A message from Miss Sutton:

I hope you have all had a super Easter break.

It has been great to see so many photos of what you have all been up to!

As before, make the most of this beautiful weather and feel free to adapt the activities in anyway or make up your own, I can’t wait to see photos of the children's learning either via Tapestry or email!

It may take time to get back into a routine after the Easter break, this is totally normal and would be the same at school too. Ensuring your children are happy and loved are the most important things you can do! J

Please email me for anything at all J

philippa.sutton@barnham.suffolk.sch.uk

Reading / Writing / Phonics / Maths - Please choose one from each section daily

Reading – Children read to an adult daily + aim to do one of the below, per day.

• Read a variety of books at home. Favourites can be repeated. Hearing the patterns of language in a story will support your child’s language development.
• Head to oxford owl to find e-books at your child's reading level following the link below. Select a book from the letters and sounds phase – phase 2 or phase 3. Year one: Phase 3 or Phase 5

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/library-page/?view=image&query=&type=book&age_group=&level=phase+3&level_select=phase+3&book_type=&series=#

• With your child, look in magazines, newspapers and books for the tricky words they are currently learning. They could use a highlighter to highlight in magazines and newspapers.

Tricky words this week: he / she / we

• Support children to read packaging. This could be whilst helping to make snack or dinner

e.g. c-u-s-t-ar-d     c-r-ea-m (both ‘ar ar there’s a shark in the park’ and ‘ea ea eat your peas’ digraphs are in just these two words, so it will help them to practise recognising and reading their newly learnt sounds).

Writing - Aim to do one per day

• Name writing. Can they write their first name forming ALL of the letters correctly? As before, you could use sticks in mud, flour on a tray, bubbles in the bath to practise – it does not have to be on paper J Use the hedgehog class page on the school website to ensure they are forming their letters correctly – use the rhymes to support their letter formation. https://www.barnham.suffolk.sch.uk/hedgehogs-4/ I would love to see photos of this to add to their Tapestry learning journey J Year one: Extend this activity by asking them to write name labels for everyone at home, can they spell Mummy etc?
• Play tricky troll hide and seek. First, write a list of the tricky words this week (as above). Then, write the tricky words out on a new piece of paper and hide them around the room. Children to go on a hunt to find the tricky words and tick them off on their list when they find them. (Year one children could write these out and put the tricky words in both verbal and written sentences).
• Ask your child to help you write the shopping list. Encourage them to ask different members of the family what they would like, then to sound out the items as they write them on the list. Support them to do this, rather than ensuring it is spelt correctly.

For example, fruit spelt phonetically is: f-r-oo-t. Year one: Can they number the items on the list too, forming all of the numbers the correct way around.

• Plan a movie night. Ask your child to choose 2 films and make a poster for each so that people can choose which movie they would like. Show them photos of cinemas, tickets and popcorn boxes and prompt them to make these for members of the family, in preparation for the movie night.
• Write a letter– they could choose a friend from school, grandparents, their siblings …anyone. Talk about what we write at the beginning of a letter (dear or To). Talk about what they want to write to this person and support them to sound out each word. Year one: Remember to use finger spaces, capital letters and full stops in your sentences. First, say your sentence. Next, write it. Do it slowly and read it back to check that it makes sense.

Phonics – Aim to do one per day

• Daily phonics – (Focus on one sound each day) Hunt for the sound – look for items in the house beginning with each sound. Label the items that they find, or make a list.
• You can find all of the letter formation rhymes here: https://www.barnham.suffolk.sch.uk/english-2/
• Play ‘flash card speed trial’ on https://new.phonicsplay.co.uk/ Try some of the other games too, let me know which your favourites are!
• Play a listening game- Gather a selection of objects that make sounds from around the house. Cover your child’s eyes with a blindfold and make sounds with the objects collected. Can they figure out what the object is without looking at it? For example, a saucepan and wooden spoon banging together. Let them test you too.
• Reception: Collect objects or draw pictures of objects e.g. cake, cat, caterpillar, can / orange, octopus, office, omelette. Discuss what the pictures are – children to sort into piles based upon initial sound.
• Year one: Same as reception but the sounds could be in the middle or end of words rather than just being the initial sound. E.g. whale, whistle, white / dolphin, phone, elephant / monkey, key, chimney

Username: march20 / Password: home  Early years: Phase 2/3. Year one: Phase 3/5.

Reception sounds this week: g / o / c / k           Year 1 sounds this week: wh / ph / ey

Use Hedgehogs class page to remind the children of how we learnt the sound and the rhyme and action to go with it: https://www.barnham.suffolk.sch.uk/hedgehogs-4/

Maths – Aim to do one per day

• Whilst outside, continue to use this as an opportunity to introduce maths – this time, compare weight. Prompt this in conversation, for example: Wow, this is a heavy plant pot, can you find one that is heavier? The cat is much heavier than this stick, what is heavier/lighter than the cat?
• Practise counting forwards and backwards from 10 and 20. This can be done through playing hide and seek, singing number songs, chanting, whilst walking up and down the stairs, board games etc.

Year one: Forwards and backwards from 40. Or up to 20 in jumps of 2s / 5s. Or counting in jumps of 10 to 100 e.g. 10, 20, 30…

• Sing Number songs to practice counting, reciting numbers in order, one more, one less using number songs: Five Little Ducks, Five Little Men, Ten Green Bottles. I have added the link for our favourite counting song under the ‘useful links’ tab: https://www.barnham.suffolk.sch.uk/maths-2/
• Can you recognise and find numbers whilst playing helicopter rescue?

Reception: Click on ‘direct 1 to 10’ Year one: Click on ‘direct 1 to 30’ to play the game. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/helicopter-rescue

• Daily 10 maths challenge. Follow the link and the following instructions: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10 

1. Have pen and paper ready for your child to record their answers. You could also have objects ready  e.g. cubes, pasta pieces, buttons etc to help them count.

For example: 6 + 3 – some children may use their fingers, others may count on in their heads, some may find it useful to first count out 6 buttons, then count out 3, then count how many there are altogether – this is the method we have been using at school with Reception.

1. Click the pink ‘choose’ button on the top left
2. Click level 1
3. On the purple tab, click addition
4. On the green tab, click ‘up to 10 – adding ones’
5. Click manual
6. Once the children have recorded all of their answers (Reception children could tell you the answer and you could record it if they are finding recording it tricky), get them to check their answers at the end and put a tick or cross next to each answer. It would be great to repeat this daily.

Weekly Learning Project and extra ideas to enhance children's play and learning

The project this week aims to provide opportunities for your child to learn about different viewpoints.

What can you see out of your window?

• Ask your child to look out of a window in the house and draw what they can see.
• Look out of a different window (e.g. back or side of the house), draw what they can see.
• Look at the two pictures together and discuss what is the same in both pictures (e.g. the sky) and what is different.
• Count how many trees you can see out of each window and record the number. Do the same with other familiar objects.
• Year one – label some of the things you can see.

Record how many cars/ people / birds / dogs walk past your house (choose 2)

• Set a timer for 5 minutes on your phone or tablet to complete this activity.

• Draw out a simple grid and ask your child to put a tick or mark in the right place every time a person or car etc goes past.
• When complete, can they count up the ticks and write the matching numeral?
• Were there more people or cars?
• Example of the chart at bottom of page :)

How do we differ from others?

• Ask your child to look in a mirror at their hair colour, eye colour, skin colour.
• Ask them to create a self-portrait using either felt-tips, crayons or paint.
• Look at some pictures in books and magazines. Does everyone look the same way as them? How do people look different?
• What makes them special?

Go on a sight hunt

• Support your child to make a viewfinder - cut out a square of card from an old cereal box/ cardboard then, cut a smaller square out of the centre – see pic at bottom of page.
• Alternatively, you could create a pair of binoculars as pictured – see pics at bottom of page.
• Take your viewfinder/binoculars around the house and garden and explore what things you can see.
• Write a list of the things you see or draw/ paint a picture.
• If you have a tablet or phone that could be used by your child, they could do the same activity but using photographs to record what they find.