Home Learning part 5

Hello Everyone,

 Junior Infant page and part 5 of our home learning.  Ms. Deery, Ms. Martin, Mr. Kelly and Ms. O’Sullivan all say hello and send you lots of good wishes.

We hope you will find this guide useful. We have listed lots of different activities but do not feel that you have to do everything. Please remember that the most important thing for you all to do is to just do the best that you can.  We would love to see some of the children’s work so if you would like to take a photo or short video clip you can send it to us at kids@stphilipsjns.ie putting the teacher’s name in the subject box. We hope that you are all keeping well and are enjoying the activities and links that we have on our web page for you.

Take care,

Ms. O'Sullivan, Ms. Martin, Mr. Kelly and Ms. Deery  xox

Our theme over the next two weeks is: Birds

English

Story:

We are going to cover two different stories over the next two weeks- ‘The Ugly Duckling’ and ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus’.

For the first week the focus is on ‘The Ugly Duckling’. It is a traditional Fairy Tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story tells of a little bird born in a barnyard who is sad as he isn’t like the other ducklings until, much to his delight, he matures into a beautiful swan, the most beautiful bird of all.

Just follow the link to the story: You can listen to the story or read it:

https://www.storiestogrowby.org/story/the-ugly-duckling-story-a-fairy-tale-story-for-kids/

or you can watch the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9x-UdnjNd8

There are lots of different activities that you can do with this story on these links:

https://www.twinkl.ie/resources/story-resources/traditional-tales/the-ugly-duckling

https://www.funwithmama.com/ugly-duckling-printables-pack/

https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/the-ugly-duckling-story/

For the second week the story is ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon drive the Bus’ by Mo Willems.  This is a children’s picture book about a bus driver who has to leave so he asks the reader to not allow the pigeon drive the bus.

Here are two different links to the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-dHeNfXtgc

In this first link you can see that they use ‘Speech Bubbles’.  Speech bubbles are used to show you what the person in the story is saying.

In the first part of the story you can see that the direction of the edge of the speech bubble is coming from the driver’s mouth. This shows you that the bus driver is doing the talking and the words he is saying are in the speech bubble.

When you go to the next page you can see the speech bubble is coming from the pigeon’s mouth. This means that the pigeon is doing the talking. Can you find speech bubbles in any other books that you have at home?

Here is another link to the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dljje7L9nIs

Here is a link that you can read along  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4SLTTVTls4

There are some great ideas for activities that you could do with this story on the following link:

 https://www.teachingideas.co.uk/library/books/dont-let-the-pigeon-drive-the-bus

https://www.varsitytutors.com/englishteacher/pigeon-drive-bus-lesson-plans

Maybe you could choose one of them and email it to your teacher so they can see it.

There is a selection of different activities that you might choose to do. Read/watch the story a few times over the week and do a different activity at each reading.

1. Tell the children the name of the author and illustrator. Look at the cover and talk about what you can see. Read the ‘blurb’ at the back of the book and tell them that’s how you find out a short bit about the story inside the book.
2. Ask questions for e.g. What do you think this will be about?
3. Listen to the story and then talk to the children about the different characters in the story. Sample questions: Who is the main character? Who are the other characters? Where is the story set? What time of year is it? What are the characters doing?  What part of the story did you like the most? What do you think will happen after the end of the story?
4. Draw pictures of what happens in the story. Divide a piece of paper in three and label each section like this

1. Talk about the different animals in the story. Draw a picture of one of them and write a short sentence: e.g The Ugly Duckling was big. He was grey. / The pigeon wanted to drive the bus.
2. Draw a picture of the different main characters in the story and write a sentence about it.

Phonics: Practice one or two sounds each day.  For example, s & a on Monday, t & i on Tuesday and so on. The children can sing the song that goes with the sound and do the action. See how many words they can think of that begin with the sound. Can they think of any words that have the sound at the end or in the middle?

(Jolly Phonics order of sounds:  s,a,t,i,p,n,c,k,e,h,r,m,d,g,o,u,l,f,b,j,z,w,v,y,x).

Word work: For the first week practice blending 3 letter words ending in ‘ut’ - but, cut, gut, hut, jut, nut, rut, shut etc.

For the second week practice blending 3 letter words ending in ‘un ’- bun, fun, gun, nun, pun, run, sun etc.

Write out one of the words. They should blend the sounds, with no gaps, to make the word. They can try writing out some of the words as they stretch out the sounds aloud.

There are a lot of activates that you can find for CVC words. The following websites might be useful:

www.twinkl.ie

www.nessy.com

www.theschoolrun.com

https://www.themeasuredmom.com/free-printable-cvc-word-list/

Alphablocks on you tube have great short videos to learn about CVC words. Here is a link to one of the many short videos that they have based on CVC words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJQxUSd70u4

Writing; Continue to practice the ‘Curly Caterpillar’ letters c, o, a, g, d that you have been doing and the ‘One armed Robot Letters’: r, n, m, h, b, k,  p that you have been doing over the last two weeks.

Now we are moving on to the: Ladder Letters- l, i, t, u, j ,y

For the first week please focus on the letter formation on l, i t

For the second week you can practice u, y, j

You should be practicing writing your letters on the line and keeping the letter formation neat and tidy.

When writing your sentences remember the good writing tips:

1. The sentence should start with a capital letter.
2. Your letters should be on the line.
3. Remember your finger spaces between each word.
4. Remember to put a full stop at the end of your sentence.

Check out this YouTube clip for the right way to form the letters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpu8W15h41M

This video shows the correct way to hold the pencil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP5htYZ5jjQ

Tricky Words:

You can go over the tricky words that you already know: the, I, and, like, here, is, we, look, see, it, love, a, in, go, to.

For week one go over the following words: me, he, she, be, was

For week two go over the following words: my, by, so, no, are

You can practice writing out these words, putting them into sentences, finding them while you are reading stories, or looking for them in different types of print around your house (in a newspaper, on a letter etc.). 

Nursery Rhyme:

As our theme is ‘Birds’ you can go over the Nursery Rhyme:

Two Little Dickie Birds

Two little dicky birds sitting on a wall
One named Peter, one named Paul
Fly away Peter, fly away Paul
Come back Peter, come back Paul

Here is the link for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC0xyMOy8xA

I wonder can you remember the actions? You could make a video of yourself and send it to your teacher.

A new Nursery Rhyme for you to learn:

Sing a song of Sixpence:

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,

Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?

Here is the link for Sing a Song of Sixpence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26yFO5lnkgU

Other activities; 

• The children can draw pictures of something beginning with the sounds they have been practicing.
• The children can talk about their news for the week and draw a picture of it. 
• Have a go at labeling parts of the picture e.g. mam, dad etc. Mam or Dad can write down what is happening in the picture.
• You can practice writing the sentences to go with your news: Today is _. Yesterday was _. Tomorrow will be _. It is a ( type of weather) _ day.

Maths

In school we practise our counting, our days of the week and our numbers lots of times throughout the week.  Keep practising them as much as you can at home.  For this fortnight we will continue to practise our counting, our days of the week and our numbers.  We will also be practising what we have learned about money.

Days of the Week/ Months of the Year; It’s a great idea to go over the days of the week and the months of the year every day. Try using the language ‘before/after’. Questions to ask: What day comes before Monday? After Tuesday? What month comes before March? After October? Here are some songs you can sing; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNJRGHk7sN8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe9bnYRzFvk

Counting; You can practise counting anytime or any place!  Pick a number to start on and one to finish on (don’t always start on 1!)

• Practise counting stairs if you are going up the stairs.
• Count how many times you can hop around your room.
• Try backwards counting (10,9,8 etc.) going downstairs, start at 10 and see how far you get.
• Try call and answer counting with somebody at home. Pick a number to start, say 4 and each take a turn.  You say 4 they say 5, you say 6, they say 7 and so on.
• Get a bucket or saucepan and ask somebody to drop some Lego or something small into it. Count the items in your head as they drop in.  Check if you were right by counting them again.
• Count how many light switches are in your house.
• Ask somebody older in your house to pick a number then tell them what number comes after their number.
• Ask somebody older in your house to pick a number then tell them what number comes before their number. Will it be a smaller number or a bigger number?

Can you think of other ways to do active counting?

Money

How did you get on learning about money last week?  Because people use money all the time, we need to do lots of practice with money.  Last time we learned to identify the 1c, 2c and 5c coins.  This fortnight we will go back over what we learned and we will look at different ways of making 2c,3c,4c and 5c.

Here are some of the words we will use:  one, two, three, four, five, cent, how much? buy, sell, spend, coins, count, the same as, sort, more, less. These words are important as they are the language that we would be learning in school to talk about money.

Talk to Mam and Dad about money, what we use it for, what it looks like and why we need it. 

Gather up all the 1c 2c and 5c you can find. These activities can be done over and over again.

• Gather up lots of 1,2 and 5c coins.  Sort them into 3 sets, a set of 1c coins, a set of 2c coins and a set of 5c coins.

• Do some coin imprints with playdoh if you have it.  Make a small ball and flatten it out.  Then press a coin into it so that you can see the picture of the coin.  Do the same on the other side of the playdoh with the other side of the coin.  Make a collection of playdoh coins
• Give your child lots of 1,2 and 5c coins and ask them to give you a 1c coin or 2c coin or 5c coin until they have given you all the coins.  Then swap around and they can ask you for the coins, ask them to check to make sure you don’t give them the wrong one by mistake! 
• Draw some boxes on a page.  Ask your child to put 2c in one of the boxes.  Ask them to put 2c in another box but make it a different way.

Then try it with 5c.  Lots of children find it difficult to understand that one 5c coin is the same value as five 1c coins so lots and lots of practise at swapping coins is needed.  Keep working with 1c coins until they are comfortable swapping them for larger coins, then introduce the idea of

 2c +2c+1c is the same as 5c.  Again lots and lots of practise swapping the coins.

• More coin swapping.  You need coins and envelopes or some other container for this.  Give your child coins to make 5c in different ways.  Ask them to put 5c in lots of different envelopes or bowls.
• Play shop.  Make a shop with toys or items from around the house.  The children can make price tags for the items for sale.  Use only 1c,2c and 5c.  Then take turns at being shop keeper and customer.  The customer can use coins to pay for their shopping and the shopkeeper must check that they have the correct coins.

Gaeilge

• We’ve been doing our 10@10 as Gaeilge for a while now, so why not try out some yoga this week as Gaeilge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLRxyAjnvxc) or maybe a little bit of dancing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzPaWe6ACI).
• This week we’ve been learning all about birds. This video is about birds returning home to Ireland after their winter trip down south; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0xzW3AB5c. Do you know why birds migrate in winter? What Irish birds migrate in winter? Do you recognise any of the birds in the video? Can you see any of them on your walk or in your back garden?
• Birds love to eat seeds, and so this week we wanted to teach you all how to make an easy bird feeder using things that you probably already have at home. Ms. Martin has recorded a video so that you can follow along with her and make your own bird feeder too. You can find this video in the news section of our junior infant page. The video is as Gaeilge, so below we have listed four new Irish words (and pronunciations) from the video that you might practise and use at home when making your own bird feeder. Why not send us in some photographs of the bird feeders you make?
  • Síolta (she ul ta) – seeds
  • Crann (cr an) – tree
  • Éan (a nn) – bird
  • Scian (sh cian) - knife

MUSIC

Listening:

When I go on a camping adventure I like to hear the birds singing.

This is what it sounds like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfVR7_nsQ7w

Can you hear the birds where you live? If you listen very carefully you might be able to hear birds singing.  Can you see the birds?  Here is a clip that lets you hear what each bird sounds like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHnzqKfxSQw

Listening:

Here is a clip from the piece ‘Carnival of the Animals’ by Saint Saens.  It is called ‘The Aviary’.  An Aviary is where birds live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFFt_kFq_eQ

What is the first instrument that plays the bird song?  Yes it’s a flute, well done.  Do you think this sounds like lots of birds?  What other instruments are playing?  Pretend you are a little bird fluttering around, can you make sounds like the birds?

Singing:

This is one of my favourite campfire songs.  It is called

Boom Chicka Boom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69f9sCwhwYk

This one is a ‘repeat after me’ song.  You can do it in lots of different voices. Try doing a monster voice or a witch voice or a teacher voice!

SESE

Birds

This month we have been learning lots about what we might need to go on an adventure. Now that we know what we need, I wonder what might we see on our adventures? There is certainly one animal which we would see on an adventure. Here’s a clue! It flies high in the sky, most of the time they live in trees and we can even find them in our gardens. Do you know? Yep, you’ve guessed it. Birds!

There are many birds that you can see and hear in your local park, in your garden and even on your roof! Can you spot some of these birds mentioned in the video link below? Chaffinch, blue tit, robin, great tit, starling, sparrow, blackbird, crow, magpie

• Do they all look the same?
• Do they all sound the same?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHnzqKfxSQw – Irish garden birds and their sounds

• Can you draw or colour in some of the birds you have seen in the video? Here some links to some garden bird colouring sheets.

https://www.twinkl.ie/resource/t-t-24078-new-british-birds-colouring-sheets

https://laois.ie/garden-biodiversity-colouring-book/

Birdwatching

Now that you have learned all about the different types of Irish birds, I wonder can you find any of them in your garden?

Ask the children how you could encourage more birds to visit the garden/outdoor space. One way is to make a bird feeder

How to make a bird feeder from a milk carton. Please check the news on the right to find the photos that will guide you through the different steps. 

After making your birdfeeder, you can now sit back, relax and wait for all the birds to fly into your garden! You can use the garden bird bar chart in the link below and colour in each square for when you see a different garden bird. See which bird comes to your garden the most by looking at your chart!

https://www.twinkl.ie/resource/t-t-17663-garden-bird-sitings-bar-chart

or

You can bring this garden bird checklist for when you go your next adventure and see what birds you can find!

https://www.twinkl.ie/resource/t-t-17664-garden-birds-siting-checklist

Art

• To keep with our theme of birds this week, we thought we would try to make two different types of bird feeders. You can make both of the bird feeders using recyclables that you might have at home. You can find instructions on how to make the first bird feeder under the Gaeilge heading. Keep reading to find out how to make the second bird feeder or else follow this link to see an example; https://www.chiccreativelife.com/2012/07/15/kiddie-craft-diy-bird-feeder-from-parents-magazine/

You will need;

• An empty milk carton
• A scissors (ask mammy or daddy to help with this part)
• Seeds
• Paint or crayons
• Glue
• Sticks
• String or rope to hang your bird feeder

Instructions;

• Get an empty milk carton and decorate it, you can use paint or crayons, stickers or sticks. Whatever you prefer but try to make it as colourful as possible. It might be easier to decorate if you paint it white first or cover it in white paper. Birds like shiny things, so you could glue on some tinfoil to attract them to your bird feeder. Did you know that hummingbirds are attracted to the colour red? If you would like to, you could put a roof on the top of your bird feeder. To do this, put glue on the top of your milk carton and then glue down some sticks.
• Ask mammy or daddy to help you cut a door out of your milk carton. Make sure that the door is halfway up your milk carton; otherwise the seeds might fall out. You can have a door that is a rectangle, a square or a circle. You can put a door on one side only or on the front and back of your milk carton. Make sure the door is not too big, or some squirrels might come along and steal the birds’ seeds.
• Fill the inside of the bird feeder with some seeds or some nuts, all of the things that birds like best.
• Thread some string or rope through the spout of the milk carton and tie it in a loop. This is how you will hang up your bird feeder.
• The last thing you have to do is decide the best place to hang your bird feeder to make sure that birds come to visit. The bird feeder should not be too close to the ground, why do you think that is? Birds can get scared easily, so make sure your milk carton is put somewhere away from cats and squirrels.

• There are lots of different art activities that you can do. Why not draw some pictures of birds you see in your garden? Or you could make a bird kite; all you need is some paper, string and glue. Follow this link to see how you can make one too; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKN0RzxNQhQ.
• Don’t forget to send us in pictures of things that you make at home!