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Activities During Closure

Making an adding machine

These are really exciting to make - as you can see this one has two cups at the top and you can use marbles, pebbles and combine them to make your addition number sentence finding out the answer when they get to the bottom. 
when you make your addition number sentence you can either use dots / objects of your choice or you can choose to use numerals. 
Try to make sure the tray at the bottom of the box can catch what you put into the cups. My favourite version is to make a robot and put eyes on the cups! 


Tracing CVC and CCVC words 

Write a selection of High Frequency words on a black board and then get your little one to rub them out with a wet q tip or paint brush. This way they are remembering how to spell the words but also using their muscle memory. 

Ancient spells

Investigating Shakespeare

If you have the time there are some great resources on which tell the story of The Tempest. You have to sign up via email on Tempest 2020.

You can listen to the story and at the end design a spell for Prospero and his spell book.

Miss Daniels would like you to think of a spell and write a list of ingredients. I’d then like you to draw each one and write a sentence to tell me what the spell will do when you mix them together! Don’t worry if you can’t do all of it - the main thing is you have a go at sounding out your ingredients! 
Use wax crayons - dab your paper with a wet tea bag and scrunch up hang on the washing line to dry and you will have your very own ancient looking spell! 

WB: 18.5.20

Hi Everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! I certainly enjoyed Eurovision on the TV and listening to all the songs.

I have a mission for you today!

When you go out for your daily walk, collect some sticks you will need 7 short and thin sticks. 
Collect some leaves and if you can see any acorns. We glued ours onto a piece of card and then used lentils and beans for the leaves and sparkles and Pom poms for the sun. You can decorate yours however you like. Hope you have fun! 


Could you make me a number addition story with leaves. 2+2= ? 3+3= ? 
Don’t forget to check in to BBC bitesize and also Twinkl live on Facebook has lots of things going on - phonics - Pilates etc.. 

Have a lovely day everyone x 



Say it, make it, write it 

This is a really fun way to learn sounds whether they are single sounds(s), digraphs (th) (sh) or trigraphs (igh). 
Write the sound on a piece of paper twice. Get your child to say the sound then make it with playdough and finally write it. 
You can also repeat this with tricky words. Its quite a challenge making some of them with playdough! 

Make a pizza restaurant! 
This has got to be one of my favourite activities of all time! I do enjoy a real pizza too but making pretend pizzas is lot of fun. We can explore toppings and size and shape all in one. You could even write a menu! 
Let’s start by making the oven from a box ! You will need a cardboard box, scissors and brown paint. 
Cut a hole in the box leaving the bottom side attached and fold down - this will be your pizza oven.

Paint your bricks on to the box. 
Save a bit of cardboard to slide your pizza into the oven. 
Go in the hunt for petals - dandelions and daisys are about at the moment and also grass. 
Put your ingredients on plates or in a tray and label them.

Make some dough or use playdough and design and make your own pizzas! 
Write a menu and give your restaurant a name ! 
Most importantly - Have fun! 
Miss Daniels x 


WB: 11.5.2020

Good Morning everyone! I hope you had a lovely weekend. 
Below is a link to free science activities to do with your child courtesy of Mrs Burke.

The potato weighing and build a helter skelter look good 

Hi everyone, 

I thought that this activity looked exciting for today. We have learned about floating and sinking in class but can you design and make a raft to get a pot of pennies across the bath or washing up bowl. What kinds of materials could you use ? 
Remember they need to be waterproof to stop them from sinking! Have a look and find out which materials float then build your raft from them! At the end place your pot of pennies on top and count how many pennies your raft can carry if or before it sinks! 


Make a Box Stage or TV for your Toys ! 
We have been making a box stage and yes my baby does like to eat the paint - fortunately it’s edible. We cut a square out and then decorated the sides. What colours can you use ? Can you mix colours to find out what colours they make? Can you make some puppets for your puppet show? Maybe a sock puppet! 

Make a postcard

There was a really good example of how to write a post card on BBC Bitesize yesterday! It uses the tricky words ‘to’ and ‘I’. I suggest cutting out half a piece of card and doing the writing first and then the picture after. Think of what you will write and get your child to ‘Hear it, Say it, Count it and write it’. We use phonetic spelling so for example ‘you’ is spelt ‘yoo’. Work on one word at a time and include finger spaces and try to emphasise which word comes next. You can remind your child if you have other children keeping you busy and let them do it independently. Ultimately it will keep their fingers strong and remind them of the tricky words.

Miss Daniels x

Hi Everyone,

I have uploaded the link to a video for you today showing you how to make a number poster. 
Our number of the day is 10. How many different ways can you show 10? 
Can you draw 10 animals?

Can you draw 10 on a ten frame? 
Can you write the numeral 10. 
Can you go out and find 10 leaves or petals and Glue them onto your poster. 
Can you make an addition number sentence to show 10? 
Whatever you manage to do you’ll be giving your brain a little bit of a work out just like when you do Joe Wicks! 
Another really great website to check out is Supermovers they have great 10 minute work outs. 
Also Cosmic Yoga on You Tube! 
Have a fun day everyone don’t forget to practise some tricky words and have a go at writing a sentence or two. 


WB: 4.5.20


Good Morning / afternoon Birch Class,

I hope you are all staying safe and well, I’m thinking about you all and wondering what you are managing to get up to. This week we are going to work with your adults to investigate subtraction - it sounds like it could be some

sort of digger or truck but it’s not - it’s to do with taking things away. Lots of fun to be had this week! 

I want you to start with your snack. Let’s write a number story  4 - 2 = 

Give your child 4 pieces of snack or cut it into 4 explain we are going to take 2 away. How many do we have left? 
Can they show you this on their fingers? 4 fingers count back two (putting them down in the process) = 2 


Make a giant 10 frame with your child as illustrated below. I definitely don’t have that much tape so you can use chalk or string or even paper it into strips. 

next make the counters for your ten frame you need 10 in total. 

Practise making subtraction number stories with the ten frame taking one away from a total number to start with and counting with your child how many are left. It is important to ask how many do I have left altogether?


Your child could repeat this exercise with different objects on the ten frame. 

Make some numeral cards to 10

and ask your child to make the number story and reverse roles. Pretend to get it wrong, children love correcting adults. 

2. Make a bird feeder from a Pringles tube

Glue paper round a Pringles tube, and decorate with paint. Glue on a lolly pop stick for birds to perch on. 

What patterns can you put on your lolly pop stick? 

3. Make a petal potion , mixing ingredients. Write an ingredients list don’t forget to write

how many spoons full you

need ! Have fun! Miss D 

Tuesday and Weds 

Subtraction with pennies. 

Draw a large jar on a piece of paper or card.

In the jar put real pennies (1p).


Start with 5 and counting together count to five and say ‘how many altogether?’

Then tell your child you will be taking 1 away - ask them to show you how many would be left if you took one away and then tell you how many there are all together. 

Repeat with different amounts to 10.


You can practise putting different amounts of money in the jar using 2p and 1p and adding them together. 

Becoming familiar with the values of these two types of coins will really help your child with Maths in Yr 1! 

Have fun! Miss D 

some resources on twinkle below for counting coins as well.


One of my all time favourite things to do when learning about money with the kids ( and theirs) are coin rubbings with wax crayons. 
If you put the coin underneath the paper they can rub the imprint over the top. 

This is really good for coin recognition and you could also cut out large coins available on twinkl as well!


Set up a play area in a tray again - you can use soil / sand / water - parts of duplo / lego 

Children need to explore and imagine regularly throughout the day. You will be surprised how often your child will use this area if you set it out carefully. It doesn’t matter if they get messy or wet because you’ll see the enjoyment they get from it. This is something I set out for the week and change again the following week. I set mine up with shells and a beach and magnetic letters and trucks but the kids put barbies in and had fun creating a story. Magnetic letters are good as   Kids can create words / recognise sounds


Make a Milk bottle T-Rex. The dinosaurs lived a long time ago - what can you find out about them? Find out some facts about dinosaurs by watching Andy’s adventures and visit C beebies to find out more dinosaur facts. Make a list of the things you find out. You could even make lots of dinosaurs and learn their names! 
( don’t worry about getting this exactly correct) The kids will just enjoy the painting and taping and will need help with cutting.) Have fun ! Miss Daniels x 



If you don’t have tape you can use pva glue or flour and water glue or cornflour and water glue. You can also glue on paper to paint over if you find the paint you have does not stick to the milk bottle. I reccomend collaging with tissue paper as the kids love the texture. 


Its a cloudy day today but try and make time to get out for a walk if you can as it gives the kids a break from screen time or the house. 

I have recorded an activity which could be an entertainment on your walks with the kids which is to scaffold telling a story with your child. You will be surprised where it takes you. I was trying to concentrate on navigating the pram through the grass so I am sure yours will be much more adventurous. 

The second activity is to order numbers using Lego attaching the numeral to the correct amount of blocks. You can also do this with diploma or building blocks. 

Remember to visit phonics play with your child there are lots of Phase 3 games on there which would suit them and don’t forget to try and find time for reading with your child once a day if you can. 



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1. Adding with Lego. Try adding with Lego, this will encourage your child’s counting skills - count the total number in two groups or see if they can count on to find the answer by putting a numeral in one box and Lego in the other. 
Use fingers if counting on. 


2. Write a story about your building site (this can be a few words or sentences depending on what your child’s concentration at the time is like. It could even be a story about a familiar fairy tale such as ‘The Three Little Pigs’.

A big Hello from Mrs Sutcliffe!

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Set up a builders tuff tray. You can use a variety of things for this - whatever builders toys - cars you have lying around the house - for the materials they shovel you can use;





The tray can be a gardening tray, a tuff tray (available from amazon for around 15 pounds) 

or any kind of flat tray big enough for the kids to play and explore. Your child will likely spend a while exploring the tray and it is something you can leave all week if covered up by a waterproof covering. 
Children love to role-play stories and imagine so this is ideal education based play especially where language and capacity is concerned. 


You could go so far as to label the trucks and diggers with numbers, count out scoops and add materials to each other. It depends how much time you have. 


Sound out the names of your diggers and trucks and try and write labels for your construction site! ‘Bricks, hammer, digger etc.. ‘ If you are feeling adventurous you could write a sentence or even a little story about the building site! 
Have fun ! Miss D x


Make a Mobile


What you need;







Start by folding your card in half. 

Cut out a template for which ever shapes you have chosen from the folded edge. Let your child practise cutting. Cut a second shape and a third the same size using the template. 

Let your child decorate the shapes as they wish - they could write tricky words on or draw their favourite characters from movies and television. 

Place one shape on one side of the string and glue the other half onto the one side with the string in the middle place the final glued piece. 

Continue to add parts to the mobile either double or triple sided. Your child with love this activity even if you just let them draw on the templates. 
Have fun! Miss Daniels 


Shape and Space -

Look at the different shapes of things in your house. What shapes can you see? Which shapes did you use on your mobile? 



Make a Family Tree 

Talk with your children about the members of their family. You could select photos from your phone and print h them using bag pic collage or a similar app or cut out small templates for your children to draw a picture of the family member. Stick these on to card and make a small hole so you can attach a bit of string. 

On your daily walk or scoot find a branch preferably with lots of smaller offshoots and bring it home. 

You can wrap any spare bit of fabric or wool around the branch to decorate and glue or tie them. Using the string hang your pictures of the family members from the branch! 
This is a lovely activity to celebrate the people in your family and remind your children they are still close even when you can’t see them. 

Family begins with ‘f’ can your child spot things beginning with ‘f’ in the house or outside and write a list? 


How many daisies can your child spot on the grass - pick some daisies and practice taking some away (subtracting) up to l0 ! This can be done with any objects! 

Have a lovely day ! Miss Daniels x

How to make slime

Welcome back after Easter

Hi everyone in Birch class, a big welcome back to you after Easter!! I am so disappointed I can not see you all again but I am hoping we will be able to as soon as it is nice and safe. 
I hope you are all washing your hands and singing Happy Birthday. 


1. Investigate the sound ‘g’. 
Say ‘g g g’ in different voices.

Go on a hunt round the house to see what objects you can find beginning with ‘g’. 
Have you spotted any? 
Have a go at sounding them out and writing them down on a white board / black board or piece of paper.


Go out for a walk and collect objects to do with nature?

What can you find? Draw round them when you get home and label them! 

Build a sheet den in the garden or inside using chairs /crates and a sheet.


Have a lovely healthy snack inside ! Decide what is healthy with mum and dad. 



Today I would like you to explore the sound ‘l’ for ‘leaf’. Show how many different leaves you can find ? 

Collect your leaves and do some wax rubbings with your adult on paper. Can you name some of the trees they come from? 

How many other things can you find beginning with ‘l’? 

Write a sentence about your leaves if you can, tell me about their colour and shape..


Making Mini Quiches 


These are really easy to make and very tasty!

1. Choose which vegetables you want in your quiches. (Onions , peppers and broccoli work really well)


2. Chop these up with adult supervision. 


3. Crack 2-3 eggs into a bowl with your adult 

Mix together with salt, pepper and cream cheese or soya yogurt. Give it a good mix while your adult fry’s the veg. 

4.Get your adult to fry the veg in a pan.


Use a muffin tray - spoon out your veg into the tray. Pour spoon the egg mixture over the top and put in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden on top. 


Have Fun! 




Easter Holiday Activities 


1. Investigate shapes - You can use any construction toy. My kids even my baby love Kid K’nex. It’s a lot easier to use than K’nex and they enjoy making different shapes and designing inventions. It’s great for all ages and there are similar magnetic versions available from EBay and Amazon. 

2. Bake - I know flour is in short supply at the moment but there are lots of recipes out there for rice crispy / cornflake treats with chocolate - you can also use whole meal flour and bread flour to make cookies. If you can get hold of oats these are great for flap jacks as well! 

3. Build an outdoor den or a restaurant in your living room or garden. Kids love imaginary play and it will give them a reason to explore and play. 

4. Go on a treasure hunt in the garden - even better an egg hunt. Design and number your own eggs from your junk / rubbish and paint them. Hide them in the garden and make a treasure map with the children.

This could also be inspiration for a small piece of writing i



It is with great sadness that I write this message to you after the closure of school due to the corona virus. Both me and Mrs Sutcliffe have deeply enjoyed our time teaching all the children of Birch class and will miss them all greatly however we will and can get through this if we all work together and I hope to see all the children again as soon as possible. We have had such a lot of fun this year both inside and outdoors and I urge you all to carry on the fun in your family units and stay safe. There are so many exciting things we can do to learn at home whilst enjoying ourselves. I will update this page regularly with ideas for home learning. 


Week 1 Activities 


Sing along and dance with Andy and the Animals, Number blocks on the BBC website 

The BBC has a whole body of resources and educational videos children in Birch class would enjoy.


Draw your favourite animal and find out some fun facts about it on the internet with mum or dad. 

Try and write a sentence using fingerspaces and your phonics to tell me about your animal. 


Make a mud pie using ingredients from the garden. (Be careful to stay in your own garden if you have one) If you don't you can use ingredients from the kitchen. Remember the story of Superworm - super worm loves mud pies. Maybe even write and ingredient list. 


Build a den and a pillow fort. How many pillows can you use? How tall are they? Can you go over and under them? 


Make slime with cornflour, water and food colouring. 


Read your favourite books with your parents and talk about why you like them and which character you like best.


Hope you have fun with these ideas! 

Stay Safe, Miss Daniels 

Day 1 Activities

​​​​​​Good Morning Birch Class,


I hope you are all safe and well, I have put some activity ideas for parents to use above today and I am looking forward to trying them out myself with my children. 


1. Make a cosy reading den! This can be done with a sheet, some safety pins and a nail to pin it to the wall at the top. 

To finish it off add some fairy lights if you want and then take your favourite books to your reading den. 


2. Make three letter and four letter words with Mega Blocks. Write out the vowels onto the mega blocks and then the consonants (other letters). You can write the digraphs/trigraphs (2 and 3 letter sounds) onto mega blocks which are 2 and 3 bricks long to make this activity harder. 

Make words with your child. Please see the picture above. 


3. Make a chick in an egg using craft materials and paper. Cut out the egg and cut a zig zag for the crack. Glue a little chick inside. 


4. Join in P.E. with Joe Wicks at 9 am or anytime on his Youtube channel - exercise is so important.


Have a fab day everyone! Miss Daniels and Mrs Sutcliffe!



April 3rd 

Today we have a lovely story off Mrs Sutcliffe as she wanted to say Hello to you all. 

Hope you are all keeping well! 

1. PE with Joe Wicks 


2. Making Dinosaur Biscuits - I realise not everyone will have ingredients for these so if you don’t you can always make pretend Dino biscuits with playdough. 

3.Read a book with your child and talk about their favourite characters in the story. Can they label and draw a character. 

Painting a picture of my family to put in the window with a rainbow. 


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April 2nd 

1. Andy’s Prehistoric animals exercise on BBC IPlayer. Children will come away from this knowing facts about animals they have explored with Andy and feeling energised. 

2. A number Hunt in water or Jelly. Hide the numerals in Jelly for your little one to find - to make this task harder you can practise finding numerals to make numbers from 10-20. 

3. Use the sunlight to draw animal shadows - learning facts about new animals and their names . Encourage your child to ‘Think’ of something to write about the animal. ‘Say it’ out loud. ‘Count it’ , Count the words in the sentence. ‘Write it’ - write the words in the sentence. This can be replicated indoors with a lamp. 

4. Log in to phonics play with your child and play phase 3 games. Details are on the front page of Birch class website. 

April 1st Activities 

1. Make a Milk Bottle Elmer. Read the story of Elmer and using a milk bottle or coloured paper glue on to a milk bottle to make your very own multi coloured Elmer the elephant. If you do not have the story of Elmer you can find this on YouTube and use this as inspiration. 

2. Make a handprint Easter card - see below for ideas. Use the tricky words - to - love and from in your card. Pop it in the post or deliver safely with an adult to someone you know ! 

3. Take part in an online dance video and get your heart beat racing. 


Tuesday 31st March 

1. Have a go at making some dough and visit dough disco with Shonette on You Tube. The children will be familiar with this as we have done it in class and it is excellent for their hand strength. 

2. Pop out for your 30 min walk as a family and collect some flowers - help the children identify which flowers - you can wrap them in cling film to preserve them or press them using heavy books and paper. 

3.Bake some bread / biscuits / cakes - weigh, count, mix and taste your baking. The children can write a recipe if they wish.


4. Make a bottle light catcher - please see above for ideas. 

Monday 30th March

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Activities for Monday the 30th of March.

1. Make a pet shop - either with cuddly toys or draw your own pets and cut them out. 

2. Label them with their names - using your phonics to sound out. 

3. Put some prices on them try and write your numerals and then the right amount of dots next to them to match.


4. Practise selling them to mum or dad. 

5. Help mum or dad with lunch. 

Daily Song

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Daily Song 2

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Daily song 3

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Day 2 Activities 


1. P.E with Jo Wicks 


2. Maths - Capacity and Number - make a basin of water in a washing up bowl - add some food colouring - some Bath toys etc - pour and scoop counting out 10 scoops - explore half full / full and empty. 

3. Make a magic potion - write any ingredients list using number! 

4. Collect things for your potion and make it - using ingredients from outdoors. 

Read a book with mum and dad 


Tablet time or TV - watch Maddies - Do you Know? Tell mum and dad what you found out about! 



Thursday Activities


Count out 6 p with mum or dad using 1 pennies. Talk about 2p and 1p. How many pennies are in a 2p piece ? If we add 2 and 1 what do we get? 

How many different ways can you find to make 6p? 

2. Make a story scene on 2 create a story - the app can be downloaded onto any iPhone. This could be a story about your favourite cuddly toy. 


1. Kids Zumba Dance on YouTube , your choice of dance. 

2. Painting on glass. (Don’t worry parents this wipes off with a wet cloth and the children will enjoy washing it off - patio doors are ideal. 

1. Mix a thick flour and water base or icing sugar and water paste which ever you have. Let your child paint the object they want with the paste. Then using poster paints with not too much water allow them to experiment with painting over the paste on the window. You will find the light shines through it and you can talk about colour mixing with your child. 


3. Make a shop out in the garden or inside. Give the items in the shop prices up to 10p. Using pennies find the right amount of pennies to buy 2 items from the shop. 

4. Write a menu for your shop on a piece of paper - wb or blackboard. 


Friday 3rd April

Hello Birch class! Mrs Sutcliffe has a story for you today. It’s called Whatever Next! Enjoy!


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