Posted on March 23rd, 2020
Good morning everybody,
I hope you are all well. Today, I will be filming the weeks worth of youtube videos for phonics and maths this morning. I have planned it to be delivered as a video, but,as it’s my first one, it may need a little editing before I can upload it and send you the link. I’m hoping that it will be later today. I put whiteboards and pens into the bags of any children that were still in school on Thursday, but, if your child was not present that day, then paper and a pen/pencil will work fine. The maths is looking at doubling in the first episode (we looked at this two weeks ago so it’s a bit of a refresher) and then goes onto halving, which is a new concept for us. For this I use a paper plate divided in half by a black line, but, once again, a piece of paper divided in half will be fine. It will be a good idea to have the whiteboards/paper handy for both phonics and maths lessons, and also if an adult or older sibling remains present for the tutorial as it is a good idea to pause the video at times to allow them time to read a presented sentence, or write a word, before I carry on with the lesson. In phonics we have just completed phase 3. This covers all the new sounds that the children are taught in Reception, so this is a good place to be in this unusual circumstances that we all find ourselves in. The focus now is to use all the phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (written verson of the sounds) and put them into our writing and reading. We will also focus on the common exception words taught at phase 2 and 3. These are those words that pop up regularly in sentences but do no always conform with the phonics sounds that are taught e.g. you (the y is helping us but the ou is making an irregular oo sound). We will take the phonemes and common exception words and build sentences that I will ask your child to read or write in the tutorials. We will also progress onto reading and writing two syllable words. I advise them tackling the first syllable before moving onto the second when reading or writing. Punctuation will cover full stops, question marks,capital letters and finger spaces between words. The odd exclamation mark may appear.
I will do counting together on the video clips but this doesn’t work brilliantly unless I am counting along too, so it would be good if you can use the 100 squares to count together everyday. The children are used to counting regularly to 100 in ones, in tens and in fives, so it would be excellent practice to keep this going on a daily basis. We haven’t started counting in twos yet, so this is something that you could introduce (always using the 100 square for help). We also regularly work on one/two more than a given number and one/two less than a given number (if they struggle with this, then do use the 100 square for help). Telling the time to the hour, coin recognition and discussing the properties of 2D/3D shapes will also be excellent daily activities.We also sing the days of the week song to the tune of the Adams Family (There’s Monday and there’s Tuesday, there’s Wednesday and there’s Thursday, there’s Friday and there’s Saturday and then there’s Sunday…days of the week CLAP CLAP…days of the week…CLAP CLAP)
Also, the website favoured by every teacher, Twinkl (note no e on the end) is offering one months free subscriptions for all parents at the moment. I cannot promote this enough to you. It is where the resources I have currently sent home all came from. It has resources for just about anything. Once logged in, I would suggest starting any search with EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) and then what you are searching for e.g. EYFS subtraction activities, EYFS phase 3 sentences. Also,if you are reading a certain picture book with your child, then search for resources for those books on Twinkl too.
I added extra reading books to the book bags as well,so have a good read of those too.
If your child was absent during the last week, then I have asked Mrs Birrell to send out the work activities in the post to you.
Keep your eye out for my next email (hopefully today) as it will contain the link to the first youtube tutorials.
I’m missing you all already. We have the best little group in our class, so please do take care and we will hopefully all be back together as soon as possible.
Jackie Patnell
The reception class starts together full time in September of the year in which they are five.
Happy Easter everyone 
