I would like to start by saying how proud myself and Mr King are with how sensible and positive the children, from both groups, have been settling back to school. They have been great educators to each other sharing what they know about keeping safe during this time. A huge well done and air high five to them!
I hope they have enjoyed this weeks learning. I have greatly enjoyed being back in the classroom with their smiley faces.
I would like to share a video with you that made my week. On Tuesday, both groups collected materials from their playground areas to make birds nests. We then went to the field and they got to work to create their nests. They all really enjoyed this activity and wanted to come back to check them the next day. Watch the video below see what they found.
All I can say is I have watched this video multiple times and each time it puts a massive smile on my face 😀
As we are now back at school and as outlined in Mr Bedford’s letter, Mr King and I will be no longer be able to set and respond Home Learning in the usual way.
A fantastic resources is BBC Bitesize where you can find daily lessons for Maths, English and lots of other subjects. You can find the link on our Google Classroom, along with links to other handy websites.
This message is for those children who are able to return to school on Monday. However, if your child is unable to come back to school just yet, please rest assured we will endeavour to keep in touch and provide some useful home learning tips.
Firstly, I would like to say how much I am looking forward to welcoming your children and am very excited to introduce them to our new classrooms and begin teaching in school again.
As promised, I have posted a video on Tapestry of the new classrooms for the children who are able to return to school. Our priority is to ensure your children are happy, safe and secure.
Our main focus will be becoming familiar with the new learning environment and introducing the children to the concept of our ‘group bubbles’. We will do lots of activities to reconnect our friendships between both ‘group bubbles’. For example, writing each other messages and painting pictures to display on our large rainbow display. We will also aim to do a short video presentation to each other at the end of the week.
There will, of course, be a raised awareness of hygiene and cleanliness. To prepare your child, you may wish to look at this handwashing video together and help your child learn the correct handwashing procedure. We’ll also learn the accompanying song in class.
Rub the palms, one two Rub the knuckles, one, two Rub the insides of the fingers And the back of them too Rub the thumbs one, two And the nails one, two Now it’s time to rinse them Happy clean hands for you
I am conscious that for some children separating from their parents after such a long time at home may be the first skill to develop. If your child is at all anxious, please take this opportunity to prepare your child as much as possible with positive encouragement. Reassure your child that we have planned lots of fun activities and are very excited to be welcoming them back to school.
Lastly, don’t forget to send in a ‘named’ water bottle, ‘named‘ sun hat and ‘named‘ rain coat. You never know when we may be caught out by a sudden rain shower. Also, depending upon the weather forecast, apply sun cream prior to arriving at school. No need to send in book bags.
Before I start my home learning activities today, I just wanted to let you know how much I am looking forward to welcoming those children who are able to return to school.
I will be in touch again to give you more information and some photos of the new classrooms. Our main priority will be making sure your children are safe and happy.
Here are my suggestions for today and over half term.
This activity is a mixture of communication/Language, maths and physical development. I know some of your children are already helping to make sandwiches at home.
Making sandwiches
Talk to your child about their favourite fillings and healthy options. Probably best to encourage a filling that will be easy to cut once the sandwich is made.
Ask your child to wash their hands before preparing the food.
Encourage your child to help you gather together the utensils and ingredients you will need to make a super sandwich.
Invite your child to help spread the butter on the bread. Teach your child to take a little butter and to spread it evenly across the whole slice of bread. Top Tip: make sure the butter is nice and soft before you invite your child to start spreading it on the bread.
Finish the sandwich with the filling.
Now for the maths bit:
Ask your child to:
Cut the sandwich into two rectangles.
Cut the rectangles into four squares.
Cut each square into two triangles.
How many triangles do you have altogether?
Now eat all the triangles! Maybe try the activity another day and cut the sandwich into different shapes.
Letters and Sounds/Religious Education
Plan a Pentecost Party
Pentecost Day is on Sunday, 31 May so you may wish to try this activity over the half term period.
I have received lots of posts on Tapestry of children enjoying home tea parties and celebrations such as VE Day. You may wish to plan a home Pentecost party and encourage your child to write a list of either things you will need or activities to do. As usual, encourage your child to ‘have a go’ and use your child’s sound mat/Letters and Sounds to support their writing.
Pentecost is often named as ‘the birthday of the Church’. The feast celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit who leads and guides people into communion with God and fills them with courage and energy for Christian life.
It is difficult at this age for children to understand the abstract concept of the Holy Spirit. We use images such as air, wind and fire to help us explain the power of the Holy Spirit. Here are some ideas that can help your child explore these elements and have fun on Pentecost Day.
Red is the Church’s colour for Pentecost. You could wear red, eat red food, make decorations in red etc.
Make a Pentecost hat.
Make a streamer and write “Share the Good News of Jesus with Everyone” on it. This can be just strips of paper attached to a stick.
Blow bubbles.
Play with windmills.
Dance with the streamer to create a ‘fire dance’.
And, of course, revisit the story of Pentecost, Pentecost prayer and Pentecost song posted on my previous blogs.
12 biscuits, fruit or another suitable type of food. If you have play dough, your child could make the ‘cookies’ with play dough or just cut out some circle shapes to represent the ‘cookies’.
A small selection of toys (2 – 6).
What to do:
Begin by talking about the story. ‘Tell me what happened?’ ‘How many people were there?’ ‘How do Sam and Victoria know there will be 6/3/2/1 cookies each?’
Show your child 2 toys and ask ‘How can we share our food out so that the toys all have the same number?’
Ask ‘What if 2 more toys come along?’
Repeat until you have 6 toys.
Perhaps you could model sharing the food unequally and ask your child ‘What do you notice?’ ‘How can we solve the problem?’ Or maybe suggest 5 toys to challenge your child and introduce the concept of ‘remainder’.
Letters and Sounds/Religious Education
Write a simple prayer
I suggested in my blog yesterday that you share a simple prayer with your child. If you had a chance to do this, it will give your child a starter for today’s activity. Talking and exploring ideas before putting pencil to paper is an important aspect of any writing activity.
Ask your child to write their own simple prayer to thank God. You can always talk about this now if you didn’t get a chance to do the prayer yesterday.
Suggested wording:
Dear God
Thank you God for ………..
Love from
Use word bag to support spelling tricky word: you
Encourage your child to use the sounds he/she knows.
Use sound mat or Letters and Sounds book to support sounds.
Remind your child to use pre cursive letter formation ‘whoosh’ writing. This can also be found in the Letters and Sounds book.
Pentecost
Sing this simple Pentecost song with your child (to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”)
Jesus sent a friend, clap your hands. Jesus sent a friend, clap your hands. It’s Pentecost you know, so your happiness can show. Jesus sent a friend, clap your hands.
I expect you have now had a chance to read Mr Bedford’s letter regarding reopening the school for your children. I have been busy over the past week or so working at school setting up our new classrooms. Please accept my apologies if I am not as active as normal on Tapestry.
Here are my suggestions for today.
Communication and Language
Days of the week
The story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a good book to open up discussions about the days of the week.
Here is a fun song to help your child learn the days of the week.
The caterpillar eats a lot of different food. Perhaps you can make a simple food diary together at home.
Letters and Sounds
Flipping Phonics!
You will need:
Word bag 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
10 Fat Sausages Sizzling in a Pan
Another fun song for your child to sing – this song supports subtraction. It also includes the words, some of which your child may be able to read.
Remind your child of the Pentecost Day story – below is a simple version.
Explain to your child that the people came together to share their happiness and joy because Jesus had kept his promise and sent the Holy Spirit to be their friend. They are going out to tell everyone. We can all share in this happiness.
Together orally compose a litany of praise.
‘Thank you, God!’ For my good news about ….. (encourage your child to add their own words here) For the Good News of Easter. For the new life of Jesus. For the Good News of the Holy Spirit. For the Good News of your love.
This is a story requested by the children. Eric Carle, the author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, can be seen reading this classic picture book out loud on the link below. I know many of your children are very familiar with the book so I thought it would be nice for the children to see the author read the story.
Letters and Sounds
Read the word and draw the picture game
What to do:
Write the following words on separate pieces of paper.
sandpit
windmill
desktop
handstand
lunchbox
shampoo
sandwich
Show your child one word at a time.
Explain to your child:
When you see a word, sound it out quietly to yourself.
Blend the sounds to read what the word is.
When you know what the word is, draw a picture quickly on your paper.
Show me the picture as soon as you can so that I can see what you think the word says.
Depending upon your child’s confidence, choose a couple of words or as many words as your child’s enthusiasm allows.
For support, talk to your child about ‘chunking’ to split the word up with their finger. Read the first part of the word, the second part and then say both together. For example, ‘sandpit’ – cover up ‘pit’ with their finger and read ‘sand’ then cover up ‘sand’ and read ‘pit. Altogether, ‘sandpit’.
Maths
Adding
Once you have listened to the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, ask your child some questions:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar eats 3 plums and 4 strawberries. How many pieces of fruit did he eat altogether?
The Very Hungry Caterpillar eats 4 strawberries and 5 oranges. How many pieces of fruit did he eat altogether?
The Very Hungry Caterpillar eats 2 pears and 5 oranges. How many pieces of fruit did he eat altogether?
Tell your child: You can use your fingers or draw a picture to help you.
For support, just choose one question and collect together some objects to represent the fruits and count the objects together.
For an extra challenge, how many pieces of fruit did The Very Hungry Caterpillar eat altogether?
To remind you:
1 apple 2 pears 3 plums 4 strawberries 5 oranges
Expressive Arts and Design
Special message from Mrs Goldsmith, our Music Teacher, with some ideas for you.
SINGING ACTIVITY
Sing some songs and rhymes on the theme of FOOD. Here are some suggestions:-
Clap the rhythm of some of the songs you have sung. Play the rhythm of the songs. If you have a percussion instrument, such as a drum or tambourine, you can use that. Maybe try using two wooden sticks or spoons or one spoon on a pan or table top.
I hope you had a good weekend. As usual on a Monday, I will begin by sharing with you my plans for the week, assembly links and celebrate last week’s home learning.
Religious Education
Please find below links to Mr Bedford’s weekly worship assembly and also a short ten minute assembly from TenTen Resources.
Here is a lovely altar to celebrate Mary in the month of May.
Letters and Sounds
Sounds in the lava
This game involved sounds written on pieces of paper. The floor is the lava. Adult calls out a sound and child has to step towards the sound without falling into the lava.
Longer words
This game involves creating words cards and adding letters to extend blending skills. For example, ten – tent, hum – hump, and – band, den – dent, and – land, win – wind, lap – clap.
Maths
Snack shop
This snack shop was set up and the children in the family were given a pot of coins – 1p, 2p, 5p. The children had to use the correct money to buy their snack.
Elmer the Patchwork Elephant
Create your own Elmer using a milk bottle cut in half and glue on coloured paper patches. Also a successful rainbow experiment.
Story Making
A Jack and the Beanstalk landscape which included some adaptations to the story.
Learning to cut
Helping out to cut up at snack time is a great way to strength those small muscles in hands and fingers essential for writing.
Earthquake Experiment
Making structures that were tested in a tray of jelly to simulate an earthquake.
Being the teacher
Finally, your child may not have co-operative family members to hand but most children love to be the teacher. Maybe you could play a game where your child has to teach you verbally by calling out instructions to do something simple like put on your socks! This can be quite tricky and will strengthen your child’s language skills.
If you were able to talk about yesterday’s activity, ‘what makes you special?’ your child can now start to think about other people and how we are all unique in our own special way.
Begin by talking about family members and draw your child’s attention to similarities. For example, hair or eye colour, likes and dislikes, where you live.
This discussion will probably naturally reveal some differences within the family. The discussion itself will be a nice way to help your child think about similarities and differences.
If you wish, you could conduct a survey with your child. Pick something nice and easy eg. ‘What do you like for breakfast?’, ‘What is your favourite pet?’ or ‘What is your favourite colour?’ – list a few common cereals, pets or colours and ask your child to question each family member/extended family members which one they would choose. Total up the results to explore a bit of maths as well.
Letters and Sounds
What’s the sound Mr Wolf?
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 the other 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 shout ‘dinner time!’
The wolf chases your child who runs back ‘home’ and start again. Agree where ‘home’ will be prior to starting the game.
I normally stand with my back to the children and turn round each time I say a word.
You can also 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 strides.
Maths
Using books to count
Whilst looking at the story of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant, many maths opportunities came to mind. How many coloured patches on Elmer? How many bunches of berries on the tree? How many elephants in the herd? How many animals in the jungle?
I appreciate many of you will not have this particular book to hand. However, books are an ideal focus for maths conversations. Ask your child to count characters or animals. Books that include a picnic or party can inspire a discussion about sharing. Other maths concepts you could explore are patterns, size, or weight.
A great way to begin an open ended conversation, rather than direct questioning, is to say “I wonder …….” or “I think …… is that right?”
Religious Education
Below is a lovely story which introduces Pentecost.
Thank you for your Tapestry observations. It’s good to know the children are enjoying this week’s story.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
What makes you special?
During the story of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant, Elmer realises that he likes being unique and special.
Talk to your child about your own interests and what is special about yourself.
Ask your child – What makes you special? Are you very good at doing something? Are you kind, funny or helpful?
Ask your child – Draw a picture of something that makes you special and unique.
Letters and Sounds
Encourage your child to write a sentence.
I am good at …….
As usual, encourage your child to use their sound mat for support and write the sounds he or she can hear and knows.
Maths
I hope your child enjoys this song ‘One Elephant Went Out to Play’.
Maths Challenge
Here’s another maths challenge about Elmer’s Day Party but with a focus on subtraction.
At the Elmer’s Day party, Elmer puts 8 cakes on a plate. His friends eat 3 cakes. How many cakes does he have left?
Adapt the numbers for support or to extend your child’s learning. For example, Elmer puts 5 cakes on a plate. His friends eat 2 cakes. How many cakes does he have left? Or Elmer puts 13 cakes on a plate. His friends eat 3 cakes. How many cakes does he have left?
Encourage your child to use objects eg. Lego bricks, to help work it out.
Religious Education
Pentecost
I hope you have been able to read our ‘Foundation Stage Religious Education’ blog about Pentecost posted yesterday.
To begin our Pentecost learning, please talk to your child about any good news they may have experienced. For example, their birthday, a video call from a member of their family or achieving a new skill. I feel like I’m hearing ‘good news’ stories every day on Tapestry. However, your child may like to tell me about something special via Tapestry.
