This week we are carrying on focusing our work on ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers. If you do not have access to the book, we have a link to a video of it for you to watch instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbyUrb0X5iU

Don’t forget we are start our live lessons via Microsoft TEAMs this week. All of the login information can be found in last week’s newsletter. If you have any questions please get in touch. We have made a timetable below so you can see what lessons we will be covering and when:

There are more activities below than we have been setting in previous weeks but please don’t worry! The activities are what we will be covering in the live lessons, so if your child is attending them you will not have to worry about completing them yourself. With the live lessons we will aim to give them the input then set them off for a 15 minute activity to complete themselves.

Even though we will be seeing the children over TEAMs we would still love you to continue uploading their work on Tapestry, this is how we can continue to track their learning journey. We are getting so many pictures and videos which are so lovely to see! Keep them coming!

Literacy- Read or watch the story of The Way Back Home. This week you are going to be creating your own aliens. We have set this as a task to complete on DB primary so it is easy to find. You will have to think about what you want your alien to look like and select the colours you want it to be. Be imaginative! It can be as crazy as you like!

Once you have drawn your alien, have a good look at it. What colour is it? How many legs does it have? Is it furry? Is it slimy? Does it have tentacles? Tell a grown up or one of your toys about your alien.

You will now need to write some sentences to describe your alien. Think about how you describes them to you grown-up/toy. Don’t forget to use finger spaces and full stops! Remember – we are not expecting all of the words to be spelt correctly! We want you to write down the sounds you can hear in each word. Here is an example:

Numeracy- This week we are learning all about a new number. Here is the link to the Numberblocks episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08pgksd/numberblocks-series-2-six .

Now it’s time for a game! You can play by yourself or with brothers/sisters/grown-ups. We would like you to find a dice (if you don’t have a dice you can draw the dots from a dice on some scrap pieces of paper.) and roll it. You need to jump as many times as there are dots on the dice. Can you tell how many dots there are without counting them? You can change the action when playing the game. Instead of jumps you could do hops, claps or stomps.

Literacy- Now that you have described your alien, it is time to name it! You will have to think of an alien word for its name, as it is an alien! Don’t forget to sound out your silly alien word and write it down! If you are finding it tricky to come up with a name, you could play some rounds of itsey bitsey bumble bee with real and alien words to give you some ideas. We can’t wait to hear your funky alien names!

Maths- Here is the White Rose video: https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/growing-6-7-8/ . Make sure to only watch the first video (Composition of 6) the rest of the videos we will be covering over the next few weeks. The story of ‘Six Dinner Sid’ is mentioned in the video. Here is the story online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XAdTJCtgTs . We would like you to draw your own houses on a piece of paper. You will need to draw 6, just like in the story and write numbers 1-6 on the doors. Now you will need to cut them out. Can you put the houses in the correct order?

Understanding of the World- Using a non-fiction book on space or the internet, we would like you to think back to some of the things you wanted to find out about space. Is there anything we haven’t covered yet that you would like to know. Make some notes about what you find out. Can you write down your favourite/most interesting fact?

Maths challenge- Below is a grid we use a lot in school. You can either draw it out yourself or print it out. Now using cars, blocks, chocolates etc can you fill in the table? You can do this lots of times, how about if your number is 4. What is one more? What is one less? Now try it with 6! What is one more/one less?

Maths- Watch the following numberblocks episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08q4g7y/numberblocks-series-2-counting-sheep

We would like you to find different ways of grouping the number 6. Around the house find 6 objects. They would be anything, 6 pencils, 6 socks, 6 teddies, 6 blocks or even 6 sheep like in the video! Now, can you put the objects into groups of 3? It might be a good idea to count out 3 of your objects and put them in a group and continue until there are no objects left. Once you have split them into groups of 3, what do you notice? How many groups are there? Are the groups equal? Now put them in one big group again. Can you split the objects into groups of two? Again, it might be easier to count out two objects and move them into a group and continue until they are all gone. Keep trying to group them in different ways. How many groups can you come up with?

Understanding of the world investigation- During your fact-finding you might have learnt that the sun can help make rainbows in the sky when it rains. We have a science experiment that you can do at home to make your own rainbow!

You will need:

A shallow pan, water, a torch/sunlight, a piece of paper and a mirror- optional

What to do:

Fill the shallow pan about half way full with water. Place the mirror in the water at an angle. Shine the light into the water where the mirror is under water (or, using the sunlight, bring the pan and mirror outside so the sun can shine on the mirror underwater) Hold the white paper above the mirror; adjust the angle until you see the rainbow appear!

Creative- Don’t forget, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to paint your planet you made from paper mache last week! We are very much looking forward to seeing them.

Phonics- We will be continuing to upload the phonics videos each day and are learning diagraphs! If you would like any extra phonics practice you could play itsey bitsey bumble bee or go on word hunts with real and alien words. Here are some examples:, cul, dot, deg, elk, epp, fig, fub, gap, goc, hit, huv, ill, lum, mug, mec, neck, nej, pet, pos, quick, quev, rat, rok, sat, sef, tub, toff, up, ulf, vet, vub, wet, wox, yes, yozz, zip, zev

Home Learning EYFS Week Beginning: 11^th January 2021

This term we are learning all about Space! Over the course of the term we will learn all about what is in our sky. This week we will be looking at the book ‘The way back Home’ by Oliver Jefferies. If you do not have access to the book, we have a link to a video of it for you to watch instead  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbyUrb0X5iU

Reading & Writing- This week we would like you to concentrate on reading and writing your tricky words! We would like to you to practice recognising and writing the Phase 3 tricky words on post its. An adult could then hide the Phase 3 or/and Phase 4 tricky words around the house. How many can you hunt for and recognise? Can you write any of them without any support?

Writing – After reading or watching the story of The way back home, have a think about what it would be like to meet an alien! What would you ask them? Maybe you would like to find out how they got here? Where did they come from? Why does it have antennae’s? Why does it need so many eyes? What does it eat? Discuss this with an adult and then write down what you would like to know using your phonetic sounds. Remember, we are not expecting you to write it perfectly, we are expecting you to use your robot arms to sound it out.

For example: What do you eat?      May look more like this: wot du yoo eet?

Numeracy - This week we are recapping our number bonds to 5. At school we learn our numbers with the help of the Numberblocks! Here is the Numberblocks episode we are focussing on:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08dmn88/numberblocks-series-1-hide-and-seek

Here is a video following the scheme of work we use. You will need to click on 'Alive in Five! - Week 2'  https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/ and complete the activities, don’t forget to upload them to Tapestry!

Creative: Last week, you made your own fabulous pictures of the night sky. This week we want you to think about the boy in space in the story, how did he feel when he landed on the moon? He needed his torch to see because it was so dark! We would like you to have some fun this week and make you own dark den maybe using towels or sheets, can you make it so dark that you would need a torch inside? Maybe if you have any, you could put some glow in the dark stars inside? We are looking forward to seeing these :D

Creative

Watch the video about our solar system from last week. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zdrrd2p/articles/ztsqj6f Can you remember all of the planets name? Which is your favourite? Why? This week, we would like you to create your own planet! At school, we were going to use paper mache to do this and if you can at home, then great. For those of you who are unaware what paper mache is, you simply blow up a balloon, tear up strips of newspaper and smooth on watered down PVA glue. The balloon will then need to dry for several days before painting it. However, if these resources aren’t available to you, maybe you could use junk modelling, plastcine or playdough!

Understanding of the world- On Earth there is an invisible force called gravity! This pulls everything down but in Space, there is none, so everything floats around! We have a science investigation to set you this week superstars, we would like you to find things that float! Maybe you could find some of these things when you go on a walk? Throw them in the air, what gently floats to the ground? What can you find? How many items will you find? Where will you find them? Can you write them down using your phonetic sounds?