Watch Us While We Work
Thank you to all parents and carers who made it to the Watch Us While We Work session this morning. If you couldn’t make it this time – don’t worry! There will be other sessions later in the year. This is what we talked about today:
Reading
We use a lot of different skills when we read. Many of these reading skills can be developed through very simple (but very effective) activities. Looking at, sharing and talking about pictures or photographs is a great way to develop inference, retrieval and choice skills (at school we refer to these as RICs). It’s a very quick and easy way you can help your child with reading skills at home.
Retrieval
Inference
Choice
We shared an example of using a picture to practise developing these reading skills
- Who are the characters?
- Why are they there?
- What ese can you see in the picture?
- I can see that they’re up above some clouds. Does anyone else know they’re up here?
- Do you think they’re friendly or fierce characters? How do you know?
- Are they friends with each other? Why?
- Is the dragon the girl’s pet? Or might the girl be the dragon’s pet? Why do you think that?
- They’re looking towards something. What are they looking at? Are they searching for something? What might it be?
- Why do you think the illustrator chose green scaly skin for the dragon?
- Why might the illustrator have given the girl a cape?
- What title would you give the picture/story?
Reading at home: Look at, share and discuss pictures in this way. It could be a picture from a page in a book, a poster, a leaflet or a family photograph. Any kind of picture discussed in this way will help your child with their retrieval, inference and choice skills.
Mathematics
We played some games with our adults which can be easily replicated at home. These games support children’s subitising, counting and calculating skills.
Game 1 – Counter Battle
Game 2 (version 1) – Wipeout
Game 2 (version 2) – Wipeout
Game 3 – Back and Forth
Mathematics at home: Play these games at home. They can be played with any resources you have to hand like paper, pens, pasta pieces or small toys such as cars for counters. If you don’t have any dice you could use electronic versions such as this one https://nrich.maths.org/interactive-environments/dice-and-spinners-interactive