Target information and activities

Here are a range of resources that we hope will be useful to you to give you some ideas about how to work on your child's focus area at home.

Phonics

Here are some useful videos to give you extra information about phonics.

Pure sounds:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zalXGOrF0bc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YmFxFoqQiM

Technical language plus blending and segmenting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mIhMh1oYdA

Encourage early readers to decode a sentence once like a robot first, then read it again to experience reading more fluently. Show them how to pause at full stops. They will enjoy using voices when reading dialogue.

Reading is about understanding. It is important that children don't read too fast. Encourage your child to stop every few lines or at the end of each page and think about what they have just read.

Ask questions to check your child's understanding ( see KS1 and KS 2 comprehension documents attached).

When reading with children at any age you can begin to collect words. Your child brought home with them a red word book. On the top of each page write a letter of the alphabet. This is the place to collect new words that your child has found in their reading. Talk about the word and its meaning.

Does it link to any other words we know?

How might we use it in a sentence?

Can we try and use the word today?

Handwriting

As a school we use www.letterjoin.co.uk to demonstrate how to form letters and how to join them together.

Contact Mrs Holmes for our school login- with this you will be able to access activities on the ipad to practice your handwriting.

Writing

Early writing activities

1. Encourage children to look for print in their environment –road signs, food packets, shops, catalogues etc.
2. Try activities to develop fine motor skills e.g. cutting, using playdough, using tweezers, using clothes pegs, tracing.
3. Use a chalkboard to write family messages on.
4. Make labels for things around the house.
5. Write a shopping list – real or imaginary! Or any other sort of list.
6. Letter formation – practise forming letters using paint, in sand, using playdough or pastry.
7. Let your child write their own Christmas cards or birthday cards to people.
8. Use magnetic letters – your child can leave a message on the fridge.
9. Encourage and praise early squiggles and marks which show your child is beginning to understand writing.

Improving Writers

1. Write party invitations.
2. Encourage children to write thank you letters after birthdays and Christmas.
3. Write postcards when on holiday.
4. Write menu for a family meal or party.
5. Email a family member or friend.
6. Make a scrap book with labels and captions – maybe after a holiday or special event.
7. Write short stories involving the adventures of their favourite toys.
8. Write an information leaflet about something they find interesting eg. dinosaurs, sports etc.
9. Write a letter to a favourite author.
10. Invent and write rules for the house, bedroom etc. and put on a poster
11. Draw, label and explain their own inventions. Make up silly sentences and tongue twisters.

More confident writers

1. Write a secret diary.
2. Make up song lyrics.
3. Plan their own party.
4. Write a story for a younger family member, in the style of their favourite book.
5. Write a holiday journal.
6. Write instructions for an X-box game, Minecraft or similar.
7. Write a recipe.
8. Write instructions for a more mature member of the family (eg . grandparent) for a piece of modern technology they can’t get to grips with!
9. Produce their own comic (www.comicmaster.org.uk)
10. Channel their passions – RSPCA, WWF, ActionAid etc. all have ideas for getting children involved in raising awareness of campaigns.
11. Write to the local newspaper about a local issue they feel strongly about or even to the local MP.
12. Talk to different generations of family about their life and compile a family history.
13. Make up jokes.
14. Look out for writing competitions eg. Radio 2’s annual 500 Word Competition. (A prize is always an incentive to write!)

It’s also an incentive to write if there is a range of exciting writing materials available – pencils, crayons, felt tips, sparkly pens , writing icings, writing soaps for bathtime, coloured papers, different shape and sizes of paper etc. Most of these things are available quite cheaply these days in places like Poundland.

Try to remember to focus on and praise the content of any writing your child shares with you, rather than dwelling on any mistakes they may have made. Hopefully the variety of activities listed here have provided you with plenty of ideas to help and encourage your child to have a go at doing some writing at home.

Spelling

These are the strategies we use in school to practice words.

Number facts

Short regular practice makes the biggest impact here.

Counting:

Take any opportunity to count forwards and backwards.

Count whilst skipping, throwing a ball to someone, doing jumping jacks. Chalk out a number line and jump along this whilst counting. This is a good visual way of reinforcing the pattern.

What are the age related expectations?

Reception: Count reliably 1-20. Place numbers in the correct order.

Year 1: Count to and across 100, forwards and backwards beginning with 0 or 1, or any given number.

Year 2: Count in steps of 2, 3 and 5 from 0, and in tens from any number forwards and backwards.

Year 3: Count on in multiples of 4, 8, 50 and 100. Find 10 or 100 more/ less than any given number,

Year 4: Count in multiples of 6,7,9,25 and 1000. Find 1000 more /less than a given number.

Count backwards into negative numbers.

Year 5: Count forwards and backwards in steps of power of 10 to 1,000000.

This is a useful website to find out more about supporting your child to learn numberbonds.

The 4 Calculations

See the 'About us' tab on the main page- curriculm- maths

,for our calculations policy and progression documents

Our older children are currently preparing 'how to' videos of the stages of the calculation policy.