Home Learning Blog Week 1

What a week we have all had. In such unprecedented times we are developing ways to support the children in their home learning, so please see below for information. 
My email is jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk 

The children who were in school at the end of last week came home with a home learning book. This is to ensure that they can collate all the learning that they do at home. These class blogs will provide regular home learning tasks and activities that can be completed over the course of a week.

We understand that being isolated at home is going to be challenging, and we also know that many parents/carers will have to continue working at home during this time. Therefore, whilst we are setting work, we also appreciate how difficult this may be. During this first week we have provided some simpler tasks. We hope that this will enable you and your child to establish a routine whereby you can make time for home learning. After Easter we will be able to provide more focused tasks to offer opportunities for challenge and new learning.

Please find attached the documents you will need this week to support your child and the following website links that may be useful.

After the Easter break, we will continue this on a weekly basis and will keep you informed of any updates. So please look at the class blog again on Tuesday 14th April and each week from then onwards.

Some children were absent at the end of last week and will therefore not have received a home learning book. The class teachers will communicate directly via email with those parents after Easter, this will ensure that for those families no longer in isolation it may be possible to arrange collection of the children’s belongings and home learning books.

Some useful websites:

Oxford Owl is a great website for free e-books, English, maths and other fun activities. Click on Oxford Owl for Home: https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

White Rose are currently adding maths home learning activities, a group at a time from Early Years to Year 6:
https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/  

World Book Online have made 3000 books available to read online: https://worldbook.kitaboo.com/reader/worldbook/index.htmlusertoken=Mjk5MzQ6MTpJUjA5MjAxNjoyOmNsaWVudDE2OTc6MTY5NzoyMjE2Mjg4OjE6MTU4NDM4MDExMzA2Mjp1cw==

Phonics Hero offer a free 7 day trial and is worth looking at for phonics support: https://www.phonicshero.com/

Phonics Play have made their online resources, games and activities free for parents and children. Username: march20 Password: home https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

The National Literacy Trust have developed a portal called Family Zone where you can access reading and writing activities which are appropriate to the age of your child: https://literacytrust.org.uk/family-zone/?mc_cid=1a89f05f20&mc_eid=379abc23a6

Twinkl provides a huge range of learning resources for all areas of learning and are currently offering these free using this weblink and use the code UKTWINKLEHELPS: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/offer

Imoves provides physical activities linked to all areas of the curriculum and is currently free to use. No password is needed:
http://theimovement.com/ 

Please also see the Useful Website and Apps list which is uploaded to this page.

Welcome back to the second half of the spring term; let's hope it soon stops raining and becomes more spring like for us.

This week we started our new topic with our pirate-themed day, when everyone came in dressed up - thank you for making the effort , we had a great band of pirates for the day.
Everyone made a skull & crossbones, 'Jolly Roger' flag, a paper-plate pirate, and a newspaper pirate hat. We also started to learn how to play 'Port and Starboard' in PE. During our maths activity everyone played a a pirate treasure game with a partner  to practice their counting. We even held a pirate battle on the playground! 

Our new learning question is 'Are Pirates Goodies or Baddies?' and this day was a great start to our learning around this question.

This week in literacy the children have studied a poem called 'Pirates are...' and then thought of words to describe pirates, ships, parrots and treasure to use in their own poems; they sounded out to spell their chosen words to complete a verse about each pirate-related feature.

In adult-led maths sessions we have been playing various games to help us to recognise the number pairs which make 10.

In  other, pirate-related learning, the children have learnt about two types of pirate ship - a sloop and a square rigger and were excited to learn that each one had a different purpose for pirates. They all labelled the parts of a ship too, which linked to our PE game of Port & Starboard.

In our role play pirate ship and small world pirate land, it has been good to hear children already using their newly learned vocabulary related to pirates and ships and they have accepted the challenge to use junk to make a telescope for a pirate!

On Wednesday, the children learnt about Shrove Tuesday and made pancakes and ate them, an activity much enjoyed by everyone!

We are looking forward to World Book Day next week - please see note below.

Things to remember for next week: 
*World Book Day- Thursday 5th March. This year our theme is ‘Snuggle up with a Story’. The children can come to school in their pyjamas or onesies and bring a book to share with others. We will be having a book tombola, where children can bring in a book that they no longer want to keep. They will then be allowed to swap it for one that another child has brought in. We also have a number of books that will add to this collection, so that there will be more choice available for the children. Please make it clear to me on the morning of World Book Day, which book is for the tombola.
*PE kits should be in school every day please.
*Forest school clothes are needed every FRIDAY.
*Please write in WOW books when you notice something amazing.
*Please read every day with your child and record in reading records any comments you may have. Remember that your child receives a karate reading band each time they read 5 times at home.
*Please read the events diary on this website for dates.
*Bring Show and Tell on Friday 6th March - please bring an item which a pirate may need to use - you should tell your friends what the item is and why it would be useful to a pirate.

Future diary dates:
*Class 1 parent consultations will take place on Tuesday 17th and Thursday 19th March. Please sign up using the book opposite the office.
*Sports Relief week- starts on Monday 9th March. At school this year we shall be having a daily assembly focus and a physical activity of some sort every day to raise awareness of this special week. There will be a collection pot in the school office should anyone wish to make a donation. Thank you.

Our last week of this half term has completed our learning linked to our overall question of 'What is it like inside a shoe?'

In literacy, the children all wrote a letter to the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe in response to her request for a new house. We saw some super sounding out to write short sentences to describe the new house which each child had designed for the old woman and her family.

The children also made some broth like the old woman, learning how to use tools safely for the task of peeling and chopping vegetables. We also looked at the 'solid' materials used (the vegetables) and the 'liquid' (water/stock) and how they changed during the cooking process. Everyone enjoyed tasting the soup at snack time on Friday. They also ordered the recipe instructions, in order to tell someone else how to make the soup. It is always great to see such a large amount of learning gained from one activity.

Our maths number investigations revolved around the number 10 this week and will continue after half term with a focus on learning the number pairs which make 10.

In our Expressive Arts and Design work this week, the children used felt and wool to stitch a pair of shoes for their chosen toy, using their design from last week. After show and tell on Friday, there were some smart teddy bears leaving Class 1 with their new shoes!

In our continuous provision we have had heart activities for the children to take part in. They enjoyed making sun catchers and heart decorations and talking about heart shapes.

We saw some super listening from everyone when some learners from Class 4 came into our class to teach us about eating and living healthily. They had created an informative and eye-catching power point presentation and demonstrated with collage plates of food. Everyone learnt new facts so thank you Class 4!

On our first day back after half term (Tuesday 25th February) we will be starting our new topic with a pirate-themed day, so we are asking the children to come into school dressed as pirates on that day please.

Please note dates for your diary:
*Class 1 parent consultations will take place on Tues 17th and Thurs 19th March. Information will be given out after half term.
*World Book Day- Thursday 5th March. This year our theme is ‘Snuggle up with a Story’. The children can come to school in their pyjamas or onesies and bring a book to share with others.

Things to remember for the first week back:
*Please remember to wear a pirate costume on Tues 25th February
*PE kits should be in school every day please.
*Forest school clothes are needed every FRIDAY.
*Please write in WOW books when you notice something amazing.
*Please read every day with your child and record in reading records any comments you may have. Remember that your child receives a karate reading band each time they read 5 times at home. *Please read the events diary on this website for dates. 

*Show and Tell on Friday 28th February - please bring an object which pirates may have used/worn/eaten/liked and tell your friends why that was so.

This week in Class 1, we started our week by celebrating Chinese New Year. The children were fascinated to learn the story of new year and to discover that 2020 is the Year of the Rat.

 Our themed day was spent learning about how Chinese New Year is celebrated and everyone took part in many activities, including a dragon dance to start the day, making a dragon, a Chinese lantern and a rat! Everyone created movements for all of the animals in the story, they matched Chinese written numbers to English numbers and also used chopsticks to try various Chinese food.  Everyone did really well with their chopsticks - good perseverance was seen! Thanks to Mrs G for bringing her special Chinese dress for us to see.

In literacy everyone has continued to develop their story telling skills by joining in with the story and adding actions as they re-tell each part. All of the children are learning and using new words and are identifying those linked with story -telling - great work.

In maths, our number of the week has been 8  and we have seen some great work to use the part-whole model when investigating the different ways we can make 8. The children are developing their confidence with maths investigation and this is great to see. This week not only did they use objects in their exploration, but they extended their learning to draw pictures to represent their findings. 

We have also been artists in Class 1 this week! We have studied some paintings of different footwear by Van Gogh and decided which painting to base our own work on. We then created observational pencil drawings of the shoes in the picture  before producing a water-colour wash as the background for our artwork. Everyone learnt new sketching skills when using drawing pencils and all of the children had two or three practice sketches before selecting the best drawing for their actual artwork. It is great to see our young children editing and improving their work in such a way.

Things to remember for next week:
*PE kits should be in school every day please.
*Forest school clothes are needed every FRIDAY.
*Please write in WOW books when you notice something amazing.
*Please read every day with your child and record in reading records any comments you may have. Remember that your child receives a karate reading band each time they read 5 times at home. *Please read the events diary on this website for dates.
*Bring Show and Tell on Friday 7th February - please bring a teddy bear, cuddly toy or a doll which you would like to make a pair of shoes for.( Please make sure that the toy is a good size if possible - we shall be using felt and sewing the shoes).

Learning in Class 1 this week has been all about the re-telling of the story of The Elves and the Shoemaker and about investigating and designing shoes, all related to our over-arching topic - 'What is it Like Inside a Shoe?'

In literacy we created a story map of the story together and then children completed a copy of that map by filling in some missing pictures themselves. This has helped everyone to remember the key characters, events and order of the story so that they can re-tell it to others. We have started using our story map and story sticks to do this and are now in the process of adding actions to each part of the story. We are working towards re-telling the story to the whole school in assembly.

In maths our number of the week has been 7, so learning has involved investigating how 7 can be represented, using fingers, play dough, lolly pop sticks, number shapes and coins. The children have also thought about the place of 7 on number-lines, starting with different numbers. We also matched amounts of objects to numbers. Some children also used our outdoor number-lines and hopscotch to complete these tasks.

As part of our understanding the world learning, we have recognised and identified different materials and thought about their suitability for different purposes. We have also focussed on the materials which slippers can be made from and cut a pair of hotel slippers in half to investigate their materials and construction. We also looked at Mrs Wakeham's slippers and decided that they were made of wool and rubber, but Mrs Wakeham did not want to cut them up!

Linking this investigation to expressive arts and design, we designed a pair of hotel slippers and, after deciding that they were made of fabric we designed our own pair of slippers using fabric pens, pom poms and ribbons. There were some great designs and most people followed their design sheet when creating their slippers. Great work!

IN PE with Mrs Forbes, the children have been practicing their balancing skills in  gymnastics.



Things to remember for next week:
*PE kits should be in school every day please.
*Forest school clothes are needed every FRIDAY.
*Please write in WOW books when you notice something amazing.
*Please read every day with your child and record in reading records any comments you may have. Remember that your child receives a karate reading band each time they read 5 times at home. *Please read the events diary on this website for dates.

*Bring Show and Tell on Friday 31st January - please bring an unusual type of shoe or a shoe which has a special purpose. You should tell your friends what type of shoe you have brought and when it is worn. Thank you.

The highlight of this week had to be our visit to The Theatre Royal, Plymouth, where we saw 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' in The Drum Theatre, performed by the Stuff and Nonsense Theatre Company.
The children were enthralled by their performance of our focus story and loved the fact that this version had many variations on the version we are studying in class. We would like to thank the FOPs who supported us with the cost and also parents who drove on the day. We also thank Mrs Alberry and Mrs Bridges, our wonderful volunteers, who help us every week in class -  your support is very much appreciated.

In our literacy work, following on from the performance of the story, we have been creating story sticks, using different colours of wool to remind us of key parts of the tale. These will help the children to begin to re-tell the story next week.

The children  have also used alliteration to give themselves elf names and are greatly amused to see their own elves wearing the hats they created, on display!

In maths, we have been continuing with our work on 1 more and 1 less than a given number, ending on Friday with everyone playing a challenge game to apply what they have learnt.

Thank you to Mrs Goddard for visiting class on Friday to remind everyone how to wash their hands thoroughly - so very important at the moment with so many winter bugs around.

READING - we have noticed that not so many children are reading at home at the moment - this is crucial in order for your child to develop their reading skills, so please ensure that you do share their book with them as much as possible.
During the next week you may notice that we have new reading books in school. These will be even more closely matched to your child's learning of phonics and will provide an opportunity for them to practice their learning of phonics. They should be able to read the majority of words in the books which we send home, so do please allow them to practice. Thank you.

Things to remember for next week:
*PE kits should be in school every day please.
*Forest school clothes are needed every FRIDAY.
*Please write in WOW books when you notice something amazing.
*Please read every day with your child and record in reading records any comments you may have. Remember that your child receives a karate reading band each time they read 5 times at home.
*Please read the events diary on this website for dates.

*Bring Show and Tell on Friday 24th January - please bring an object made of fabric, wood or metal. You should tell your friends which material your object is made from and why that is a suitable material for purpose. Thank you.