How has it been 14 weeks already? We’ve been home schooling for 12 weeks now and although we have had lots of fun learning and playing together. I know #JasperBean really misses playing and learning along side his peers. He got the chance to return to school for one day this week to find out who his teacher will be from September and start his transition period. My little boy who cried for over a week at drop off when he first started school was the first one to run to his teacher and lead the others into class. That‘s how much he misses and loves going to school! It was such a relief to see his happy face at pick up and to find out that he had the most wonderful day playing, learning and cleaning. It’s such a shame that it will be at least another 8 more weeks before he will step into school again.

Nevertheless, we have experienced how quickly time flies, so I’m sure we will have a busy summer. For now, we can‘t thank the school and his teacher enough for the variety of learning and inspiration they have given us to continue learning.

Note: #JasperBean is in Reception (age 4-5: EYFS), therefore his home learning is specific to him/his age. I have received permission to share parts of his home learning plan from his teachers.

English

We are fully into Phase 4 phonics which has a bunch of tricky words but no new sounds. Therefore we have been revising Phase 2 and 3 sounds, with a focus on “Consonant Blends”, such as “st”, “tr”, “nd”, “pt” etc.

•  Revised
  • First 100 High Frequency Words
  • Phase 3 Phonics
  • Phase 3 and phase 4 tricky words – These songs are very catchy and we love singing along to them.
• Phonics worksheets from Twinkl and Mrs Mactivity.
• Live Phonics from Twinkl Parents Group on Facebook
• We went from 8 legs to no legs for our minibeast adventure this week! Can you guess what it is? That’s right, it’s the snail!! This week we read/watched the story “Snail Trail“:
  • • Discussed all the places the snail visited and the silvery trail it left behind.
    • Looked at all the positional language and description (adjective) raised in the book.
    • Came up with some other ideas of where else the snail could have gone.
  • You can buy the “Snail Trail” book from here.
• Writing challenge – Wrote about last weeks book “Arrgh Spider!”
• Jasper loves storytelling, so this week, we started joining “Tiny T’s Storytelling Theatre” on Facebook. It is very inclusive and interactive with puppets, props and dress-up. Perfect for his age. They are live 3 times a week for 45 minutes and this weeks story were “You Can’t Scare a Princess“, “The Dinosaur Who Pooped Out a Planet” and “The Pirates Next Door“. We were familiar with all the stories featured this week, so it was very engaging and lovely to hear someone that wasn‘t me telling the story.

• Independent Reading
  • I don’t want to eat bugs (currently free on Kindle)
  • The Detective Dog

Maths

• This week we revised calculating as part of our Early Learning goal.
  • Doubling and halving
  • Discussed how halving and sharing into 2 groups is the same and how it‘s possible to share into more groups.
  • Experimented with different numbers to see whether they can all be shared equally.
  • Played “Fair Shares“ on PBS Kids

There are a lot of activities and worksheets on Twinkl and Mrs Mactivity (free and paid subscription).

TWO great FREE resources to support and supplement our work.

• National Oak Academy– An online classroom for reception age to year 10.
• BBC Bitesize – Online study support resource for school-age students in the United Kingdom.
  

Some activities

• Daily PE with Joe
• Artwork: From Eric Carle‘s colourful seahorse (week 5) to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapels (week 10) to Matisse “The Snail” inspired collage this week.
• Created some snails with marbles, pasta shells and play-doh
• Movie night – Watched a racing snail: Turbo
• Virtual rollercoaster
• Designed some snail shells and turned them into spinning tops
• Tractor ride around the world and into space
• Snail race track
• Scootering in the park
• Music jamming
• Building with Magnatiles/Magformers
• Practice Chinese writing
• Brain training on Nintendo Switch

Running out of activities? Why not have a go at one of these tried and tested boredom busters and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram for activities and inspiration!

Board games

These are some of the board games we played this week:

• Blokus
• Dino Dump

What will we get up to next week?

Thank you for reading and until next time…  have fun and happy social distancing!

Love MsMamaBean.

Here’s a quick link to our Home Learning Diary. What a journey it has been!

Disclaimer: English and Maths support links and suggestions are part of the children’s at-home learning plan provided by their teacher during social distancing/lockdown. I have only added supplement worksheets, reading and activities to support his learning.