Dear Parents,
I hope you and your family is keeping well and the boys had a pleasant Easter break considering the unfortunate circumstances. Please see the below list of activities to do at home during the week. Again, please remember these are only suggestions and don’t feel under pressure to complete them.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions mcollins@togherboys.com or you can use our Senior Infant group on Microsoft Teams.
I will be in touch with you by phone during the week.
Take care and stay safe.
Many Thanks
Ms. Collins
Literacy
Reading
- Reading is the most important thing to continue practising while the boys are off school. Please try and get your son to read aloud to you for a minimum of 10 – 15 minutes every day.
- Many of you may have run out of suitable reading materials at this stage. This is a great free resource that has levelled readers suitable for your son https://connect.collins.co.uk/school/Portal.aspx
Click teacher log in.
Enter User name: parents@harpercollins.co.uk
Password: Parents20!
Then click on Collins Big Fat Cat. Click on the Blue band books or whichever level you feel your child is able for.
- Poetry – Read and recite the poem Recycling (last page of document)
Phonics/Sounds
- Watch Jolly Phonics Video sound ‘aw’ and practise singing the song with the actions.
- Think of 5 words with the letters ‘aw’ (claw, saw, hawk, straw, jaw, crawl, shawl etc )
- Practise writing words with ‘aw’.
- Just Phonics page p74, 75 (if you have the book). Revision pages 76 & 77. Keep revising all letters and sounds. Repetition is very important! – oa, ai, oi, ie, ue, ee, or, oo, ng, wh, ou, ay, er, sh, ch, th, qu, ar, er. Call out words which include these sounds and encourage your son to write them down. Write different words out and encourage your son to read them.
- This website will allow your child to revise the sounds they already know (Activity Book B) in a fun way https://slp.cjfallon.ie/ . You will find “aw” activities in Activity Book C – Unit 3 The Library – aw/au
- Rhyming Words: Discuss words that end in “ip” and “ell” e.g. lip, slip, pip, ship/shell, bell, fell, well. Encourage your son to orally list out ip words and then ell words to you. Then progress to writing these words out independently.
Tricky Words
- Revise 1-60.
- Practise writing out and spelling the next 10 tricky words – by, only, old, like, have, live, give, little, down, what.
- Practise putting them into simple sentences. / Dictation sentences: Parent calls out a simple sentence three times and child writes.
- Play a game: ‘Matching Pairs’- Write out 10 tricky words twice. Mix them up and turn them over, facing the table. Take turns at picking 2 tricky words. Whoever has the most matching pairs is the winner.
- Practise forming capital letters Q and R (remind your child “ you always start your letters from the top”). If you have the Just Handwriting book do pages 54 and 55. If you don’t have book just practise writing the letters on a lined page.
- Listen to an audible story on https://stories.audible.com/start-listen/ or https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/have-some-fun/storybooks-and-games/.
- Read some stories to your son and ask him questions based on the story. Get him to retell you the story in his own words.
- Write a daily diary entry.
Maths
Topic: Data
This week we will focus on collecting and analysing data. We will be getting the boys used to looking and creating simple graphs.
Activity 1
Step 1
- Adult draws 2 rows of small boxes (20 boxes in each row) on a page. Label one row spoon and the other row fork.
It should look something like this
| S | ||||||||||||||||||||
| F |
Step 2
- Lay out 2 different objects on a table (pick any number between 1-20) e.g. spoons and forks. Every time your son sees a fork he records it by shading in 1 box in the correct row. He repeats this until all the forks are accounted for. He then counts how many boxes he has shaded in and checks his answer is correct by physically counting the forks. He then repeats the exercise with the spoons.
- Repeat this activity using different amounts and different objects each time. To challenge your child add in a third/fourth object.
- Ask questions: How many spoons have you recorded? How many forks are there altogether? Are there more spoons than forks? How many spoons and forks are there altogether? How many more/less spoons would I need to make them equal to the amount of forks?
Activity 2
- Sit at a window or in the garden. Record how many birds/people/cars you see (using your technique of shading in boxes on a table) in 2/3/4 minutes period.
Activity 3
Maths book p 100, 101.
- To access the maths book please use this link: https://my.cjfallon.ie/dashboard/student-resources Click on links maths, senior infants, busy at maths
Extra Activities
- https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ has some lovely maths activities, we use it a lot in the classroom. You will find plenty of maths games listed under Whiteboard Resources
Gaeilge
- Encourage your son to watch one cartoon daily in Irish on TnaG.
- Cúla4 www.cula4.com
- If you do have a little Irish yourself practise some general questions/answers:
Dia duit. Dia is muire duit.
Go raibh maith agat. Tá fáilte romhat.
Cad is ainm duit? ____ is ainm dom.
Conas atá tú? Tá/Níl mé go maith.
Cén aois thú? Tá mé 6 bliana d’aois/ Tá mé 7 mbliana d’aois.
Cén sort aimsire ann inniu? Tá sé ag cur báistí (raining). Tá sé scamallach (cloudy). Tá sé tirim (dry). Tá sé fuar (cold). Tá sé té (hot). Ta an ghrian ag taitneamh (sunny).
P.E:
Soccer skills.
- Practise dribbling the ball using your strong leg and then your weak leg in straight lines.
- Prctice dribbling the ball weaving in and out of cones (use some household objects to represent your cones).
- Practise kicking the ball against a wall, at a target or passing to a family member.
- Practise shooting at a goal using your strong leg and then your weak leg.
- Go for a run with someone in your family.
Other Activities
- RTE Junior have several 10-minute work outs that the children love to do https://rtejr.rte.ie/10at10/
- www.gonoodle.com for short movement breaks, stretches and dance routines.
- Cosmic kids yoga on You Tube
- The Body Coach on YouTube channel
S.E.S.E
Environmental Care
- Discuss the different ways we can care for our environment e.g. picking up rubbish, recycling, not wasting electricity and water, kindness to animals, walking instead of driving, planting trees etc.. Write a few sentences and draw a picture based on the topic.
- Recycling – Discuss the different materials that can be recycled. Practise and encourage proper recycling of rubbish at home. Take a trip to your local bottle bank to recycle glass, if possible.
SPHE – Stay Safe Programme: Secrets and Strangers
Secrets
- Talk with your child about the Secrets and Telling
- Tell your child it’s okay to say ‘No’ to an adult. Distinguish between good and bad secrets Learn that they should never keep bad secrets including secrets about touches. Learn that sometimes it’s difficult to tell if there are bribes or threats involved.
- Revise the 5 people that you can trust to tell if you have a secret that makes you feel “unsafe”.
Strangers
- Discuss the concept of strangers.
- Learn the 2 golden rules of 1. Never go with a stranger 2. Never take anything from a stranger
Religion
- You can now assess Grow In Love website and resources using the email trial@growinlove.ie and password growinlove. There are stories, songs and prayers available here. The boys are up as far as Theme 7.
- Senior Infants Prayers: Morning and night time prayer, Hail Mary.
Other Suggested Activities
Science – Material Scavenger Hunt:
- Find something silky
- Find something that is bumpy.
- Find something that is metal.
- Find something that is wooden.
- Find something that plastic.
- Find something that that you can put together.
- Find something that you twist.
- Find something that you can roll.
- Find something squishy.
- Find something clear.
- Find something that you can bounce.
- Find something you can reuse.
Art – Making pictures using recycling rubbish.
- Using cereal/milk cartons to create houses/ buildings .
Boardgames
Baking – and then write out the recipe in steps.
Lego project: You and your friends decide to build a tree house. Can you build a fabulous creation? Maybe design your tree house on paper first and then get building.
Recycling
Clink, clank, jangle,
Ring, chime, jingle
Break the bottles,
Smash the bottles
In the bottle bank.
Scrunch, tear, rustle,
Crunch, rip, crackle,
Shred, fold, bundle,
Press the paper,
Push the paper,
In the paper bin.
Togher Boys' National School 