YR Headlines from Cheetah and Leopard Class Staff

A message from Miss Newman Hello to all the lovely Leopard and Cheetah children and families. I hope you are all well and still smiling, and of course staying safe. Whilst being at home I've been keeping busy by home schooling my own children, helping them complete lots of work and learn lots of new things. We have had lots of fun working on our Maths and English, learning about our bodies in Science and volcanoes in Geography. We have done lots of craft too and we especially enjoyed baking lots of cakes, scones and pizza, which were all very yummy! I love looking at your blog pictures, seeing all the lovely things that you have all been doing at home. It is so nice to see you all enjoying your learning and practising all those skills that you learnt at school. Keep up the good work! Hope to see you all soon,

Miss Newman

General InformationWe hope you enjoy this week’s learning. Thank you for sharing all your lovely pictures of the activities you have been taking part in at home. We love seeing photographs on the blog of children enjoying their learning. You are all doing an amazing job, keep up the good work and please keep practising letter formation, it is crucial to your child’s development in writing and other areas of the curriculum!

There will be an activity pack on the blog, provided by a local company ‘Made in Ashford’ regarding the 75th Anniversary of V E Day plus a bunting template if you wish to take part in decorating your home in and around the village of Headcorn!

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

Physical Education and Staying HealthyIn Early Years, it is so important for children to develop their gross motor skills (large movements) as well as developing their fine motor skills (small movements). We hope you all enjoyed building your own obstacle course last week and hope you had lots of family fun, timing each other to complete it safely.

This week we would like to concentrate on developing fine motor skills as this is crucial in the development and progression of hand and eye coordination, and handwriting. Children need to develop the muscles in their little hands and fingers to be able to hold their pencil correctly and control it effectively. This will then help them to be able to produce neat handwriting. Listed below are some exercises and games that you may wish to try:

1. Squeezing playdough, manipulating it into different shapes by simply using your hands and fingers

2. Threading activities, threading pasta onto a lace3. Tweezer games, collecting small beads with tweezers, transferring beads from one pot to another

without dropping them 4. Placing the correct number of pegs around the side of a paper plate or piece of card, using fingers

to open and close pegs is a great way to develop and really strengthen, hand and finger muscles.

The Lenham School ChallengeDon’t forget that every week The Lenham School are running weekly physical challenges. Details of each challenge can be found on the class blog. If you would like to share any photos, we would love to see them!

PE Challenge ResultsCongratulations go to Sophia P and Bailey W for last week’s challenge! Your certificates are on their way to you. Well done, keep up the great work!

This Photo by Unknown

Author is licensed under

CC BY-NC-ND

This Photo by Unknown

Author is licensed under

CC BY-NC-ND

MathsThis week in Maths, we would like children to practise recognising money coins. Pictures of each coin will be provided on the blog along with money activities. Children should be able to recognise 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 coins and begin to understand each coin’s worth. For example, by placing 5 1p coins next to a single 5p coin, this shows children that the amounts are the same and equal to each other.When children are familiar recognising all the coins, they may wish to make their own shop with items that they can sell. Children could write some price tags and a price list for items in their shop! (Let’s hope we have enough spare change floating about to play shops!)

Alternatively, you can find lots of exciting money games at www.topmarks.co.uk Some of our favourites that we use in the classroom are ‘Coins Game’ and ‘Toy Shop Money Game’.

You could even try some coin rubbings with a pencil or crayon, to help children recognise each coin. Maybe even design your own ‘Money Tree’…now wouldn’t that be nice…we can live in hope! Please also see https://www.thenational.academy for some good maths fluency lessons.

Please also continue using Numbots as this will help with maths fluency.

Our Maths superstars this week are: Robert A for passing his ‘Rust’ level; Zayla C & Millie R for passing their ‘Iron’ level; Baxter C for unlocking the ‘Numbot Challenge’ mode!A special congratulations this week goes to Sophia P for being an exemplary ‘Maths Superstar’ for not only completing all Numbot levels but starting again for extra practice and gaining her 2nd ‘Tin’ level!Well done everyone, keep up the great work!

PhonicsWow, this list of sounds that you now know is getting longer and longer to type each week! Children need to know these sounds at speed, off by heart, to support their development in reading.m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p, g, o, c, k, ck, u, b, f, e, l, h, sh, r, j, v, y, w, th, z, ch, qu, x, nk, ng, ay ee, igh and ow.Our focus sound for this week is ‘ow,’ from Set 2 sounds. As the children have learnt so many sounds, it

is very important that they revisit all sounds regularly and practise writing words and sentences using a variety of sounds from Set 1 and Set 2. Can you try making the sound ‘ow’? The Read Write Inc picture card for this sound is showing a snowy day with a child blowing the snow. The phrase to help you remember the sound is ‘ow’ Blow the snow. We describe the ‘ow’ sound as two special friends holding hands to make one sound, an orange and the worm. Why not design your own Speed Sound card and picture for the ‘ow’ sound, we would love to see some posted on the blog!You may wish to make ‘ow’ word cards such as blow, slow, crow, mow, flow, blowing, flowing, mowing, snow, slow, tow etc and hide them around the house or in the garden to make an ‘ow’ word treasure hunt. See how many words you can find and read, all by yourself! Don’t forget to practise some alien words too such as klow, trowk, zowp and fowg.

Here is a link to Mr Thorne and Geraldine the Giraffe learning the ‘ow’ sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPtNBSfCkJA&t=3

You could also use www.phonicsplay.co.uk where you will find the ‘Obb and Bob’ game to sort the real words using the ‘ow’ sound from the alien words. Great for practising reading!Don’t forget that Ruth Miskin’s daily Read Write Inc sessions are on YouTube, as detailed last week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo7fbLgY2oA_cFCIg9GdxtQ and Facebook.

ReadingFor this week’s reading challenge, you will need to spot all the ‘ow’ sounds (blow the snow), hiding in the story! You will find the ‘ow’ story on the class blog later this week. Enjoy!

WritingCan you practise using the ‘ow’ sound in your sentence writing? Have a try at writing ‘I can blow the snow.’, ‘The crow is in the snow.’, ‘I can do a slow mow.’ Or can you think of your own sentences using ‘ow’? Remember how to form the letters that make ‘ow’ correctly. If the children need a reminder, say:“o is up to the top of the orange’s head, back around to the top and give him a little bit of flat hair, w goes up to the top of the worm, new line down, new line up, new line down and new line up”. Don’t forget to practise reading and writing your ’red words’! These can be found on the class blog.

Try not to rush when you write, as you should try to make your letters as neat as possible. Please remember to hold your pencil correctly when writing and sit up nicely in your seat. Can you sit your writing on a line? These things will all help to make your writing nice and neat!

Other IdeasNext week, we are planning to provide you with some ideas to engage children in reading and writing activities. One of the best ways to do this is to follow their interests! There will be some target practice ideas, using lots of different words. You will need a ball, some card, pens, paper and some targets! Details to follow next week!