Monday 1st of.....FEBRUARY!

 Hello Hedgehogs and Hedgehog Parents. 

Welcome to February!

I hope you all had a good weekend. You definitely deserved it after all of your hard work last week - the work you've been sending in is amazing!

I am very much looking forward to catching up with you all tomorrow. Due to the meetings there will be no compulsory learning activities on the blog tomorrow but I will put up some optional ideas. 

It was very good to see you at Thursday's storytelling! I thought we should do another story this week but I wondered whether Friday morning might be a better storytelling time, in terms of fitting in home learning and (usually, but not this week) Reverend Dove's assembly. I'll send a Zoom link around soon. 

Here is the ongoing jobs list to help you to keep track.

Anyway, I think that's all. On to the day's learning!

Job 1: Chapter 14 of our story

Job 2: Phonics

Year 1 phonics lesson:

Click here for three-in-a-row

Reception Phonics Lesson:

Click here for countdown

Job 3: Maths Facts

Please all practice your number bonds to 7! 

Reception:

• Play the dice game we played in Tuesday's maths lesson: take it in turns to roll two dice and if they add up to 7, you get a point! Either play for 10 minutes and see who has the most points, or play until someone has 3 or 5 points.
• If you like this game and you want more challenge, try the second bullet point of the Year 1 challenges.

Year 1:

• Start with the same game as Reception
• Then (maybe after a break or later in the day) use number cards: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7   to play 'quick match. Have them face up in front of you. Set a time and see how quickly you can match up the pairs to 7. Repeat until you are super speedy! 
• Optional: If you are already super speedy, then see if you can find fact families for the number 7. One fact family would be

        5 + 2 = 7

        2 + 5 = 7

        7 - 2 = 5

        7 - 5 = 2

Have a very good First of February!

From Miss Nash

"Tweet Tweet"

                                                  

                                                

  

        Welcome to Forest School - Friday 29th January

How are you all? 

I am so impressed with your exploring I must say!

Visit this week's virtual Forest School here

Thank you for sending me some amazing pictures of what you have been getting up to. It's good to see that the weather is not putting you off going out to explore nature. Some of you have been exploring nature as a family and learning together which is a superb idea. 

I have another activity for you this week. As we have been concentrating on birds recently, feeding them, identifying them, and listening out for their song I thought it would be a great opportunity to take part in a national survey. As you know, the wild activities that some of you have chosen are contributing towards achieving our first certificate in exploring nature from the RSPB. I am pleased to tell you we are halfway towards achieving our bronze certificate! So well done to all of you who have contributed. The national survey is called 'The Big Bird Watch.' Click on the link to find out how to take part. 

Here you can record your findings  If you do not have access to a printer, do not worry, you can just record your findings on a piece of paper. Send your results to whaddonteachers@gmail.com 

I can then send the results to the RSPB. You will have done something very helpful if you decide to take part as the survey helps to identify if there are any problems in nature such as a decline in a particular species. This then allows the RSPB to help those birds that need looking after. 

Below are some more fun forest school activities to keep you busy. 

I hope you have fun Hedgehogs and Squirrels 

Bye-bye for now

Love form Miss Swain and Daphne 

                                                                      Optional fun activities

Learn parts of a bird

How to make a paper robin

How to make a paper sparrow

Matching pairs bird game

                                                                          Recipes for bird food

                           

Crumble pastry maggots

Edible pictures

                                                                                          Storytime

                                                                       

Lucky Duck story

And a few other things...

Click here for Mrs McKee's singalong

Have a good Friday and weekend, Hedgehogs :0)

It's a Thursday: 28th January

Dear Hedgehogs and Parents,

We've had a busy week and a busy few weeks. 

As we have our 11am collective worship, and our 2pm or 2.30pm storytelling, we are going to take the rest of the day a little easier.

There is just one compulsory task today, combing both our story, and your maths skills. 

Job 1: chapter 13 of our story

Click here for some images of the sea creatures which you might find helpful in your maths (you don't have to use them)

Spend the rest of the day doing things of your very own choosing.

I hope to see some of you later!

From Miss Nash 

Wednesday 27th January

 

Greetings Hedgehogs, one and all. 

It is Wednesday! The weeks are going by so quickly and they are all sort of muddling in to each other, so here we are on another Wednesday. I have so enjoyed your work this week, especially your whale work. I've been learning all sorts of things about blue whales. Did you know that a blue whale's heart is the size of a small car?! They are incredible.

Today, I am on some online training from about 11am until the end of the day. However, Miss Cartwright will be helping me out by checking emails, so please do get in touch as usual if there is something we can help you with. 

Tomorrow we are going to do some storytelling! This is not compulsory at all, but it will be a very lovely way to catch up with each other and to enjoy some storytelling. The Zoom details will be parentmailed out to you soon. 

Reception: 2pm on Thursday

Year 1: 2.30pm on Thursday

Onwards and upwards to today's learning!

Here is the ongoing checklist of jobs for you. 

Job 1: Chapter 12 of our story

Job 2: Phonics

Reception phonics:

Bingo boards

Year 1 phonics:

Adjectives sheet

Job 3: Tiny Tim

Teach your grown-ups our Tiny Tim rhyme. I've made this Job 3, because learning to say rhymes and poems in a clear voice is a Very Good Skill.

Here are the words.... can you remember the actions?

I had a little frog
His name was Tiny Tim
I put him in the bath tub
To teach him how to swim.

He guzzled down the water
He gobbled up the soap
And when he tried to talk
He had a bubble in his throat...

Ribbit!

(this is one of my favourites!)

Wishing you the very happiest of Wednesdays,

from Miss Nash

Tuesday 26th January

Before we begin:

Many apologies, but I have muddled my dates up, Hedgehogs and parents. 

On Wednesday I am on some training all afternoon. This means that I can't do storytelling! 

New information:

Storytelling:

Reception: 2pm on Thursday
Year 1:       2.30pm on Thursday

I shall look forward to seeing you. 

Now that's done...

Happy Tuesday and welcome to today's learning. How was the snow yesterday where you were? Did you make a snowman or a snowwoman or a snowdog or a snowdinosaur?

Job 1: Chapter 11 of our story: 

Job 2: A Maths Lesson

Reception lesson:

Year 1 lesson:

Doubles pairs
Printable 100 grid
Online 100 grid
Money jars sheet
Counting in 5s maze
Jumps of 5 thinking challenge

(You won't need all of these!)

Job 3: Chapter 11 of our story: 

It's curly caterpillar letter time again!

Reception children:

• practice c until it is just wonderful
• then 'a' - round up and down
• then 'd' - round all the way up and down
• then 'g' - round, up, down and a monkey tail

That will do for today, unless you are feeling super keen and want to practise the others!

Year 1 children:

• practice forming all of the letters correctly. If you get that far...
• make sure they sit on the line in the right place. If you get that far...
• make sure your tall letters are tall and your small letters are small

Have a terrific Tuesday Hedgehogs. 

You are doing a marvellous job. Don't forget that!

From Miss Nash

Another marvellous Monday: 25th January

Monday greetings to you Hedgehogs and Hedgehog parents. Welcome to this week and to this Monday. 

Did you have any snow where you are over the weekend? I had a bit and it was fun to go out in. Then I needed a hot water bottle to warm up!

You've been learning at home for three weeks since Christmas and you are doing a wonderful job. I miss you all very much but I have been enjoying the photos of you and your work, and the recordings you have sent in of you reading to me. 

One notice before we begin:

This week there will be a catch-up and storytelling time with me via Zoom. I thought we'd tell the story of Olaf's Goat (do you remember that one, Hedgehogs?). There will be one telling at 2.30pm on Wednesday for YR and one at 2.30pm on Thursday for Y1 (please note: the original 3pm time has changed).  I will send the Zoom details via Parentmail. It will be a good chance for us to catch up with each other and for us to do some storytelling together.

Now, a Monday!

Job 1: Chapter 10 of our story

Job 2: Phonics

Reception Phonics:

Year 1 Phonics:

Click here for the phoneme spotter story

Job 3: Maths facts

Reception children please practise subitising using the subitising cards below (you've seen them before!) You can either play snap or pairs. Don't feel you have to use all of the cards, there are a lot of them!

Click here for the subitising to 5 cards
Click here for the subitising to 9 cards

Year 1 children please practise counting in 5s.

1) count in 5s as far as you can go (well, stop at some point if you get tired)

2) play the missing number post-it note game (remember how to change it if you need more challenge - count backwards and/or from different numbers)

3) If you can do all of those things and want more challenge, us your 5s to help you to count in 50s. 

Have a brilliant Monday Hedgehogs!

from Miss Nash

Friday 22nd January

  

* A friendly Friday reminder that Friday activities are not compulsory - just a few ways for you to enjoy your weekend!*

Happy Friday Rangers,

Visit virtual Forest School here
 
How did you get on last week with experiencing and helping nature? Did you find any birds or insects?

I went for a walk in the woods on Saturday with Daphne. I heard a beautiful bird song but I wasn’t sure what type of bird it was so I used the bird song identification clip that I put on the blog last Friday and managed to identify it. I felt quite pleased as I had learned something. The song was from a bird called a great tit and this is what they look like.

This is what they sound like Great tit bird song

From the pictures that you sent me it looks as though you had a great week experiencing nature Rangers. I saw lots of pictures of birds that you spotted. Well done. Some of you made bird food and lots of you discovered huge puddles so well done to all of you who went out for a walk or completed one of the activities indoors or outside. 

This week we are going to continue working towards achieving the  ‘wild challenges’ certificate from the RSPB. As you send pictures, drawings, or descriptions of the activities you have completed, I will add these to our Whaddon Forest School profile on the RSPB website and share the progress with you so you can see how we are doing. Please choose at least one activity to complete. You can do as many as you like and as often as you like throughout the week. Be sure to let me know how you got on.

Wild challenges  (scroll down to the bottom and click on 'see all activities').

Here are a few more Forest School activities you may enjoy:
Make a bug pot
Bark rubbing 

Last but not least

Dancing squirrel - Can you dance like a squirrel?

Hibernating hedgehogs - Did you know hedgehogs hibernate this time of year? Do you know any other animals that hibernate?

Have a fabulous weekend. 
Take care everyone,
Love from Miss Swain and Daphne

Some music with Mrs McKee

This week's singalong.
This week's lesson

A creative project:

A science investigation:

Click here for the potion.

Be a whale:

 

Have a really good weekend :0)

Thursday 21st January

Greetings and happy Thursday to you.

First and foremost, a reminder! Reverend Dove will be leading a whole school collective worship at 11am today which you are all invited to. Details have been Parentmailed home.

Next, a joke:

And now, a Thursday:

Job 1: The Storm Whale, Chapter 9

Job 2: A Maths Lesson

Click here for the Simon Sock story
Click here for some 10 frames
Click here for the sorting sheet

Click here for the optional extra challenge

Job 3: 

Due to the chance to attend collective worship today, there is no job number 3.  If you want an extra job to do today, you could practice your words, practice your handwriting or play some of the maths games we've been playing over the past few weeks :0)

Have a good and happy Thursday, Hedgehogs!

From Miss Nash

Wednesday 20th January

Well, good morning, good afternoon and most importantly happy Wednesday to you all.

I hope your week is going well. I am enjoying seeing what you have been getting up to and you are proving to be a very good team of marine biologists!

Tapestry note: if you are having difficulties logging on to and/or using tapestry, please continue to email in your child's work as before. Meanwhile, let me know what the problem is and I will do my best to help!  I am happy to continue communicating by email for any of you that finds this easier - please email me about this. 

A lot of you enjoyed our Hedgehog song. Today, I think we'll do our elephant rhyme!

An elephant walks like this and that
He's terribly tall and terribly fat
He has no fingers and has no toes
But goodness gracious what a nose!

See if you can remember the actions Hedgehogs and if you can't, make up your own!

Apologies, I keep forgetting the ongoing jobs list! Here it is. 

And now, today's learning:

Job 1: The Storm Whale Chapter 8

Year 1 writing frame

The storm, in case the embedded film doesn't work. 

Job 2: Phonics

Reception phonics:

Click here for three in a row

Click here for the treasure hunt game (then click 'present')

If that doesn't work for you, click here for the dominoes instead!

Click here for the extra challenge - colour by phoneme

Year 1 phonics:

Click here for sounds splat

Click here for the quick read words

Click here for the word search

Click here for the colour-by-phoneme sheet

Job 3: Handwriting

Today we are going to look at the curly caterpillar family.

Reception children:

• practice c until it is just wonderful
• then 'a' - round up and down
• then 'd' - round all the way up and down
• then 'g' - round, up, down and a monkey tail

That will do for today, unless you are feeling super keen and want to practise the others!

Year 1 children:

• practice forming all of the letters correctly. If you get that far...
• make sure they sit on the line in the right place. If you get that far...
• make sure your tall letters are tall and your small letters are small

Have a very good Wednesday, Hedgehogs and parents

from Miss Nash

P.S A reminder, Hedgehog parents, you are doing a great job. I am always on the end of an email so please let me know if I can make your home-learning lives any easier. We can also arrange time for a phone call - just let me know!

Tuesday 19th January

Good morning Hedgehogs and Hedgehog parents,

Before we start the day, a couple of notices:

Notice 1: reading videos
I asked you to send me a video of your child reading. A kind parent pointed out it can be hard to email video files, which I had completely forgotten. A couple of suggestions are to:

a) upload your video to your google drive and share it with me, or
b) use  https://wetransfer.com/  
c) use Tapestry (see Notice 2)

Notice 2: Tapestry communication
To improve communication between you and me, we are going to move from emails to Tapestry. This means that I will more quickly be able to respond to your child's daily work and I will have a record of your child's work on their tapestry account. Please don't feel the need to re-submit any work you've already emailed this week - I will respond!

Year 1 parents, you will be re-instated to Tapestry and will be able to upload work to your child's account, as you did during their Reception year. Reception parents, you should already have access to your child's account.

It should be just as easy for you to communicate with me via tapestry (hopefully easier). However, if you have any concerns about this please email me. Please continue to use whaddonteachers@gmail.com if you have any questions for me about the work each day.

And now...

Job 1: Chapter 7 of our story

In case the videos on the chapter don't work, here they are:

Whale footage
The News

Job 2: Maths

Reception Maths:

Click here for the 10 frame sheet

Click here for the pairs game

Click here for the optional loop challenge

Year 1 Maths:

Click here for the game

Job 2: Words!

Reception please spend some time practising reading your high frequency words. Work on your current list and let me know if you need more!

Year 1 please work on your spellings. Choose 5 to practise and make sure you practise them thoroughly! 

If you have completed all of the word lists, your job is to find five interesting words from your reading book to learn to spell - choose words you think you might use in your writing. 

Have a good Tuesday Hedgehogs!

From Miss Nash

Monday 18th January

Hedgehogs, welcome to another week! 

It feels like a very long time since I saw you last and I am missing you. I was singing our song in my head this morning and I realised I miss hearing you sing it... so here it is for you! 

If the video doesn't work, you can go to YouTube here. 

Once you've warmed yourselves up with a singalong, it's time for today's jobs. 

Here is the ongoing jobs list to keep us all on track. 

Job 1: Chapter 6 of our story

Your daily jobs list sheet is here. 

Job 2: Phonics

Reception Phonics:

Click here for sounds splat

Click here for roll and read

Click here for cut and paste

Year 1 Phonics:

Click here for sounds sort

Job 3: Reading for me!

I miss hearing you read. Some time this week (no rush, busy parents - shall we say by the end of the week?) please can you read a book and film yourself reading it? Of course, your parents can be there helping you to read so I can see how you are getting on!

Parents, please could this be either a new book for your child, or one they have only read once so I can hear them decoding words and generally how they are getting on? Thank you!

Have a very good Monday Hedgehogs,

from Miss Nash

Friday 15th January: Forest School with Miss Swain (and a couple of other things)

                                                                Friday 15th January    

 

                        "BASE"...…."CAMP" 

                                                   

Hello Ranger Hedgehogs.

Visit virtual Forest School here

I hope you are all well. I am so happy to be able to continue with Forest School. I hope over the next few weeks you enjoy some of the activities I put on here for you to choose from. Please feel free to send me photos or pictures of the activities you have been doing. 

Today we are going to be concentrating on the feathery animals....you guessed it, birds!

Recently I went to Forest School to top up the bird feeders with some seeds as I thought the birds might need some extra food to help keep themselves warm during the colder weather we have been having lately. Come to think of it, have you noticed what the temperature is today? There were quite a few birds there singing happily away which was nice to hear. 

I thought it would be a good idea to learn to identify some British garden birds. You can do this either in your garden, by visiting the park, or in your local community or you may be able to look out of a window at home and spot some birds. Remember to be very, very quiet if you are outside otherwise they will fly off before you have a chance to see them. 

Another way of identifying birds is by listening ever so carefully to their song. Each bird has its own song that it sings.

If you wish to attract more birds into your garden you can try attracting them with some food. This time of year food such as berries and insects that birds eat is in short supply so they will be most grateful for a little extra.

Please also remember all the amazing skills that you use at Forest School: endurance, perseverance, imagination, independence, problem-solving, creative skills, and many more. You can transfer these skills and use them at home either indoors or outside. Perhaps you will make a den, this can be indoors or outside.

You could make a wand using some natural materials. A potion - foraging for your ingredients, thinking about what your potion will be used for, or a pair of binoculars that could come in handy for bird watching.

I hope you have lots of fun and I look forward to hearing and seeing what you have been up to.

What to feed birds in the winter 

Listen to bird songs

Magic wand

Binoculars

Bird identification sheet

Love from Miss Swain and Daphne

A few other Friday things.

Some music with Mrs McKee:

A Friday singalong
Reception/Year 1 music lesson

Make some toilet-roll sea creatures

Don't forget, you can do this while you zoom with your friends. 

Charlie and Lola:

Click here for the story.

Have a good Friday and a marvellous weekend, Hedgehogs!

Thursday 14th January

 

Hello Hedgehogs and parents,

I hope this Thursday finds you well. Yesterday was a bit rainy and I think it's going to rain again today, so wrap up well and in waterproofs for your exercise today!

Here is your ongoing jobs list.

Job 1: Chapter 4 of our story

Job 2: Maths

Reception Maths:

Subitising to 5 cards

Subitising to 10 power point

Subitising to 9 cards

Year 1 Maths:

Equal rows worksheets

Job 3: Handwriting - the same as Tuesday!*

*practice makes perfect and so on

Please practice your robot arm letters - down, up and over.

YR challenges:

• make sure you are really good at writing 'r' properly
• if you can do that, practice n and m
• if you can do those ones, practice the other 'down up and over' letters. 

Y1 challenges:

• make sure you can form all of the letters correctly. Only move on if you can.
• practice making sure your letters the the right size - r, n, m, p should all be the same height. b, h, k should be tall. p should go below the line.

Have a good Thursday Hedgehogs,

from Miss Nash

Wednesday 13th January

 

Good morning Hedgehogs and a very happy Wednesday to you, one and all. 

I hope your week is going swimmingly so far. I've enjoyed hearing what you've all been up to and I'm glad you're keeping yourselves active walking, riding bikes, scooting, running and riding ponies!

I've been enjoying your work very much. Parents, you are doing a wonderful job of keeping up with the work - thank you very much. 

Here are today's jobs for you:

Job 1: Chapter 4 of our story

Job 2: Some Phonics:

Reception Phonics:

Signpost sheet (optional)

Year 1 Phonics:

Phoneme spotter story

Countdown

Job 3: Maths

Please all practice writing your numbers.

Reception children start with numbers up to 5. If you want, move on to numbers to 10.

Year 1 children please practice numbers up to 20. Practice any tricky numbers a few extra times.

You can practise this in any way you like: with felt tip pens, with your finger in a tray of paint/sand/flour, on a piece of paper stuck to the wall, on a blackboard.... or using these sheets.

Number formation 0 to 9

Number formation 10 to 20 

Keep it up Hedgehogs. You are doing a wonderful job.*

From Miss Nash

* that means you too, parents.