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Good morning everyone,

I hope you enjoy the suggestions for our home learning today.

Communication and Language/Literacy

Exploring the story of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant

Discussing the story

Suggested questions to ask after listening to the story again:

• Why didn’t Elmer want to be different?
• Why is it OK to be different from other people?
• How can we celebrate our differences like the elephants do on Elmer Day?
• An old elephant says to Elmer “It didn’t take you long to show your true colours”.  Discuss what this expression means?
• What is a berry tree?
• Look at the decorated elephants on Elmer Day.
  • Which is your child’s favourite?
  • Can your child explain why?
  • Can your child describe one of the elephants to a family member who has to guess which one you are thinking of?

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Letters and Sounds/Literacy

Write a sentence to match the picture

Below are some pictures to show your child.  Ask your child to write a sentence to match the pictures.

• A snail in the rain
• A zoo on the moon
• A cow in the town
• Stars on a jar.

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Maths

Create a pattern

I have posted some Elmer colouring sheets on the Memo section of Tapestry.  If you have access to a printer, ask your child to colour a pattern on a picture of Elmer.  In class, we talked a lot about how patterns must be repeating.  This is a basic mathematical rule.  When children make patterns they are learning about applying a rule.  For example, your child may colour the squares in red, blue, red, blue.  For extra challenge, maybe your child could colour the two squares red, two squares blue or include a third colour.

If you do not have a printer, maybe draw a picture of Elmer for your child or just challenge your child to colour a pattern on an alternative picture.

Understanding the World

What do you know about elephants?

Find out some facts about real elephants with your child?  You could find out where they live, what they eat or what baby elephants are called.  

Can your child tell another family member what they found out?

During lock down we have mainly be seeing the inside of our homes, it is nice to remember that the world is still out there and the animal kingdom, in particular, is still going about its daily business.  

Travel around the world by clicking on the link below to watch animals in their natural habitat.  Your child can watch to see how our beautiful planet is doing while we wait patiently to re-join it.  If you look on the ‘African’ section, you might see some elephants.  When I had a look, the elephants were busy drinking and bathing at the watering hole.

https://explore.org/livecams

Enjoy your day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception Class,

Here are my suggestions for today’s home learning.

Communication and Language

Our story this week is Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.  Unfortunately, I do not have this story at home.  However, it is a story that the children have said they would like.   I thought the next best thing would be for the children to hear the story read by the author, David McKee.

You may wish to take this opportunity to talk about authors and illustrators of books.  In class, I like to tell the children they are authors when they write me a story – maybe some of the children in our class may actually grow up to be an author or illustrator.  David McKee has also illustrated books by other authors, including some of the more recent Paddington Bear books. In addition, he has illustrated books written by his mother, Violet McKee, and by his son, Chuck McKee.

Letters and Sounds

Elmer’s Party Day – Elephant Day Invitation

Make an invitation to celebrate Elmer Day.

Encourage your child to write in the invitation.  Perhaps your child could invite their family and set up a little tea party. 

Below is suggested wording to include a few high frequency words.  Children learn to spell ‘come, to, my, be’ – tricky words.  You may find ‘party’ will be spelt ‘partee’ which is fine as we have only learnt ‘ee’ to represent this sound.

To ……
Come to my party
It will be fun.
from ……

You may also like to ask this little maths challenge:   At the Elmer’s Day party, Elmer eats 8 cakes and then another 2. How many cakes does he eat altogether?

Adapt the numbers for support or to extend your child’s learning.  For example, Elmer eats 2 cakes and then another 2.  How many cakes does he eat?  Or, Elmer eats 10 cakes and then another 3.  How many cakes does he eat?

Maths

Elmer’s Counting Song

Although this is a fairly simple song, it will really challenge your child in terms of counting up and down.  I have posted a copy of the song on the Memo section of Tapestry.

(Sing to the tune of ‘1,2,3,4,5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, berries cover Elmer’s hide.
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, he re-joins the herd, but then…

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, is this one of Elmer’s tricks?
5, 4, 3, 2 and 1, elephants having so much fun.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, rain clouds up above arrive.
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, we see Elmer’s colour then.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, is this one of Elmer’s tricks?
5, 4, 3, 2 and 1, elephants having so much fun.

Understanding of the World

Grow a rainbow

You will need:

• Kitchen roll/paper towel

• Felt-tip pens

• Two small bowls of water

• Paperclip

• Thread

What to do:

• Cut the kitchen roll into the shape of a rainbow.
• At each end, use the felt-tip pens to colour a rainbow about 2cm up from the bottom. You may wish to order the colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
• Attach the paperclip to the top of the rainbow and tie a piece of thread to it. This will allow you to hold your rainbow.
• Add water to the two bowls.
• Hold the rainbow with both ends slightly submerged into each bowl of water and watch your rainbow grow.

Encourage your child to predict what may happen and talk about what happens to the rainbow.

Wishing you all a super learning day.

Nicola Palmer

I notice that the link to the TenTen Assembly is not working on my blog. If you look on the Nursery class page, you will find the same link which is working perfectly. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

I hope you had a good bank holiday weekend and enjoyed the VE Day celebrations.  As usual, I will begin my week by sharing your home learning and my plans for the week ahead. This week’s story suggestion from the children is Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.

Religious Education

Please find below links to Mr Bedford’s weekly worship assembly and also a short ten minute assembly from TenTen Resources.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcz4R9U5O7evbfW9UrySiWQ

https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/primary-subscription/assemblies/assembly-2020-05-11/2020_05_11_assembly_for_home/

Letters and Sounds

Sentence Builder

In this game give your child one word (eg. hot) and ask your child to make up a sentence using that word.

Use your child’s word strips or word bag.  This activity is particularly useful for tricky words.

For further challenge – ask your child to write their sentence – remember encourage your child to write independently, using their sound mat and sounds that the children have learnt so far.

Here is a great example of a shopping list using the children’s current phonic knowledge.

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Word Challenge

Your child can learn their words in their word bag in a variety of ways!  Whatever inspires your child is great.  In this picture, the idea was to read as many words in a minute using the timer.

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Hand and finger skills

As always, keep challenging your child to develop the small muscles in their hands and fingers to increase pen control and writing skills.

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Maths

Number Bingo

A great idea to help learn numeral recognition.

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Recognising Numerals

A game outside searching for numbers written in chalk and a shape hunt.

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Learning about capacity

A good water play activity.  Learn about capacity by counting how many small buckets or pots will fill a larger container.

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Little Red Riding Hood

I would like to share some of the children’s learning following last week’s story of Little Red Riding Hood.  I’m really pleased your children enjoyed it.

Puppet Show

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Story Map

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Writing

Always great to encourage your child to label their drawings and build on their writing skills. This is the first page of a Little Red Riding Hood book.

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VE Day

Creating decorations

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Word web

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Jar of Happiness

To end my blog today I thought I would share this cheerful thought.  A jar to gather ‘after lock down’ ideas to look forward to.

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Many thanks for all your posts on Tapestry. I look forward to hearing all about your learning this week.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

Many thanks for all your posts on Tapestry, I am so impressed by everything the children are doing at home.  I appreciate that lots of you are juggling your own jobs too.  My activities are just suggestions which I hope will inspire your child.

Communication and Language

Smartie the Penguin

I have posted a PowerPoint story on the Memo section of Tapestry.

The story can also be found on:

https://www.childnet.com/resources/smartie-the-penguin

For very young children, especially those under the age of 5 years old, parents and carers should always supervise their child when online and be easily available to support children if they have any concerns or worries.

The story of Smartie the Penguin is a lovely introduction to what children need to consider in order to protect themselves from harm as they use a range of different devices to access the internet world?

I also recommend this document created in response to the COVID-19 crisis:

Keeping your children safe online – a guide for families of children under 5

https://www.hertsforlearning.co.uk/blog/keeping-your-children-safe-online-guide-families-children-under-5

Letters and Sounds

Spelling gaps game

This is a simple game.  All you do is miss out letters.

What to do:

• Use your child’s word bag for a bank of possible words.
• Write a word eg. st _ p
• Tell your child what the word is eg. stop
• Ask your child ‘What is the missing letter?’

If you decide to use tricky words (star shapes in word bag), tell your child it is a tricky word and cannot be sounded it – they will have to know the spelling.

For support, suggest a couple of possible letters to choose from.

To challenge your child, miss out more than one letter eg. s_ _ p

Your child may even be ready to play a hangman game (though drawing a clown’s face might be more acceptable!)

Maths

Picnic time

This is an excellent game to develop your child’s problem solving skills.

What to do:

• Plan a picnic with your child selecting favourite soft toys as the picnickers. 
• With your child choose the food eg. carrot sticks, sandwiches, drinks and fruit. 
• Ask your child how many of each item to provide for each toy.
• Ask your child to share out the food fairly.

An example for 5 toys:

• 10 sandwiches
• 5 drinks
• 15 carrot sticks
• 10 apples

Talk about scenarios such as:

• ‘What would happen if one toy didn’t want to eat?’  Ask questions such as ‘How could we share out the food then?’
• ‘I wonder what we’ll do if another toy joins the picnic?’  Establish by discussion whether or not your child would add more food, more toys or take something away.

Lastly, whilst the toys are enjoying their picnic, ask your child to tell the toys what they learnt about internet safety and the story of Smartie the Penguin.

Religious Education

Honour the Blessed Virgin Mary in May

The Church celebrates Mary in May because it is linked to spring, new life and the birth of Jesus.  Since the month of May is dedicated to Mary, it’s a great time to honour her with your little one!  Here are some suggestions:

• Make a flower crown.
• Make a round cake in the shape of a crown and decorate it with blue icing.  Blue being the colour associated with Mary.
• Make a special prayer table.  Find a picture of Mary and decorate the table with flowers.
• Say the Hail Mary prayer – encourage your child to begin to learn the Hail Mary prayer.

Wishing you all a wonderful day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

Here are my suggestions for today.

Communication and Language/Literacy

Exploring the story of Little Red Riding Hood

I hope you enjoyed my video of Little Red Riding Hood yesterday.  I have already mentioned many strategies that help children learn stories and ultimately begin to create their own stories.  I will leave it up to you how long you decide to focus on this story.  I’m guessing this will depend upon your child’s enthusiasm.   Here’s a reminder of what you can do:

Discussing the story

Ask your child to tell you what they liked, disliked, any puzzles or patterns. 

Move onto to discussions about what the characters did and how they may have felt.

Talk about some of the key words eg. ‘What is a wolf?’ Find out all about wolves.

Drama and storytelling

Act out the story.  Perhaps make a den to represent Grandma’s house or act it out whilst on your daily exercise.

Make a story box or story map to retell the story.

Changing stories

Substitute some of the key words eg. instead of a wolf perhaps Little Red Riding Hood met a dragon.

Make additions.  The story of Little Red Riding Hood often includes Little Red Riding Hood’s mother making a basket of food and telling her not to talk to the wolf.

Perhaps your child may wish to add a new character or an additional event that happened to Little Red Riding Hood on the walk.

Alter the ending – perhaps the wolf is sorry and Grandma invites him for tea.

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

cum, come

sed, zed, said

lighk, like

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

Maths

Draw a map to Grandma’s house – drawing maps

Ask your child to draw a map to show Little Red Riding Hood how to find Grandma’s house.  Questions to ask:

• Where do you think Little Red Riding Hood’s house might be?
• Where are the woods?
• What would you find in the woods?
• Where is Grandma’s cottage?

I’d also like to share this picture, a maze for Jack to travel along the beanstalk and find the golden egg at the end.

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Another idea is to ask your child to draw an outline of the road where you live.  Can your child show where on the map you live and mark some other things in your road such as a postbox, a lamp post or tree, or where a friend lives. 

Whatever map your child decides to draw, ask your child to explain their map to someone.

Physical Development – Healthy Eating

Fill a basket with healthy food to take to Grandma’s House

Ask your child to suggest what kinds of foods they think would help Grandma to get better, for example, eggs, fruit, milk.  Perhaps talk about the different ways we can cook foods or provide your child with a selection of different foods to try.

Ask your child to draw a picture of healthy foods.  You may wish to draw the basket for your child.

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you all have a great day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

I would like to mention a couple of items relating to my blog yesterday. 

1. Whoops! Friday is Bank Holiday and I planned activities on my timetable.  I’ll keep these to a minimum, I realise the day is to coincide with Victory in Europe Day, or VE Day, which marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.  I’ll try to think of something to celebrate the day.
2. The 3D shapes mentioned were created using small marshmallows and cocktail sticks.  I’m not sure if the photo clearly showed this.  It is a fun activity which requires a lot of problem solving.

Here are today’s activities.

Communication and Language/Literacy

Little Red Riding Hood

I have posted a video of myself telling the story, together with a copy of the text.  It can be found on the Memo section of Tapestry.  I hope your child enjoys it.

Letters and Sounds

Writing like a Jedi

(adapt the theme depending on your child’s interest
eg. pretend to write like a fairy with a wand)

This activity will help your child learn the pre cursive letter formation ‘whoosh writing’ in preparation for Year 1.  It’s a fun way to embed the letter pattern.   By the way, you can use the same technique to learn numeral formation.

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To engage your child’s enthusiasm, you could pretend that you have met Luke Skywalker!  You learnt how to become a ’Jedi Writer’.  Jedi writing is different to the way that ‘we’ all write.  It is amazing because you get to do it with a light sabre!

Use as many props as you have available eg. dressing up, something to represent the light sabre eg. a stick.

What to do:

• Ask your child to stand up.
• Choose a letter and talk about it. Where does this shape/letter start? Then where do we go?
• Introduce the rhyme related to the letter (these can be found in your Letters and Sounds book)
• Look at the letter in your child’s Letters and Sounds book.  Ask your child to trace it with their finger.
• Demonstration with your light sabre, talking about all of the ‘essentials’ for effective Jedi Writing:  straight back, legs shoulder width apart, big strong movements, no wobbling!  Write the letter in the air.
• Ask your child to write the letter in the air with their light sabre.

This initiative was inspired by Alistair Bryce-Clegg (ABC Does) for more information:  https://abcdoes.com/abc-does-a-blog/2015/12/12/how-to-write-like-a-jedi-star-wars-inspiration/

You can also ask your child to write with their finger in either flour, shaving foam or sand.

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Maths

Where is the wolf?

This activity will help your child learn to use everyday words to describe their position.

What to do:

• Invite your child to help you make and colour a cardboard cut-out wolf.
• Every day, place the wolf in a different position indoors or outside.  For example, in front of a cupboard, on top of the table, behind the sofa, high up in a tree.
• Each morning, ask your child to look for the wolf.
• Ask your child to use appropriate words to describe the wolf’s position. 
• Occasionally, pretend not to be able to find the wolf and ask for clarification eg. ‘Is he higher or lower than me?’

Or you could play ‘hunt the wolf’ and give your child clues in relation to his position.

Challenge your child to this little problem solving activity:

Little Red Riding Hood filled her basket with goodies for her Grandma. She took 6 apples and 5 biscuits.
How many treats did she take altogether?
You could draw a picture to help you work it out.

For support, change the amount of treats to a total under 10. 

For further challenge, use higher numbers.

The World

Investigating materials

What to do:

• Talk about what Little Red Riding Hood was wearing – a cape. ‘What do you think it might be made from?’      

• Tell your child that Little Red Riding Hood wants to go and visit her grandma again but it is raining. She needs a new cape that will keep her warm and dry. Can your child suggest the best materials to use for a new cape?

• Show your child a range of materials and discuss which would be best to use and why.

• Test out your child’s ideas by covering the doll with their chosen material and sprinkling or spraying on some water.
  
• Encourage your child to talk about their ideas, what worked and what did not work so well.

Also encourage your child to think about their own coat. ‘What makes it waterproof?’ ‘What materials are used?’

Hope you all have a great day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning everyone,

I hope you had a wonderful weekend.  I thought a nice start to our learning week would be to share a special message to the children and families of St. Adrian’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be2T7Y3qRfY&feature=youtu.be

Many thanks to those children who suggested a story.  Over the next couple of weeks I will try to include some activities related to your favourite stories.  I have picked two for this week – Little Red Riding Hood and Smartie the Penguin.  Here is my proposed timetable for this week.

Communication and Language/Literacy

Family Tree

This is an idea which generated a good discussion about different family members and how they connect to each other.  It’s a lovely way to teach your child about how everyone in the family is special.  The activity also developed into a writing activity whilst making the tree.

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Easter Garden

Here is a story box based on the Easter story.  Children can use story boxes to retell a story or make up their own stories.

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Outside stories

I have had several examples of children retelling stories whilst out on their daily exercise.  This picture involved a retelling of Jack climbing the beanstalk.

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Letters and Sounds

Scavenger Hunt

This activity involved hiding sound flash cards around a room.  If you do not have any flashcards, just write the sounds on pieces of paper.  Focus particularly on the sounds in Phase 3 on your sound mat (digraphs 2 letters/1 sound and trigraphs 3 letters/1 sound). 

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After the sounds were found, the children looked on a list of sounds (you could use your sound mat or Letters and Sounds book) and checked they had all the sounds on the list.  The children also found objects relating to the sounds.

Dinner list

After my suggestion to write a bean list last week, I thought this was an excellent idea.  Write a list of food for dinner tonight.  The more frequently you can encourage your child to do this, the more progress your child will gain. 

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Remind your child to use their ‘whoosh’ writing and knowledge of sounds learnt so far.  For example, if you meal is ‘meat pie’ then I would expect your child to write ‘meet pigh’ because these are the sounds he/she knows.  As mentioned before, confidence in being able to independently write is the most important skill. 

Perhaps your child could be in charge of informing the rest of the family what the meal is for tonight by writing the list and pinning it up in the kitchen somewhere.

Maths

Bean chart (sweet chart)

Here is a super example of creating a chart suggested last week – a sweet chart.  Making charts provide a great opportunity to make comparisons eg. how many more? how many less?

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Beanstalk

This idea was inspired as an alternative to growing a real beanstalk.  Over the course of last week, the beanstalk grew its leaves and got taller and taller.  I thought it would make a great family height chart.

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3D Shapes

This is a brilliant activity to explore 3D shapes.  Perhaps you could gather some objects from around the house to compare and talk about how many corners and faces.

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Knowledge and Understanding of the World

Bubble Snakes

This is a fun science experiment.  I have posted on the Activity section of Tapestry a ‘how to do’ video.

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Hunting for fossils

This activity involved digging bones out of plaster and remaking a model of a dinosaur.

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Learning about plants

Here is a brilliant drawing (and writing) to detail the main features of a plant.

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Thank you for all your ideas.  Have a great day.

Nicola Palmer

Good morning Reception class,

Here are my ideas for today.

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 Jack and the Beanstalk 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

Fee, 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 and supports 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 at the beginning eg. 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’.

Maths

Jellybean graph

You will need to buy some jellybeans on your next shopping trip for this game.  Before the jellybeans are gobbled up show your child how a graph could be made – see picture below.

Religious Education

Blessings for those we love

What to do:

• Provide pictures of individual people – perhaps family members or friends.
• If you don’t have any pictures to hand, provide a people template for drawing/colouring.  Or your child could just draw a picture of a friend or family member.
• Ask your child to hold the picture or drawing in their hand.
• Ask your child to quietly think of the person and picture the person in their mind.
• Ask your child to say ‘God to bless …….’.
• Perhaps write a message:  God bless….. God look after …..
• Stick the picture on your wall or fridge.

I’d also like to recommend the Sunday Liturgy for Families created by Ten Ten Resources in response to church and school closures.

https://www.tentenresources.co.uk/sunday-liturgy-for-families

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Nicola Palmer