We hope everybody has had great first week of home learning. This will be the last post of home learning before the two week Easter holidays. Thank you to all of the families who have managed to complete last weeks learning. If you need to, you can continue last weeks learning and spread this learning over the Easter holiday. Click here to see the Henleaze News blog post. This will be posted every Friday and included some top tips and websites to support you and your children during home learning. There is also a Henleaze Newspaper that you can contribute to by sending in pictures for the rest of the school community to see.

We would like to thank all of the families who have uploaded observations to 2Simple. It is great to see all of the activities and learning you have been doing at home. We have been able to link these to the EYFS curriculum, meaning they will be added to your child’s continuing learning diary. We are checking them daily and they are making us smile during these uneasy times. Click here to find out how to send us observations.

The most helpful thing for the children is to have a routine, so if you are able to a daily timetable that works for you this will support your child’s focus. We suggest starting the day doing PE with Joe Wicks.

Throughout all of these tasks encourage the children to talk to you about what they are doing. Ask open ended questions that require more than a yes or no answer. Explain the meaning of any new vocabulary. The expectation is that a child will focus and complete each task in one sitting.

Please continue to look at the websites (click here) and the home learning instructions (click here). They are regularly updated!

Reading tasks

• Continue reading by sharing any books that you have at home. Encourage the children to join in by blending regular words using the phonemes and digraphs that they have learn. They can also look out for any of the tricky words that they know.
• Practise phonics skills using Twinkl resources (‘Phase 3 worksheet’ and ‘Phase 4 worksheet’) in the shared folder. (Click here)
• Most children will be able to use the phase 3 resources to practise their phonics skills and some children will be able to use phase 4 .
• Practise reading tricky words. You can find the list in the shared folder, click here.
• Please continue to refer to the useful website links. We are continually updating it and recommend:
  • Tricky words songs
  • Phase 3 digraphs
  • Jolly phonics songs including digraphs

Reading suggestions

• Sharing story books – talking about the story and asking questions to develop comprehension skills e.g. what is happening? What is the story about? How are they feeling? What do you think might happen next?

Writing tasks

Linked to Understanding the World activity – see below

• Watch the video link for making chocolate nests:  Click here for video.  Make the chocolate nests together.
• Session 1: Draw lines in the blue writing book and write a list of the ingredients needed .
• Session 2: On lines write simple instructions for what you did. Start a new line for each instruction. For example: 1. Melt the chocolate. 2. Mix in the …. (cereal) and syrup. 3. Spoon it in the cases. 4. Put some eggs on the top.
• Draw a picture of yourself making the cakes.
• Letter formation sheet (l, t, j, i) . Find this sheet in the shared folder, click here.  

If you cannot make chocolate nests this activity can be adapted to any cooking that you can do together.

Guidelines for writing:

• The children should not copy the sentence but sound out the words using the phonemes they can hear and using tricky words that they have learnt.
• The spelling should be phonetically plausible -that means that you should be able to ‘read’ the word using those phonemes. E.g. orinj would be orange, choclt would be chocolate. If you can read the word you do not need to correct spellings.
• Tricky words – Use the list of tricky words to help children spell them correctly. If they can read it from the list, they can copy it down. Please draw lines and encourage your child to write on them.

Writing suggestions

• Name writing – Letter formation copied from name card/from memory.
• Spelling tricky words (List in shared folder, click here). Practise a few at a time and when they can do it from memory, they can move onto the next. N.B. Some children will be able to spell a few tricky words, other will be able to spell more.
• Continue writing a diary of activities you’ve done using simple sentences e.g. I went to the park with … / I made a cake with my mum.

Number tasks

• Daily number games on Number Gym: Please login and click ‘’Bond Builder’. You will need to enter your personal login. Then play games 1-5 in order. Click here to see instructions to log onto Number Gym.
• Daily counting to 20/Daily counting back from 20.
• Daily 1 more/1 less to 20. (E.g. 1 more than 3 is __ / 1 less than 12 is __)
• Writing numerals to 0-20.
• Click here to watch a video to help you count to 100 while getting fit!

We would love to see 2Simple observations of the activities below.

• If you have an Easter storybook, read it with your child. You can watch one here.
• (This is a Number and a Shape, Space and Measure task) Ask your child to cut out the eggs on the ‘Easter egg size ordering’ in the folder (click here). Order the eggs from smallest to largest. Use the language small, smaller, smallest, large, larger, largest. Using these eggs split them into two groups. Ask your child the questions below:
  • Which group has the most?
  • Which group has the fewest?
  • Have they been shared fairly?
  • How many are there?
  • What happens if I eat one? Can you write a number sentence to match? (e.g. 6 – 1 = 5).
• Use an empty 10-hole egg box, ice cube tray (or any other containers). Draw on the numbers to 10 in order and go hunting for tiny objects of that amount to put inside. For example, in the part that says 3, find 3 small things to put inside. While doing this, talk to your child and ask them if you will need smaller objects for bigger numbers.
• Using eggs, write addition number sentences up to 10/20. Try this with subtraction too. See examples below. You could use the ‘Easter egg counting and addition’ sheet in the folder if you do not have eggs.

• Take your phone or tablet out with you or on a walk around the house. Hunt for numbers and shapes in the environment. Click here and scroll to the bottom of this page to find a song to sing and some questions/prompts to ask your child. 
• Share equally mini eggs between Easter nests (as below in Understanding the World).

Number suggestions

• Fill in the missing numbers on the ‘Missing numbers’ sheet in the shared folder. (Click here)
• Complete the ‘Addition and subtraction colouring’ in the shared folder (Click here). While doing this, children can use counters/objects to support their calculations.
• Work through the ‘Easter maths workbook’ on the shared folder (Click here).
• Find the ‘Colour and count’ worksheet in the shared folder (Click here).
• Board games such as snakes and ladders, number lotto, dominoes, dice games.
• Number jigsaws.
• Number quizzes.
• Writing number sentences on whiteboards.

We use White Rose to support our planning. Please find some more ideas here if you wish. (Click here – select week 1!)

Shape, Space and Measure tasks

• While making chocolate nests, use the scales to measure out the ingredients. Encourage your child to share the mixture fairly between the cake cases and share the mini eggs equally too. (See Understanding the World task below).
• See ‘Easter egg size ordering’ task above in ‘Number tasks’. This is a Number and Shape, Space and Measure task.

Shape, Space and Measure suggestions

• Boil some real eggs and decorate them using paint. Encourage your child to decorate it in a pattern (zig-zags, wavy, stripes, spots). You can also add other decorations that you have at home. Talk to your child about the patterns they are using. Can they decorate it using a repeating pattern? This could be colour e.g. red, green, red, green or more complex red, orange, green, red, orange, green.
• Play games using boiled eggs with your child using a timer. For example, who can balance their egg for the longest while standing on one leg. Time it and talk to your child about the time they took. Can you stand on one leg with your egg in your hand while counting to 20/30/40? Can you do this while counting backwards from 20?
• There are some shape activities in the ‘Easter maths workbook’ on the shared folder. (Click here)

Understanding the World/Expressive Arts and Design

• Watch Cbeebies ‘Lets celebrate’  programmes about the Easter Story and ways of celebrating. (Please do this whatever your own beliefs as it is part of our RE curriculum). Click here for the videos. Talk to the children about how you celebrate Easter/Easter customs in your family.
• Make Easter cards. Use finger painting to create a picture of Spring chicks. Add detail with felt tip pens. Encourage the children to write in the cards. See example below:

• Make Easter nests. Watch this video, click here (same video as above in the writing section). Talk to the children about how and why the chocolate melts and changes from a solid to a liquid and then back to a solid again. Count out mini eggs if you have them and share them equally between the nests. (Link this to last weeks number tasks).
• Fill up empty containers with different materials such as pasta, rice, metal bolts and sand. Children can explore the different sounds they produce. Use these as shakers to accompany songs.
• Learn a new song. Click here to listen to Over in the Meadow.
•  Log in to Purplemash and explore the games and activities in the Minimash area. Click here to see instructions for parents.
• If you have not already, you could create a rainbow and stick it up in a window at the front of your house. Children have been doing this around the country to cheer passers-by up and offering a message of hope.
• Please click here to view the NW24 Art Competition. We would love to see your creative entries.

PSED

• Click here for a link to a story that has been written to help children have some understanding of the Corona virus and the current situation. Please look at it first then share it with your child and encourage them to talk about their feelings and worries.
• Try doing some mindfulness with your child. Click here to see Cosmic Kids Zen Den. This one is about thoughts but there are lots of others to try.
• Try some yoga. Click here to see the choices!

Physical development

• Go to iMoves click here. Scroll down and play a video to move to.
• Continue doing the daily workout with Joe Wicks at 9.00am on Youtube – PE with Joe. He has had as many as 2 million people joining in each morning!
• Find the fine motor and cutting activities named ‘Shape chick’ and ‘Egg colouring’ in the shared folder. Click here.