Dear Parents/ Caregivers,

Welcome to learning at home for Week 2 Term 4. 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 The Gardeners Maze with Mrs Harland

Leaf Puppets or Leaf People

Create your own leaf puppets from cardboard tubes, or make a leaf person

Need:

Toilet or paper towel rolls

Something to be buttons e.g seeds, beans, buttons, paper

Different leaves, to be the head of your puppet or body of your person

Glue stick or sellotape

Paint - optional

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

Read the poem each day so that you become familiar with it. Over the week see if you can do these activities:

• Can you hear when you read the word ‘little’, can you find that word in the poem? Do some rainbow writing with the word ‘little’ - have an adult write the word in big writing, then you copy over the top five times using a different colour each time

• To help you learn the word ‘little’, write it on a flash card, and write each letter for little on smaller pieces of card/paper so it can be a puzzle. You can choose a different word to practice if you like, maybe you will choose is, it or to

• Beginning sound s - can you find all the words in the poem that begin with s? Can you think of any other words? Write your words down or draw pictures of your ‘s’ things. If you can get five, miharo, you’re amazing!

• The word ‘shower’ starts with the digraph ‘sh’. Head outside and practice writing the ‘sh’ sound with chalk or a water and brush or a squirt bottle filled with water. Or maybe you can make a ‘sh’ with nature items. What words do you know with the sound ‘sh’ in them?

Extra Challenge: Can you find pairs of words that rhyme in this poem?

Books for this Week

Can you make a poster about cats - Draw a picture and write some facts about them.

Eg. Have sharp claws, like to climb

My First Digraph Sounds - sh, ch, th

Activity 1: Read the following words to your child and ask them if it the first sound they hear is a sh, ch or th

cheese

sheep

three

chicken

shop

thumb

When confident with identifying those digraphs as a first sound, identify those digraph sounds being the last sound of a word. Here are some words you can use:

witch

bath

fish

munch

crash

teeth

You can extend this activity, by having children draw pictures of some of these words and then match their pictures to flash cards of those words

Activity 2: Make a chart for each digraph. Draw and decorate in the middle of your chart the digraph, then draw pictures of things that have that sound in it.

With letters on some cups, bottles or something else similar you can practice creating CVC words. Remember the vowel letter is the middle sound. You can break or robot (segment) your word apart, and then you can put it back together to read (blend) your word

1. Write letters on pieces of paper to stick to a cup

2. Make a three letter word, remember vowel in the middle

3. Sound out or robot the word, say it again quickly blending the sounds

4. Then swap one letter out to make a new one

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4.

Gardening

Look at this picture and think about what you see.

Talk about the picture

• What do you see in this picture?

• Where are the boys in this picture?

• What are the boys doing?

• What are they wearing?

Write about this picture.

• Draw your own picture to plan for your story

• Think of your idea

• Write your idea

Miss Berry might write: I can see the boys watering the garden

Sam the Pirate

Check out Pirate Same, he followed a map and has found a treasure chest!

What do you think Pirate Sam has found in the treasure chest? As you think of what could be in the chest, draw those ideas. Choose which one is your favourite by putting a circle around the picture. Have a think of how you will turn your picture into an idea to write in your story.

Write your story, and then read it to yourself and read it to someone in your family

Did you know that Earth is the fifth largest out of all the planets in the solar system, and that the Earth’s surface is covered by water and land?

You can listen to this story I Am Earth to find out more facts

Choose which fact you will write in your story about Earth. Extra challenge is to write two facts about Earth. Remember to look at the icons to know what an expert writer does.

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

Max the Monkey - How many bananas are left?

Choose your own numbers to fill in the blanks. Remember the first number will need to be bigger than the second number, and try lots of different numbers to practice your subtraction skills.

Roll the Dice Subtraction Game

You will need 2 dice and coloured counters. Each player needs a different coloured set of counters. If you need to make some counters, you can do this by cutting up a piece of paper into small squares, either colour these in or use coloured paper.

Take turns rolling the 2 dice and take the smaller number away from the bigger number. Then place your counter on the answer. The first person to cover four numbers in a row, in any direction win

Parts of a plant and what plants need to grow

Listen to this song that shows the parts of a flowering plant and what they need to grow. Parts of a plant song.

Can you make a picture showing the parts of a flowering plant? Remember to email your teacher a photo of your work.

Worm farms

There are lots of ways to help your garden grow. Watch this video of Mrs Harland showing you her whānau’s worm farm. These worms are called tiger worms and are very helpful in the garden.

Worm farm

Mrs Harland shares a picture showing the different levels within the worm farm. Can you draw your own picture? Remember you can email and share your work with your teacher.

A gardener’s job

Gardeners have lots of jobs to do to keep their gardens healthy and keep their plants growing.

In a vegetable garden, gardener’s need to:

• plant the seeds

• water the seeds and the garden

• watch out for weeds and pull them out

• watch out for insects like caterpillars that might eat the plants

• pick the fruit or vegetables when they are ready

Gardeners use tools to do their work, watch and see if you can spot some of the gardeners' tools. Then have a look at the picture below and see if you can find the tools that a gardener might use.