Parental Involvement – Page 4 – St Ninian's Primary School

Supporting your child with Rhyme: 21.4.20

Following on from yesterday’s post about rhyme we will look at further strategies and resources to help you support your child with their understanding of Rhyme.

A great way to do this is to play games. One great game to play is Get out of the Wagon which I have attached for you to use. In the downloadable activity below. Three word cards—like rake, cake, and king—are placed in a wagon. The child determines which word doesn’t rhyme and tells it to “get out of the wagon.”

Get-Out-of-the-Wagon (2)

Another great strategy is to use is Sharing Nursery Rhymes with your child. Nursery Rhymes are great to say over and over again and again. After your child knows the nursery rhymes, let him fill in the rhyming words. I’ve attached a list below where you’ll find some wonderful nursery rhyme collections to enjoy together.

Nursery-Rhymes-For-Little-Ones-Library-List

Enjoy the games and ideas and tomorrow I will continue to provide more ideas to make learning rhyme fun.

Have a great day,

Mrs Docherty

Supporting your child with Rhyme: 20.4.20

SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD WITH RHYME: 20.4.20

Rhyme is a great way to help support your child with reading. It helps your child to notice that rhyming words often have shared letter sequences, such as –all in tall, ball, and small. Most children enjoy hearing and participating in rhyming activities, and when they are exposed to rhyming, they usually pick it up naturally.

There are 3 stages to help support the development of Rhyme. These are:

STAGE 1: HEARING RHYME: Your child gets used to hearing and repeating rhyme.

STAGE 2: RECOGNISING RHYME: Your child can identify two words that rhyme.

STAGE 3: PRODUCING RHYME: Your child can think of a word that rhymes with another word

Over the next few days we will look at 5 different ways you can help your child to understand rhyme and I will share resources and ideas to help also. Step 1:

Read rhyming picture books together.

There are hundreds of great rhyming books, and this Rhyming Picture Books Library List is a good place to start. As you read, occasionally point out words that rhyme. (“Oh, goat and boat rhyme! They sound the same at the end. Goat, boat.”)

Use the list attached to help you share rhyming picture books together like we do in Nursery and P1/2 and let us know how you get on.

Rhyming-Picture-Books-Library-List

Tomorrow we will look at a Rhyming games and also Nursery Rhymes to further support teaching Rhyme and I will include the games and further reading lists.

Mrs Docherty

Positive thought for the week 3.4.20

Good morning everyone. Well done on another successful week of learning and making memories in our new normal routines and with our distance learning. Life has certainly changed over the past few weeks and as we adjust to this new normal we hope that it will be for a short period safe in the knowledge that we will weather this together.

On that note my positive thought going into the weekend is:

As we all adjust to this new way of life it is important that we try to find alternative ways to make memories and make the most of all the wonderful things we have. It’s important to make memories that will last a lifetime, laugh at the smallest of things, dance to the music and care for each other holding close in our hearts our loved ones.

One of the most uplifting things I heard this week was a Scottish grandma’s advice to her grandchildren. It brought both a tear and a great big smile to me all at once. Her inspirational message reminds her family that it’s finding a new way to dance in the rain that will get us all through this to the warmth of the sun and each other. She even made National News and GMB.

You are all doing amazing things from home and we appreciate all you are doing and the contact you are keeping with us. It means a lot.

I’ll end my post with a beautiful poem Mrs Scott shared with me and the staff team called At Home. Please read it as it is truly magical and heart warming and sums up a beautiful positive message of how well you are all doing. Thank you Mrs Scott.

https://www.freechildrenstories.com/at-home

Have a lovely weekend and a wonderful Easter holiday as you switch off and spend time together with your loved ones whether that is in your home or via the phone. You truly deserve a magical time. Keep smiling and dancing!

Happy Easter everyone,

Mrs Docherty

Reading Advice and Support 2.4.20

Good morning,

Today we will complete our Reading advice for this week. I hope you have found the hints, links, strategies and resources helpful. Please look back for these posts for all of the information and as always remember I am here to help so please leave any comments or questions.

A great website to use for ideas and book recommendations is Book Trust. The site is split into ages and provides recommendations of books for all ages.

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/search/#!?cat=&type=Booklist&q=&sortOption=MostRecent&pageNo=1

On this page you will find lists of books for your children depending on their age and stage of reading. I loved looking through it as my children are older so it keeps me in touch with what’s out there! Some new books added to my reading list!

A great resource on the Book Trust website is the link to Waterstones Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell BookTrust Home Time. I have included a word document which explains what this amazing initiative is all about. It is very exciting and offers a digital hub with a wealth of resources to support reading and illustrating. Definitely worth a look.

childrens-laureate-cressida-cowell-launches-booktrust-home-time-final

We will revisit Reading and Spelling support in the coming weeks. The next focus I will be supporting is writing.

Have a great day everyone,

Mrs Docherty

Mindfulness 2.4.20

Good morning everyone,

You are all doing so well with our new normal and engaging so well in all of the activities and learning online.

In these times we also need to remember that it is equally important to look after our wellbeing. Last week I posted helpful hints on mindfulness with ideas and strategies to help us have that all important downtime.

Thursdays are now such important days where we all stop at 8 o clock and thank our NHS. This is a time for reflection. These times are important for ourselves and our own wellbeing daily also. Today I have included a link for a great resource to use with your children at this time.

There are 5 themes to explore on this site. They are Calm, Focus, Kindness, Sleep and Wake up. Your child will be introduced to simple fun breathing exercises, how to practise a relaxed precise kind of focus, will be taught about openness and generosity, how to get a good night’s sleep with relaxed mindfulness activities. These simple meditations will help your child start the day of right.

http://www.headspace.com/meditation/kids

As today is Thursday I have also included a Mindfulness NHS Heart picture to colour as a family and to say thank you. This is a little challenge from Mrs Docherty and one I’d love to see you share. I’m going to do one and display it in my house to remind me about what the most important things in life are and to remind me to stop and have quiet time.

NHS Mindfulness colouring

Please take times in your day to stop and think about you. Take time to stop and switch off and take time to relax your body and mind.

Have a lovely day everyone. I’m thinking of you all,

Mrs Docherty

Nursery: Reading together helpful hints

Good morning,

Throughout the week I have been posting reading advice and tips for parents. Today specifically for Nursery I have included the Book Trust leaflet on how you can do this at home with your 3 and 4 year olds.

reading-with-your-child-booklet-for-parents 4-6

I have also included the Book Trust link with great ideas and books to engage your little ones.

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/

We are missing you all.

Mrs Docherty

Sound Sleep 1.4.20

Good morning,

Following on from yesterday’s blog post on sleep today’s focus will be sleep behaviours.

When reviewing our sleep patterns and ability to have a good night’s sleep there are specific questions we can follow to help us build up a picture of what our sleep behaviours are. There may be things we can amend or change that will help to support good sleep routines and patterns. Some of the questions we can ask ourselves over a two week period are:

In the past two weeks how often have you felt tired or sleepy during the day?
In the past two weeks how often have you stayed awake until after midnight?
In the past two weeks how often have you gone to bed because you could nit stay awake any longer?
In the past two weeks how often have you watched TV or played a console, used a phone or tablet in bed?
In the past two weeks how often have you felt tired or sleepy during the day?
In the past two weeks how often have you found it hard to fall asleep?
In the past two weeks how often have you felt tired or sleepy during the day?
In the past two weeks how often have you woke up during the night and found it hard to get back to sleep?

Try and build a picture of your sleep routines using the questions above over a 2 week period. If you can find things that are regularly coming up try and change some of the routines and see if that makes a difference to how you get over to sleep and how good a sleep you have.

Have a great day.

Mrs Docherty

Reading Support and ideas 1.4.20

Good morning,

Welcome to April. This week’s focus has been Reading with helpful hints on how to support reading and reading for meaning. As we are all at home I have included some helpful hints on how to create a reading environment and continue to foster a love of reading in our own houses.

Routine: Make reading part of your daily routine. This links in well with our Sound Sleep advice. It could be part for our evening and downtime hour to allow us to switch off in preparation for sleep.
Read at home: Reading regularly at home promotes a love of reading and supports your child in becoming a great reader. Your children could even read to their siblings, pets and even toys!
Make a special reading spot: Designating a special reading spot for your child to read with you is not only fun, but is also a great way to create a distraction-free zone where they can concentrate.
Be a great reading partner: As parents you could read aloud and track the words with your finger as you are reading. Read the story over and over and try using different voices to do this. Ask questions as you are reading. You can find hints on how to do this on yesterday’s reading blog.
Bring books everywhere: Bring books wherever you go. In the car, on a picnic, in the garden
Be a positive example: In school we have ERIC time which is everyone reading in class, this includes the teacher. A good way to continue this is by us as parents being caught reading and also during that downtime hour reading our own book as our child reads theirs.

Have a great Wednesday and as always stay safe.

Mrs Docherty

Sound Sleep Advice 31.3.20

Good morning,

Following on from last week’s sleep advice this week we will look at how to support a good routine. To do this it is worth having a look at what our evening routines look like. We have two routines, one on school days and the other on non-school days.

Questions to ask yourself for school day routines are:

What will I do after school?

What will I do after dinner?

When will my wind down hour start?

What will I do in my wind down hour?

When will I go to my bed and sleep?

What will I do if I wake up during the night?

Similar questions to ask yourself for non-school day routines are:

What will I do during the day and in the early evening?

What will I do after dinner?

When will my wind down hour start?

What will I do in my wind down hour?

When will I go to my bed and sleep?

What will I do if I wake up during the night?

These are some of the questions that will help us to look closely at what our routines look like and what is helping or stopping us from sleeping. You could keep a little diary to help you determine what you do and then have a look at the link below which supports a good evening routine.

05 Example of a Good Bedtime Routine

We will continue to provide Sleep support tomorrow and the main focus will be sleep behaviours.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Mrs Docherty

Reading Support and Advice 31.3.20

Good morning,

As part of our reading advice today I will be looking at questioning and how to encourage your child to talk about and share the story. Yesterday we looked at the High 5 Retell Helping hand. When developing reading we look at children’s fluency and word recognition but also their understanding of what they have read. To do this we can ask the children to draw a picture, share their thoughts or record in written form, there are many ways for your child to share.

Today I would like to share some key questions and prompts that you can use with your children when they are reading to you or indeed when you are reading to them.

I have attached a copy of pictorial question prompts for the younger children. These support reading for meaning and the key skills. Have a go and let me know how you get on.

T-C-083-Reading-Prompts-For-Parents_ver_3 (1)

I have also attached a copy of Guided Reading questions you could use with your children when you are reading together. Using a guided reading approach you help develop your child’s thinking skills and also support the development of reading strategies.

t-l-4266-af-guided-reading-questions-mat-_ver_1 (1)

As always know I am here to help and support and it’s great to hear how you are getting on.

Have a good day everyone,

Mrs Docherty