Dear Parents and Carers,
Firstly, can I start by thanking you for all of your hard work last week. I have been overwhelmed and delighted by the amazing learning uploaded to Tapestry over the week. You are all doing a fantastic job!
If you haven’t already done so, please ensure that you do this as soon as you can, even if it’s just one or two photographs. Thank you.
You will see that I have repeated some information from last week’s blog. This is simply because it is ongoing or important information.
This week’s focus is ‘Transport and Journeys’
Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)
- Road safety- Remind your child about the time the Road Safety Officer came to visit Reception. She taught the class to Stop, Look, Listen and Think. What do they remember about her visit? Use the internet to find childrens’ road safety videos.
- Discuss different/ special journeys that your child has been on with the family.
- Talk about healthy and eco ways of travelling – walking, biking, public transport.
- Rescue vehicles – ambulance/fire engine/helicopter/life boat. Talk about what makes them different to regular vehicles and why they are so important.
Communication and Language
- Explore and talk about photographs of different types of transport. https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-e-499-new-transport-photo-pack
- Has your child experienced travelling on every type of vehicle? What is your child’s favourite way to travel? Why? What would they like to travel in that they haven’t already?
- Role play – (See EAD) travel agents/airport check in/train station/garage.
- Story making using props found around the house – a magic carpet ride/a hot air balloon ride/ a ride on a broomstick.
- Memory and list games – ‘I packed my bag and in it I put…’
- Step outside your front door and close your eyes. Can you hear any traffic sounds?
- Listen to these audio recordings from different vehicles. Can your child identify them? http://soundbible.com/tags-traffic.html
Physical Development
- Transport mimes – ask your child to role play getting on a train/into a boat/in a car. Can you guess the vehicle?
- Wash your family car together.
- Wash your scooter/bike/ sit-on toys/cars.
- Make ramps to ride down or push your cars down and explore what happens when you raise or lower the ramp or make the ramp longer of shorter.
- Ask your child to create movements based on vehicles that you call out. “Move like a helicopter” for example.
- Play ‘Follow My Leader’ using prepositions- up, down, under, over, next to, in-between etc.
- Play stop/go games using traffic light colours.
- Play fast/slow games based on modes of transport.
- Build bridges and tunnels using construction kits/ junk modelling.
- Make tracks with footprints.
- Set up an obstacle course inside/outside to travel along.
- Dance daily, using the free Go-Noodle website- https://www.gonoodle.com/ The class absolutely love this website!
- Participate in the daily PE lesson with Joe Wicks Body Coach at 9am on YouTube.
Understanding the World
- Map making – which way do you come to school? Can you draw it?
- Find your house/school on Google Earth/Maps
- If you have a holiday postcard in the house, look at it closely. Ask your child: Who wrote it? Where is it from? What date is on it? Can you find the country it was sent from on a map? What journey did the postcard make to get to your house?
- Look at road maps with your child.
- Draw your own maps of your house and garden.
- Compare past and present transport by clicking on London Transport Museum link here- https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/vehicles
- Ask your child the question- How do animals travel? Ask your child to sort animals into different categories according to how they travel.
- Joint project with parent and child- Take a bike apart using spanners, screwdrivers etc and put back together again.
- Find an insect in your garden and follow it’s journey.
- Go on Earth Cam https://www.earthcam.com/ and look up different landmarks all over the world. Look at cities in lockdown such as New York, Times Square. How many vehicles drive past in 5 minutes? (This website is fascinating!)
Expressive Arts and Design
- Help your child to take prints/rubbings from the wheels of your car.
- Have fun making paintings using the wheels from toy vehicles dipped in paint.
- Construct vehicles with moving wheels from junk modelling material.
- Use a selection of large cardboard boxes for imaginative play- large cardboard boxes/packing crates can be transformed into any vehicle!
- Imitate vehicle sounds with things found in your home.
- Use chairs to be an impromptu bus/plane/car/train.
- Make paper aeroplanes.
- Make up own lyrics to the song, ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. For example, The wheels on the tractor go…….record and upload to Tapestry.
- Play with small world cars, garages, planes and trains.
- Support your child in setting up a travel agents/airport check in/train station/garage/car wash and ask them to make signs and props to go inside.
- Twinkl usually have resources to support this- you will need printer access though. Role play is by far the most popular activity in Reception. By creating an area such as suggested above, they will be occupied for long periods of time. Just add teddies if there are no other children in the house or join in yourself!
- Ask your child to draw some of the landmarks you see every day on your journey into school.
- Show your child some road signs- ask them to make some of their own.
- Create a race track/ road map to use with small world cars on the floor. Make some houses to go alongside.
Maths
- Count parked cars when you go on your daily walk. Keep a daily tally. Are there more/less cars than yesterday? Than Monday?
- Look out of your window- how many vehicles drive past in 2 minutes?
- Keep a tally of the different types of vehicles/colours that drive past your window.
- Encourage your child to measure the distance that a toy car travels when pushed over different surfaces.
- Use a ramp at different heights and measure the distance the car has travelled each time.
- Find different ways to sort toy vehicles.
- Count total of wheels of 1/2/3/4/5 cars.
- Songs and rhymes- 5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer, How Many Passengers on the Bus?
- Making 3D models of vehicles.
- Count down for a rocket launch.
- Using money in role play – e.g. buying tickets.
- Make paper aeroplanes- measure distance flown
White Rose Maths have prepared a series of five maths lessons for each year group from Year R-8. They will be adding five more each week for the next few weeks. Every lesson comes with a short video showing you clearly and simply how to help your child to complete the activity successfully. Click on the link to find out more.
https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/
Ongoing Maths Activities – try at least one a day
- Watch a Numberblocks episode each day at: BBC iplayer or CBeebies.
- Practise counting up to 20. This can be done through playing hide and seek, singing number songs, chanting, board games etc.
- Write out the digits 0 – 9.
- 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
- Practise counting backwards from 20.
- Look for the numbers on the doors of houses. Do the numbers get bigger or smaller as you go up and down the street?
- Listen to a number song from the CBeebies website. After listening to them, watch again and sing along if you can. Talk about the maths you can see in the video clip.
- Look out of the window and count how many houses or buildings can be seen
- Explore weighing and measuring food on the kitchen scales. Ask, what happens as you place more on the scales?
- Look for numerals on packaging you find around the house. Can your child recognise the numerals and count out a matching amount?
Maths Websites
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years
https://matr.org/blog/fun-maths-games-activities-for-kids/
https://www.primarygames.com/math.php
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/topics/numeracy
https://apps.mathlearningcenter.org/geoboard/
Literacy
- Ask your child to write down a list of all the different types of vehicles that they know, using their phonics.
- Make role play posters and tickets – travel agents/airport check in/train station/car wash/garage
- Ask your child to imagine that you are all on holiday. (maybe use a place where they have been before) Ask them to write a holiday postcard to another family member or friend explaining what they can see.
- Support your child in thinking of some story ideas that involve a journey with your child, maybe a magic carpet ride/a hot air balloon ride/ a ride on a broomstick for example. Ask them to draw a story map or write a few simple sentences about what could happen.
- Play memory and list games – ‘I packed my suitcase and in it I put…’
- Ask your child to write about the best/worst/longest journey that they have ever been on.
- Ask your child to write about where they would like to visit and how they would travel there.
Please encourage the children to write as often as you can, using their phonics and tricky word knowledge. For example if they make a wonderful model, tell them to write a sign asking family members to not touch it.
You can support them by getting them to independently sound out each letter sound in the word. PLEASE do not do it for them. They will not make any progress in their writing if you sound it out for them, get them to copy your writing or tell them what to write. They are all independent writers in class. They just need to be making a plausible attempt- I would not expect it to be perfect. If necessary, when they have finished writing, write the words above, if you think they are hard to read.
Please take a close up picture of any writing they do and upload it to Tapestry- I am sure I will be able to read it! If they are forming their letters incorrectly, the wrong way around or hold their pencil the wrong way, please correct your child immediately. Please refer to the inside cover of their original home phonics book for the handwriting phrases, if you find yourself in this position.
Phonics
It is highly important that your child practises their letter sounds and tricky words and applies them through a reading and writing activity daily. Reading will help improve their vocabulary and a child’s academic success depends upon the ability to read and write and so this should be a priority.
Please continue to practise all of Phase 2 and Phase 3 sounds and tricky words on a daily basis.
The following websites are fantastic for practising phonics, word recognition and sentence reading.
https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm
https://www.phonicsbloom.com/
http://www.familylearning.org.uk
https://www.topmarks.co.uk
www.letters-and-sounds.com
https://www.spellingcity.com/spelling-games-vocabulary-games.html
Twinkl also have some great phonics and cross curricular resources and are also currently free if you follow these instructions: Go to https://www.twinkl.co.uk/offer and enter the code: UKTWINKLHELPS
Phonics Play in particular is a fantastic resource for the actual teaching of the Letters and Sounds program. It is currently free to parents due to the Coronavirus situation. Last week, I assessed every child that was in school and put the assessment sheets in their book bag. This will give you a good idea of the sounds that your child needs to work on. For those children who were not in, or were absent towards the end of the week, the assessment sheet is on the Phonics Play website under ‘Assessment’.
Please also look on websites such as Pinterest for fun, practical and creative ways to reinforce phonics, reading and writing.
Reading
Frustratingly, we cannot change reading books anymore, but we think we may have come up with a temporary solution. Please login to Oxford Owl using the school’s login.
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
Username:popepaul2020
Password:Ilovereading2020
You must put the detail into Class Login not the general login otherwise it will not work. Once logged in, you can go into the bookshelf. Select 2 books from your child’s book band colour and practise reading them every day. There are two activities to go with each book and parent tips at the end of the book. If you click on the parents section too, you should find even more books and resources.
RE
Following on from the story of the Last Supper, please reinforce your child’s understanding of Holy Thursday by doing the following:
Explain that when we gather to celebrate Jesus’ Last Supper on Holy Thursday, the Priest washes the feet of some of the congregation. He does this because this is what Jesus did. As Jesus washed the disciples’ feet he told them that he was doing it as an example: to serve each other.
Talk about serving others with your child: when do we take care of others and look after them? What sort of things do we do? Make ‘good server’ badges for those who take care of others.
Sequence and talk about the actions of the Holy Thursday Liturgy.
1. We come together
2. We listen to the story of the washing of the feet
3. The Priest washes the feet of some people
4. We have Holy Communion together, remembering Jesus’ last supper
5. We put in a special place of repose the bread which has become the body of Christ.
Then choose from the following:
- Paint with feet! Use purple paints and ‘walk’ on paper. Cut out the footprints and display them.
- Role-play the action of washing the feet.
- Measuring using feet.
Finish by singing: Heads, shoulders knees and toes!
Remember, as I said last week, you do not need to do everything on this overview- even if you just pick one or two things to do from each area over the week, you will be doing a great job!
Finally, if you need to get in touch with me about your child’s learning, I will be picking up emails between the hours of 8.50am and 3.30pm Monday- Friday.
The email address is:
yearR@popepaul.herts.sch.uk
Thank you for your continued support,
Mrs Theo