Explain that you are going to draw something and your child is to have a go at writing the word to match the picture as quickly as possible on their own. Below are a list of suggested words that include a range of digraphs, trigraphs and consonant blends or feel free to make up your own words.
hands tree lightning milk clown flowers pond tent wind
Creative
Make a diorama
This week we would love you to have a go at making a diorama (see pictures below) of your favourite fairy tale. You can use an old box that you don’t need any more and paint the setting of your story, this might be the woods, a castle or a little house in the forest. Think carefully about what you might see in the setting of your story and try to add all the details you can. If your setting is of the woods, why not collect some sticks and leaves when you next go out for a walk? Next think about the characters in your chosen story, you could make these out of little bits of card or use existing toys. Finally think about any other details that might be in the story and add those, for example 3 bowls for the 3 bears porridge. Most importantly get creative and have fun.
Oh no! The tricky words have been scrambled up, can you unscramble them?
Work with a partner or on your own and look carefully at the words, can you see what the word is supposed to be and put the letters in the right order. Write them down but correctly this time!
Maths
Have a listen to this song!
Have some fun today with the following place value games. These games are to support the last two weeks learning and should be used as a recap. If there are other games or activities that your child has enjoyed over the last two weeks please feel free to repeat them.
Read the sentence slides below. Can you become digraph spotters? Spot all the digraphs in the words, count on your fingers how many you can find in the sentence. Use the basic code in the back of your reading diary to play bingo. Place a button, coin or piece of pasta on top of all the digraphs you find in the sentences. Don’t forget the double consonants (these aren’t in your basic code) such as ll, pp. Can you do the same with the tricky words? How many different tricky words can you find in the sentences?
Maths
Get your maths brains warmed up with this Grab a Ten song
Have a look at the numicon plates below. What is the total number using your knowledge of 10 for each pair?
Explain how you know. Can you record it as an addition number sentence?
Use the link above to practise making the teen number above using arrow cards. Start by having a play with the programme and figure out how to make teen numbers (and higher numbers if you choose). Once you are familiar with the arrow cards challenge your child to make a number. Call out a number and let them have a go at creating it using the arrow cards. Ask them to tell you what their number is made of i.e, what the digits represent.
Exploring place value using a ten frame
Create two ten frames at home, see the examples below.
Use a baking tray and some tape to section the tray into 10 equal sections
Use a large egg box (cut off two holes from a box of 12)
Draw your own
Practise using your ten frames to create different teen numbers. This will reinforce the importance of ten in a teen number. Encourage your child to not count out the ten when filling their first frame but to remember and know that a teen number always has ten which means we must always fill a whole ten frame first and then count out the ones for the second ten frame. Use whatever you can find at home to fill the ten frames, coins, buttons, dried lentils, raisins.
Today you will be looking at the pictures below and thinking of a short sentence to go with the picture. For example, for the first picture you could write The good witch cast a spell.For picture 2, The beanstalk is big.For picture 3, The big pig had a big sack. These are just some examples of what your child could write, they might have their own ideas! Don’t forget to use the Basic Code in the back of your reading diary and the tricky words on the lists we sent home if your sentences include them.
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Literacy
Show your child the pictures of the good characters and bad characters below. Talk to your child about these characters. How would they describe the characters? Try and get them to expand on the simple ‘good’ and ‘bad’ vocabulary and ask them to explain why they think that. Model describing your child to them using a range of vocabulary to describe your child’s traits and personality. Get your child to do the same with the characters and tell you. Take some of their suggestions and write them on a piece of paper to create a key words sheet (they’ll be able to use this later on in their writing so keep it). Get your child to help you segment the words as you write them or get them to have a go at writing some of the words too. In school we like to do shared writing where the children support the teacher to write and they get to see some good writing being modelled. You don’t have to pick all three pictures to talk about (unless you want to), just choose your favourite.
The Three Little Pigs
Goldilocks & The Three Bears
Jack & The Beanstalk
Little Red Riding Hood
PE
Join in with this Fairytale Fitness yoga session. Can you tell which traditional tale it’s going to be about from looking at the picture?
We’re enjoying being back in school and playing with our friends. Our new topic is proving very popular too. Today we listened to The Three Billy Goats Gruff and then went outside and role played it. We drew the bridge, field and river on the ground and took it in turns to be different characters.
Our phonics reading today focuses on the tricky words some, come and said. See if you can spot them in this tricky bug song and find them on your phase 3 tricky bug sheets.
Now have a go at reading these sentences and guessing which tales they are from. Can you spot the three tricky words? There is something else in each sentence…. speech marks! Can you find these and discuss with an adult what these are and why they have been used? Remember our session last week where you saw them too?
See if you can say the speech in a voice just like the Wolf’s, Witch’s and Jack’s. Can you think of anything else the characters say in one of your favourite traditional tales?
Literacy
Remind yourself of which traditional tales you have enjoyed reading/listening to this week and talk about which one is your favourite so far. What makes it your favourite? Is it the funny story line, a particular character or maybe the ‘happily ever after’ ending?
Encourage your child to join in with retelling the story to you or maybe to a friend or family over video call. The listener could guess the traditional tale based on your storytelling and descriptions. Include a description of the story setting in your retelling and think what the place would look like and if you would like to live there.
Let’s now turn this into some Drama! You are going to imagine that you are one of the characters from your favourite tale. As your adult reads the story or plays it online, see if you can act it out with actions and movements.
Can you use your facial expressions to portray the good/bad character? Do you look sneaky and scary, like the Big Bad Wolf? Do you look sad and hungry, like Baby Bear in Goldilocks and The Three Bears?
This week sees the start of our new Jigsaw theme ‘Changing Me’ and a chance to focus on the diversity that exists within our school, our communities and throughout the world.
I want you to think particularly about the word ‘unique’ and how often we see examples in nature that remind us that two things are rarely exactly the same.
One perfect example of this is the snowflake and I’ve included a short film to allow you a moment of awe and wonder at the beginning of our assembly today. The images were taken by Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer who became fascinated with snowflakes at a very young age and was one of the first people to photograph a snow crystal, after years of trial and error (and never giving up!). He took pictures of more than 5,000 snow crystals and drew the conclusion that no two snowflakes are alike; each one is unique. Wilson Bentley celebrated and shared the beauty and diversity of the thousands of snow crystals that he photographed so that we could appreciate them, and so that their brief existence did not go unnoticed.
I wonder if we were to make a film capturing images of the children in our school, what would we notice and would we draw the same conclusion that no two children are the same; each one is unique? Have a think about the diversity that we would see in those images – hair, height, gender, eye colour, number of freckles, glasses, colour of skin … would any two children be exactly the same? What is it about you that makes you unique or special?
When we talk about diversity in school we recognise that groups and communities are always stronger when they have lots of different types of people in them. Diversity in nature also teaches us that there is beauty and strength in difference. We know that everyone should be treated fairly and with respect regardless of their gender, age, ethnicity or skin colour and we take great pleasure in recognising the things which make us similar as well as the things that make us different in order to live in harmony with each other.
However, whilst we all recognise this, sometimes in the world around us we see signs that people aren’t always treated fairly, that differences aren’t tolerated or that people make judgements about other people purely based on one unique characteristic such as their gender or the colour of their skin. The sadness and anger that this generates has been seen throughout history and can also be seen today. We have focused on some of the people who have stood up for people’s rights in these situations in our assemblies in school.
I wonder if you can remember who they are or what they were fighting for? Don’t worry if you can’t, I have included some clips in your grown-up’s notes if you want to explore their stories together. Just like you, these people recognised the importance of treating everyone fairly and that diversity should be celebrated and inequality challenged, just as it is in our school.
A story which illustrates this theme beautifully is ‘The Sneetches’ by Dr Seuss.
How did the changes that the Sneetches made make you feel as you watched them? Did they need to add or take away their stars?
The Sneetches eventually recognised that everybody should be treated equally, no matter what they look like. They realised that differences should be celebrated and that communities can live in harmony and be happier and stronger when everyone shows respect for everyone else, whether they have a star on their belly or not.
So – your task this week is to help us to celebrate the diversity that we see in our school and we are going to look for this in two places this week.
I would like you to share with me an image or a drawing of you, which will show everyone in our community why you are ‘unique’ or ‘special’. You may want to focus on a physical feature such as your eye / hair colour or another aspect of you that makes you unique.
I would also like you to share with me a piece of learning from this week that you are particularly proud of.
As well as focusing on the diversity that exists amongst us, this will also help us to focus on the diversity that now exists in our learning situations as some of us are now learning back in school, some of us are still learning at home and some of us are now learning in different homes as parents return to work. Wherever you are we want everyone to know that we are still all learning together and we’ll be celebrating the shared learning that is happening in all those different settings in our Celebration Assembly on Friday.
Enjoy your week, wherever you may be learning. Here’s to a celebration of diversity at the end of the week and a recognition that as agents of change we are all trying our absolute best to ensure that everyone within our community is treated with respect, fairness, care and unique Damers kindness, whatever their differences. Every one of us is unique and special.
I look forward to seeing some of you in school and also want those at home to know that you are in my thoughts ALL of the time and I miss you!
Let’s start with a Snow White ABC song. Get your pen and paper or whiteboards ready and see if you can write out the alphabet as you sing along. Make sure your v,w,x and z letters are straight and pointy!
Listen to this tricky word song to help refresh your memory …
Now have a go at a 1 minute tricky bug challenge! Keep your paper handy to see how many tricky bugs you can write down. I wonder if you can beat your score next time!
Let’s have a tricky bug disco!
Scatter tricky bugs around your floor, dance to some music and when the music stops you must find a tricky bug to stand on. Your adult can ask you to then shout out the tricky bug before the music starts again. Why not remove the bugs once you have stood on them and play until you have run out of bugs! You can write your tricky words on post-its or scrap pieces of paper.
Here’s a Three Pig Jig to dance along to for your disco …
Or see if you recognise the tune to this song..
Creative
Draw/ paint your favourite character from a Traditional Tale that you have listened to this week. Think about the character’s appearance. Are they tall? Short? Fat? Furry? What colour are their clothes or fur? Do they have sharp claws or carry an object? You could use a paper plate to create the face of the character using materials such as wool for their hair.
For today’s session have a go at writing sentences for the following pictures. You can use the suggested sentence with the picture or have a go at one of your own! Try describing what you see.
The pig is little.
The goat has little feet.
Shehas a lot of food in her basket.
Maths
Get your maths brain ready with this groups of 10’s song.
Today we are revisiting yesterday’s place value activity with a guessing game, you can use the same resources as the previous activity. This is a spin on ‘who am I?’.
Take it in turns to think of a number and describe it to your partner (parent, sibling etc) using the values of the number, for example my number has 1 ten and 4 ones (14) the person guessing can say the number but to make it extra challenging use the place value cards and/or objects to make the number.
If you think your child is beginning to understand the concept of place value with teen numbers it would be a good idea today to repeat yesterday’s activity with some larger numbers (only up to 99) and explore how many 10’s each of the larger numbers might have. 25 has 2 tens and 5 ones, 47 has 4 tens and 7 ones.
Once you have explored numbers above 20 you can have a go at the following game!
It has felt incredible to finally have some of you back in your classroom, with your friends, looking more grown-up than ever. Seeing your happy faces has brightened up Damers once again. We had so much to catch up on and so much missed time to make up for. We played, chatted, enjoyed lunch together and spent lots of time outside. If you’re still at home know that we are all missing you and hope to see you again soon.
