Whitehouse Common Primary -

New home learning and further fine motor activities for all!

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Hello all!

We hope that you are all happy and keeping well!

It has been great to have many of you back in school (and safely in your 'bubbles') and to see you enjoying learning, having fun and developing even more in your learning and skills! It is fantastic when we get the chance to see you on the playground and field too where we can say hello, wave and share news. We are really proud of you!

We also hope that those of you staying at home are keeping safe and well and are continuing to enjoy the home learning activities that we are providing for you and that you are busy progressing and developing your skills too. We can't wait to see the work that you have been doing and we are very proud of you too!

The new home learning resources are now available using the home learning tab at the top of the page and we would encourage those back at school to continue to use the fine motor skills activities at home to support achieving all of our development bands by the end of the year. We have been practising cutting skills at school and focusing on our pencil control as part of our work and activities but there are loads of great, fun activities that you might like to explore at home too!

A Sneak Preview of school...

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Hello all!

Just to let you know that, if you click on the Welcome Back tab at the top of the website page, we have provided some pictures of what you can expect on your return to school.

There are pictures of the staff and classrooms and some pictures of the signs and symbols that you might spot when you are on the school site.

Do take a look so that you know what to expect and be ready to see smiling, waving teachers on Monday morning who cannot wait to see you again!!!

Any work that you bring in to share with your teacher will be collected in a box and stored safely so that Mrs Slassor & Mrs Harding or Mrs Duckers, Miss Greenwood & Miss Barrell can take some time to look over all the brilliant things that you have done at home. We are so proud of you all and have missed you immensely!

Best wishes to you all and we will see you soon :)

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

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Hello everyone!

We hope that you are all keeping well, contintuing to stay safe and are still enjoying some home learning - especially focusing on those basic skills (reading, phonics, key words and counting/number to 20).

We are busy in school this week getting ready for those of you who are coming back and we are really looking forward to seeing you all. It has been far too long!!!!!

The new home learning was added to the website yesterday so please continue to work through this so you are ready and prepared when you come back and, if you aren't coming back to join us just yet, these ideas will help you to continue your important learning of key skills at home!

Today, I have added a newsletter for all parents which is relly important in giving an overview of what will be happening in school and how this can be supported by parents at home whose children will not be back in school. We are asking ALL parents to provide opportunities for the children to use and develop their fine motor skills at home as this is something which will be challenging at first in school with the restrictions on resources that can be used. Your support with this will be much appreciated and will be very beneficial to your child in continuing to develop a crucial skill! To support with this, some ideas and suggestions of activities are also available in the home learning folder online. We will continue to update these over the coming weeks with further ideas.

For those children coming back to school (and those who may join us before the end of the year), we know that parents will be keen to support the transition too so we have also added some useful resources and stories which you might like to share with your child to help with chats around keeping safe by washing hands, social distancing and the rules of coughs and sneezes etc. We will be talking to the children about this each morning and having regular reminders throughout the day too.

There are activities linked to Don't Worry Little Bear; a story which can be accessed at the following link: https://www.earlyyearsstorybox.com/corona/

The 'Coming Back to School in a Bubble' book will be particularly good for you to share ahead of your child's return as it will explain a lot and help to raise and answer key questions.

Above all, we are sooooooo looking forward to seeing your smiling faces, to hearing about all the exciting things that you have been doing and to getting back to what we truly love; watching you learn and grow!

Please keep looking at the website and the blog for continued updates and information and we look forward to waving, smiling and seeing you soon!

New home learning is ready! Are you?

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Hi all,

So... the new home learning is ready and available for you to access using the 'Home Learning' tab at the top of the page! There are lots more resources; new Talk for Writing packs, ideas for practical learning activities to support maths and creative learning ideas and the resources to support our basic skills (letter formation charts, RML sound cards and key word lists).

Please be reminded of the importance of basic skills as the focus for short bursts of learning each day and keep the fun going with lots of opportunities to learn through play.

Below are some links to some of the activities shared on the home learning sheet so please feel free to access and enjoy!

But first, a joke! Children - can you solve it? (Answer at the bottom of the blog!!!)

What is orange and sounds like a parrot?

Use the song links below to practise key skills such as the alphabet and days of the week...

As well as working hard on your key words, use these games to practise simple spellings and don't forget to keep working towards achieving our reading challenge - the Reception Book Award!

To support your basic skills in maths, keep practising counting accurately and use the White Rose Maths to follow our maths scheme. There is a link to Oxford Owls maths too for some further activity ideas ...

Below is a link to a range of educational games that you might want to access to further your learning and try new things!

Joke answer...

What is orange and sounds like a parrot?

A Carrot !    

Loving learning? ... Keep on going!

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So... we have a little longer at home ... but you are doing a great job of keeping your learning going and we are really proud of all your hard work and efforts! Keep it up and we can't wait to see all of the super things that you have been doing soon!

Remember that your phonics, reading and maths are the most important things to help you learn so please keep trying to do a few minutes on these EVERY day! It will help you lots and is so important to all of your learning.

Here is a reminder link to the White Rose Maths which is perfect to support your maths learning over the coming weeks and some new online maths games and activities which you could try...

The RML phonics (which is important to do daily) had some additional resources which can be used to practise your learning. Use the link below to find them! We have also added the set 2 and 3 sound cards to our most recent homework folder so you can print these off and use them in lots of ways to keep recognising those sounds... maybe play 'Hunt the Sound' or use them as flash cards for rapid recall practice! There are some links to spelling and reading games below too...

Please remember your Charanga account to allow you to have some musical fun. Lots of you have accessed this now which is brilliant to see!

We also want you to stay creative too... so below is a link to some more outdoor science ideas (thank goodness the weather is improving again and it is gradually getting warmer!) and we have also added a new bank of art and craft ideas to our home learning folder for this two week period.

Keep learning, keep smiling and, above all, stay safe! We miss you but look forward to seeing you soon!

A special (and unique) bank holiday

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Hello everyone!

We hope that you all enjoyed a good bank holiday weekend and were able to experience some VE Day celebrations! We were very lucky to have sunshine and it seems that lots of people took the opportunity to enjoy picnics outside, wave to friends and neighbours, sing together, dance together and decorate their houses to honour such a special occasion.

We certainly made sure that we had some fun too!

Miss Greenwood's street all decorated their houses with bunting and had a 'socially distanced' street party which meant that everyone could celebrate and enjoy the beautiful sunshine together.

Mrs Ducker's road also had a party and danced on their front gardens to 1940s music. At 9 o' clock, they all joined in together singing 'We'll Meet Again'.

Mrs Slassor had a BBQ in the garden to enjoy the sunshine at it's best and admire and appreciate the beautiful flowers growing at this time of year.

She also decided (on the Sunday) to learn a new cooking skill and, for the first time ever, she made yorkshire pudding from scratch to treat Mr Slassor to a delicious British classic - toad in the hole! She was very proud when it worked!!!!

New Homework is online!

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Good morning all!

We hope that you are all healthy, happy and safe still and are keeping busy with plenty of home learning and fun activities.

To help you out, we have just added a new homework sheet and some new activity ideas to our online homework section. Click the link here (or look under the home learning tab at the top of the page) to take a look!

https://whcps.sharepoint.com/sites/staff/Closure%20Homework/Forms/AllItems.aspx?viewid=b3a97586%2Ddba3%2D4141%2Dbd07%2D32b144c7b7a2&id=%2Fsites%2Fstaff%2FClosure%20Homework%2FReception

Please remember our homework review which explains the key things which we would like you to focus on and don't forget to keep some examples of your work or take photographs so that we can celebrate all that you have been doing when we see you again!

NOW FOR OUR QUIZ ANSWERS...

OUR FAVOURITE PHONICS SOUNDS ARE THESE:

MRS SLASSOR - 'ai' - Snail in the rain!  MRS DUCKERS - 'oa' - Goat in a boat! and MISS GREENWOOD - 'ir' Whirl and twirl!

Speaking of phonics, don't forget the daily RML phonics lessons which are available online and practise your skills with some online phonics games too. Click on the pictures below to access...

Have you started work towards your book award yet? Our reading challenge in Reception is the Ruby award and there is a chance for you to earn a special certificate for completing it but you need to get reading! Click on the picture below to take you to the Ruby Book Award details...

For you maths learning, White Rose Maths (the scheme that we follow in school) has published home learning lessons to address the units which we would have been covering at this point in the year. There are great activities provided and linked to familiar stories to make the learning even more fun. We would encourage you to use these and even look at prior weeks to cover more of the basic skills. Click on the link below to access the site...

Here are some more science ideas for you so that you can become mad scientists in your own homes and investigate lots of different things. What will you discover? Be sure to take photographs, draw pictures or write down the thing which you find out!

Finally, assemblies are really important to us in school. They bring people together, help us to reflect and remind us that we are part of a team and belong to our Whitehouse Common family. With the importance of assemblies in mind, we are sharing a link to a weekly online assembly (available from 11am on Thursday) so feel free to pop along and see what it is all about! Just click on the picture below...

Key reminder for parents

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Good morning,

We hope that you all continue to keep safe and well and are finding the activities and suggestions helpful in supporting with home learning.

Just a quick reminder that, although the majority of learning in the early years is through play, there are some key skills which would be most beneficial for you to focus on with your children to support them with their progress.

We understand that some days will be challenging (that the children may be tired or frustrated and just want some down time) so, to offer some guidance for prioritising the short, structured learning tasks which would be most beneficial to your children in ensuring that they stay 'on track', we have created a one page guide to key basic skills.

You will find the document in the closure homework folder on line or if you click the link below. It is called EYFS homework review.

https://whcps.sharepoint.com/sites/staff/Closure%20Homework/Forms/AllItems.aspx?viewid=b3a97586%2Ddba3%2D4141%2Dbd07%2D32b144c7b7a2&id=%2Fsites%2Fstaff%2FClosure%20Homework%2FReception

We will be publishing some new homework next week to cover another two weeks which will include suggested ideas to support with practising these basic skills in different ways as well as some creative learning ideas. Please don't feel that you have to complete everything on the homework sheets but we want to ensure that there is plenty to keep the children occupied!

Please be reminded that the Charanga site is available for music activities (see our previous blog post for the link) and you all have your individual log-ins for this - we see that some of you have already accessed these and enjoyed some fun music learning at home so well done!

Best wishes to all.

Stay safe and we will be in touch again soon :)

Some project ideas ....

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Good morning all! Happy Monday!

We hope that you have all had a good weekend... once again, Mrs Slassor has been baking! This time, some chocolate cupcakes (which have turned out well and which James - Mr Slassor - is enjoying eating!). She also made a Rainbow Fish to add to her 'Rainbow' window by colouring in a template that she found.

If you want to make some chocolate cupcakes or colour in a rainbow fish (you could even draw and decorate one of your own!) then click on the pictures which have links to a cupcake recipe and a rainbow fish template for you to try out!

We also thought that you might like some other projects to explore this week too... so there are links below for some computing activities, some household science investigations and a fantastic art competition being run by Birmingham Museum and At Gallery which you might like to enter (and which has some great prizes if you love arts and crafts)!

These are all things which can be done at home and, whatever your favourite subject, we hope that there is something to capture your imagination!

We must not forget that your number work and your reading is really important as well. These are the things which help you to learn in all subjects so there are some links to some online counting games and read and rhyme games too...

Be sure to keep practising those number skills, keep reading a little EVERY day and don't forget your phonics!

QUIZ QUESTION: What is you teacher's favourite phonics rhyme? Do you know? **Answers on our next blog!**

We Miss You!

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Website links for home learning

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Hello everyone!

We hope that you are back to some home learning each day again and have found the new ideas that we have shared on our updated homework sheet (along with some extra resources) here on the website. It can be found if you click on the Home Learning tab at the top of the page and then select Reception.

Some of the website links are below to help you navigate easily too (with some extra resource links for science related sites for you to explore!)... Have fun, enjoy your learning and we'd love you to keep some examples of work you do or photographs of some of your fun activities and learning through play for us to see and celebrate when we are back in school!

Keep an eye on the blog here too as we will post regular updates and new links to keep you busy!

Maths songs:

Spanish Songs:

Science ideas:

With the links below you can watch (and maybe try out) some fun science investigations or have a story read to you from space!