English
Day One
Your child may wish to watch the A Mighty Fine Time Machine again to remind them of the plot.
Chat about how, in the story, the characters become absorbed in books at the end. Discuss how books can take you to lots of different places and times. This is particularly wonderful during Lockdown!
Today, encourage your child to look at lots of different books. You could use the school elibrary at https://balksburyjun-hantssls.wheelers.co/ to find some new stories to enjoy.
Username: firstname.lastname (E.g. john.smith)
Password: ebooks
If you click ‘Browse’ and then in ‘Audience’ select ‘Child’ you will find lots of books to enjoy in the 4-6 years section.
Alternatively you could look at books read in the Story Time section of the Year One pages. Ask your child to choose two or three favourites and discuss why they have chosen those books.
Where do they take them?
What do they like about them?
One of the key skills children develop in Year One is to tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction. You could remind your child about prior learning by watching the videos below or through your own discussion with them. Ask them about whether the books they have chosen are fiction or non-fiction and why they think this.
Day Two
Ask your child to narrow down their favourite books to just one for today’s learning.
Read it to them or support them in reading it to you.
Tell them what you like about the book and ask them what they like.
Ask them where the book takes them in their mind. You could support them to exercise their imagination by suggesting ways they could play or draw using the book for inspiration. For example, if the book has animals, they could play with their cuddly toys or dinosaurs.
Day Three
In the writing activities for days 4 and 5, the children will need to write questions. Chat to them about what a question is and take turns to give some examples.
Here is a good video to prompt discussion:
You could spend some time looking through their chosen book for questions and discussing how they know it is a question.
A good (but tricky) game to play...
Tell your child the answer and ask them to think of what the question could be. For example, the answer is ‘blue’. The question could be ‘What colour is the sky?’. Of course, there are lots of questions which could give the answer blue, so you could challenge them to think of more. Any question your child gives is fine, even if it seems a bit wacky! It is a great game to play whilst out for a walk or in the car.
Talk to your child about what they notice about the words that questions often start with. Here is a good video to support this discussion:
And here is a video the children have enjoyed watching in school:
Day 4 and 5
It is now time for children to apply the skills they have been practising this week by carrying out a writing task. Here are few tasks you could choose from:
- Write a book review using the ‘Tell Me’ grid with which they are familiar. At this stage, we would encourage them to write in more detail than they did for the ‘Tell Me’ grid at the beginning of the learning journey. We encourage them to use ‘because’ to explain their ideas further. We teach them to use the mnemonic ‘big elephants can always understand small elephants’. Here is a catchy song to sing too: Because Song
- Write to the author or publisher of the book they chose. They could tell them what they like about the book and how it has inspired them in their play. They could ask the author or publisher some questions about the book. They could include a picture they have drawn of their favourite part.
- Write to a relative telling them all about their favourite book and asking them about theirs.
- Create a poster to show other people about why their book is so great.
- Your child may have their own idea of something they would like to write!
We usually find we get the best out of the children when writing tasks are split up into two, shorter sessions rather than one long one. Don’t forget to use sound and word mats from the Key skills and Resources section of the Year One pages. You will also find hints on how to support your child during the writing process there.