Class News

End of unit quizzes

Have a go at our quizzes to see what you can remember from the Science and Geography learning this half term.

• Science quiz
• Geography quiz

5/6M writing 

Bella, Leiyah and Olivia have sent in their writing from Mr Owen’s lessons. It’s great to see your pride in presentation hasn’t faltered. 

Hall of home learning fame 

Thank you for sending me your wonderful science work this week. I was over the Moon with the response to Mr Freeman’s lesson. 

Week Commencing 08.02.2021 Home Learning

Story Link activities to select throughout the week:

Literacy

1. Be a friend to Mr Wolf and make a shopping list for him. You could make a list of ingredients for him to make his pancakes. Or you might make a list for him to make something else delicious. (Pizza, fruit salad etc)
2. Draw and label two characters from the book.

Understanding the World

Spend some time watching this video about wolves click here

1. What do you notice about the wolves?
2. How many babies does a mother wolf usually have?
3. What do wolves eat?
4. What helps wolves to keep warm?
5. How many teeth do wolves have?

Expressive Arts and Design

Make a stack of pancakes out of playdough. Can you serve them at you own café with different toppings? How much will each pancake cost? Can people buy drinks at your café too?

Click here for the no cook play dough recipe.

Make a wolf mask or picture!

Maybe an adult in your house will help you to make your own delicious pancakes. What topping might you choose?

Using construction toys, can you build Mr Wolf’s Village and the houses for all of the different characters.

Physical Development

Get Moving Outside! Why not take your numbered pancakes, from the Maths activity, outside. Hide them in the garden then find them. Take a number and match it with objects e.g. 3 leaves. Do laps of your garden to match a number. Make an obstacle course and use your numbered pancakes at each station.

Joe Wicks is hosting his live PE sessions, 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 9am) You can subscribe to his channel here for alerts. A great way to keep fit at home!

Zoom Meetings

It has been terrific seeing you on Zoom! You (and your adults) were brilliant at Dough Disco. For our next Zoom session we are going to do some movement play to music. Please could you bring a small soft toy and a little blanket/pillow case/scarf.

Remote Learning 08.02- Mr Wolf’s Pancakes

This week, we’re going to find out what happens when Mr Wolf decides to cook some delicious pancakes. Listen to the story ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’ and look at the illustrations in the video carefully as you watch. You might spot some familiar characters!

Here’s are this week’s activities to download in a PDF.

Reading

• Can you spot any other story characters that you recognise? Which story are they from? Have you read it?
• Why does Mr Wolf need some help at the beginning of the story?
• Were Mr Wolf’s friends helpful and kind? Why do you think they didn’t want to help?
• What happened when Mr Wolf started to cook his pancakes?
• Can you remember what happened at the end of the story? Do you think Mr Wolf should have shared his pancakes?

Phonics

Being able to copy a rhythm is part of our Phase One phonics learning; we often play simple ‘copy me’ type games as we’re waiting to wash our hands. Today, you’ll need two sticks or wooden utensils, or anything else that is similar! Listen to Mrs Gosper and then have a go at tapping the rhythms too.

Phonics – Rhythm pattern sticks

 Mark-Making

• Mr Wolf said he wasn’t very good at writing. Can you help him write out a shopping list for going to the shops? What does he need to make his pancakes?
• If Mr Wolf wanted to have a pancake party and invite some friends to his house, what would he need to send them? That’s right, an invitation. Perhaps you could plan a Pancake Day party for next week and make some invitations to send to people in your house.
• Have a go at drawing or painting your favourite type of pancake. What toppings would you put on it?
• Open up your own ‘Pancake parlour’ and take orders. You’ll need to write down and tick off what your customers would like on their pancakes.
• Have you remembered it’s Valentine’s Day on Sunday 14 February? Why not make a card for someone in your family or see if you can post one to someone special that you might not be able to see at the moment?

 Mathematics

This week, we’re going to practise our counting skills. In the story, Mr Wolf made lots of pancakes and we thought it’d be fun to make our own playdough pancakes. If you don’t have any dough, you could follow this simple recipe and have a go at making your own.  Whilst making pancakes and playing, you could introduce ‘counting’ in different ways.

• How many pancakes have you made?  Count each pancake, touching them as you say each number. Sometimes it helps to line objects up to ensure that you count each one only once and try to remember to stop at the last pancake. How many were there? Count again to make sure.
• Have you got more pancakes than me? How do you know?
• Who has the fewest pancakes? Children often understand the word ‘more’ or ‘most’ but struggle to understand the word ‘fewer’ or ‘fewest’.
• The Little Pigs are going to Mr Wolf’s house for a pancake party, how many pancakes do we need to make? Think about your child’s ability and keep the numbers below 5 or 10 as appropriate.

Extension ideas

• Introduce some real coins into your game. Children don’t need to be able to tell you what the denominations are in Nursery, they may just give you a handful of coins or some may count out 3 coins (of different values) and say “Here’s £3”. It’s all a great way to introduce and familiarise them with money. You could look at the different coins and try to sort them. How could you sort them? Big/little? Circle/not circles? Copper/silver?
• Do you remember playing ‘What time is it Mr Wolf’ at school? Children love to play this at Nursery still and it’s a good way of practising counting out the correct number of steps.

Creative

• We couldn’t read Mr Wolf’s pancakes and then not suggest that you make some pancakes! It’s a great, simple recipe for children to join in with and whisking is great for building upper arm strength too.
• What’s your favourite topping? Do you always have the same one? Use this as a time to try something new and talk about different flavours. Do you have sugar and lemon or golden syrup? Is it bitter/sweet/sour?
• With supervision, ask children to help you cut some soft fruit to put on their pancakes such as bananas or strawberries. Talk to them about using knives safely.
• If you don’t mind a bit (or lot!) of mess, allow your child to enjoy ‘play baking’ pancakes with some flour, water and mixing bowls.
• Join in a role play game and make your own ‘Pancake Parlour’ using some of the mark making and maths activities at the same time.

If you have a play kitchen, you could cut out some cardboard pancake shapes or you might want to use playdough instead. Take turns to order, cook and pay for your pancakes.  If you don’t have a play kitchen, have a go at making one. It doesn’t have to be fancy or take a long time; at Nursery, we sometimes make ovens/hobs using a cardboard box with some circles drawn on top. Children always love to use ‘real’ objects so grab a frying pan and spatula and let them pretend!

• There are lots of songs about cooking pancakes! Here’s a Pancake rap from CBeebies and a Pancake rhyme to join in with Mrs Gosper.

Understanding the World

• Part of the Early Years Foundation Stage is to begin to recognise some of our family traditions and celebrations and to begin to recognise how we are similar and different to others. In Nursery, teaching children in detail about Shrove Tuesday is too complicated, but we do talk to them about how Christian’s might celebrate this day and that it’s sometimes referred to as ‘Pancake Day’. We discuss that some families will celebrate by making pancakes and that others might not. We talk about it being a time where Christians begin to prepare for another special day, known as Easter.
•  If you have a laptop or a device that supports the game, let your child practise some simple computer skills by playing this game. You need to help Curious George make some pancakes and add his toppings. How many eggs will you need and how many strawberries does George put on?

•  Talk to your child about the ingredients in pancakes and ask them to think about where they come from. One of the most common answers is usually “the supermarket”! Try to find out more and talk about the origins of milk and eggs by watching these videos. One is all about milk and the other is an episode of ‘Do You Know’ where Maddie finds out about eggs and bread.

How does milk get to the farm shop?

Do you know? Eggs and bread

Physical Development

Fiddly Fingers

In Nursery, we always get lemons to squeeze when joining in with pancake day celebrations. If you have a lemon squeezer and can add an extra lemon or two to your basket, we’re sure that you’ll enjoy squeezing lemons and talking about what’s inside the lemon. This is also a great activity for strengthening little fingers!

Another good activity for helping to build strength in children’s upper arms, is ‘whisking’. You can do this whilst making pancakes but you could also let your child play with some soap and water and enjoy whisking it to see what happens. If you don’t want lots of mess around the sink, try it at bath time instead.

Also, remember that playing with playdough is a great way to develop finger and arm strength. So, using a rolling pin to flatten playdough to make pancakes is another good activity to do. Tip: If your child is struggling to put enough pressure onto the rolling pin to flatten the dough, try asking them to stand up and do it on a surface/table at their height. 

Movement

The weather is very unpredictable at the moment, so taking part in a pancake race may or may not be possible! If you have space inside/outside and a frying pan/tennis racket, make a play pancake or use a bean bag to see if you can move around an obstacle course without dropping it!

Lots of you emailed to say that you enjoyed the Cosmic Yoga session so here is another, all about something you might enjoy eating on top of your pancakes – bananas!  Cosmic Yoga – Betsy the Banana

Independence skills

During lunch time at Nursery, children are encouraged to be as independent as possible. This might involve knowing how to feed themselves when they’re given a meal or snack, learning how to put a straw into a carton or being able to open a sandwich box. Children that have a hot meal at Nursery are also encouraged to be able to use a knife, fork and spoon to feed themselves. Whilst lots of family meal times may involve finger foods, being able to use a knife and fork is an important skill to learn for when your child starts in Reception.

This week, depending on your child’s abilities, have a go at encouraging them to do the ‘next step’ themselves. This might mean taking the top off a yogurt pot by themselves or for other children, it could be learning to use a knife to cut something soft, like a fish finger, into smaller pieces.

If you wanted to practise using a knife and fork outside of meal times, have a go at chopping up your playdough pancakes!

Key Worker activity and videos

This week, we’re going to help Mr Wolf with his counting. He has lots of friends that would like to eat his pancakes but he needs some help to count how many he needs. To join in with the second part of the Key Worker session, you’ll need to sit at a table and have some playdough. (If you don’t have any playdough, cut out some paper pancakes and use those instead.)

Key Worker session part I – Mr Wolf’s Pancakes

Key Worker session part II – Mr Wolf’s Pancakes with playdough

Key Worker song –Pancake song

Friday Story Time

This week’s story is also about pancakes! Listen carefully and then see if you can remember some of the toppings that Buddy’s family had on their pancakes.  Story time – Buddy’s Pancakes

Zoom sessions (for children learning at home)

For our Zoom meeting this week, you’ll need a small blanket/towel and a small, soft toy.  Make sure you have some space and somewhere to safely position your device (mobile/laptop etc) – we’re going to be bouncing our toys!

Happy Friday!

Hello Year 5/6! We hope you are all well and feeling happy and healthy. You’ve made it through another week of home learning, so congratulations. We hope you are going to spend the weekend relaxing, getting some fresh air and having some lockdown fun.

Thank you to people who are still emailing their work in, we love to see what you’re producing at home.
Imogen has sent in her piece of writing in. This is from Mr Owen’s writing lessons and she has produced a great witness statement – well done. She has also been very creative and used play dough to show the different phases of the moon for Mr Freeman’s lesson.

Amazing Writing!

It’s lovely when people send in their learning – as teachers, we really want to see it!

Thanks to these superstars who have sent in their writing recently. There’s lots of things I love about these pieces – pay particular attention to the impactful vocabulary and the varied sentence starters. Well done, everyone!

Home learning superstars

Thank you for the emails showing us what amazing home learning you are all doing. Well done and keep going as much as you can!

Try to email your teacher (addresses below) or bring learning to show at your daily Zoom meetings at 2pm. Email your class teacher if you need the invite re-sending.

1KN Miss Lowry/Mrs Lake : kaylowry@spherefederation.org and natalielake@spherefederation.org

1,2V Mrs Latham : vickylatham@spherefederation.org

2C Mr Gathercole : carlgathercole@spherefederation.org

3,4 NV Class News

Hi everyone,

I hope that you are all keeping happy, healthy and safe. It has been great to hear from so many of you through our zoom chats and phone calls home. Well done to those of you who have emailed me your work. I know you are all working really hard at home – keep going, you’re doing an amazing job!

Keep up with the fabulous efforts on TTrockstars and Numbots. I am checking weekly to see who is using it! Why not have a go on it today?

Here are a few pictures from some of our home learners over the last couple of weeks.

Take care,

Mrs Wadsworth

Message from Boris

I hope everyone managed to see the message from Boris yesterday. It was the introduction to the writing texts learning for the week. Even if you don’t do all the lessons, the message is worth watching!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM BORIS JOHNSON