Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a good weekend.

What a lovely weekend of weather we had.  I spent quite a lot of time yesterday morning watering all the plants that are growing in my vegetable plot.  I went out at about 7 o'clock in the morning and it was just me and the hose for quite a long time.  We have now planted out lots of different vegetables and they all need quite a bit of watering.  It takes quite a little while but I really like doing it - I find it incredibly peaceful and calming.  Also, at this time of year, you can hear a lot of bird song in the morning and there are birds buzzing around all over the place, often taking food backwards and forwards to nests for babies.  We've got some sparrows nesting under one of our roof eaves and their chicks are making lots and lots of chirping noises. I wonder if any of you have birds nesting in your gardens too? The bantams are still sitting on the eggs, which is good and I managed to get a photo of them to show you.  

We have another special object for our special gallery, Nicole has written about her special necklace - read why it's special and see what it looks like. Nicole also had a go at drawing the sheep on Friday and she did a splendid job.  She didn't do just one, she did a flock of 4 - wonderful. 

Letters and Sounds and Writing

Please practise your sound cards and then join in the tricky word song, writing down the tricky words as they appear.  

Print off the first snail race board game with the initial blends cl, sl, sp, sl, tw.  See if you can beat your adult or your brother or sister to the end. Be careful, they are quite tricky as there are also vowel digraphs in many of them.  Adults, you might want to underline those digraphs to make it easier for your child to read.   If you don't have a printer, make your own board game by getting your adult to copy out the words and draw circles around them.  Have fun everyone. (You could even make your own snail out of playdough to race!).

Now choose 4 of the words to make into a silly sentence.  Your adult can help you with ideas, the sillier the better!!!  Then say your silly sentence to each other a few times so that it is in your head.  Draw a picture of your silly sentence. Say your silly sentence a few more times and then write it down one word at a time, sounding out each word as you go.  Check your sound mat or tricky word mat if you need some help.  Don't forget your full-stop at the end!

THIS IS THE PIECE OF WORK THAT I WOULD LIKE SENT OVER TO ME THIS WEEK AT SOME POINT.    I wonder who can come up with the funniest sentence.  

Number Time

Watch Wk 5, lesson 1 Oak Academy video which is all about finding one less than a given number.

This week the focus book is all about worms.  Click on the link below to hear the story of Super Worm.  Have a go at the Day 1 activities which are all about patterns - making symmetrical patterns and carrying on bug patterns - lots of fun.

Seeds and growing

This week I thought we would have a little think about how things grow.  Many fruit and vegetables start life as a seed.  You can go to the shops and buy packets of seeds to plant, but where do the shops get the seeds from, do you know?  Many plants and vegetables make their own seeds.  Sometimes these grow on trees, like the conkers we found last year, sometimes they grow inside the fruit or vegetable, like in apples, and sometimes plants can produce a pod or flower that then produces seeds, such as beans.  Throughout the next couple of days or so, see if you can find any seeds inside any fruit or vegetables that you are going to eat and keep them to the side somewhere safe.  I wonder how many different ones you can find.  Take a photo of them and stick the photo in your scrap book.  Label what plant each one came from. I found three different types of seeds today when I was preparing food - I found some tomato seeds - they are the ones that look very tiny and are a bit gooey, I found lots of seeds in a pepper and I found one big seed in the middle of my avocado.  I wonder what you will find.