Morning everybody, what another glorious weekend we had weather wise.  Good news regarding the pool here - it's been used all weekend and BOTH my daughters went in - they must be mad!  Most of the time was spent floating on a do-nut, airbed or a flamingo, but my youngest did take a plunge at one point when she misjudged how she moved on the airbed and fell in!  When asked whether it was cold, she just said it made her head ache a bit - and then plunged completely under a few times and came up with a smile - absolutely bonkers!  I wonder if any of you have dipped this weekend. 

I'm in school today and am aiming to cycle in again after having repaired a puncture from the last ride out - I'm going to stick to the main road this time!!! Check the gallery for more photos.

Letters and Sounds

Click on the link below to sing the alphabet song.

Read the words come, some, have and like and then write them down.

Today's new spelling word is "all".  Look at it carefully, it's got three letters - the ll sound is easy at the end, it's just that tricky letter a at the beginning that makes the "aw" sound. Write the word all in 4 different colours.  

Sound out and write the following words - you can look at the digraph to help you with each one: cow, church, her, boat - I hope these are starting to get a little easier for some of you now.  

Today's phoneme we are going to recap and practise today is tricky - it's the trigraph "air".  Let's start off by watching Geraldine the Giraffe so that we can all start the session with a smile.

Number Time

Watch Week 2, Lesson 1 Oak Acadamey Maths video on understanding the concept of equal groups.

This week's maths activities are all centered around the book "Night Pirates".  Click on the link below to see and hear the story and then click on the following link to try the Day 1 activities, today is all about making telescopes.

Helicopter Stories - Adults, this part is for you to have a quick read of on your own and then watch a couple of short videos first

This is a method we use at school for children to start seeing themselves as story tellers and which then feeds into their writing over time.  Basically, a child makes up a story, an adult writes it down exactly as they say it and then it is later acted out and watched by the children.  This will be your child's first experience of a helicopter story and hopefully it is something which they will really enjoy.  With classes in the past, this is something we have finished off the day with, outside in the sunshine on the grass with the whole class involved.  It can get very loud and bouncy but it does allow the child author to take control of the whole situation and see their story be brought to life and acted out in the way they want.  You'll need 5 or 6 minutes to take a look at the attached website which will fully and simply explain the helicopter story.  Then arm yourself with paper and pen and try out the below.

Super Veggie Helicopter Story

Think back to the Supertato story last week.   If you didn't get a chance over the weekend, I would like you to make your own super fruit/vegetable.  It might be a super carrot, or a super brocolli, or a super orange or a super strawberry - anything.  If you haven't got the fruit or vegetable at home, you could make it out of playdough or you can have a go at drawing it or ask your adult to draw one and then you can give it a face and whatever clothes/cape it needs.  

Then have a little think about its super powers - what can it do out of the ordinary?  Can it fly, run super fast, roll at 100 mph, become invisible, spin webs, jump high, have super strength, see through walls, walk through walls....it's up to you - your super veggie could do lots of things.  Then see if you can make up a story about your super veggie - don't worry, you don't have to write anything - your adult is going to do that part!!  You just have to make it up.  Now it might be a long story or it might be a short story but it does need to be a story.  So think about a beginning - you might start with the words 'once upon a time', or 'one day' or 'early in the morning' or something totally different and think about where it is all going to happen.  Then you need to think of a situation where your super veggie might have to help another veggie or person or animal and save the day - talk through some ideas with your adult.  Then we need to have an ending where we find out what happened to your super veggie and what happened to the baddie or the thing that was saved.  Easy!!! When you've got an idea, tell your adult to pick up the pen and then start to tell them your story and they will write it down.  They will then read it back to you at the end and then you can think about acting it out with your family.

Adults - these do not need to be masterpieces.  They just need to be your child's first attempt at having a go at telling a story and they could end up being something that you think is not a story and not very interesting.  Never mind if that happens.  What we want is for your child to go through the process of thinking about themselves as a story teller, thinking about different possibilities of what they could include in their story and then have a go at making a story up. There will probably be a lot more in the child's eye than manages to come out of their mouths and it may be that they regurgitate a story that they know - that too is fine.  The fact that you write it down and then re-read it to them will probably fill them with satisfaction and immense happiness.  It might not have a beginning, it might not have an ending, in fact the middle could be missing, their tenses and vocabulary could be all over the place, but just write it down and celebrate the fact that your child had a go at it.  The more of these we do, the more the stories expand over time and I haven't met a child yet who isn't happy with their story, be it long or short, exciting or dull!

Happy story telling everyone!