Hello to all of our Nursery and Reception children and families!

Below you will find a plan with some ideas of activities you can do around the story 'Monkey Puzzle' by Julia Donaldson. 

You don't have to do all of the activities at once (there should be enough activities to last a week) and feel free to adapt the ideas to suit your child's needs and the resources you have at home. 

Nursery children don't need to look for the sight words (unless they are really interested in words already).

At school, our structured learning sessions are very short and children spend most of the time playing (inside and outside) so remember to do lots of this at home, too - you don't need to be learning from the plan all day!

You can also find links and notes about the daily recorded phonics or maths sessions for Reception children below.

We're really sorry we can't see you in school this week but please share some photos of what you are doing on Dojo and we hope to see you back in school very soon.

With warmest wishes,

Mrs Williams, Mrs Hobson, Mrs Savage and all the team 

PTA CHRISTMAS CARDS 

The PTA are organising another event for the children before Christmas.  This this time they are asking the children to design their own Christmas card.  If the children would like to take part, the designs are sent off to be printed professionally.  They are then sold to parents in time to use and send out for Christmas.  The children can have a go at the activity over half term bringing their designs back to school in the first week and there is no obligation to order or buy your child's cards if a design is submitted.

If you would like your child to take part in this activity please down load the template below and ensure the design is kept within the black border.  Also your child's name and class number need to be printed in capital letters in the boxes below the design.

When designing the card your child can use felt tips, crayons or paint and there are lots of ideas on line and on Pinterest.  The company that prints them have asked please do not use metallic or fluorescent paint or 3d materials as they do not come out well on the final design.

We hope you have fun with this over half term and we look forward to seeing the designs back in school when we return.

Thursday 15^th October

Today’s phonics session is about listening to the sounds in words which have been broken up (segmented) and then blending the sounds together to make the word. These are really important skills that children need in order to read and write (spell) words.

The children will need a pen, a cup, a book and a sock for the session today so please have these objects ready when you are watching the video.

Don’t worry if your child finds this hard as it might be the first time they have been introduced to these skills. We will be doing lots of work on this during the first week back after half term, before we introduce the letters and their corresponding sounds to the children.

Thanks for all the messages and photos you have sent so far and please keep these coming - we love hearing from you! 

Here is the link:

Wednesday 14th October 

Today’s activity is in 2 parts but helps the children tune into the sounds and patterns of words. Practising lots of activities like these will help the children with their phonics, reading and writing going forward.

The first part of the activity continues from Mrs Hobson’s activity yesterday and is a rhyming story. Can you listen out for the pairs of words that rhyme? Perhaps you can add your own ideas too.  Parents please feel free to pause the video to find more words that rhyme with the ones in the book.

The second part of the activity is making sounds with our voices and turning them into patterns.  Can they make their sounds into a pattern for example, ch, ch, boing, boing, repeating it several times?  You could also make a pattern for the children to copy, can they make one for you. Whatever you choose we hope you have fun.

Just a reminder to keep sending us photos we really do love seeing what the children have been doing whether it’s related to our activities or your own ideas. 

Here is the link.

Tuesday 13th October - Phonics: Rhyming

Below is the link to today's phonics session. Please watch the lesson with your child if you can and help them to focus and join in. 

Please praise your child for good listening and repeating the rhyming words, even if they can’t think of extra rhyming words themselves (we know that not all children can do this yet). If they think of nonsense words, that’s great (e.g. ship, zip, fip). Maybe you could come up with a list of silly nonsense rhyming words together (these do not need to be written down as this aspect of phonics is all about hearing sounds).

Please also note that we don’t expect the children to read the words on the cards in the video, they are just used for the pictures.

I have suggested some follow-up activities at the end of the video so please do send us a picture or a note on Dojo to let us know how you got on with this and to show us anything you’ve done at home. Maybe you could help your child to find some objects or pictures around the house that rhyme (e.g. a mug and a jug or a toy cat and a hat).

Some more stories for you to listen to and enjoy

(recorded during the first school closure)