Dear Parents/ Caregivers,

Welcome to learning at home for Week 8 Term 3. Our learning at home tasks give you the flexibility to plan these into your day around other commitments.

This Week’s Story Time

This week our spotlight story is Macca the Alpaca with Mrs Wells

READING

Sunshine Online provides access to a range of readers for your child. To access Sunshine Online for digital readers please visit http://www.sunshineonline.com.au/

In the top right corner of this website, select the red login button and in the dropdown select the option ‘Student Login’

User name: Puhinui

Password: Books2015

Enjoy reading books you have at home, remember to talk about the story. To assist with talking about the story, ask your child questions that start with who, what, where, why, when, how. Below are a selection of literacy activities to choose from for each day of the week, as well as our Letter of the Day for Week 7

Letter of the Day

For each letter of the day your child can complete an activity from the list below, watch the video and complete the special letter activity

For the letter of the day you can:

• Make the letter with playdough

• Write it outside with water and a paintbrush on the concrete

• Write it outside with chalk, jump on all the letters you write - say the letter name and the sound it makes

• Rainbow writing - write a line of the letter of the day, choose 5 different colours to make 5 lines of the letter

• Make yourself a flash card of the letter, add it to your collection of letters

Letter Videos

Special Letter Activity

Monday - Z is for zebra - Can you draw a letter z and decorate it as a zebra. Then, write Z is for Zebra

Tuesday - T is for tall lego - Build a letter t with blocks, how tall can you make it?

Wednesday - Q is for queen - Draw the shape of your hand on a paper and transform it into a queen.

Thursday - O is for oval

Friday - M is for monster - Draw a letter M. Can you turn it into a scary monster?

Weekly Poem

Listen to the poem and have a go at reading it and pointing to each word.

How many times can you see the word ‘am’ in the text? Now, write the word am.

How are you feeling now? Draw yourself and write it. Miss Revilla would write: I am hungry.

Work through the activities on the activities tab.

Independent activities:

• Grab a teddy bear and see if you can read the book to your teddy, remember to point to each word as you read.

• Think of a time you went on a trip and write about it. Miss Revilla would write: I went to the zoo.

• Now, draw a picture of your trip.

Follow the link and listen to The New Cat, you are also able to download a copy of the book.

Independent activities:

• Draw a picture of Greedy Cat and write something he likes to eat.

Greedy Cat likes cake.

• Let’s play with the word ‘cat’, what happens when you change the first sound, try p, r, s, f, m.

Find a teddy and see if you can retell the book, that means tell them the story without reading the words in the book.

Independent activities:

Grab a teddy bear and see if you can read the book to your teddy, remember to point to each word as you read.

Write the keywords, my, look, at five times each, make sure you read them as you write them.

Draw a picture of the boy and label the things that keep him safe.

Complete the word activity, the thinking activity and complete one of the worksheets on Sunshine Online.

Can you find the word ‘come’ in the book?

Practice saying and writing the word ‘come’ on a piece of paper.

Can you put the word ‘come’ in a sentence, just like in the story?

E.g Come to the playground.

E.g Here I come.

Can you find any words in the story that rhyme with ‘me’?

What are some other words (not in the book) that rhyme with ‘me’?

Remember a rhyming word is a word that has the same ending sound but a different beginning sound.

Extension:

Can you make words that rhyme with ‘not’, by using the letters g, h, p, l in place of the n? Are there any other words that rhyme with ‘not’

Remember you can “robot the words” or sound out the words you don’t know by sounding out each letter and then blending the sounds together.

E.g T-a-p, tap

Find the words in the book that have a short ‘a’ sound.

List these words down and say them again.

Which pictures below have the short ‘a’ sound in the middle?

Can you make words that rhyme with tap, by writing g, l, m, n, z in place of the t? E.g. tap - gap

Read these words aloud to someone in your family.

In the story, ‘Tap, Tap’, Nat is tapping her drum sticks making music with objects found in her house.

Give this a go, and try making music with things around your home as well.

Beginning Sound Hunt

Look around your house and see if you can find something that begins with these sounds:

b

m

o

s

t

c

Can you write the first sound for each object and take a picture or draw the object?

Learning High Frequency Words

Here are a set of high frequency words we learn at Puhinui School, and an activity for this week

Or you may be up to learning these high frequency wordsz

Getting Creative

Think about your name and how you spell it. Count how many letters are in your name.

Have a go at making your name out of socks or other things around your house! Remember that the first letter should be a capital letter, and the rest need to be lowercase. Next, make a high frequency word you are learning. Dismantle it, then see how quickly you can make it again.

Head outside and find some items from nature to make letters e.g. petals, small twigs, leaves

Phonics - Middle Vowel Sounds

Here are this week’s pictures. Say the word that the picture is e.g. bed. See if you can recognise the middle sound by looking at the picture and using your robot skills and write the word down.

This or That

Look at the picture and think about the three sounds you can hear in the word, which of the two words matches those sounds?

writing

When writing your stories remember what good writers do…

Paw Patrol is on the Roll

Look at the picture below, the Pups are off on an important mission.

Can you write a story about their mission? Where are they going? Who needs their help? How will they help them? Will there be Pup treats at the end?

As you write, remember to stop and think about each idea before you write it. Use the icons above and your word card to help you. Remember to read your story to someone when you’re finished.

Tell us about this animal - What’s its name? What is it doing in the picture? What does it look like? What does it eat? Where do they live? Do you know any interesting facts about this animal?

Remember to look at the icons above to know what an expert writer does.

After you have written your story, you can read it to someone in your home.

If Miss Cave was going to write a story about the giraffe, her story would be:

The giraffe has a long neck and long legs. It is swishing its tail.

A Time When I was Brave

Think about a time you were brave and how it felt.

You might have been brave when you had to sleep with the lights off. You might have been brave when you were learning how to ride a scooter. You were brave on your first day of school or you might have been brave another time.

Think of a few ideas and choose your favourite one to write about.

Draw a picture of when you were brave and write a story about it.

Don’t forget to read your story back to yourself and edit your work.

MATHS

This week a theme of Construction is going to help us with our maths!

Let’s get started with the story ‘A Bigger Digger’ from Mrs Harland. After the story and watching Mrs Harland show you how to order things by their size, your first activity is to go and find some toys or other objects that you can put in order from the smallest to the biggest.

For each day this week, choose an activity from below

Ordering rulers

The builder uses lots of tools to help him do his job. Today he needs to measure a very long piece of wood. Have a look at the three rulers below and decide which one would be the best one to use for this job.

Can you order the rulers from the shortest to the longest? Which ruler is the shortest? Which ruler is the longest?

You can watch Miss Lee show you the skills of how to compare two objects carefully to see which one is the longer one, and which one is the shorter one here. Try out her activity to find out which one is the longer item, then you can find other objects to compare.

Hammers

The builder has got himself all muddled up, can you help him order the hammers from the shortest to the longest?

Build a Tower

Here’s a fun challenge, ask your whānau for a tin can and see if you can build a tower taller than the can. How many blocks tall is your tower?

Next, find something taller than your can, maybe a box of tissues standing up tall. Can you build a tower taller than the new object? How many blocks tall is your new tower?

Demolition

Watch and listen to these facts about demolition.

Can you build a tall tower and count how many blocks you have used. Now here comes the fun part, demolish your building! You could roll a ball into it, build a crane using string and a small ball or simply push it over. Now, build another tower, can you make it taller? Can you build your tower out of different materials, such as boxes from your recycling?

Which is heavier?

The dump truck has had a busy day, first he drove to the quarry, then he took his load of rocks away from the quarry. Look at the two photos below, was he heavier before he arrived or after he left the quarry? Why?

Watch Mrs Virk’s video about comparing the weight of two objects in your house by holding them in your hand. Then you have a go at holding two objects, one in each hand, and decide between the two objects which one is lighter, and which one is heavier

Here are two excavators (diggers), look carefully at the pictures, which one do you think is heavier? What clues in the picture helped you decide?

Look at the two vehicles below, which is heavier?

Can you find the heavy things? Point to the pictures that you can identify as being heavy

Fill the Dump Truck

The dump truck driver needs to fill the box bed of his dump truck. Look at the three containers he can use, which one do you think he should pick? Why?

Can you order the objects from the one that holds the least to the one that holds the most? Point and show someone the order

Watch Mrs Say’s video on volume and capacity - then find some containers, and a cup or a yoghurt pot. See how many cups or yoghurt pots it takes to fill your containers. Which of your containers held the most? Which one held the least? Can you put your containers in order from the one that holds the least to the one that holds the most.

Orange Fizzy Experiment

Watch Miss Tailby’s Orange Fizzy Experiment to find out how to carry out this experiment, plus a volcano experiment. Alternatively below is what you will need and the instructions

Instructions:

• Cut your orange into small pieces, have an adult help you with this part. To do this you can start with cutting your orange in half, then cut your half into smaller pieces

• Put 1 teaspoon of baking soda on to your plate and spread it out

• Sprinkle a pinch of baking soda on a piece of orange, then bite into your orange to eat it, what happens in your mouth?

• Invite other people in your bubble to come and try some orange and baking soda

What’s the Science? The orange is an acid and it mixed with the baking soda which is a base, and when mixed together it caused a chemical reaction. So it released carbon dioxide gas and that is what made the fizzing in your mouth

Now for another fizzy experiment - the Volcano Experiment!

Equipment:

• Cup or jar

• Bowl, to sit your cup or jar in

• Vinegar

• Food colouring

• Baking soda

• Teaspoon

Instructions:

• Pour a little bit of vinegar into your cup or jar, then place it inside your bowl

• Add a little bit of food colouring to the vinegar

• Add a teaspoon of baking soda to the vinegar and watch the chemical reaction!

What’s the Science? The vinegar is another type of acid, so when mixed with the base of baking soda you get another chemical reaction

Milk Swirls

A fun experiment to explore reactions, this one will show the reaction between milk and dishwashing liquid

Equipment:

• Plate

• Milk

• Food colouring, 3 different colours

• Dishwashing liquid

Instructions:

• Fill your jar with with water until it is ¾ full

• Squeeze some shaving foam on top until the jar is full

• Add drops of food colouring using the dropper or straight from your food colouring bottle, put 3-4 drops to begin with

• Watch what happens….you made rain! You can add some further drops of food colouring to create more rain

The science to the rain cloud - the shaving foam represents the clouds and the water represents the air. The food colouring is the rain. As more rain builds up in the clouds, it gets heavy. It becomes too heavy for the clouds to hold, and so it pushes through and the rain falls.

Sink & Float Experiment - Part 2

Join Mrs Kirkwood for the next instalment of Float and Sink Part 2 to find out which liquids float and which liquids sink. Have a read below before you watch the video

Mrs Kirkwood has put each type of liquid into a balloon to carry out her experiment. Her liquids are:

• Oil

• Salt

• Sugar

• Juice

• Milk

• Vinegar

Make your prediction on each liquid - do you think it will float or sink?

Now it’s time to watch the video, and at the end you will find out about the concept of density

If you’ve got some balloons at home, you can choose your own liquids to test if they float or sink