Hello lovely families! Our Easter ‘holidays’ are over and we are back to what would have been your child’s last term in Reception. We do hope that you are safe and well and that have been able to enjoy a bit of the lovely sunshine from your gardens or walks. We are missing the children very much, but we are enjoying seeing the fabulous activities you have been doing as families and the wonderful learning your children are doing when they cook, plant, draw, play, and even when they help out with household chores!
I’m going to place some links and a couple of ideas below for home learning, but remember that children are learning all the time. If they are cooking with you, for example, they are learning science and maths as they weigh, measure and mix ingredients, and observe changes. They will also be working on their speaking, listening and understanding skills. Outdoors there are so many opportunities for your children to be mini scientists; the RSPB has great activities to do with children: https://www.rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/for-kids/games-and-activities/activities/ As does the Wildlife Trust: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wild-activities-families-and-schools
There are many useful resources online to support with maths in particular: White Rose Maths has fun daily maths plans for each year group; the Reception one this week is based on the book Supertato, which the children have all enjoyed at school. You don’t need to have read the book yourself. https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/
You can also sign your child up for free to Carol Vorderman’s Maths Factor site, which has useful games and activities via the Parent Zone: https://www.themathsfactor.com/schools/
At school this week, we would have been recapping numbers; in particular recognising teen numbers (especially the ‘tricky’ numbers that children find difficult to recall: 11, 12, 13, 15 and 20). Counting forwards and backwards within twenty is a useful skill as it helps children to add and subtract quickly by counting on or backwards from a given number. Songs are a great way of doing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShqXL-zfLxY
At home, you could hide numbers to 20 on bits of paper around the house for your child to go on a number hunt. Can they put the numbers they have found in the right order?
You could use food to find one more and one less than a given number, for example, using a snack your child is eating. They could line up twenty raisins or crisps and say one less each time they eat one.
In phonics we would have been recapping the digraphs we have taught so far. Please encourage your child to recognise and write the digraphs as well as write words/sentences that contain these. It is really important to ensure the children are forming these letters correctly too so please check this as your child writes.
Ideas for literacy are to write captain Tom Moore a birthday card. You will see the information for this on our school website. Please share your cards to tapestry too 🙂
Read a book with your grownup regularly. We have sent a list of great websites that you can read books online so please make use of these. It is just as important for you to read stories to your children so please continue to do this too.
Play a game on phonics play website. This is a fantastic resource and we can’t recommend it enough. Select “phase 3” for the appropriate level.
The Early Learning Goals for some of the areas mentioned in this post are linked below for your information.
Miss Laing and Miss Ward
