Dear Year 1,
I hope you all had a super half-term break and are feeling refreshed ready to take on a new set of challenges this week – whether you are joining us in school or are continuing your super learning at home. The new theme is the rainforest. I know many of you enjoyed the animal and under the sea topics so I look forward to hearing about what you get up to this week. I especially look forward to seeing any puppets you can create based on a story of your choice. Perhaps you could make a puppet of a creature you would find in the rainforest. I also look forward to reading your acrostic animal poems. You could draw an illustration to match whichever creature you choose.
Remember to keep accessing Spelling Shed, Numbots, MyMaths and TTRockstars. I will be setting two new MyMaths activities each week but remember that you can also access any previously set tasks.
Please keeping sending photos and messages to year1@eastbierleyprimary.com or @eastbierleyPS on Twitter.
I look forward to hearing from you all,
Miss Sowray
Weekly Maths Tasks
 NUMBER CHALLENGE: Can you correctly use the greater than (>), less than (<) and equals (=) signs to compare two numbers or amounts? |
| Complete your Daily Calculations using Daily 10. Choose from the Level One questions. |
| Get a chocolate bar and work with your child on how it could be split into half and quarters. You could investigate whether the size of the chocolate bar affects how much they get. Does ½ always look the same? You could also explore using different types of food or play dough. |
| Can you practise writing the numbers to 20 in numerals and words?
You might want to make your own matching pairs game to match the numerals to the words. |
| Try this Kahoot to practise counting in 2s,5s and 10s. - 06614231 |
Weekly Reading Tasks
 Create a sock or finger puppet based on your favourite story character (s). Can you use your puppet (s) to retell the story? You may even wish to make your own story bag to keep them in. See my example for the Gruffalo. |
| Watch Eric Carle’s Slowly, slowly, slowly, said the Sloth or Rumble in the Jungle. Once your child is familiar with the story, they can read along or join in with familiar sentences. You could also discuss some of the fabulous vocabulary in the stories. |
| Can you make a rainforest themed reading den? |
| Help your child to look through cookery books or online for a recipe involving chocolate. Ask them to use decoding skills to read some of the ingredients. They can learn about where chocolate derives here. |
| Read the First News Newspaper with your child by using the links on our Home Learning Resources page. |
Weekly Phonics and Spellings Tasks
 Spelling Steps – Place individual sounds on each step so that they spell out a word as your child moves up the stairs. Can they say each sound and then blend them together at the end? If you do not have steps to use, you could place them along the floor.
You may wish to use these Phase 5 words. |
| The tree frog, spider monkey and boa constrictor are just some of the animals that can be found living in a rainforest. Ask your child to list verbs (action words) to describe how each animal moves. How many can they think of?
E.g. slither, crawl, jump |
| Your child could visit this interactive game and play Forest Phonics. |
| This game helps your child to practise the ‘tricky’ words for their year group in a fun, interactive way.
You could also play this game at home by chopping the tricky words up into individual letters and trying to put them into the correct order again. Tricky word flashcards can be found here. |
| The word ‘rain’ contains the sound ‘ai’. Ask your child to list as many words as they can containing the ‘ai’ sound. Your child might identify words that contain an alternative spelling for ‘ai’ such as ay/a-e. You could write the words under headings depending on the way the ‘ai’ sound is written. |
Weekly Writing Tasks
| Your child could start a nature diary. At the same time each day, they could record the animals that they can see in the garden or from their window and describe the weather and plants. What differences do they notice over the week? Or a month? |
| Can your child create a fact file about an animal from the rainforest. Describe the animal’s appearance, habitat, diet and any other facts. This Website may help you to choose your animal. |
| Your child could write a short description of the rainforest. Ask them to think about what they can see, hear, feel and smell. This live stream or this video may help you to imagine you are in the rainforest.
This video gives you some information about the plants and animals in the rainforest. |
| Can you write an acrostic poem about a rainforest creature? Each letter of the creatures name is a new line of your poem.
Here is an example; Slowly Leisurely On his way Through the trees Hanging on |
| Try these Kahoots –
Phase 5 Phonics – 0628377 Phase 4 Phonics - 07087201 |
STEM Learning Opportunities
Rainforest Insects
Watch this video.
There are lots of insects/minibeasts in the rain forest. You can see some pictures of them here.
Look for mini-beasts living in the garden or on a walk. What are these minibeasts called? Which one do you like the best and why?
Try drawing pictures of the minibeasts you find.
You could keep a tally of how many of each minibeast you find.
Additional Learning Resources
| The Rainforest Alliance website is packed full of information, resources and games which may support some of the above activities.
White Rose Maths online maths lessons. Watch a lesson video and complete the worksheet (can be downloaded and completed digitally) IXL- Click here for Year 1. There are interactive games to play and guides for parents under the tab ‘Learn with an example’. Numbots and MyMaths Your child can access these with their individual log ins. If your child requires more of a challenge, or you believe that there are some gaps in their learning then Century Tech is a fantastic resource that is currently free for home learning. The app is designed to address gaps and misconceptions, provide challenge and enables children to retain new knowledge. It uses artificial intelligence to tailor the learning to your child’s needs. Sign up here. |
Learning Project - to be completed through the week
| The project this week aims to provide opportunities for your child to learn more about the world’s rainforests. Learning may focus on the plants, animals and insects that inhabit the rainforest, food that originates there and weather patterns. It could look at plants and animals that can be found in the garden too.
Fascinating Forest Floor- Can your child create their own replica forest floor? Task them with collecting materials from the garden or during your daily exercise. The Sounds of the Rainforests- There are many wonderful and intriguing sounds that can be heard in the rainforest. You can listen to the sounds of a rainforest here or watch this BBC Our Planet clip. Can your child replicate these sounds using objects from around the home? For example, you could create your own rainmaker using rice in a bottle. Where in the World are the Rainforests? - Using an atlas or online map, can your child locate the continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Central America and South America) where rainforests can be found? If this is too challenging, can your child locate one country with a rainforest, and then locate the UK. Ask them to describe the similarities and differences between the UK and the country they have located. This video may help you to compare the different environments. The Big Garden Tidy Up- Why not work together as a family and have a Big Garden Tidy Up? Task your child with pulling out weeds, raking up the leaves or just having a general tidy. Take before and after photographs. This is what I have been doing during my time off! Sketch a Spider Monkey or a Tree Frog- Can your child create a detailed sketch of an animal that inhabits the rainforest? Using pencils, crayons or whatever else you have, ask your child to copy an image of a rainforest animal, thinking carefully about the patterns and tones. |
