Hello everyone, we’ve made it through another week of Lockdown and what a busy week you’ve all had!  Thanks for all the emails with photos and videos of the chilren’s learning, it’s great to see how you are all getting on.  I hope you’re finding the feedback useful too.  It was also so lovely to chat to you and the children on the phone as this week, if I haven’t managed to get you yet, I’ll try again next week.

In Literacy we were learning the ‘er’ sound and I received some beautiful flowers showing ‘er’ words, what lovely colouring in!  Some people also played the card game and were very quick to read the words while others decided to create a wordsearch with ‘er’ words.  I do love a wordsearch and while tidying out over the Easter break I found a book of them so I have managed to grabs some moments of peace!  I hear some of you had good fun playing the Roll and Read game, I’ll perhaps try this at home with Euan too.

In Maths we have continued our theme of money and have further developed our recognition of all coins up to £2.  We have begun to think about working out change from 20p; some people even worked out change from 50p and £1, fantastic effort!  Lots of you enjoyed making coin rubbings with some of you looking at American and Euro coins too.  We enjoyed watching Elmo’s videos about Finance for Kids, click here if you didn’t get the chance to watch them or want to watch again.

In topic work this week, many of the children received the news that they had been successful in gaining the job of Marine Biologist, well done! If you haven’t returned your application form you can still email this to Mrs Smith or I.  I hope you had good fun discussing the most important thing about sea creatures and the sea.   In our house we enjoyed watching a documentary about barracuda fish and also the live shark feed at the National Marine Aquarium.   It’s been great watching your videos of your scuba diving adventures and seeing all the fantastically designed scuba diving equipment, well done everyone!

In science the minibeast topic continues to provide a lot of enjoyment with many of you continuing to hunt for minibeasts in and around your garden and during your daily walks or cycles.  Some of you made some super minibeasts from paper plates, fingerprints and handprints, playdough and junk materials.  Also, well done to those who of you who developed your understanding of life cycles – we had people learning about the life cycles of frogs and butterflies.

This week saw the release of the Clyne butterflies .  We have really enjoyed watching the life cycle of a butterfly through looking after our own caterpillars and would highly recommend this experience.  If you are interested we got ours from insectlore.co.uk.  Please remember to share photos of your caterpillars if you do get some!

Following some questions earlier in the week I have been having a look at how I can best support the children’s progress in reading.  I’ve been having a look at two websites, EPIC and Oxford Owl.  I know some of you have already been using Oxford Owls and that’s great, keep up the good work.  Using Oxford Owls you can continue working through the books similarly to how we do in class.  Check out www.oxfordowl.co.uk, click on My Class Login at the top and use these login details to help you get started (Class Name is lvpsprimary1 and Class Password is lockdown).

I have also been looking at EPIC which I know a number of other classes are using to support their reading for enjoyment.  Using EPIC I am able to allocate particular books to individual children so it can be tailored to suit individual needs/interests.  In order to use this allocation facility and allow you access to the books on EPIC outwith school hours I need to input your parents email address so if you would be interested in using this please have an adult email me and I’ll sort it out.

Finally, I just want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued hard work and enthusiasm as we carry on learning from home, it’s not easy but you are all doing a fantastic job! Remember the learning grid is there to provide support for you and can be used as much or as little as you want.  Each family situation is different and you must make things work for you.  Don’t make comparisions with other households because that will cause unnecessary stress and pressure!  Do your best as only you know what is best for you and your family!

Although next week’s learning grid will be posted on Sunday, there is no expectation for children to complete any work on Monday and Tuesday as these are ‘holidays’ for the children.  We are simply putting it up so people can plan their week according to individual circumstances.

Thanks again for your support and kind wishes.

Mrs Clyne xx