Home learning heroes
I’ve had some lovely emails from people learning at home. Thank you for keeping in touch with me and keeping your brains busy.
Things are feeling tough for some people, but just do what you can and have a day off every now and again, if you need to!
Aubree is really enjoying the geography videos.
Home Learning
Well done to all the children who have been doing their home learning this week. It’s been lovely to see some of you on Zoom and to see and hear about the learning you’ve enjoyed. I particularly enjoyed seeing some of the drawings and models of the solar system as part of the science learning. It’s also been great to hear other ways you’ve been spending your days such as going on walks, reading a book, tie dyeing t-shirts and playing football in the garden. I look forward to seeing some more home learning next week. Remember, if you’re struggling with any of the home learning and you need some support, please ask an adult to email me and I will get in touch to help or you can ask me on Zoom. Happy home learning!
Week Commencing 18.01.21: F2 Home Learning
| Monday
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Book of the week- Watch the story SUPERTATO or read the book if you have it at home. SUPERTATO Questions to discuss: Where is the story set? Who are the main characters in the story? What fruit and vegetables do you like to eat? Why is it important to eat fruit and vegetables? |
| Phonics- x Click here to watch today’s phonics video Activity 1: Write a word, caption or sentence to match the picture.  Activity 2: Go to phonicsbloom.com. Choose phase 2 games. Play: Fishy Phonics |
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| Maths- White Rose Maths: Growing 6,7,8! Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 1 Activity: Click here for today’s activity. |
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| Tuesday | Phonics- y Click here to watch today’s phonics video Activity 1: Write a word, caption or sentence to match the picture.  Activity 2: Click here to play Buried Treasure on Phonics Play. Select phase 3 then +y. |
| Maths- White Rose Maths: Growing 6,7,8! Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 2 Activity: Click here for today’s activity. |
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| Wednesday | Phonics- z/zz Click here to watch today’s phonics video Activity 1: Be a ‘z’ detective! Can you find anything (or anyone) in your house, that has the initial or ending sound ‘z’? |
| Maths- White Rose Maths: Growing 6,7,8! Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 3 Activity: Click here for today’s activity. |
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| Thursday | Phonics- Tricky words Click here to watch today’s phonics video Activity 1: Be a Tricky Word Detective. Can you find any of the phase 3 tricky words in the books you have at home? Activity 2: Play Run to the Tricky Word. 1. Write each tricky word on separate pieces of paper. Click here to check you have used all of the tricky words. 2. Stick them around your garden or a big room in your house. 3. Get an adult to spell the tricky words aloud using the letter names. 4. Run to the correct tricky word. Activity 3: Play the Reading Robot game on Phonics Play. Parents: Login details are… Username: Sphere Password: Spher3 Search Phonics Play > Resources > Phase 2 > Reading Robot > Start > Phase 2 Word Passport Click here for this week’s word list. Remember to use your phoneme fingers when blending! |
| Maths- White Rose Maths: Growing 6,7,8! Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 4 Activity: Click here for today’s activity. |
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| Friday | Understanding the World with Professor Myers; – Keeping warm in winter Click here to watch this week’s video with Professor Myers. Can you design an outfit to keep Professor Myers warm when she goes out for her winter walks? Can you think of some ways of moving to keep warm when it’s cold outside? Which one worked best? |
| Story time- The Very Lazy Ladybird Click here to watch today’s story read by Miss Marsden. Sit back, relax and enjoy the story. Questions to discuss: 1. What did the ladybird like to do all day and night? 2. Whose tail did the ladybird hop onto? 3. What did the elephant do? 4. Did you like the story? What was your favourite part? |
Story Link activities to select throughout the week
Literacy
- Design and label your own character to match the story. You may choose to draw, paint or use real vegetables.
- Pick a character to draw and add a speech bubble. What is your character saying?
Understanding the World
- Find some fruits and vegetables around your house. Sort them into different groups. You might sort by colour, size or texture.
- If you have frozen peas in your freezer have a look at them in their frozen state. Feel them, what do they feel like? Watch them defrost. How long does it take? Does it defrost more quickly in different places around your house?
Expressive Arts and Design
1. Draw a vegetable.
Use your own imagination or this drawing tutorial.
How to draw broccoli
2. Use a mash potato masher to make some super art.
Physical Development
1. With an adult, cut some fruit and vegetables to make a healthy snack.
How many pieces did you cut?
2. Superhero PE!
Be a superhero and try out some of these stretches and movements.
Superhero 1
Superhero 2
Zoom sessions
Next week the children who are learning from home will be invited to a zoom session with their teacher. This zoom session will be with a group of children from their class. You will find the focus of the zoom session on the website each Friday. Sometimes your child will need to bring something along with them. Your child does not have to join in with these zooms, they are optional. Unfortunately, the timings of these zooms cannot be changed as most teachers are teaching in school. Look out for the link to your child’s zoom, which will be sent, via email on a Friday. Look forward to seeing you all next week.
F1 Home Learning: Week 3
| Reading
There are lots of great stories that take place in a snowy setting. You might have ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ at home or a favourite story that involves penguins or polar bears. Here’s a story for you to watch called ‘The Snowy Day’. · How do you feel like when you open the curtains, look out of the window and see snow? · Can you remember the sound that Peter’s feet made as he walked through the snow? We love listening to the ‘crunch’ of freshly fallen snow! · What tracks did Peter find in the snow? Have you ever seen some tracks in the snow? What made the tracks? · Peter put a snowball in his pocket. What happened? Where did the snowball go? |
| Phonics In Nursery, we practise our listening skills when we’re singing and using instruments. We have to shake the instruments until we hear the music stop. Find something at home that you can use to make a noise – this could be an instrument, a pot with rice in or a wooden spoon and a pan! Shake or bang along to the music and remember to listen carefully for when to stop. |
| Mark-Making
· Draw a snowman. Think carefully about what shape you need to use for the body and head. How many eyes do you need to draw? What shape could you use for a carrot nose? · Paint a winter picture. What colours would you use? · Draw around your hands and carefully cut them out to make some paper gloves. Add patterns to decorate the gloves. Will they be spotty or stripy? · Add a small amount of water to a baking tray (shallow) and put it out overnight when the weather forecast is cold. Hopefully, when you return to it in the morning, you will have a thin sheet of ice. Bring it inside and have a go at painting on it. What happens? |
| Mathematics
· You will need a large snowman outline (cut out white paper circles or draw one onto paper) and some buttons/pompoms/beads for buttons. Just like in our previous Gingerbread Man activity, put 1-6 buttons on the snowman and count how many buttons the snowman has. Encourage children to count carefully, pointing/touching each button as they say each number. Some children will work with numbers up to 3 confidently, others may be able to work with numbers to 5 or 10. Choose the number of buttons according to your child’s confidence levels. · On a different day, instead of counting how many buttons are already on the snowman, ask children to select a given number of buttons from a pile. They may find this tricky and sometimes forget to stop! Keep the numbers small, below 3-4 to start with. (If your child can do this, increase the numbers up to 10.) Remind your child how many buttons they need to get and what number they are going to ‘stop’ at. Keep checking as they count – have they reached the ‘stop’ number yet? · If your child is working confidently counting up to 6, introduce a dice. Roll the dice once each and add the corresponding number of buttons to your snowman. Which snowman has the fewest/most buttons? |
| Extension Activities Some of our older children might enjoy playing the Snowman Dice Game from Twinkl. The mark making skills required might be a too challenging for some children, but you could always draw the pieces onto paper and then collect each part as you roll the dice.  |
| Creative
· Create a winter tree picture using some twigs that you collect from your garden or a walk. You will need some coloured paper, twigs, glue, cotton buds and white paint. · Need some quiet time? Grab your favourite snack and a blanket and enjoy watching ‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs. · Are you wearing a woolly jumper to keep warm? Here’s Aunty Mable and Pippin in an old episode of ‘Come Outside’ telling us all about how they are made. |
| Understanding the World
· Talk to your child about the seasons. The BBC has a short video clip that you could watch to discuss things that you can see changing as the seasons change. Children might be able to spot some of the autumnal changes that we talked about in Nursery before Christmas. · What season is it now? How do we know? What clothes do we wear in winter? How is this different to summer time? Listen to this song all about winter – Did you talk about some of the things in this video? · On your next walk, have a look for some signs of winter. We’ve created a Winter Scavenger Hunt sheet for you to print or copy. Take it with you on your walk and tick off the items as you find them. If your child comments on some of the changes that they see and you have time, please make a note of the words that they use and send us an email with their comments. (Please note it down word for word, just as they say it!) · Investigate freezing and melting. Choose a selection of objects (that can go in water and be frozen!) and put them into some empty pots (yogurt pots, ice cube trays) with a small amount of water. Freeze them overnight (or longer) and remove once they’re frozen. Put the frozen items into a tray and allow your child to investigate. What does it feel like? What has happened to the water? Play with the ice and watch what happens to them over time. Talk about the changes that children can see happening. What’s happening to the ice? Discuss the basic process of melting and think about other things that might melt such as ice-creams on a sunny day. |
| Physical Development Fiddly Fingers Lots of us have memories of making paper snowflakes as a child and we thought that this would be a great activity to practise our ‘snipping’ skills. You will need some paper (cut it into a square shape) and a pair of children’s scissors. Loosely, follow these instructions on how to fold your paper – don’t worry too much about this part! In Nursery, we’re interested in learning how to fold and use scissors safely, rather than a perfect snowflake at the end of the process! Please ensure that your child is supervised when using their scissors. Show your child where to cut and let them enjoy snipping the paper. What does it look like when you open it out?Movement Join in with these Cosmic yoga sessions at home. There’s a shorter clip, Winter Wonderland, and a longer story called Joybob The Polar Bear.Independence skills At this point of the year in Nursery, we usually have a long line of children needing help to put their gloves on before we go outside! Over the next few weeks, encourage your child to put on their own gloves. Teach them to close their fingers at first to get their hand into the glove and then to open them slightly and wiggle each finger into place. Keep trying – it’s tricky! |
| Key Worker activity/video In our Key Worker session this week, we’re going to do our ‘Dough Disco’ song. Those of you that join our Zoom sessions will be able to have another go and practise each of the moves. You’ll need a small ball of playdough (or similar), just enough to fit in your child’s palm.We also like to sing this song on cold, snowy days. It’s called ‘5 Little Snowmen’. |
| Friday Story Time The Very Lazy Ladybird Click here to watch today’s story read by Miss Marsden. Sit back, relax and enjoy the story. Questions to discuss: 1. What did the ladybird like to do all day and night? 2. Whose tail did the ladybird hop onto? 3. What did the elephant do? 4. Did you like the story? What was your favourite part? |
| Zoom sessions Next week the children who are learning from home will be invited to a zoom session with their teacher. This zoom session will be with a group of children from their class. You will find the focus of the zoom session on the website each Friday. Sometimes your child will need to bring something along with them. Your child does not have to join in with these zooms, they are optional. Unfortunately, the timings of these zooms cannot be changed as most teachers are teaching in school. Look out for the link to your child’s zoom, which will be sent, via email.We are looking forward to seeing you all. |
Super home learning
Thank you to everyone who has emailed me letting me know how you are getting on at home.
It has also been lovely to see lots of faces and hear about what you have been doing on our daily class Zoom meetings.
I have enjoyed reading ‘The Last Wolf’ with Mr Gathercole.
Email me if you need the invite re-sending.
katieharker@spherefederation.org
Here are some examples of what people have being getting up to at home. Do what you can and, most importantly, stay happy, healthy and safe.
So far… so good…
So, we’re two weeks into the new term… how are we all doing? It’s lovely to hear how you are getting on at home. Thank you for those of you that have sent in pictures of your learning experiences at home.
Mr Roundtree was very impressed with the video that we received this week from one of our Y4s. This is what he thought: ‘What a well-presented video – very clearly introduced and explained. I enjoyed watching this immensely.‘ Click here to enjoy it for yourself!
It’s also been great to see those of you that have logged in to our 2pm zoom calls this week. Don’t forget, they’re available every weekday and it’s fun being able to see other classmates and share our experiences of home learning and lockdown life.
Week Commencing 11.01.21: F2 Home Learning
| Monday
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Book of the week- Watch the story Lost and Found or read the book if you have it at home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRAAQ8EWzig Questions to discuss- – How is the boy feeling when the penguin first arrives at his door? – Why does the penguin follow the boy? What does he want?- The penguin was lonely… What does it mean to be lonely? How can we help others when they are feeling lonely? What can we do when we feel lonely ourselves? |
| Parents: Click here to see how we use Phoneme Fingers when blending. Phonics- j Click here to watch today’s phonics video. Activity 1: Be a ‘j’ detective! Can you find anything (or anyone) in your house, that has the initial sound ‘j’? Activity 2: Take turns with an adult to play ‘Roll and Read’ (j focus) click here to either print the word mat, or view it on screen. You will need a die or to draw 1-6 dots on 6 pieces of paper and draw at random from a bag. 1. Roll the dice 2. Match to the correct row. 3. Choose a word on the row and read it aloud. |
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| Maths- White Rose Maths: Alive in 5!- Week 2. Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 1. Activity: Click here for today’s activity. Encourage your child to speak in full sentences when describing the number composition, for example: “There are three frogs in the pond and there are two frogs on the grass. There are 5 frogs altogether” or “There are 4 toys on the bed and there is one toy on the floor. There are 5 toys altogether” |
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| Tuesday | Phonics- v Click here to watch today’s phonics video. Activity 1: Be a ‘v’ detective! Can you find anything (or anyone) in your house, that has the initial sound ‘v’? Activity 2: Here is the link to ‘fishy phonics’ on the Phonics Bloom website- click here Parents: Select phase 2, set 5. Try the hard level initially, change to easy if this is a bit tricky. |
| Maths- Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 2. Activity: Click here for today’s activity. |
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| Wednesday | Phonics- w Click here to watch today’s phonics video. Activity 1: Be a ‘w’ detective! Can you find anything (or anyone) in your house, that has the initial sound ‘w’? Activity 2: Write ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on two separate pieces of paper and put them at either side of the room. Ask your child to read these questions (click here) one at a time and then run to either the yes or the no answer. Encourage your child to point to each word on the screen as they read the question. |
| Maths- Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 3. Activity: Click here for today’s activity. If you do not have a printer, draw 5 of anything you like on a piece of paper and cut them out. This will work just as well for the activity! |
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| Thursday | Phonics- Tricky words he/she Click here to watch today’s phonics video. Activity 1: Be a Tricky Word Detective! Can you find any tricky words in the books you have at home? Activity 2: Write a sentence using one of the new tricky words. Steps to writing a successful sentence… 1.Think of a sentence. 2. Say the sentence out loud. 3. Count the words in your sentence. 4. Use your phoneme fingers to segment every word. 5. Check your sentence makes sense. 6. Have you remembered a capital letter at the start, finger spaces throughout and a full stop at the end? Activity 3: Rainbow writing tricky words- use a variety of colours to practice spelling all of the phase 2 tricky words.  Click here for this week’s word list for your Word Passports.Remember to use your phoneme fingers when blending! |
| Maths- Click here to be taken to the correct web page. Choose Session 4. Activity: Click here for today’s activity. |
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| Friday | Understanding the World with Professor Myers; Exploring Ice Click here to watch this week’s video with Professor Myers. -Can you carry out the ice experiments in the video from Professor Myers? Remember to make some predictions about what you think will happen first. -Can you draw and label a picture to show what you did? |
| Story time- One Snowy Night read by Mrs Rippon Click here to watch today’s story. Sit back, relax and enjoy the story. |
Story Link activities to select throughout the week
Literacy
1. Make a story map of the key events in the story Lost and Found. We practice creating these lots in class.
2. Sometimes, when people lose a pet, they put up posters to help find them again. Can you make a ‘lost’ poster for the Penguin in Lost and Found. Don’t forget to add lots of details describing the penguin, so that the reader knows what to look out for. What does the penguin look like? What colour is it? How big is it?
3. The story doesn’t have any speech in it. Ask your grown up to draw out a speech bubble and pretend you are the boy from the story (perhaps you could draw him next to the speech bubble) Have a go at writing what you think he might have said when he first met the penguin.
A writing reminder…
How did your child find the writing activity? Remember, it’s okay for things to be spelt phonetically. It is important that your child grows into an independent learner. Encouraging your child to write the words as they sound rather than always spelling them correctly. We encourage the children to use their own skills, rather than copying an adult.
Understanding the World
Spend some time watching the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo:
https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/penguin-cam/
– What do you notice about them?
– How do they move? (perhaps you can walk like a penguin too!)
– Do they like to be alone or in groups?
– Do they live on land, in the water, or both?
– These penguins are in a zoo. Where can we find penguins in the wild? Ask an adult to help you find this information in a book or by using the internet.
Expressive Arts and Design
1. Build a boat for your toys! You could use any construction toys you have at home (such as lego, duplo) natural or found objects outside, or recycled food packaging. Perhaps you could tell a story about an adventure your toys go on in their brand new boat!
2. Make a ‘Paper Roll Penguin’ You could follow this guide or, if you do not have coloured paper, create your own version using plain paper, the paper roll and colouring pens or pencils!
Physical Development
Get Moving! Join in with this Jack Hartman Penguin Dance: video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf0uKmKwnKs
Did you know… ‘PE with Joe’ is back? Joe Wicks is hosting his live PE sessions again from Monday 11th January 2021, 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 9am) You can subscribe to his channel here for alerts. A great way to keep fit at home!
I hope you all have a great week of home learning and please keep sending me photos of what you’ve been up to.
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
F1 Home Learning: Week 2
This week, our learning is going to be themed around the popular children’s books ‘Zog’ and ‘Zog and the Flying Doctors’. At the bottoms there’s also links to some Key Worker times which you can join in with at home. Two of the videos will be of other Sphere Federation Early Years teachers and the story video will be either Miss Marsden, Mrs Small or Mrs Rippon.
If you are unfamiliar with the story, you can listen to it here and if you would like some quiet time, why not snuggle up on the sofa and enjoy watching it on BBC iPlayer.
Zog
Zog and the Flying Doctors
Reading
- What was your favourite part of the story?
- Can you remember the characters that the Flying Doctors helped in the story?
- What do you think princesses should be like?
- If you’d like a challenge, try completing this quiz
Phonics
As part of our Phase One phonics learning, we practise making different noises with our own voices.
– Can you roar like a lion?
– If you don’t want to wake the sleeping King, what could you say? ( Shhhhh)
– What noise does Zog make when he lands? (Bang, crash, thump!)
– What noise do you think Princess Pearl says when she sees a silly, frilly dress? (Eugh!)
Can you think of any other sound effects that you could make from the story?
Mark-Making
- Do you have some wrapping paper left over or some old wall paper? Turn it over and roll it out on the floor. Hold it down at the corners using some tins/books/tape. Can you draw a giant map for Zog to show him where to go? What will be on your map? You could draw some trees for a forest or a tall mountain. What about a castle or a river?
Parents: Remember, in Nursery, the process of mark making is the most important part. The end product may not ‘look’ exactly like you think it should, but the marks that your child has made will mean a lot to them. If you have time, try to draw a little bit with your child before leaving them to continue alone. As you draw, talk about your marks and what they show (keep them simple). It’s great if they can talk to you about what they are drawing as they make each mark. - Here’s a Zog colouring sheet if you have a printer at home. We try to talk about choosing the correct colour for things at Nursery.
- You might also like to try and follow the lines very carefully with your pen to help Zog win a golden star .
Maths
Watch this song about 2d shapes and talk about the names of the basic 2D shapes (circle, square, triangle and rectangle). Then, look at these pictures of castles and see what shapes you can spot. How you know it’s a triangle? How many sides does that shape have? Can you see a shape with a curved side?
Extension ideas
– Cut up a selection of different sized shapes and ask your child to create their own castle or maybe even a dragon picture. There are lots of ideas online. What shape would be good to use to make a doorway or window?
– Have a look on Google images at castles to see what other shapes you can spot.
Creative
– We love to create buildings using Duplo in Nursery. If you have Lego or Duplo at home, can you build a castle?
– Sir Gadabout has a shield and a sword in ‘Zog’. We know that some of you love to play ‘knights’ so maybe you’d like to have a go at making your own shields using any recycling items that you have such as cardboard delivery or cereal boxes etc.
– Role play being a doctor/nurse and help to make some of your toys better. Use your imaginations to think about what could be wrong; in the story, the mermaid has sunburn and the lion gets a sore throat. You could make a bandage (toilet roll) or use some old plasters that are hiding at the back of a cupboard somewhere.
Physical Development
Funky Fingers
Draw or print a dragon outline. Get some clothes pegs and show your child how to squeeze them to open them. Use the pegs to add spikes onto the dragon’s back (like in the dinosaur photo below). You could challenge them to add 2 blue spikes or 3 yellow ones.
Movement
Get moving and join in with this Happy Dragon dance!
Independence skills
In the story, the Lion has a sore throat and cold and needs to blow his nose a lot! Can you blow your own nose? Next time you need to blow your nose, get a tissue and look in the mirror. Hold the tissue to your nose, pinch your fingers gently around the tissue and blow. Remember to pinch and pull as you move the tissue away from your nose. Look in the mirror to check that your nose is clean and do it again if you need to. What’s the last thing that you need to do? Throw your tissue in the bin or flush it away and then wash your hands well.
Key Worker activities
Watch these videos (click on the two links below) and join in our Key Worker activity at home. Listen carefully to the clues and animal noises. Which animal is it?
Animal Guess Who video
If you enjoyed playing, have a go at the game at home. We’d love you to make up your own clue and send a video for us to guess which animal you have!
We often play games that help to develop our visual and memory skills. Look carefully at the animals and see if you can work out which is missing! You can easily play this game at home- just choose 5-6 items and find a tea towel or towel to hide them.
Animal memory game
Story Time – One Snowy Night read by Mrs Rippon
Click here to watch today’s story.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the story.
Parents: If you have any questions I am here to help. Please email your questions and photos to stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org and I will aim to respond the same day.
Happy New Year 1,2
Hope you are all doing ok. Here is a video message from me.
Quick Reminder!
Please don’t forget to email us any pictures of your home learning. I would love to see how you’ve been getting on and what you’ve been up to!
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Read! Read! Read!
Share stories and read different types of texts. You could even make up your own stories! Here are some suggestions from Book Trust.
Talk!
Please talk with your child on a daily basis. The best thing about being at home is all those lovely conversations! Talk to your child about everything! We encourage talk and language in class by asking lots of questions:
“I wonder what would happen if…?”
“Can you remember when…?
“What does that feel like/ smell like/ look like/ taste like?”
“Why did you do it that way…?
“How could you change it…?”
Have fun painting, drawing and making models to encourage lots of chat!
Stay Active!
Spend some time moving and grooving around your house! There’s plenty of movement songs on YouTube. For example, Shake Your Sillies Out, Move and Freeze or Happy Dance – these are our favourites Foundation! You could even just put on the radio and have a good dance!#
Phonics
Use your phase 2 sound mat and word passport daily.