Reading

The children who were in school last week changed their books as normal, bringing home the new books they have read with an adult during the course of the week.

For children not in school last week, we have allocated 2 books on Bug Club at the appropriate level for your child to read and answer the questions to the quizzes. These were allocated on Sunday afternoon. We will ensure all children  (not attending school) have the minimum books allocated to them as of Sunday afternoons each week. Please see instructions for how to login to Bug Club in Reading journals.

For additional books please use this link for online books. You can find books appropriate to the coloured level they are currently on- lilac, pink, red etc.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/

Please complete the Bug Club quizzes for each book your child reads so it shows up as read and understood on our system.

Monday 25th January

Focus activity- Writing

We know you have all enjoyed the story time we have done each day. Please find below some pictures from the books we have been reading each morning - Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs. Have you got any of these books at home? Which is your favourite? Why?

Choose a picture and write about what you can see happening to Harry or a description of him and his dinosaurs.

As a challenge you could then write your very own adventure about Harry and his dinosaurs, making sure it has a opening, a problem and a resolution and the end over the course of the week.

Please create your  sentence for us like we did in the modelled writing session in the morning briefing, remembering your capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, tricky words and making sure all of your letters are formed correctly.

Challenge – use a conjunction (such as 'because' 'and' 'but')  to create an extended sentence or two sentences using two different conjunctions. 

Here is a video showing parents how to do the writing process at home;

https://www.lyppardgrange.worcs.sch.uk/writing-eyfs/

The phonics strips and tricky word mats the children have in front of them whenever they do writing can be found on the Reception home learning section here;

We use lollipop sticks in school to support with remembering finger spaces and having a consistent space between words but anything you have at home will work just as well.

Focus activity- Phonics Activity

In the morning briefing, the children will flick through the sounds already taught, including tricky words, and then be introduced to the 'th' sound (voiced and unvoiced) and the action that goes with it. They will be shown how to form it, articulate the sound and the Jolly phonics story that goes with it. Please login to Education City and play the 'th' game.  See instructions on Reception Home Learning page to find out how to login to Education City.

There are lots of games you can play with these sounds and sounds taught already such as pairs games, hangman, writing on ground grass, sky boards, magnetic letters, eye spy etc.

More games can be found at https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/Phase3Menu.htm

and on Espresso which you can login to through the SIMS ID login. Espresso has word and sentence building games as well as some useful videos of how to make the sound. Click on Foundation, then Literacy, Phonics, Scrap’s phonics. Please let the children use the activities found on the right hand side for the sounds taught so far and watch the 'th' video circled below.

Tuesday 26th January

Focus activity- PE

Dr Beth and Dr Kit heard last week that you are still enjoying taking part in Cosmic Yoga and are becoming very flexible.

Since it will soon be the Big Garden Birdwatch, Dr Beth and Dr Kit have found you a cosmic yoga about a bird called Nelson.

Follow the link below and it will take you to Cosmic Kids Yoga; Nelson the pigeon.

https://youtu.be/kN1_qchKPnA

We loved seeing your photos last week, please send us some more this week please!

Focus activity - Knowledge and Understanding

Dr Beth and Dr Kit have discovered that volcanoes erupting may have been the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Today they would like you to have a go at making your own volcano.

After you have made your volcano, see if you can have a go at these questions.

For the volcano template, instructions and questions to discuss please see additional documents.  

We would love to see photos of your volcanoes.

Focus activity- Phonics Activity

In the morning briefing, the children will flick through the sounds already taught including tricky words. We will continue to work on the 'th' sound  (voiced and unvoiced) today.

Please play this video and complete the attached worksheets below

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zvq9bdm/articles/zk6f6v4

Wednesday 27th January

Focus activity- Outdoors

Today we would be going to Forest School. 

Dr Beth and Dr Kit have heard the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch is taking place on Friday 29th January until Sunday 31st January.  To help feed the birds during winter, Dr Beth and Dr Kit would like you to make a bird feeder. 

You could use a plastic milk bottle container, a juice carton or a plastic drinks bottle.  Make sure it has been washed and dried.

If you have a bottle with a lid, take the lid off and ask a grown up to help wrap a piece of string around the neck of the bottle and screw the lid back on.  The string can then be tied around the tree when you are ready to hang it up.

Next, collect one stick that is as fat as your thumb and long enough to go all the way through your bottle and stick out at both ends by about 5cms.  With a grown up to help, make a hole near the bottom of the bottle, in the middle on opposite sides, this is where you will push your stick you collected through for the birds to use as a perch when they are eating.  To make the holes your grown up could use a pair of scissors or skewer.

Now for the holes; cut a hole in the two sides above your sticks, about the size of your fist.  If you make a larger hole, pigeons and squirrels will be able to eat the food too, if you make a small hole, only small birds like blue tits will be able to fit in.

Winter is a time when birds need to be fed every day, there are lots of different food you can put in your feeder: dry cereal, cooked rice, uncooked porridge oats, fresh coconut, mild grated cheese, raisins, lard and beef suet, sunflower seeds, crushed peanuts (unsalted), peanut butter and of course bird seed!  Please remember to leave some water out for the birds too.

If you would like a challenge you can decorate your bird house, maybe add a roof, paint some patterns on it or put some stickers on – use your imagination.

Once you have put your food in it’s time to hang your feeder up, if you have a bird box in your garden put the bird feeder in a different area, birds don’t like to eat near where they sleep.

We look forward to seeing your ideas. Please send them to us. 

Focus activity- Phonics Activity

In the morning briefing, the children will flick through the sounds already taught, including tricky words, and then be introduced to the 'ng' sound and the action that goes with it. They will be shown how to form it, articulate the sound and the Jolly phonics story that goes with it. Please login to Education City and play the 'ng' game.  See instructions on Reception Home Learning page to find out how to login to Education City.

There are lots of games you can play with these sounds and sounds taught already such as pairs games, hangman, writing on ground grass, sky boards, magnetic letters, eye spy etc.

More games can be found at https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/Phase3Menu.htm

and on Espresso which you can login to through the SIMS ID login. Espresso has word and sentence building games as well as some useful videos of how to make the sound. Click on Foundation, then Literacy, Phonics, Scrap’s phonics. Please let the children use the activities found on the right hand side for the 'ng' sound and watch the 'ng' video circled below.

Thursday 28th January

Focus activity- Maths

Dr Beth and Dr Kit sent this dinosaur picture into school today. What dinosaur do you think it is? Look carefully at the picture, can you see what shape has been used for the head? What about the spikes, the body, the legs?

Today we would like the children to create a picture of a dinosaur using 2D shapes. You can use any 2D shapes that you might have at home e.g shape stickers, shape construction or magnetic shapes. If you do not have any shapes at home, we have provided a document with a variety of 2D shapes which you can print off to use.

Once the children have created their picture, question them about the shapes that they have used. What is the name of the shape? How many sides does the shape have? How many corners? If your child has used a square and a rectangle, can they tell you the difference between them (a square has 4 sides which are the same and a rectangle has 2 longer sides and 2 shorter sides).

CHALLENGE – Can your child create a dinosaur which uses a diamond shape, an oval, a hexagon or a pentagon? What can your children tell you about the shapes?

There is an Education City Game called Nine Lives which the children can also play to consolidate their shape knowledge. To get onto the game, go to Education City through SIMS ID.

Select subjects.

 Select Mathematics

 Select F2

Select Activities

 Select Shape, Space and Measure

 Select Nine Lives

Focus activity- Phonics Activity

In the morning briefing, the children will flick through the sounds already taught including tricky words. We will continue to work on the 'ng' sound today.

Please play this video and complete the attached worksheets below

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zvq9bdm/articles/z6bkbdm

Friday 29th January

Focus activity- Computing

Warning! Headphones may be needed for this activity.

The dinosaur egg we have in school has still not hatched! We sent a message to Dr Beth and Dr Kit asking them for some advice and they have told us that sometimes playing music to eggs makes them hatch. Can you compose a piece of music so that we can play it to the egg?

Today we would like the children to compose a short melody using 2Explore on Purple Mash. Go onto Purple Mash through SIMS ID.

 Select Tools

 Scroll down and select 2Explore

 Watch the instructional video which explains how to create a melody.

You can save your melodies for us to listen to.

Focus activity- Phonics Activity

In the morning briefing, the children will flick through the sounds already taught, including tricky words, and then be introduced to the two new tricky words for this week which are ‘be’ and ‘was’. Please show your child these words written down and on their tricky word bumblebee mat provided in the workshop packs. The actions for ‘be’ is to make two circles with your hands (joining thumb and forefinger) and put them together like a number 8 and for 'was' point a single finger over your shoulder. 

The children enjoy coming up with sentences for the new words, playing stations with them where they have to run around the outdoor classroom to find the word and splat the tricky word where they are all laid out and first person to splat the word wins.

Please play this game in Education City and complete the worksheet/games below.

Additional Activities

Do you remember the story we read this morning called 'Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus'?

We know how much you love stomping about like a dinosaur, so we have a game for you to play.

It's really easy, all you need to do is read the sheet of instructions and print off the circle and cut it out.

Happy stomping!!

Additional Activities- Big Garden Birdwatch

Today until Sunday 31st January is the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.

We would like to you take part in helping inform the RSPB how many types are birds are in your garden.

It's really easy, download the Bird ID sheet, find a nice comfy spot near a window that looks out into your garden or from your balcony and count the birds you see in your garden.  Please only include the birds that land, not ones flying around.  Count the most birds you see at any one time, otherwise you could count the same bird twice.  If you made your bird feeder on Wednesday, that will definitely attract more birds to your garden.  You only need to keep watch for one hour.  You could take it in turns with other people in your family.

Once your hour is up, please ask your grown up to send the information to: rspb.org.uk/birdwatch

Even if you saw no birds, that information is still important and counts, so please still send the information.

For full details please download the Big Garden Birdwatch documents below.