Hello Crocodiles and Elephants,

Well done on solving last weeks riddle! We have heard from lots of you, when we have spoken to you on the phone or when your grown ups have sent us pictures, that you really enjoyed learning all about spiders!

We found out the reason they don’t stick to their own webs is because they have little hairs on their feet and they tip-toe on these across the web so they don’t get stuck!

We have exciting news: our caterpillars have arrived! They are living with Mr Groves and we will update you with some pictures each week so you can see them grow! Oswin is helping Mr Groves look after them and keep them company! She wonders how long it will take for them to turn into a chrysalis?

Here is this week’s riddle, some clues for you to use to work out the mystery minibeast and your challenge for this week…

Here is the riddle I have made. Make your own riddle for any minibeast you would like. See if your grown ups can solve your riddle and then send it to us to see if we can! You can make more than one if you like. Don’t forget to use your finger spaces, capital letters, full stops and to use your tricky word mats and letter strips!

Phonics and Reading

This week we are continuing to learn how to build bigger words.

We are continuing to look at CCVC words where there are two consonants, a vowel and then a final consonant at the end. For example, frog and step.

There are games in Education City- Subjects- English-F2- Letters and sounds- Phase 4 and 5. Please encourage the children to play these games, along with any others of their choice.

Please play Model Land 1 and 2 and Sculpture Park

There are lots of games you can play with these words that you already know such as pairs games, hangman, writing on ground grass, sky boards, magnetic letters, eye spy, anagrams, buried treasure in the sand etc.

More games can be found at https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/Phase4Menu.htm

This week on Espresso (which you can login to through the SIMS ID login):

Please can you play the game called long words.

Finally, there are 3 games we would like you to play in the long words section.

Please let us know if you are having problems signing into SIMS ID.

The two new tricky words for this week are ‘what’ and ‘little’. Please show your child these words written down and on their tricky word bumblebee mat provided at workshops. The action for ‘what’ is to wag your index finger left to right repeatedly and the action for ‘little’ is made holding your thumb and index fingers a small distance apart.

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. I have seen some children using kitchen utensils to splat printed off words on minibeasts last week! What a great idea!

In Espresso please play the tricky word games shown here.

For reading this week, we have allocated either 2 or 4 books on Bug Club at the appropriate level for your child to read and answer the questions to the quizzes as they go by clicking on the bugs so we can see how they are doing. We have ensured all children have the minimum books allocated to them as of Sunday afternoon.

Remember to have a go at the comprehension tasks from last week. 

Maths

Hello Crocodiles and Elephants,

Do you remember the story of the Hungry Caterpillar? What minibeast did the caterpillar change into at the end of the story?

It was a butterfly!

Butterflies have beautiful wings with lots of different colours, shapes and patterns. Look carefully at the picture of the butterfly below, what do you notice about the wings?

Can you see that the colour and pattern on each wing is the same? This has a very special name, symmetry; can you try to remember that? Symmetry is everywhere. Try looking for some examples of symmetry in your house, garden or outside when you are walking.

Your task this week is to create a symmetrical butterfly. You can be as creative as you like! You could make a butterfly with Lego, playdoh, with natural materials from your garden. You use paint, chalk, stickers or coloured pens and pencils. Be as creative as you like! There is a blank outline of a butterfly for you to print off and use if you want to.

We would love to see some pictures of your finished butterfly pictures!

Here are some examples to inspire you:

Computing

This week, could you create your own collection game? Watch the videos to see how to do it. We would like you to create a snail collection game where the snail has to collect items in a environment of your choice.

Don't forget you can still use and watch News Bites every week too in Espresso.

Creative

Hello Crocodiles and Elephants,

Did you enjoy making the butterfly wings symmetrical?

When you go on your walk or in your garden spotting different sorts of symmetry, also have a look at what different minibeasts look like.

This week for creative we would like you to make a minibeast out of junk modelling.  Perhaps you could ask your grown up to get some out of the recycling bin for you.

As you are thinking about which boxes and cartons to use, put your detective glasses on.

Whilst you are making your 3D mini beast, you are also going to be a 3D shape detective.  Do you remember what a 3D shape is?

It’s a flat shape that has been blown up, like when you blow up a balloon.

The 3D shapes we want you to look for are:

• A cube
• A cuboid
• A sphere
• A cone
• A cylinder

When you are naming the 3D shapes see if you can impress your grown by telling them the properties of these shapes.  The properties are the different features of each shape.

These are the properties on the shapes we would like you to look for:  faces are the flat parts of the shape. The edges are the lines where two faces meet. The vertices are the points where two or more edges meet.

Have a look at the next sheet to see if that helps!