Hi everyone,
I hope you are all keeping well during this strange time.
I have put together some ideas and resources that could be used to keep your children busy and learning at home. I hope they are in some way helpful. I know that a lot of children miss the routine of school and learning so hopefully some of the ideas below will be useful. I have not assigned specific work so feel free to pick and choose from some of the ideas below. The children all have their homework folders with them so should continue to practice their words and I have given them a few pages to do in the maths at home book (see below).
Getting the children to do a little bit of reading or writing daily will help them to retain what they have already learned and build on the progress they have made so far this year. Remember that although they are not at school, this time at home is also a valuable learning experience, whether they are doing chores to help around the house, gardening, baking, exercising or finding new and creative ways to keep busy and entertained.
To all senior infants, I miss you all and I’m looking forward to seeing you all soon and hearing about what you’ve been getting up to. Be good, help out at home and get lots of fresh air and exercise!
Ms Kiely J
Reading
The most important thing you can do at home to help your child’s reading is to keep them reading for enjoyment from their own collection of books at home. It might be helpful to assign a 15 minute slot each day dedicated to some kind of reading time.
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/books/free-ebooks/
This website has lots of graded readers which you can choose from to suit your child’s level. They are similar to the books the children read at home for homework. You will need to register for an “At Home” account but it is all free.
Continue to practise the sightwords your child has in their homework folder. Here are a few more activities you could try to keep it interesting:
- Word Hunt: Choose 12 words from your childs word bag. The children should then look in books, magazines, newspapers etc to see how many of these words they can find.
Lay some of the wordcards out on a table like a pathway (see picture below). Players take it in turns to roll a dice , then move their counter that number of places along the word pathway. They must read each of the words they have passed. If they cannot read all the words they only move as far as the last words they can read. Practise the ones they found difficult so they should know them on their next turn. First player to the end of the pathway is the winner.
Make a 3x3 or 4x4 grid. Fill the grid with a selection of your childs words. Each player takes a turn to read a word and if read correctly puts either an x or an o on that word.
Alternative version: Put all the word cards upside down. First player chooses a word. If they can read it, they write it into a space on a blank xs and os grid in a particular colour. The next player does the same but uses a different colour to write their words. The first player to get three words fo their colour written in a row is the winner.
If you have the game connect 4 you can use this, if not you can draw your own simple grid on a piece of paper, and use two different coloured sets of objects as markers eg. lego blocks, or use two different coloured markers/pencils/crayons to simply colour in the squares on the grid as you go.
Place the word cards upside down in a pile or in a container where they cannot be seen. On your turn, choose a card, if you can read the word you get to add a piece to the connect 4 game.
(something similar could be done with a game of Jenga. Read a word to get a go!)
Make your own connect 4 game if you don’t have one.
- Outdoor/active sight word practise
Get the children to make larger sight word cards to place in different places outside e.g. use masking tape to stick to the wall, path, windows etc. Call out words and have the children run to that word. Make it into a race with mam/dad/borthers and sisters!
You could add in other instructions to get in a bit more exercise. Eg. Run to “there” and do 5 jumping jacks.
- Write sightwords on ground with chalk/ make words with pebbles/ trace in sand.
- Online games and activities:
https://www.abcya.com/games/dolch_sight_word_spelling
https://www.abcya.com/games/dolch_sight_word_bingo
http://www.cookie.com/kids/games/sight-words.html
https://www.spellingcity.com/ You need to register for a parent account on this one but it lets you input your own words so they could be sightwords or words using a particular phonics pattern eg. sh words. It creates lots of different games to practise your words.
http://mathandreadinghelp.org/kids_games/hangman.html
There are lots of apps out there for practising sightwords too. Just search “sight words” in the app store.
Phonics:
The children should revise their letter sounds as we do daily at school. I have included a grid of all the letter sounds, you could use it on screen, print out or draw out your own. Get the children to say the letter name, do the action and make the sound. (There are three new sounds included at the end which some children may not be familiar with yet.)
You could also try different activities with the grid.
- Point to the sound at the start of dog; point to the sound in the middle of boat; point to the sound at the end of lunch.
- You could also make flashcards for these letter sounds and apply them to some of the sightwords games described above.
- Eye Spy something beginning/ending in …
- Give children a blank grid and call out letter names and sounds for them to fill in.
Blending
Please continue to practice the words on the front sheet of the pack I gave all children on our last day in class. This will help greatly with their blending. You might like to make up some more of your own using the letter sounds I have given you above.
To increase the challenge you could call out some of these words for the children to write or include them in a simple sentence. If they are unsure of the spelling, encourage them to check on their “feely fingers”.
Below are some links to some online games to help the children practise their phonics. The games get harder as you go down the list.
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/Garden_Bugs_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/The_Phonic_Ferret_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/hanging_monkeys_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/Skating_Penguins_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/Save_The_Whales_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/Crab_Catcher_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/Picture_Ships_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/Rhyming_Fish_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/Word_Castle_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/The_Hula_Pool_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/The_Clouds_Game_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/The_Game_Show_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/download/live.asp?swf=story_files/The_Front_Page_US.swf
http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.asp?swf=story_files/The_Big_Sticky_US.swf
As mentioned on the last school newsletter, twinkl.ie is a fantastic online resource which has offered free access to parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. You will find lots of games, worksheets and activities on every topic but I find it particularly good for phonics.
Writing:
Try to encourage the children to do a little bit of writing. This could be writing sightwords, spellings you call out, letter sounds you call out all as mentioned above. At this stage we have covered all capital letters as far as S so they could practise these too.
Get them to make letters with playdough, write letters in playdough, trace them in a plate of salt or sugar, write with chalk outside, paint them etc.
Colouring, drawing, tracing, join the dots activities etc will all help their fine motor skills.
News: Encourage the children to write their news once or twice in the week on a piece of paper and draw a picture to go with it. They could make them into a little book to show myself and the other children when we return to school. We would love to see what everyone has been getting up to.
Maths
Revision:
- Write numerals 0-9 correctly.
- Sound of number: children close their eyes and listen to a sound (e.g. claps, coins dropping into a cup etc) They must count how many of that sound they hear and write the number.
- Write the number that is one more or one less than…
- Give the children a few numbers and get them to write them in order from smallest to biggest or biggest to smallest.
- Practise simple sums to 10 on a numberline. You can find simple ones online that could be printed or you could make one of your own 0-10.
- Make a 10 frame to solve some number problems. (see below)
This week in maths we would be covering The Story of 10
- Practise writing the number 10.
- Find things around the house that come in groups of 10
- Find all the different ways of making ten. See below for how you can improvise with some household objects. The children are well used to doing this at school for other numbers.
**Maths at Home book: (in homework folder) pages 28, 29, 30.