbread Man?
• What happened when the Little Old Woman opened the oven?
• Why did the Gingerbread Man run away?
• Why did everyone chase him?
• Why do you think everyone wanted to eat the Gingerbread Man?
• Why did the Gingerbread Man stop when he reached the river?
• Why didn’t the fox tell the Gingerbread Man he wanted to eat him?
• How did the fox trick the Gingerbread Man?
• Why did the Gingerbread Man trust the fox?  Would you?

Challenge your child to ask you a question.  Maybe take turns.  What about making it into ‘Quiz Time’ game – who can get the most points?  What will the winner’s prize be?  Perhaps choose your own story for this game.

Literacy/Letters and Sounds

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. 

Today’s new sound – ‘igh’ (trigraph three letters but one sound)

Here is a video to introduce the sound.  It also has a little reading challenge at the end.

This video supports blending and reading words that include the ‘igh’ sound.

Below is the action for ‘igh’ :  

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

Letter formation for ‘i’, ‘g’ and ‘h’ can be found in your child’s letters and sounds book.

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

If your child is ready for a challenge, ask your child to write the following words:

For extra challenge, maybe your child could write a sentence and draw a picture to accompany the sentence. 

Maths

Creating varied patterns and independently

This step should feel like a natural flow from the previous steps and many thanks to those children who have already shown me their independent patterns.

• Provide materials (eg. bricks, stones, twigs, knives, forks, spoons, cars, beads, buttons) for your child to create their own pattern.
• Again, ensure your child can talk about their pattern and identify where it repeats.
• Parents, try creating your own pattern and present deliberate errors. Ask your child to ‘fix’ the problem.
• Create patterns for a purpose – wrapping paper for a birthday or a design for a dinner place mat for example.

Baking a Gingerbread Man

I have posted on the Memo section of Tapestry a simple gingerbread recipe.  Your child could, of course, make any sort of biscuit depending upon the cutters available at home.

Here are some ideas to support your child’s learning:

• Talk about the sequence of the recipe and involve your child in following the numbered steps.
• Encourage your child to read the recipe with you eg. stop at a word, say ‘mix’, and pretend to struggle ‘Can you read that word for me?’
• Talk about numbers throughout your cooking activities such as how many eggs or spoonfuls you might need.
• Place all of the ingredients you need for the recipe on a tray and ask your child to pass them to you by asking specific questions such as ‘pass me the ingredient that is beside the flour, or behind the eggs’. The game can continue with your child naming the positions of ingredients to you.
• Teach your child how to use the scales and how to read the dial or numerals. You can also encourage your child to guess which of two items is heavier or lighter by holding one in each hand, for example a bag of sugar in one hand and a bag of flour in the other. Check if your child’s estimate was correct.
• Cooking together lends itself ideally to talking about time. How long will the gingerbread people take to cook?  Set timers together on your cooker, freestanding timer or phone.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning parents and children,

Welcome to today’s Reception home learning.

Communication and Language

Word webs

This activity will help your child build their vocabulary.

What to do:

• Choose a word to start a discussion.   I often find when I am reading stories to children a word that we are unfamiliar with always pops up.  Below I have suggested some possible words from our Gingerbread Man story. 

decided, bellowed, neighed, river, scrambled, unfortunately, gulp

• Write the word in the middle of a piece of paper eg. ‘river’
• Ask your child what he/she knows about ‘river’
• If your child can’t think of anything you could 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 linking them together.  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.  This because they will be making links between new vocabulary and old vocabulary.

Literacy/Letters and Sounds

Retell the story of the Gingerbread Man

Now it’s time to start using our story map and encouraging your child to retell the story independently.  I have posted a transcript of the story on the Memo section of Tapestry to help you guide your child.

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.

Find an audience for the story

The wonderful thing about learning to tell stories is becoming a storyteller and to communicate a story to someone else.  Maybe your child could tell their story to a collection of toys.  Perhaps even pretend each toy is one of their friends from class.  Other ideas are to ring or Zoom a family member or you could set up a theatre performance at home.  I’m sure your child would love to use your phone to record their story.  As usual, all use of technology with supervision.

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

Here’s a video to introduce the sound.

This video supports blending and reading words that include the ‘ee’ sound.

Below is the action for ‘ee’.

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

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

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

If your child is ready for a challenge, ask your child to write a couple of words from the following selection:

For extra challenge, maybe your child could write a sentence and draw a picture to accompany the sentence.   I expect this may result in some funny pictures!

Maths

Identifying the unit of repeat and describing

Build a tower as an example of a vertical pattern, for example, with coloured or different sized construction bricks. Stop part the way through a unit of repeat to see whether your child can continue it.  Ask your child to describe the repetition eg. ‘See if you can find where the pattern begins and ends’ or ‘Count the repeats and show them’.   Of course, you could always make your pattern using a different material available at home.

For extra challenge, you could also play a board game, such as Snakes and Ladders, and ask ‘Can you see any patterns here?’

Expressive Arts and Design

Gingerbread Man on the Run

I have posted on the Memo section of Tapestry this fun song.   Sing to the tune of ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’.

Reading

Finally, in the absence of your child being able to change their reading books at school, may I recommend the following website.

https://phonicsplaycomics.co.uk/

Click on Comics and start with the Phase 2 comics. 

Pat
Sit
A Nap
Rick the Duck
A Bug

If your child can read the Phase 2 comics fluently, with confidence and a good understanding, move onto the Phase 3.   Your child hasn’t learnt all of the Phase 3 sounds yet.  However, the following comics in the Phase 3 category are suitable if your child is ready.

Pet a Vet
Buzz
I can Spot

Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions regarding your child’s reading or any other home activities.  Email the School Office or post an observation on Tapestry.

My thoughts are with you and hope everyone is well and keeping safe.

Nicola Palmer