The Very Hungry Caterpillar
We hope that you enjoyed listening to Miss Logan reading ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ on Friday. If you want to listen to it again, you can hear the author, Eric Carle, reading it here.
Did you join in with the story? There are lots of parts of this story that you can join in with.
- Can you help to count the fruit and name each food that the caterpillar eats?
- Can you say the days of the week?
- Can you remember the words that are repeated in the story? But he was still hungry!
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Watch – We love this animated version of the story. There are some other great animated stories by the same author; we like watching ‘The Very Quiet Cricket’.
Creative – printing
- Potato printing is good fun. Carefully cut a potato in half and put some paint on a plate. Have a go at printing a caterpillar’s body using the potato. How long will you make it? Can you make a longer/shorter caterpillar? Give your caterpillar some legs using a paintbrush and add two eyes. How many legs does your caterpillar have?
- We’re sure that you will all remember making butterfly prints when you were at school! Fold a piece of paper in half and cut out a butterfly shape. Keep the paper folded in half (it helps to stop your child painting on both sides!) and ask your child to paint a pattern (spots, lines, zigzags) to one side. When it’s finished, open the paper out and then fold it over the opposite way and press down carefully so that the paint transfers. Open it out and you should have printed the same pattern onto the opposite side so that you now have a butterfly with symmetrical wings. Remember to send us a photograph of your caterpillars and butterflies!
Fiddly Fingers – Cut out a paper leaf shape. Can you use a hole punch to munch around the edge of a paper leaf? Children love to use hole punchers and it’s a great way to strengthen their finger muscles for writing too.
Mark Making – Have a go at drawing your own caterpillars or some of the food that he ate. There are lots of printable colouring sheets online if you have a printer. Some colouring pages are available towards the end of this booklet, mixed in with a few activities for older children.
Understanding the World – Can you find any caterpillars hiding in your garden? They might be quite tricky to find. Have a look at these caterpillars that Jess found on a minibeast adventure.
What words could you use to describe the caterpillars?
Talk about what happens to the caterpillar at the different stages in its lifecycle. There’s a game to play on Topmarks if you have access to a computer.
Music & movement – Listen carefully to this music clip that Melody plays. What did the music make you think of? Did it remind you of a butterfly fluttering its wings? Did you notice the music getting quicker and slower?
Have a go at moving like a butterfly, flying quickly and slowly and flapping your wings high and low. If you enjoyed this, here’s a butterfly dance to join in.
Mathematics – If you have the story book at home, count the fruit on each page. You could have a go at counting the fruit in your fruit bowl or use toy food if you have a play kitchen. Ask your child to count out some food for The Very Hungry Caterpillar to eat. For example, can you get the caterpillar 4 apples to eat? The Caterpillar wants to eat 3 pizza slices.
If you’d like to play a game, there’s a simple picture matching game that introduces symmetry on Topmarks.
Have fun and remember to e-mail to let us know what learning you enjoy this week. scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Story Time
We have another hungry creature this week but it’s not a tiger this time! We hope that you enjoy listening to ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle (published by Penguin Books). Try and join in with Miss Logan as she reads the story; we’re sure you know it really well.
Here are some things to talk about or activities to try.
- Can you remember some of the food that the caterpillar ate?
- Have a go at re-telling the story. Remember to try and use some of the words from the story such as “but he was still hungry!”.
- Do you know the days of the week? CBeebies have a song for each day or you might know this song to join in at home.
- Have you ever found a caterpillar or seen a butterfly? We know lots of children have been in the butterfly house at Tropical World. Can you spot any butterflies in this butterfly house? Take a tour.
If you like this story, you’ll love next week’s theme for our home learning activities! Have a good weekend.
Home Learning
Thank you to everyone that has had chance to email this week. It’s always lovely to see your photos and read your news when they pop up in our inbox. Please do send us a quick email if you haven’t had chance yet. We’d love to hear from you. Scholesf1@spherefederation.org
This week, we’ve seen photos of Eid celebrations, fun in the sunshine and children enjoying jigsaws and games, including chess! We also loved watching some videos of the farmers in their fields busy making hay bales. (We’ll try and get the videos converted to show you soon!)
Hot or cold?
Many of us will have fond memories of playing this game when we were younger. It’s so simple and children always love to play along.
We hope that you have fun playing today. You’re getting warmer… hot, very hot!
On The Way Home
Welcome back! We hope that you all had a lovely holiday and made the most of the beautiful sunny weather. As we continue to learn from home, please remember to check our website for up-dates and learning ideas on Monday, Wednesday and Friday every week. (All posts will be available from 19:00 the evening before.)
This week we are sharing one of Miss Backhouse’s favourite stories. It’s about a little girl who hurts her knee, but you’ll never guess how she does it! The story is called ‘On the Way Home’ and it’s written by Jill Murphy.
We hope you enjoy listening to it or reading the book at home, if you have copy.
This story has a repeated refrain throughout. Did you join in with “And that’s how I got my bad knee,”?
The little girl had a great imagination. Can you think of your own ‘tale’ to tell? Who else could Claire have bumped into and how could she have hurt her knee?
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Creative – Claire told her friends about many different people and creatures that she’d run into on the way home. Which was your favourite? (Wolf, aliens, crocodile, snake, dragon, gorilla, a giant, a ghost, a witch.) Have a go at drawing or painting a picture of them.
Paper plate snake – Draw a spiral onto a paper plate (or circle shape piece of paper/card) and cut around it. Some children may be able to have a go at this part too. Paint it with spots/stripes and add some eyes and a tongue. Tie a piece of string/wool to the middle of the spiral to hang up your snake. Enjoy watching it swirl around!
Phonics – As part of our phonics learning, we talk about the different sounds that we can hear, but also about the different sounds that we can make with our voices. Can you have a go at making some sound effects from the story? Here are a few ideas and you might also think of some of your own for the dragon, gorilla or giant. Would they be loud or quiet noises?
Wolf – Hooooowwwwwwl
Alien ship – Woooooooosh!
Ghost – Woooo Woooo
Snake – Sssssssssssss
Witch – Hehehehehehe
Going down the slide – Wheeeeeeeee
Getting hurt – Owwwww
Mathematics
- Look at a box of plasters- talk about the different shapes and sizes. Which is the largest? Smallest? Are there any square, circle or rectangular shaped plasters?
- Play a game of ‘snakes and ladders’ (or similar dice game) and encourage your child to work out the number that they rolled on the die by looking at the pattern of dots. They may need to count the dots initially, but the more you play, the quicker they will become at recognising the pattern. Being able to move forward a set number of spaces and remembering to stop, is also a great math’s skill to develop.
- If you have access to a printer, there’s a printable game here or you could have a go at making your own by drawing a grid and adding the numbers, snakes and ladders.
- We love this song in Nursery. It’s all about cheeky monkeys who bump their heads!
Role play – Pretend to be a doctor/nurse and take turns to be the patient, or use soft toys. You could get some old plasters or bandages if you have some, or improvise using some kitchen roll and sellotape! Some of you may have a children’s doctor’s kit that you could use too. Encourage your child to mark-make during play; they could write a prescription or answer a phone call and take some patient details.
Watch – Have you ever watched ‘Get Well Soon’ on CBeebies? There are several episodes available on the BBC iPlayer.
There’s also an episode, called ‘Pop on a plaster’ that is no longer available on iPlayer but can be viewed by following the link.
Health and self-care – There’s a lot of talk around good personal hygiene at the moment. Can your child wipe/blow their own nose? Have a go at this. Teach them to look in a mirror at first so that they can see their nose and to ‘pinch and pull’ using a tissue. Some children may find it tricky to blow down their nose into a tissue, but they can still wipe. Remember to talk about throwing your tissue in the bin afterwards and washing your hands well with soap and water for 20 seconds.
Whole school ‘Quiz of the Week’
If you’re struggling to keep yourself entertained this week…why not have a go at our whole school quiz?
Holiday activities
Whilst it is the school holidays, we know that many of you continue to work. Here are a few family activities to try together. Have fun!
Build an indoor or outdoor den
It could be a majestic hidden castle, mysterious bear cave or a magnificent space rocket. Let your imagination run wild. We thought these den building ideas in the form of IKEA instructions were funny!
Parents/carers- Den building offers a range of advantages to children of all ages, from physical development to problem solving skills.
Bake Off
Have a look at some child friendly recipes on the BBC’s Good Food website. You could choose a family favourite or find something new to try. It’s always good to try new foods and discover new flavours.
Parents/carers- Following a recipe helps children to learn to read for a purpose and follow instructions.
Go on a treasure hunt
Ask an adult to hide a range of similar objects (treasure) in the garden or home for you to find, count and order.
Parents/carers- You could tell children that you have hidden 3 of one type of item. When they find one, you can talk about how many are left to find. For example, “We need 2 more now!”
Painting With Ice
We enjoy making marks and drawing with all sorts of different things at Nursery. This is always a popular activity and waiting overnight for your ice paints to be ready adds to the fun.
What you need:
1 cup of water
Food colouring
Lollipop sticks
Ice cube tray
https://www.easypeasyandfun.com/painting-with-ice/
Blowing Bubbles!
Everyone loves bubbles! Why don’t you have a go at making your own bubble mixture. Here are some instructions for you to follow or you could have a go at making a bubble snake.
Make Homemade Lemonade
See the recipe and instructions sheet below.
Parents- This activity can support your child to gain a range of skills, especially in Maths.
You can also view the bubble mixture and lemonade recipes using this link. Lemonade and bubbles
Finally, in a few weeks time, we’re going to read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and learn about the life cycle of a butterfly. Sadly, we’re not at Nursery to do this with real caterpillars, but if you wanted to, you could order your own from insectlore. If you haven’t done this before, it’s very easy and a great experience. You’ll need a starter kit which includes a butterfly net.
Story Time
We can’t quite believe that this is the last Friday before half term. Some days and weeks have flown by, others have been harder to get through. We hope that you’ve enjoyed some of our ideas and suggestions for your learning at home. We’ve loved reading all about your adventures and can see how much you’re all learning and growing.
Our final story for this half term is read by Miss Morris. It’s called ‘Alfie in the garden’ and is written by Debi Gliori.
Alfie had a good imagination in the story; he enjoyed pretending to be different animals.
- Can you remember which animals he pretended to be?
- What noise did the rainstorm make?
- The grass made a ‘swish swash’ noise in the breeze. Can you think of another story where the grass makes the same sound?
We’ll post some holiday activities soon; these will be there for you as ideas or in case you are stuck for something to do one day and need some inspiration. We hope that you enjoy your half term, even if it isn’t quite the half term that we may have had planned or hoped for. Stay safe and well.
Home Learning
Finally, we know you all love to see photos of your friends so here are some of their smiling faces to end the week.
Can you spot…?
- a chocolate caterpillar
- a back-to-front jigsaw
- some of No-Bot the Robot’s friends
- some sheep
Shape hunt
We loved listening to ‘No-Bot the Robot with No Bottom’ on Monday. Did you? Thank you for sending in some photographs of your robots; we’ve seen some super robots so far. It’s not too late to send us an e-mail if you’ve built one too. When we looked at your robots, we could see lots of different shapes.
Today, we’d like you to go on a shape hunt around your house or when you go out for a walk.
You might want to draw the shapes and tick them off when you see them, or you could take a picture of the different shapes that you find.
Talk about the properties of shapes. How do you know it’s a triangle? Can you count the number of sides and corners?
Let us know how many shapes you find. Remember to visit us again on Friday. Until then, we’ll leave you with this shape song to watch!
No-Bot the Robot with No Bottom
This week’s story is another one by Sue Hendra and Phil Linnet– No-Bot the Robot with No Bottom. It’s a funny story and we think that you will enjoy it.
Watch it on the link or if you have it at home read it together.
- Can you remember some of the things that Bernard thought was his bottom?
- Where did Bernard find his bottom at the end of the story?
- Do you like going to the beach and making sandcastles?
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Creative – Can you make your own robot? Use some empty boxes and sellotape or glue. Cereal boxes work well if you want to make a big robot. You might paint your robot or cover him in foil. What are you going to call your robot?
Physical – Can you move like a robot? Your arms and legs need to be quite stiff to do this. Join in with this robot action dance, its lots of fun.
Mathematics – No- Bot the robot’s head is a square shape. Can you find any squares in your house? Let’s see if you can sort shapes by playing this game.
Creative – Here is a song that we sing in Nursery to help us to think about 2D shapes and their properties. Can you remember it? Join in if you can.
Creative mark making – Can you make an “artbot”? Attach 3 pens to an upturned plastic cup with sellotape. You can add eyes and be as creative as you like. What does your “artbot” draw? Can you try some zigzag patterns or swirls and spirals? Let us know how you get on.
Fine motor skills – Can you colour and trace the shapes? Don’t forget to use your “froggy fingers” when you hold your pen. If you have a printer, you can use this one. If not, you could draw your own.
There will be another activity added on Wednesday, so keep a look out for that. We are enjoying seeing your photos, but just an email would be great. Let us know if your child is enjoying the activities or if there is something that they are missing and we will do our best to recreate these on line.
Our email address is scholesf1@spherefederation.org. We would love to hear about what you have been doing. Also we are happy to answer any of your questions too.
Have fun!
Home Learning
Thank you to everyone who sent us an e-mail this week. We love reading about the things that you have been doing at home and seeing your photographs.
This week, we’ve seen some super home made birthday and Eid cards. We’re sure that your friends and family loved receiving them.
Some of you have been dressing up, riding bikes and drawing pictures. We love to see all of your smiling faces! If you haven’t been in touch for a while, please send us a quick email if you can; we’d love to hear from you.
