Alnwick Castle Class
Letter 7th January 2021
Dear Alnwick Castle Class,
We hope you are all keeping well and have managed to access the first two weeks of our 'Star' themed activities that we have posted on Tapestry. We know that making home learning as practical, user friendly, creative and fun as possible is the best option. These ideas are there for inspiration - there is no expectation that they are followed to letter and we'd love to know some of the ideas you come up with together! We want to support you as much as possible so will be asking for feedback and re-evaluating what is most useful for you over the upcoming weeks.
In the meantime we have made some additional support for reading:
We have made a resource pack for each of you that includes extra reading books, a Read Write Inc Ditty book as well as a Set 1 sound chart that will be useful for sound practise and writing. Normally, we have to be very careful about sending sets of school teaching books home (you will see that we have brand new reading books too!). However, you have been so amazing with looking after your reading folders so we know you will help us look after these too.
If you are able to, there is a resource pack left for you in the basket in the front foyer of the school office (this means you do not need to enter the main door) - please could you drop off any reading books you have currently when you pick up your pack. If this system works we could do the same in a couple of weeks.
Don't worry if you are unable to collect one, we will continue to provide as much online content as possible and can direct you to some online reading books linked below.
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/
We'd also like to recommend checking ‘Phonics Play’ as they are offering free access to their phonics activities and resources to families over the coming weeks.
Many thanks for your support,
Mrs Johnson and Mrs Donnelly
We have made weekly themes that we will post on Tapestry at the beginning of each week that will include ideas, sessions, tasks and resources to support your home learning. These will cover all the learning areas in the Early Years curriculum for that week. In addition, we will post daily maths and literacy challenges for you. We wanted to write to you to emphasise that these activities are intended to support you and are not to cause any unnecessary stress; use the resources in a way that best suits you and your child. We have posted all the activities for the week so you can pick and chose when you might do them and enable you to use them to fit in with your home life. We would very much appreciate if you could share with us on Tapestry some of the activities you have been doing.
The priority during this time is that your child is happy and healthy so please feel encouraged to take this opportunity to allow your child to follow their interests, whatever these may be. Whilst the suggested ideas gives guidance on how to cover a range of the Early Years Curriculum, this is not prescriptive; if your child has a keen interest in cooking, then the afternoon could be spent following a recipe to make a meal; a PE circuit with different fitness activities could be set up for all of the family to try; a nature walk could be used to spot different birds- the list goes on! These are all valuable ways to learn, very much advocated at school, and certainly during this time of home-learning.
If you require access to any resources or stationary, please let us know and these can be available to collect from the school office. As always, please do get in touch if you would like any support or advice with anything. We are here to help in any way we can.
Kind regards,
Mrs Johnson and Mrs Donnelly