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 8th February

Focus activity- Creative

Dr Beth and Dr Kit have seen how hard you have all been working on the new species of dinosaur.

You have already thought about what your dinosaur would look like, last week you thought about where you think the new species dinosaur would live, whether they live in the water, in a cave, by a volcano or in the sky.

This week we would like you to be creative and enjoy the time with your grown-ups.  We would like you to create a dinosaur habitat box, the grown-up word for that is a ‘diorama’. 

A diorama can be made in a cardboard box.  It shows a ‘scene’ or picture, but it is made up of a background, the ground or floor, what is in the foreground - maybe trees, rocks, volcanoes or bushes, it would then have dinosaurs in it ’.

We don’t want you to rush it and make it in one day, do a little bit each day. You may decide to start with the background, could it be painted, drawn, printed or do you have some wallpaper that looks like a background or sky.  Next you can think about your dinosaurs, they could be drawn, cut out and stuck on, made in playdough, salt dough, plasticine, jumping clay or you could put your toy dinosaurs in the diorama. Think about the habitat of your dinosaur, does it live in the water, how could you show water in your diorama?  If it lives on rocky ground, could you screw up newspaper, paint it rock colour and stick in your box?  Be creative, but most of all, have fun and take your time.

If you have finished it by Friday, we would love to see a photograph of your diorama.

Here are some examples to help and inspire you.

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 'll' 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 'll' game.  See instructions on Reception Home Learning page to find out how to login to Education City. The children will be taught that if they need a 'll'  sound at the end of the word to use two and when they read it they read it as a single sound 'l'

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

Please use the 'll' worksheets below.

Tuesday 9th February

Focus activity- PE

Well done on all the fantastic yoga you have been doing! The photo’s that your grown-ups have sent us show us how good you are at yoga and how much you are enjoying it.

Dr Beth and Dr Kit have been researching which other animals are extinct  just like dinosaurs.  Extinct means that they are no longer alive on earth.  They have found out that a strange bird called a ‘Dodo’ is also extinct.  Dr Beth and Dr Kit have found you a Cosmic Kids yoga all about a dodo called Dodgson

Follow the link below and it will take you to Cosmic Kids Yoga; Dodgson the dodo.

https://youtu.be/igE-o_Pd6DU

Don’t forget to ask your grown-ups to send us photos of your yoga poses.

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 'ss' 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 'ss' game.  See instructions on Reception Home Learning page to find out how to login to Education City. The children will be taught that if they need a 'ss'  sound at the end of the word to use two and when they read it they read it as a single sound 's'

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

Please use the 'ss' work sheets below.

Additional Activity

We have found a song all about Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs. We thought you would like to learn it today. We have attached a file of the tune which you can sing along to. When you play the tune, listen carefully. Do you recognise it? It is the same as a well-known nursery rhyme. If you want to send us a video of you singing it, we would love to see it

Wednesday 10th February

Focus activity - Outdoors

Today we would be going to Forest School. 

Since the dinosaur egg has still not hatched, Dr Beth and Dr Kit have asked us to send the egg to them as they have a special hatching box they think will warm the egg up enough to help it hatch. We need to think of a way to keep the egg safe when travelling as we don’t want it to roll over and crack.

In nature when animals have eggs they want to hatch, they make something that will keep the eggs still, safe and warm.  Grey squirrels and fox squirrels build nests high in trees out of leaves.  Mice and red squirrels find holes in trees or sheltered areas -- like under logs -- to build their nests.  The king cobra is the only snake in the world to build a nest for its eggs.  Birds weave a nest out of sticks and feathers and sometimes uses mud to stick it together and make the inside of the nest where the eggs are feel warm.

We would like you to make a nest for the dinosaur egg so it can be transported safely to Dr Beth and Dr Kit.

When you go on a walk with your adult or play outside, have a look for some thin sticks.  They need to be as thin as your little finger and a variety of lengths: some as long from your middle finger to your wrist, some as long from your wrist to your elbow.  They can be bendy or rigid sticks.  Don’t forget to use some sloppy mud to help ‘glue’ the sticks together and you can then line the inside of the nest with mud, moss, leaves or grass to keep the egg safe and warm.

Here are some examples of nests to inspire you.

Please remember we would love to see a photograph of your nest.

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 'ff' 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 'ff' game.  See instructions on Reception Home Learning page to find out how to login to Education City. The children will be taught that if they need a 'ff'  sound at the end of the word to use two and when they read it they read it as a single sound 'f'

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

Please use the 'ff' work sheets below.

On Espresso which you can login to through the SIMS ID login. Click on Foundation, then Literacy, Phonics, Scrap’s phonics. Please let the children use the activities found on the right hand side for the 'ff,ll,ss' sounds

Thursday 11th February

Focus activity- Cooking

Dr Beth and Dr Kit have sent us some recipes to make dinosaur biscuits! The biscuits look delicious in the pictures, so we thought you would like to make some and try them for yourselves.  We have put 3 different recipes up; one is to make dinosaur fossil biscuits, one is to make dinosaur footprint biscuits and the final one is to make dinosaur biscuits. Choose the biscuits you want to make and get baking! Remember to listen carefully to the grown up when you baking. Have fun and remember to take a picture of biscuits for us to see before you eat them all!

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 'zz' 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 'zz' game.  See instructions on Reception Home Learning page to find out how to login to Education City. The children will be taught that if they need a 'zz'  sound at the end of the word to use two and when they read it they read it as a single sound 'z'

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

Please use the 'zz' work sheets below.

Friday 12th February

Focus activity- Creative

Today is the last day before the half term holidays. You have all worked so hard these past few weeks and we are enormously proud of you. We know you must be feeling a bit tired and so for this Friday activity we thought you would like to do something relaxing and fun – dinosaur pictures using your handprints!

Look carefully at the pictures below, can you see the handprints? They have been used for the body of the dinosaur. Once you have decided which dinosaur to make, you need to paint your hand (or get a grown up to help you) and then press your hand down onto the paper. If you don’t have paint at home you could draw around your hand and then colour in the handprint with any coloured pencils, pens or crayons that you have. Once you have used your handprint to make the body of the dinosaur, you can then add extra details like, eyes, mouth, patterns, spots, or spikes.

We can’t wait to see your finished pictures!

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 ‘her’ and ‘they’. Please show your child these words written down and on their tricky word bumblebee mat provided in the workshop packs. The actions for ‘her’ is to point to a girl like 'she' and for 'they' to point to the floor twice. 

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 the Education City game and attached worksheet.