Weekly nursery rhyme - Each week we will now be setting a nursery rhyme for the children to learn off by heart (if they don't already), because knowing a bank of nursery rhymes by heart is so important.  This week's, in keeping with the fact that it is Children's Mental Health Week, we would like the children to learn and practise 'If You're Happy and You Know It!' - follow the link https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-if-youre-happy-and-you-know-it-clap-your-hands/z6rnmfr

You could try starting each day practising the nursery rhyme or before bed each night - a little and often approach always works best. ☺  Enjoy!

Reading – Please read one of the books you have been assigned on Rising Stars each day.  The idea is to read a book more than once to build up fluency.  Once you have read a book a couple/few times so you are more fluent, please complete the quiz at the end and move it to the ‘finished’ section.

Please also read key words daily as flashcards (should take 2-3 minutes)

Phonics-Watch the Alphablocks episode following the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01q0py1/alphablocks-series-3-22-how-now-brown-cow .Then, follow the link for an introduction to the second of this week’s phonemes (ow) https://youtu.be/lA4f5o53eWA.  You will need to print off the sheet below and cut the words up separately or write them on separate pieces of paper. Afterwards, play Education City Clown in Town.

English - Play Education City activity ‘Toy Box’ to practise reading tricky words.  Then, to practise segmenting for tomorrow’s task, play Meet an Alien on Education City.

Maths - Watch the video clip Week 3 Session 2 Comparing Length (https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/growing-6-7-8-week-3/) to compare different lengths – which piece of ribbon is longer/shorter?  How do you know?

• Task – Make some playdoh snakes that are longer/shorter.  Measure them to check with something that is around your house (e.g. pieces of pasta). https://wrm-13b48.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PDF-Growing-6-7-8-Session-2-Comparing-Length.pdf
• Extension- Compare the length of your longest and your shortest snake – how much longer is the longest snake than the shortest?  OR Experiment with different objects to measure the same snake – did they measure the same using different types of objects?  Why not?

Topic - This week is children’s mental health week 2021.  The theme is Express Yourself, so the rest of this week, we will be doing our activities around this theme, with the idea being to carry out enjoyable activities and express ourselves creatively, which is especially poignant in this difficult time we find ourselves in.

Watch the short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfbOkWFTRAw and talk about what you see in the video – how are these people expressing themselves?  This might be a difficult concept for young children to understand, so try and explain that it isn’t about being the best artist, or musician or dancer, it’s just about choosing the colours we like, drawing the pictures, patterns or shapes that we like, listening to or creating music we like, singing to our heart’s content or dancing around the front room like we just don’t care!  Doing what makes us happy.  Talk about what you like to do to make you happy – the colours you like to use, the activities you enjoy doing, the music you like listening to, the songs you like singing.  Why not do one of these activities today, something to make you happy, and post to Tapestry – we love to see your smiling faces! ☺