01.03.21 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone!

One more week to go and then I promise I will put that iPad away and not subject you all to my films anymore. I can't wait to get the Pearlies back into school and to teach them again in person. I'm sure it will be lovely for us all to get a small bit of normality back again in our lives.

Below are some ideas for this week's home learning, these are the activities we would have been doing had we been in school.

• Sharing the story "Up and Down" by Oliver Jeffers. This is another story about the Boy and the Penguin. You can find this story here.
• Thinking about friendship and what makes a good friend. The Boy and the Penguin are clearly good friends, maybe you could draw a picture of and/or write something you like to do with your friends and share you ideas with me. You could use this sheet to record your ideas.
• Continuing our latest phase in White Rose Maths - "Building 9 and 10". A link to the films for this week can be found here. On Monday they talk about the Ten in the Bed rhyme. We sing this at school using the version that you can find here. 
• Continuing our Phase 3 Phonics work, learning a new tricky word and recapping some of our vowel digraphs. Monday's film is in the folder and the others will be recorded next week.
• Starting to find out information about penguins, for example by finding out about where they live. Here are some starting points that we would have used; three episodes of Andy's Wild Adventures. There is an episode about Emperor Penguins, one about Chinstrap Penguins and one about African Penguins. 

There are also some activities by Oliver Jeffers for this book. They can be found in the English section of our Home Learning Folder.

On Thursday it is World Book Day and had we been in school we would have been marking it in some way. SO with this is mind, I would like to challenge you all to find a favourite story and read it in an usual place! I would love to see any photos of your unusual places.

Please remember I am only ever an email or phone call away. If there is anything I can help with then please do let me know.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, take care

Miss Wakefield

22.02.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Welcome back everyone! I hope you have all had a lovely enjoyable half term. This half term we will be working on a new project called "Lost and Found". This project is based on books by the author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers. 

Below are some ideas for this week's home learning, these are the activities we would have been doing had we been in school.

• Sharing the story "Lost and Found" by Oliver Jeffers. You can find this story here. We would have also discussed what being an author and illustrator means and would have watched this clip about Oliver Jeffers.
• Drawing and/or painting pictures of the Boy and the Penguin. I have added 2 activity sheets to the English section of our Home Learning folder. Oliver Jeffers also shares how to draw a penguin like the one in his books, this step by step guide is also in the folder. 
• Writing about the Boy or the Penguin, describing the character and saying what they looked like. I will film an example of what I would have done with the children and add it to the English folder. 
• Making our own boats using junk modelling materials. CBeebies have a great little clip showing how to make one using a drinks bottle. You can see it here.
• Talking about the repeating pattern on the Penguin's umbrella and then creating our own repeating patterns. We would have played this game too. 
• Learning the last 3 sounds from Phase 3 in our Phonics sessions. These sessions will be filmed from Monday and uploaded to our Home Learning Folder as soon as they have been recorded.
• Starting the new phase in White Rose Maths - "Building 9 and 10". A link to the films for this week can be found here. The book "Ten Black Dots" is used on Thursday, a version of this book can be found here.

Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we will all know when the children will get to return to school, I can't wait to be with them all again. In the meantime please remember I am only ever an email or phone call away.

Take care

Miss Wakefield

08.02.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Well done for completing another week. We are now just 1 week away from half term, which also means this is our last week for our Dinosaur Project. I wonder how many of you did take part in the RSPB Birdwatch last weekend? As promised here are my results...I managed to see 11 pigeons, 4 wood pigeons, 7 sparrows and 2 blackbirds...along with my 6 chickens, who obviously don't count!! I was really impressed with how many I'd seen.

As I mentioned above, this is our last week for the Dinosaur project. It also sees the start of Chinese New Year on Friday so we would have been learning about this too. 

Below are some ideas for this week's home learning, these are the activities we would have been doing had we been in school.

We would have been:

• Learning 3 new vowel digraphs and 1 tricky word in our Phonics sessions. There are 4 new films in the Home Learning Folder.
• Finishing the phase "Growing 6, 7 and 8" in our White Rose Maths sessions. A link to the films for this week can be found here. The book Jasper's Beanstalk is used on Wednesday, if you do not have this book a version of it can be found here.
• Learning about fossils, as this is where we get our information about dinosaurs from. We would have watched this film from the Natural History Museum and then talked about some of my fossils that I've found in Dorset. The film can be found here.
• Continuing making our dinosaur book, as this would have taken place over 2 weeks, as mentioned in last week's blog. It has been lovely to see the writing and books that the children have been doing about dinosaurs.
• Creating our own fossils using salt dough. There is a film from the Natural History Museum that shows you how to make an ammonite fossil. It can be found here, or alternatively you may decide to use some dinosaurs to create a fossil, there are some ideas here.
• Learning about Chinese New Year. Chinese This year it is the year of the Ox as each year is named after a different animal. We would have shared this story and also watched the film clips that can be found here to find out more about the celebrations. In school we would have joined in with Dragon dancing and engaged in other creative activities linked to Chinese New Year using these ideas.
• Continuing with our Vocabulary Ninja words, there are another 5 in the folder. (Numbers 16-20).

In school we are in the process of updating the school website. As a result I have created a new area for Early Years. I would be very grateful if you could take a look at it and be my guinea pigs, letting me know what you think and in particular, if any part of it isn't working for you. The new Early Years site can be found by clicking on this link: Early Years site. Thank you in advance for your support.

Finally, please see the message below from Mrs Hurley and it would be great if you could complete the survey. Thank you.

Dear Parents and Carers, 

We’ve all had to adapt to new ways of working recently, so I wanted to take the opportunity to say what an amazing job you’re doing supporting your child’s wellbeing and learning during this time. To help us make sure we’re providing the right level of support for you and your child, we’d like to know your thoughts on our approach to remote home learning. Please take the time to complete the survey on this link: Feedback Survey

It should take you between 5 and 10 minutes to complete. Please fill out the survey by Thursday 11th February 5pm. Your feedback is very important to us. 

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Hurley

Gosh, what a long blog post this week!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, maybe this time we really will get the snow!

Take care

Miss Wakefield