Dear Parents and Families,
As before, I am including a list of activities that can be done at home over the coming week. These are just some suggestions, so feel free to pick and choose as suits you and your child best. In addition to this, Max will continue his daily updates with ideas and activities generally picked from the list below. I have heard lots of fabulous things been done at home like long walks, helping baking and creative works of art.
I forgot to mention it previously, but play is an important part of our day in school, where children are engaging not just their imagination, but using their language skills or problem solving skills , exploring their world etc. Mixed in with our sounds, maths and Irish we would have lots of movement breaks from Go Noodle, nursery rhymes and songs, story time and chats about everything and anything under the sun. Structure and routine were important but sometime I needed to just ‘roll with it’ and see where we ended up.
Please feel free to contact me at firstname.lastname@example.org if you have any questions.
All the best and take care,
English I have lots of ideas for revising sounds. They are just ideas, pick and choose ones that suit you. 1 or 2 a day is plenty. And of course take days off from doing sounds too. You know your child best.
- Read alouds: Continue read to your child each day if possible.
- Children can read to their teddy/or you by retelling a story as they recall it. This can be done with/without the prompt of a book.
- After reading ask the child to recall the story in their own words-what happened first, next, at the end.
- Did they like it? Why? Why not?
- Which character did they like?
- if they could change anything in the story what would it be
- Revise all our sounds once or twice in the week. A mystery bag where they pick them out might be more engaging.
- As we had covered all our sounds we had started revising. The focus this week would have been on the green letters: g, o, u, l, f ,b Below are some suggestions of activities to re-enforce these sounds.
- What sound do each letter make. Think of words that start with these sounds. Trace over their shape-are they tall, small or fall down letters
- I-spy. See if they can guess what you are looking at
- 2 truths and a lie/Odd one out: pick one letter-eg. c: call out three words: car, lamp, cat. Children are to identify which one doesn’t start with the sound.
- Play Snap/memory games with the sounds. Write 2 extra copies of the letters and cut them out. Even better if you make a set of letters and a set of pictures-grape, orange, umbrella etc and cut them up for the games.
- Making words with the sounds. Call out some simple words for the children to make. Children should stretch out the words and then find the sounds. As this is still relatively new to the children try words that just use the red, orange and green letters like: got, gum, on, log, luck, leg, fun, fog, bug, big, bed
- Read and draw: write a few short simple words on a page and get them to draw the word is.
- Reading: online phonics books-speld SA. Can be read on laptop (with flash which is a free download works better), tablet or phone. As we are focusing on set 4: Nat the Cat can Rap or When Mum Got Back or Tig Naps a Lot would be good options.
- Phonics pop: online game where you choose the sounds, then children have to listen and pop the correct sound. https://www.ictgames.com/phonicsPop/index.html
- Yes/No Yeti: online game where children have to read the question and decide if the answer is yes or no. https://www.phonicsbloom.com/uk/game/yes-no-yeti?phase=3
- Writing: Practice their name on the whiteboard or on paper.
- News/Diary-draw things that they have been doing, their fav food etc. Encourage them to have a go writing the first letter or try the whole word. If the child wants help, write it out on a separate piece of paper for them to copy.
- Ladder letters: practice with whiteboard marker
- Tricky words: revise the tricky words covered so far. Get the children to put them into sentences. See if they can spot them in stories that you are reading
Maths: The focus at the moment is on building number and counting skills.
- Counting: we could from 1-10 and count backwards.
- Start at a different number 4-10, 8-10
- Skip a number: count aloud and skip a number see if they can hear what number was missing.
- Card games: Number order 1-5 first, 1-10 if able. Matching games: turn 2 sets of numbers 1-5 upside down and see who can find the most pairs. Teach them how to play go fish.
- Revise formation of numbers: Parent to model first Rhymes: 2=half a heart says I love you, add a line we’ve made a 2. 3= around the tree, around the tree, now we’ve made number 3 4= down, across and down once more that is how we make a four.
- See if the children can remember the number song: The animals went in two by two. It was a big favourite in our room.
- New number song 5 little ducks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZw9veQ76fo
- Spring: still focusing on Spring. Can you see any more changes: birds singing, buds opening etc. We would have also been talking about baby animals being born. Mothers and babies: Names of each: cow and calf, cat and kitten, sheep and lamb etc. Online story: Are you my mother. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBUv2iH9_bE
- Making Playdough: Max activity on wedneday
- Ingredients: 230 ml of warm water, cooing oil, food colouring, 250 gram plain flour, 65g salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder/cream of tartar (for preservation)
- Throwing and catching: Throw ball/rolled up socks into air and catch with two hands. See how many they can catch without dropping. Once the child is managing that easily- throw, clap and catch. Throw and catch one handed.
- Aiming: throwing ball or rolled up socks at a target: basin/bucket/sounds on the floor.
- Design a Decorative easter egg. We would have looked at this picture and used it to inspire our own paper eggs.
- Draw a chick learn_to_draw_a_chick_0