June 3rd to 5th

Hi everyone.....This is a nice short 3 day week. We are going to finish off Unit 8 this week.

I know it is very difficult with all the lovely weather to keep children motivated so please only do the activities that suit you both. There is no need to do lots or any of the colouring in the activity books.

I hope this week goes well for you all and please let me know if I can help in any way

New words

van nowhere to

sentences to practice He will sit on the van There is nowhere to sit There is nowhere to get icecream The cake is in the van etc etc

Oral Language

Please open up the Oral Language poster and ask your child to explore the people, objects and setting of the poster using their senses. What can they see, hear, smell, taste and touch in this picture

Poem..... here is a new poem to learn this week! it is not on the website

The Sleepy Firefighters....... The sleepy firefighters climb into bed. (Yawn and stretch) ...........on their pillows they lay their heads. (Put head on hands; pretend to sleep)................................. Off goes the alarm, (Clap) ......................................And down the pole they slide. (Motion of sliding down),,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, They jump in the truck, (Jump)................................. And to the fire they ride! (Pretend to drive truck)

Play some of the Interactive Games that you enjoyed last week

Reading

Practice your new words......

Please open up the Fiction Reader eBook...... it is called Cat Rescue........... again there are lots of tips for exploring this book on the inside front and back covers.

First allow your child to have a look at all the pictures in the book and try and tell the story in their own words..... listen to the story by clicking on the triangle buttons. after please ask your child to have a read of the book by themselves and to try and sound out words they dont know.

Just Phonics

Page 71 of you Just Phonics book please....... Final Sounds

Maths

Page 69 and 70

Oral Language

Look at the poster one last time and examine the character scenes in the poster and ask them to imagine what the people might be thinking or saying to one another

Poem .... a nice one with actions but only if your child is in the humour!!

Firefighter, firefighter, Turn around. (Turn in place) ........... Firefighter, firefighter, Hear that sound? (Put hand to ear, listening) ............... Firefighter, firefighter, Drive your truck (Pretend to drive) ..................... Firefighter, firefighter, Don’t get stuck! (shake head ‘no’)....................................... Firefighter, firefighter, Swing your axe about. (Pretend to swing axe) ................. Firefighter, firefighter, Spray the fire out. (Pretend to use hose and spray)

Play some off the Interactive Games that you found tricky last week

Reading

Practice your new words .......

Have a read to one of the Ebooks again..... the Genre Story, the Non Fiction Reader or the Fiction Reader......

Writing

Can you draw and write about a time that you were scared.......

Just Phonics

Page 72 and 73 of your book..... Middle sounds.... you all practised these in the Interactive resources game last week!

Handwriting

Do the next q page please and then ........

Pick any page that you like in your handwriting book. Check how to make the letter correctly by watching the letter animations in the Oral Language and Interactive Resources section of the Gill website. Just do one page please. We will continue like this for the rest of the term as everyone seems to have different letters to finish off and anyway it is a good idea to allow the children to have a choice in what letter they want to practice. One page a day is plenty

Maths Figure it Out page 71

STEM...... Make a back scratcher

Introduction

Don't you hate it when you have an itch you can't reach right in the middle of your back? Engineer a solution to the problem and build your own back scratcher in this fun activity! you might need......

• Pencil and paper

• Straws

• ice pop sticks or lolliepop sticks

• Cardboard

• cellotape or making tape

• Glue

• Scissors

• Volunteers to try your back scratcher

Procedure

1. Before you start building, sketch a few design ideas for a back scratcher on paper. This is an important part of the engineering design process—it might be tempting to start building right away, but you should have a plan first!

2. If you need some help getting started, think about it like this. In general, your back scratcher should probably have three parts: the handle or grip (the part that you hold onto), an extension (the part that makes it longer), and the scratching part (the part that actually touches your back). The picture shows a few different options.

3. Label the materials you would use to build each design. Think about the properties of each material. For example, what properties does a good handle need? What properties should the scratching material have?

4. Compare your designs and think about which one will work the best. Choose a single design to build.

5. Build a prototype of your design. As you build, you might discover that your design doesn't work as planned. For example, your handle might not be stiff enough. That's OK! You can always iterate and go back to make changes to your design.

6. Try your back scratcher yourself. Does it work like you expected? What changes could you make to improve it?

7. Based on your initial testing, see if you can make any changes to improve your back scratcher. Remember that it's OK if your design doesn't perfectly match your initial design that you drew on paper!

8. Let a few volunteers test your revised back scratcher. Do they have any feedback? What other changes or improvements could you make?

Imaginative Play ...... continue on with the Firefighting theme and perhaps practice playing

sleeping in the sleeping area

fighting a fire

rescuing an animal in distress.

Construction

The children might like to build their fire station. They could label the various areas or could number the parking spaces for each of their fire engines or parking spaces in the fire station staff car park.

Art

Junk art: Supply the children with various junk materials to make a fire engine. For example, shoe boxes, red paint, yoghurt pots (for siren), coiled art straws (or hoses), red paint, glue, scissors, paintbrushes.

Supply the children with various junk materials to make a fire extinguisher. For example, lemonade bottles, spray bottles and milk cartons, red paint or red sugar paper, paintbrushes, scissors and insulation tape of various colours.

The children could also create a scene for fire engines as a group project. A number of sheets of black sugar paper could be stuck together and the children could draw roadways using chalk. Various boxes could be used to create houses and different buildings.

Sensory flame painting: Use any type of paper or card and place blobs of orange, yellow and red paint on it. Cover with some cling film or plastic wrap and encourage the children to use their hands to move the paint around under the plastic wrap, creating a fire scene. You could include a fire engine for them to cut, colour and paste on the scene or a fire man extinguishing the fire.

Water play table: Supply a water tray that can be set up as a car wash for emergency vehicles. Supply the children with a range of emergency vehicles (ambulance, helicopter, Garda cars, fire engines), washing-up liquid, scrubbing brushes of various sizes (washing up, nail brushes, toothbrushes), cut-up flannels, cut-up J-cloths and sponges.

Following this, the children can explore washing and drying/polishing various vehicles and role-play could be introduced.

A ‘Car Wash’ sign could be erected and a Garda/ambulance driver/firefighter could visit the car wash with their vehicle and request a wash. A price list and pretend money could be incorporated.

Foam tray: Using a tray with ‘firefighting foam’ (shaving foam),.... hide some small toys or house hold objects in it and the children have to try find them and identify them only by touch! This is great fun..... clothes pegs, spoons, bottle tops anything at all!

They could also use the foam trays to practise their letter formation.

Another idea that could be used to improve fine motor skills is to mix the shaving foam with yellow and red paint to give it the appearance of flames of fire. You could then laminate an A3 picture of a building, cover it in the flames and give the children spray bottles to ‘extinguish’ the fire.

Small World

Supply two toy phones for children to take/make calls to emergency services. They might like a piece of paper to take notes and ask what is the emergency! Remember they can use anything at all to use as a pretend phone!

You could also ask the children to create a street scene with houses using blocks and bricks or toy buildings.