Morning morning morning.  Bright blue skies and a gentle breeze outside - perfect for a happy day!

I cycled into school again yesterday and really enjoyed the ride in the nice weather.  I think taking part with Joe Wicks PE each day has definitely strengthened my legs and helped me to tackle riding up hills on a bike more easily (although my legs were a little tired by the time I cycled up the hill to the school!).  On my way home, it was lovely to then ride down the school hill effortlessly.  Whilst riding along the main Winchester Road home, I had got up to a good speed again and then thought, right, I'm going to put it into top gear to try and get that extra bit of speed.  I pushed my gear lever, there was a bit of crunching and then my pedals froze and wouldn't turn.  The chain had come off the cog and jammed.  I got off my bike and had a little fiddle but to no avail.  I looked at my fingers getting blacker very close to my white jeans and decided there was only one thing to do - call Mr Mason.  Luckily I make sure he is off shift and at home  with my daughters on the days I work at school at the moment otherwise I would have had about a six mile walk home.   It took about 5 minutes for my daughter to find him - he was right at the very end of the garden using his brand new fiberglass fixing kit that had arrived that day to fix some holes in a pond he is hoping to install in our garden. But he left what he was doing and  came to my rescue, not on a white horse, but in his reddish car, bunged the bike in the back and sorted it all out for me when we got home.  However, I did watch carefully what he did to get the chain back on the cog and hopefully I'll be able to sort it out myself if it comes off again (I won't bother trying top gear again for the time being though!).

 

We have some more special things to read about in the Special Things Gallery so do take a look to find out about a special baby and a special furry diary!  Also, I thought I would show you this lovely ice cake that one of our children made from flowers she collected on a walk - it really is quite eye catching.  You might want to experiment with something similar with things you see and find when you are out and about. I wonder how it changes if it is left in a room?  Also, one of our children managed to read 49 graphemes in 1 minute and 56 seconds which I thought was tremendous.  I wonder if any of you have managed to beat that??!!  I have also put a link to WOW cards above the week's learning so that they are there if anyone needs them for any WOW moments happening at home.  Have a lovely day everyone.

Letters and Sounds

Practise your sounds using the powerpoint below.

Read all your tricky words and then practise writing tricky words were, here, there using chalk outside or different colours on paper.

 

Then have a go at reading some more ccvc words.

Now have a go at writing some of them.  Try writing them in a phoneme frame like we used to do on whiteboards at school.  Split a piece of paper into 4 columns and and write a sound of each word into each column.  

Now it's time for your adult to do some writing.  Give your adult a pencil and ask them to write the sentence "The slug was lost".  Say the sentence together 5 times so you don't forget it.  Draw a picture of a slug looking lost if it helps.   However, you have to tell your adult exactly what you want them to write one word at a time.  If they need a capital letter, make sure you tell them and don't forget to tell them to write a full-stop at the end (but not big and blobby!).  Also you have to sound out all the words or give them the spelling if there's a tricky word so don't miss any sounds out before or after the vowel in a word.  After they have written the sentence ask your adult to get a green pencil and a pink pencil.  They need to underline any words that are correct in green as "green is great" and anywhere they see a mistake, can they underline that part in pink - "pink to make you think".  Then have a look at the pink (to make you think) and see if you can work out or talk through with your adult what is wrong.   Get your adult to then amend the mistake.

If you would like to do some phonics with a teacher, click on the Read Write Inc link below.  Set 1 is th and set 2 is igh.

Number Time

Watch the video for Week 4, Day 3 of the Oak Academy Maths lesson - developing a sense of 10.

Now try the day 3 activities for the Very Busy Spider.  There is a spider drive game, just like playing beetle, but you build a spider by throwing a dice and recognising the number.  There is a link below to a virtual dice if you want that .  I've also put a link to a virtual number generator so you could set it to concentrate on the numbers 10 to 15 if your child is still uncertain with these (just turn the volume down if you can't stand the dad - dah trumpet!). For both of these websites, you just need to scroll down a little bit on the web page to see the dice or cake counter.   There is also a bit of singing today and more taking away using tens frames.

Farm Learning

Watch the Tractor Ted video to find out how carrots are produced on a farm.  

Now, see if your family has some carrot tops you can use to regrow some carrots leaves just using the ends of carrots.  Watch the short video attached to find out how to do it in two different ways.  If you have some soil or compost, try the two different ways and see if you can find out the answer to these two questions:

 

1.  Which method produces the longest and bushiest leaf growth - growing in water or in soil?

 

2.  Which method produced the leaves the quickest? 

I

If you are only trying one method answer these two questions?

 

1.  How many days did it take for your carrot to start showing signs of new growth?

 

2.  How long did it take for your carrot to grow bushy leaves?

 

Keep an observation diary every two or three days of how the carrots change - you could do this by either taking photos or making drawings.

I will do it too and we can all compare results.