Good morning everybody,

It's the first day of a new half term with fantastic weather forecast.  I hope you all had a good break and spent some happy times with your families.  I have been in my pool so much this week, doing lots of floating on donuts and airbeds, and it got so hot that I actually put my shoulders under the water and had a little bob around and a mini swim too! Unfortunately the carrot tops have not made it - they are all mushy and shrivelled up and basically dead. Hey ho. I hope someone can send me a picture of flourishing carrot tops.

 

Today is a special day for me as I will be teaching back in Class 1 at school but with only half of the class.  So although it feels special to be going back, it also  feels a little strange, as half of you will not be there.  Also, the classroom looks very different from when we left it before the lockdown - some of the walls are bare now and the room looks a lot emptier than it did before.  However, wherever we learn, I am sure we will all have a lot of fun as we shall be starting this term off by finding out about different minibeasts that live outside.  This week  we are concentrating on worms and snails. 

Do continue to look in the gallery to see what people have been up to.  Any child in Class 1, whether they are learning at school or at home, are more than welcome to continue sending through photos to share.  We have some new photos in there sent in over the half term: one of our class has been very busy making a dinosaur freize and another member of our class has been to the New Forest and found a foal and a baby blue tit. 

I hope you have fun today, wherever you spend it.

Letters and Sounds

Practise your letter sounds using your sound cards.  Read through all your tricky words we have learnt so far and then practise writing the words 'here' and 'there'.

Let's remind ourselves of what vowels are by joining in with the Old MacDonald vowel song.

Now let's watch Geraldine finding word with blends in them.

Click on the powerpoint link below to read some cvcc and ccvc words.  Make sure you press the slide show button so that the words and pictures appear one at a time.

Now let's see if we can write a sentence using some of those words.  Have your tricky word mat out to help you and your sound mat.  Choose one of the sentences below.

It is a tent.

There is a bend in the road.  

Help me to set up the tent on that spot there.

We are now going to practise some letter formations which are in the curly caterpillar letter formation family.  If you click on the link below, there are 14 pages - we only need the first 2 which practise c, a, d, g.  These all start off in the same way as if we were writing a curly c.  I've attached the list of handwriting phrases for helping your child form the letters properly, in case you need them - eg around the apple and down the leaf.  Please make sure your child doesn't start to colour the letters in or go backwards and forwards over them (because they like to do that!).  Just do them in small manageable chunks throughout the day/week.

Number Time

I thought it would be nice if we all started to find the correct Numicon number to match the number in the date each day, like we did when we were at school.  So below I've attached some Numicon shapes that you can print off and cut out and then each day you could find the correct Numicon pieces to make the date number, but it will be your turn every day.  I've also included a picture of two digit numbers (just in case I forget when we get to the 11th June!) to remind you that the number 1 always comes first as that is showing us there is one ten and then the second number is the number of ones.  Why don't you show your parents how clever you are and make some different numbers up to 20.

Watch the Oak Academy Monday video all about sorting shapes.

Today's activities are centered around the book "The Snail and the  Whale".  Today, try your hand at drawing spirals and making spiral danglers!  There's also a chance to make edible spirals.

Mini Beasts

Over the next few weeks, we are going to take a look at the minibeasts and creatures that live all around us.  On Wednesday we are going to be learning about worms and having a go at making a wormery.  So if you want to make your own wormery, you will need a see-through container, such as drinks bottle or tuperware, some soil/mud, some sand and maybe grit if you have any, and some vegetative food scraps.  So this is a little thumbs up just so you can start collecting.

 

A Healthy Hug

As the restrictions on lockdown are starting to ease a little for some us and we are starting to be able to meet a few other people, we need to think of new ways of showing some of our friends and family how we feel when we see them which are different to a hug or a kiss greeting.  Watch the video below to see how you can give someone a healthy hug.