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Below are some ideas for home learning this week. 

Talking

Help your child to uses talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events. 

Model how to think about things to your child by making a ‘running commentary’ as you undertake daily tasks together or when you play with your child. Think out loud. Ask yourself questions out loud and then answer them together. Then encourage your child by asking questions such as ‘Tell me what you’re doing/thinking?’ or ‘I wonder why you/they chose to do that..?’

Experimenting with different ways of moving

Make an obstacle course in a space using cushions, baskets, chairs, and encourage your child to move around it in different ways. For example, slithering, sliding, shuffling, wriggling and crawling.

Draw a hopscotch on the floor with your child using chalk or home-made paint (see textures below).  Try different movements to play the game such as jumping with feet apart and then jumping with two feet together or hopping.  How many jumps can your child do without losing balance and falling over? Do they need to hold their arms out to support their balance? Jump along the hopscotch using feet apart and together alternately.

Using simple tools and materials to effect changes in materials

Make a 3D picture together. Use a piece of A4 paper (or larger paper if available such as wallpaper from a roll) as a base and place it on a flat surface. Then do some ‘paper engineering’ with other pieces of paper. You can do this by curling strips of paper using child scissors, make snips in paper to create a fringe, curl paper around a pencil, make ‘snowflakes’ from folded paper, cut a circle to make a spiral. The possibilities are endless. When you have created your pieces of ‘paper engineering’, you can stick (or just place them) on the base paper to create a work of 3D art.

Continue a rhyming string

Play a game by sitting opposite each other on the floor. Roll a ball to each other and say a rhyming word as you roll the ball for example, bat, hat, cat, mat, pat, gat, splat, zat. (You can make up your own words.) Another example, peg, heg, meg, neg, spleg, weg, beg. This game can be played with several family members taking turns to roll the ball to each other.

Learning to sound out words for spelling

Play a version of ‘I spy’ with your child. Find a range of items that are familiar to your child and place them on a tray.  Begin the game by saying, ‘I spy with my little eye, something that sounds like p-e-g’. Instead of saying the whole word, sound it out by saying one letter sound at a time. Remember to say the ‘soft sound’ for each letter (not adding an ‘-uh’ at the end, for example say a longer ‘ssssss’ rather than ‘s-uh’ – this makes blending the sounds simpler). Your child keeps the item if they guess correctly. They can then take their turn to ‘sound out’ an item to you. The one with the most at the end is the winner.

The following household items or toys will develop your child’s phonics knowledge:    pot, pan, cup, peg, hat, pig, mug, car, boot, pen, cap, lid, doll, pen, box.

More challenging words:   soap, ring, brush, egg-cup, book, cow, chicken, shell, ship, boot, coat, car, jar, fork, coin.

Recognising Numbers

Go on a number hunt around your home. Look at numbers on the front door, clock, microwave, television, phone, food packaging, toys, receipts and so on.

You could extend by looking for numbers during a local walk. Look at car number plates, road signs, drain covers, signage. 

Use a ‘bingo card’ 0 – 20 to mark off numbers as your child spots them. 

If your child, a family member or friend are celebrating a birthday you could make them a card, badge or a birthday crown with their age on. Talk about the number that is your child’s age. Have a hunt around your home for places where you can find that number, for example in books, on food packaging, the washing machine or the clock

Counting

Encourage your child to help prepare snacks with you. Give your child up to 10 food items, for example halves of grapes, blueberries, cut up banana, raisins. Tell them how many items they should have, for example, ‘You should have 8 pieces of fruit’, and ask them to check they have that number. This could be extended by giving your child too many or too few pieces of fruit and then asking them what needs to happen to make it right.  Do they need to add more or take some away?

Subtraction

Learn this song with your child – 10 Fat Sausages Sizzling in a Pan

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-ten-fat-sausages/z6vh7nb

Encourage your child to use fingers or objects to calculate how many sausages left in the pan each time.   You could even use a real frying pan and use suitable objects or paper cut outs to represent the sausages.

Solving mathematical problems

Invite your child to help you sort out socks before you put them away. Put the socks into pairs and lay the pairs on the floor, talking about the reasons that they are pairs (patterns, colours or size). Count how many you’ve got altogether. Count them in ones ‘1, 2, 3…’ then try counting in twos, ‘2, 4, 6, 8…’ Ask your child ‘how many socks have we got altogether?’ You can then repeat this game using shoes whilst tidying up the shoe rack.

Science experiments – looking at changes

Conduct a ‘scientific experiment’.   Put an orange/slice of orange, lemon, onion, bread, apple into a ‘zip lock’ type or other tightly tied plastic bag. Leave it sealed over a number of days to watch the item decompose and make a book about what you see. Talk to your child about what is happening and the reasons why. Look closely at the items using a magnifying glass if one is available or use a phone camera to zoom in on the item.

You could compare this to items such as glass and plastic and highlight that they do not ever decompose, adding an element of environmental awareness to your child’s learning.

Creating different textures

Add texture to paint. Put some paint in a cup/beaker and add either sawdust, sand, oatmeal, porridge oats or anything that you have available that will change the texture of the paint. Talk to your child about what happens and encourage them to describe the changes to the texture. Invite your child to use different items such as spoons, large brushes, spoons or sticks to apply the textured paint on to paper. Make some floor paint using cornflour mixed with a little water and food colouring to use outside. Talk about the texture as your child explores and experiments painting with natural items including leaves, sticks, pebbles or twigs.

As always, it will be lovely to see your child’s learning on Tapestry. Wishing you all a fun week.

Nicola Palmer

I have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming the children back to school this week.   The children embraced our new classroom and routine enthusiastically and responded well to the increased hygiene procedures.  Many thanks to parents for your co-operation and preparing your children so well.

My thoughts are with those children learning at home and hope you enjoy sharing Reception 2’s activities. Mr Sallis will also be posting a blog to celebration Reception 1’s learning.

We talked about germs on our hands and conducted a hand washing experiment.  This is an interesting experiment to try at home.

The children rubbed a small amount of hand lotion all over their hands.  This was followed by a small amount of glitter which they rubbed evenly over their hands to represent the germs.

We presented the children with buckets of cold soapy water, warm soapy water and paper towels.  Interestingly, all the children seemed to be very well informed and all predicted that the warm water was the best solution to use.  After experimenting with all the options, we discovered that the children were indeed quite right!  However, this activity provided a concrete example of the importance of warm soapy water when washing hands.

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The children have been learning about protecting our group bubble to keep safe. They enjoyed playing bubble games and drawing pictures of their friends in our bubble.  The children also connected with Group 1’s bubble by joining a video call where each group a sang song to the other group.  In addition, the whole school came together to share a video school assembly and end of week video celebration.

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We began Letters and Sounds teaching by playing games such as tricky word hunt and sound bingo.  Parents at home can play sound bingo by using the sound mats sent home.  Call out individual sounds for your child to mark off with a non-permanent pen.  We have also been learning letter names, ask your child to tell you the letter names as well as the sound when identifying each sound.

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During the warm weather, we took the opportunity to share our snack time on the field.  This is one of my favourite times of the day which normally inspires some fascinating discussions.

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The children were delighted when they made coloured water using tissue paper.  As expected, this led to lots of colour mixing experiments.   This discovery was quite by accident.  Interestingly, additional experiments revealed that the colour runs out easily from tissue paper but not from other types of paper.

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A game children can try at home is ‘catapult the number’.  Just chalk a number square on an area outside to act as a target.  We used bean bags to aim at our target.  At home you could try a soft toy or other soft object.  In school the children also wrote down the numbers and talked about who had scored the highest number. 

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Home Learning

I will post a ‘home learning’ blog each Monday with ideas for all our Reception children .

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Nicola Palmer

Hello Reception parents and children,

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.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend together.

Nicola Palmer

Hello everyone,

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.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Nicola Palmer

Hello Reception Class,

I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine and that my suggestions for today are useful.

The Door Bell Rang

Share with your child the story of ‘The Door Bell Rang’ by Pat Hutchins. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXtu90JnDkM

Maths

Sharing/Acting out

You will need:

• 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.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception class,

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.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rdgn3

Religious Education

A litany of praise to celebrate Pentecost

Remind your child of the Pentecost Day story – below is a simple version.

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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.

I hope you all have a great day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception class,

Below are my home learning suggestions for today.

Communication and Language

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

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:-

Jelly on a plate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POI0GKji1Ww

Hot Cross Buns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re3gXNTtwig

RHYTHM ACTIVITY

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.

Wishing you all a great day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

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.

https://youtu.be/KSP1HAHkNs0

https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/primary-subscription/assemblies/assembly-2020-05-18/2020_05_18_assembly_for_home/

Altar for Mary

Here is a lovely altar to celebrate Mary in the month of May.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Story Making

A Jack and the Beanstalk landscape which included some adaptations to the story.

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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.

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Earthquake Experiment

Making structures that were tested in a tray of jelly to simulate an earthquake.

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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.

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Enjoy your day

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

Here are my suggestions for today.

Communication and Language

We are all different

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.

Wishing you all a fun weekend.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

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.

Have a great day everyone.

Nicola Palmer