Additional OPTIONAL resources!

Hi guys!

As we have now moved to a four day week and as school books are being completed, I wanted to provide some extra optional work for children who feel they need some extra materials. We want to stress is, what the children are doing on Seesaw is already more than enough. All of the work below is optional and is simply suggested material, this work is an additional support on top of Seesaw work and we ask that the children complete their Seesaw work before completing these activities. The children are doing enough work on Seesaw as it is, and the resources provided here are only to help children who feel they need additional help at home, an extra challenge to keep schoolwork at home challenging, or for parents who are busy at home and would like some extra activities to keep the kids occupied! As we already have lots of work to correct on Seesaw, we are not in a position to give feedback for these tasks, however we would still love to see the work you guys are doing! We will use this post as a "working document" that myself and Jessica can add to whenever we find something new! 

Literacy:



Extra readers

To help support the children's reading, I have uploaded a folder full of extra readers for the children to work on in their own time. This folder is divided into levels from AA-H, and there are an additional 15 readers in each folder. To gauge the level your child is at, refer to the most recent reader your child has been assigned on Seesaw. I recommend completing the remainder of the books at this level that are in the folder before moving up a level. Please do not be alarmed if you feel your child is reading well and you see there are books at levels F, G and H as these are well above what we are currently assigning, these are simply here to challenge your child if you feel they need an extra challenge! Please do not panic as we do not expect the children to be at this level yet! These books have been uploaded as per requests for extra work and we do not expect parents to do these. The last thing we want to do is create more stress or pressure and these are only here as we would rather provide more than is needed than less. We are happy to have the children continue on at their own level and if we had concerns about their abilities we would have made this known by now, so no panic! 😊

Here is the link to the folders: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FM7JjfrMBuiZn1VU6g0-khX6UmI-w6CR?usp=sharing

Teach Your Monster to Read online game

This is an online literacy game that is very popular with children and is free to use on the computer at the link below:

https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/accounts/sign_up?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI15ivxKHA6QIVkOvtCh0JDwHbEAAYAiABEgL6ofD_BwE

Book Report

The children can pick any book they have at home and use the template below to write a report on it and explain what they thought of it. For an extra challenge, the children could present their report like a TV host to someone at home!

Printable PDF: here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AFs_b3GwloMTMMjJypgk7rxHwo5eQzma/view?usp=sharing

Maths

Worksheets

As we are now finished with the Master Your Maths book, some parents have requested extra written Maths work for the children. I have compiled a folder of printable worksheets, including 30 Weeks of Daily Addition and Subtraction sums to keep them busy!

Access the files in the link below:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-40M91rcyYVvZrsstK0M_EK3pKb1gPJz?usp=sharing

Online Games

Daily mental maths: I would recommend choosing Level One and ensuring numbers go from 1-20!

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10

In fact, the TopMarks website has a whole range of online maths games, most of which are compatible with phones/tablets. There is a wide range of games available that cover a range of topics across the Maths curriculum.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/counting

Maths Playground also has some fun games for the children, however I would recommend checking games first and choosing games carefully as some may be too challenging.

https://www.mathplayground.com/grade_1_games.html

Myself and Jessica will edit and add to this list as the weeks go on should we come across any extra resources over the next while. Again, please do not stress about getting this work done, we understand that this is a very difficult time for families and that getting Seesaw done each day can be extremely difficult, so I would like to stress again that this additional work is completely optional and simply here to support any families that need it. What you are doing at home already is amazing and we're so happy with the work the children are doing! If anyone is having any issues accessing the folders on google drive, please email me to let me know and I will try to fix it or email the resource to you directly. 

Keep up the great work and stay safe!

💛

Friday Check in and Easter Holidays!

Hello everyone and happy Friday!
We hope you have had a good week and we're sure you've all tried your best with the suggested work. Thank you for all the lovely emails and pictures letting us know how you're all getting on, well done to everyone!


As we are on our Easter Break starting on Monday the 6th of April we will not be posting any new work or activities on the blog and will be starting to use the Seesaw app from April the 20th onwards. It would be great if you and your child could explore this app together to make sure you're comfortable with it and we can then fully enjoy using it after the break.

If you'd like to complete some of the suggested activities that have been uploaded on the blog over the last couple of weeks during the Easter Break feel free to do so but that is absolutely up to yourselves so again, no pressure to do this and just do whatever you feel is best. It might be nice to just focus more on free play, chatting together and exploring the world around you for the next couple of weeks 💙

We have another feedback form we are asking you to fill out here: https://forms.gle/YNPvR6e5XvT29FDW6
We have received a lot of feedback so far which we really appreciate. We are very grateful that you have all been so patient and helpful during this difficult time, and thank you all for being so understanding as we trial and error different methods. Hopefully Seesaw will make life a lot easier for everyone!

We will be in touch on Monday the 20th of April with a post to remind everyone about moving across to Seesaw and will be starting our daily lessons through Seesaw together, which we're very excited about as it means we get to see all your wonderful work and to interact a bit more too. 

Thank you so much to all those to sent cards and artwork pictures to CareChoice Malahide, I know that they are extremely grateful to be getting such lovely gifts to cheer up the staff and residents during this time - you're a very special bunch of children!🌟

We hope everyone is feeling well and happy, being kind and looking after one another; these really are some of the most important things during all of this. 

So, until Monday the 20th of April, 

Take care and stay safe, 

Jessica and Maria 

💛

Daily Plan Thursday 02/04/2020

Hello everyone!

We're nearly at the Easter holidays! Everybody has been working very hard and I'm sure you're all looking forward to a well deserved break! Thanks so much to everyone who has filled out our survey and given us feedback, we really appreciate it. If anyone has any concerns or questions, our inbox is always open, please do not hesitate to ask us anything! 💛



Thursday Suggested Plan:

Maths:

• Master your Maths Thursday Week 26
• Identifying 3D Shapes
• Use your 'magic eyes' to find different 3D shapes around the house or garden! Take pictures or draw pictures of the items you find in the house! Try find examples of spheres, cubes and cuboids, and make sure to name each shape as you go along. Here's a reminder of the shapes:

Sphere: 

Cube:

Cuboid:

Literacy:

• Please continue with your new Reader - Joe has sent all parents an Aladdin message to access the new reader through Oxford Owl. If you have any questions about this you can send myself, Jessica or Joe an email. Here is the website: https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
• Revise tricky words two, four, goes, does, made, their. Try to think of and say a sentence using each of these words and write them in your copy or a whiteboard if you'd like. 
• Free writing: Finish the sentence! 

"If I could be any animal, I would pick..."

• Ask the children what they would be and why? As usual, we also encourage the children to draw a picture to accompany it! We've got some great emails so far of the children's responses to the free writing about if they won the lotto so this should be interesting!

Gaeilge:

We are still working with the theme "Bia" (food) and asking children what they do and don't like.



Please print or screenshot the word mat below to help the children when asking the questions below! I have also written pronunciations below as I understand teaching new vocabulary can be tricky! 😊

Use the word mat above to practise "An maith leat?" "Is maith liom/Ní maith liom" questions.

For example:

Q: "An maith leat torthaí?

A: "Is maith liom torthaí."/ "Ní maith liom torthaí."

Pronunciations:

An maith leat?

(on maw lat?)

Is maith liom

(iss maw lum)

Ní maith liom

(knee maw lum)

Ceapairí = sandwiches

(kyap-ree)

ispíní = sausages

(ishpeenee)

anraith = soup

(on-rah)

spaigití = spaghetti

(spagitty)

bagún = bacon

(baw-goon)

uachtair reoite = ice cream

(ooktur roacha)

seacláid = chocolate

(shock-lloyd)

cnónna = nuts

(ca-no-na)

brioscáin phrátaí = potato chips/crisps

(brisk-awyn fraughty)

torthaí = fruit

(tur-hee)

méara éisc = fish fingers

(mare-a aishk)

bia Síneach = Chinese food

(bee-a sheen-ock)

SESE:

Continue on with The Gruffalo work suggestions: 

• Listen to the story of The Gruffalo at the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8sUPpPc8Ws
• The following are some fun follow-up Gruffalo activities that could be fun to do this week in the lead up to Easter!
• Gruffalo Easter Card: https://www.gruffalo.com/gruffalo/files/e1/e15b3aaf-63cc-419a-b614-aeecb653df30.pdf
• Gruffalo Easter Treats: https://www.gruffalo.com/gruffalo/files/c4/c42d3bc9-ffaa-4f5e-982b-86b498a1c4cb.pdf

There is also a song you can learn that goes with the story, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZfEIX2lhlI

Lyrics:

The Gruffalo song

He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, 
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. 
He’s the Gruffalo! Gruffalo! Gruffalo! 
He’s the Gruffalo! 

He has knobbly knees and turned-out toes, 
And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. 

He’s the Gruffalo! Gruffalo! Gruffalo! 
He’s the Gruffalo! 

His eyes are orange , his tongue is black, 
He has purple prickles all over his back. 

He’s the Gruffalo! Gruffalo! Gruffalo! 
He’s the Gruffalo! 

He’s the GRRRRRRRRR………Gruffalo! He’s the Gruffalo! 

Repeat



Learn Together/SPHE:

• Complete and send CareChoice Malahide Artwork by emailing it to hello@carechoice.ie and giving your name, Jessica's or Maria's Class, Senior Infants, Belmayne Educate Together 

• ZenDen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhXt7cpCPPs&list=PL8snGkhBF7nhwY-bD3Arzu7fY2guW61Hp&index=14

• P.E: Joe Wicks Daily P.E Session https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyCLoPd4VxBvD7ogmmPLJXYA1q0gFF3pe

Music

• The Bim Bum song (a song title I'm sure the kids will get a giggle out of!) is a great music exercise to practice reading a basic music "notation" of sorts, as well as keeping the beat and following a pattern. It's trickier than it looks, trust me!
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXZWgOf2lSA

This is how I felt when the music started to speed up...😅

We are really delighted to be getting all the lovely emails with pictures and updates about how so many of you are getting on so please continue to send these and stay in touch, it makes our day! Some of the April Fools Day jokes we heard yesterday really brought a smile to our faces!

Take care and stay safe,

Maria and Jessica 

💛

Daily Plan Wednesday 1/04/2020

Hello everyone,

We hope you're all doing okay with the work we've given you for the last two days but remember, just take your time and do your best. Myself or Maria aren't expecting everything to get done straight away but once you give it a go that's all that matters☺Remember, we love seeing your work so continue to send us pictures of what you're completing, you're all doing great!


Wednesday's Suggested Plan:

Maths:

• Master your Maths Wednesday Week 26
• Sorting Colours

Use your 'magic eyes' to find different coloured objects in your house, your garden or if you go for a walk and sort these into groups based on their colour. Have a look at different ways you could do this: 

 

Literacy:

• New Reader - Joe has sent all parents an Aladdin message to access the new reader through Oxford Owl. If you have any questions about this you can send myself, Maria or Joe an email. Here is the website: https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
• Complete Page 51 of Sounds like Phonics, revising the -ain, -ail, -eat, -ead and -oat sounds. 
• Revise tricky words two, four, goes, does, made, their. Try to think of and say a sentence using each of these words and write them in your copy or a whiteboard if you'd like. 

Gaeilge:

We thought it might be nice to learn off this little poem about Bia and use it throughout the day to say the foods you like! Give it a go and you could try to perform it for your families and even record yourselves and send it to myself or Maria, your grannies, grandads, aunties and uncles!

SESE:

• It's the first day of April which means a day for laughter and silliness! Have a look at this April Fool's Day Powerpoint (copy and paste the link into your search bar and you should be able to view it) and maybe let myself or Maria know if you get up to anything silly or funny today!😎

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y8K0PQued4U9fFOLLwYR1xNAcm8LhTNQ/view?usp=sharing

Continue on with The Gruffalo work suggestions from yesterday as there's lots of lovely things to work through here☺

• Listen to the story of The Gruffalo at the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8sUPpPc8Ws
• The following are some fun follow-up Gruffalo activities that could be fun to do this week in the lead up to Easter!
• Gruffalo Easter Card: https://www.gruffalo.com/gruffalo/files/e1/e15b3aaf-63cc-419a-b614-aeecb653df30.pdf
• Gruffalo Easter Treats: https://www.gruffalo.com/gruffalo/files/c4/c42d3bc9-ffaa-4f5e-982b-86b498a1c4cb.pdf

Learn Together/SPHE:

• Complete and send CareChoice Malahide Artwork by emailing it to hello@carechoice.ie and giving your name, Jessica's or Maria's Class, Senior Infants, Belmayne Educate Together 

• ZenDen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhXt7cpCPPs&list=PL8snGkhBF7nhwY-bD3Arzu7fY2guW61Hp&index=14

• P.E: Joe Wicks Daily P.E Session https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyCLoPd4VxBvD7ogmmPLJXYA1q0gFF3pe

We are really delighted to be getting all the lovely emails with pictures and updates about how so many of you are getting on so please continue to send these and stay in touch, it makes our day! 

Take care and stay safe,

Jessica and Maria 

💛

Daily Plan Tuesday 31/03/2020

Morning all!



Hope everyone is keeping well! We had a meeting yesterday with myself, Jessica and Joe, and decided that this week we would take it in turns to post a daily plan. I understand from the feedback from some of the parents that they are not finished with the work I posted last Wednesday, which is absolutely fine. Please do not be putting yourselves under too much pressure, the aim of these daily plans is to have a guide of sorts of what to do if you are finished or feel you or your child would benefit from this sort of structured plan. Things are already stressful enough as it is and the last thing we want to do is make you feel more pressurised!



Tuesday's Suggested Plan: 

Maths:

• Master your Maths Tuesday Week 26
• Make your own number line! We would like to see the children getting creative and making their own number line from 0-10, to help them with counting and addition. I have attached some ideas below that are hopefully easy to do using bits and bobs that can be found around the house!

Literacy: 

• Complete 'qu' worksheet if not already done
• Tricky words to revise this week are two, four, goes, does, made, their. Please once again use the read, write, cover, check method to practise these words!
• Free writing: let's get creative! Today let's get the children's imaginations going by doing some free writing, starting with the phrase:

"If I won the lotto, I would..."

• Ask your child to finish that sentence by writing about what they would do with the money, and draw a picture to go with it. I'm sure we'll get some interesting responses!

Gaeilge: 

• Following up from the Séadáin Sí work from last week, this game will help the children with listening and matching as well as sentence structure. This game requires sound and may require the help of a grown up to start off!  https://www.seideansi.ie/naionain-mhora/gniomhaioch-2/dearg/7/index.html

SESE:

• Listen to the story of The Gruffalo at the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8sUPpPc8Ws
• The following are some fun follow-up Gruffalo activities that could be fun to do this week in the lead up to Easter! 
• Gruffalo Easter Card: https://www.gruffalo.com/gruffalo/files/e1/e15b3aaf-63cc-419a-b614-aeecb653df30.pdf
• Gruffalo Easter Treats: https://www.gruffalo.com/gruffalo/files/c4/c42d3bc9-ffaa-4f5e-982b-86b498a1c4cb.pdf

Learn Together/SPHE: 

• Complete Card/Piece of Art for CareChoice Nursing Home and Email to hello@carechoice.ie with your name, your class and teacher's name and the school's name attached. 
• ZenDen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhXt7cpCPPs&list=PL8snGkhBF7nhwY-bD3Arzu7fY2guW61Hp&index=14

P.E:

• Joe Wicks Daily P.E Session https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAxW1XT0iEJo0TYlRfn6rYQ

As always, myself and Jessica love to hear from you guys so if you've any questions or stories, pictures or videos please do send them on!

Take care,

Maria and Jessica

💛

Monday Hello and Suggested Daily Plan 30/03/2020

Good morning everyone🌞

Hope you all had a nice weekend and everyone is keeping safe, happy and well. We just wanted to check in with you all today and see how the work is going as well as to let you know that tomorrow we will have a new schedule of work for the week and a new assessment form for you to complete on Friday.

World Book Online
World Book Online has just made their fabulous collection of over 3,000 ebooks & audiobooks available for free for children to access at home. There are also many other fabulous games, quizzes and other resources available too.

They have books suitable for all ages. You will need to set up an account to access the content. Click here: https://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Login?id=800

Assessment Form
Just a little reminder to those who haven't filled out the assessment form, the link is below: 
https://forms.gle/A63UiwRyAFFVY8om9
It would be great if you could fill this out at some stage when you get a chance. We will have a new one to be completed on Friday for you all on the blog tomorrow.

Zoom Call 
Myself and Maria's Class are going to schedule a Zoom Video Call with everyone on Friday 3rd of April. If you don't have Zoom yet, you can just go to https://zoom.us/ and set up an account. We will then send an invite out through Aladdin for you all to join the meetings on Friday at 12pm and have a chat and a catch up about how everyone is getting on! 

Monday's Suggested Plan: 

Maths:

• Master your Maths Monday Week 26
• Make patterns using objects from your kitchen (spoon, fork, cup, spoon, fork, cup etc) 

Literacy: 

• Monday's News Writing

(This can be completed in their free writing copies or news copies and if they don't have these they could write it on another page. It would be nice to take a picture of it and email it to myself or Maria and let us know how your weekend was. 
The best way to complete this would be to write a template out for your child on another piece of paper or a whiteboard and your child can copy this and fill in their own news in the blank spaces. 
The template would be 'Today is Monday. It is a sunny morning. This weekend I ______________. My favourite thing I did was _____________________.'
They could also draw a picture to illustrate their writing.☺)

• Complete 'qu' worksheet if not already done
• Finish and recap on both readers as new ones will be given tomorrow 

Gaeilge: 

• Cula 4 app and recap on Bia section 

Learn Together/SPHE: 

• Complete Card/Piece of Art for CareChoice Nursing Home and Email to hello@carechoice.ie with your name, your class and teacher's name and the school's name attached. 
• ZenDen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlsG4ZqHVDE&list=PL8snGkhBF7nhwY-bD3Arzu7fY2guW61Hp&index=8 

P.E:

• Joe Wicks Daily P.E Session https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyCLoPd4VxBvQafyve889qVcPxYEjdSTl

As always, please remember that this is a suggested daily plan and we understand the pressures that parents are feeling so feel free to pick just a couple of these activities today and see how it goes. 

Maria and I are here to support you all as well as the children so get in touch if you have any questions or are looking for guidance in any way. 

Have a good Monday everyone and we will be in touch tomorrow.

Take care,

Jessica and Maria 

💛

Friday Feedback 27/03/2020

Hello everyone!

The link to the feedback/assessment form has been fixed and can be found here: 

https://forms.gle/A63UiwRyAFFVY8om9

If you encounter any issues please let us know ASAP and we'll try to fix it as quickly as we can! You will need to sign into your google account first to access it, and please include your child's initials so we can identify each student for our records. As Wednesday's blog post contained a lot of material to cover, we are not expecting this work to be completed by today. Please allow the children to continue working on this at their own pace throughout next week also.

You may have seen that RTÉ are starting an hour long show next Monday, with the aim of providing some tuition to students. While this is aimed at 1st class and upwards, it may be good for the children to watch for a break from work as it could have some interesting material. This is to be broadcast from 11am-12pm each day, along with a catch-up programme at 4:15pm later each day. More info can be found below:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/rt%C3%A9-to-broadcast-school-on-tv-from-next-week-1.4213275 

Amazon has cancelled the subscription of books and audio stories for children and students of all ages so as long as schools are closed, children everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming and learning.

All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet using the following link 

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen 

We know that it’s all a little bit strange at the moment because we can’t go out to many places and we can’t really visit people we want to visit so we decided to come up with an idea to cheer others up from the students in Belmayne Educate Together!

There is a Nursing Home very close to our school called ‘CareChoice Malahide’ where elderly people live. They can’t really have any visitors at the moment so we thought it would be a nice idea to give them a call and see would they like something to make them smile, and of course they said yes!😊

The idea is that each child could make a card, draw or paint a picture, make a piece of art, create something for Easter or come up with something else different, thoughtful and lovely. The children, with parent’s permission, could even make a video of themselves singing a song or doing a dance! It really can be anything to cheer the residents up as they have had a ‘no visitors policy’ for the last three weeks and a little kindness goes a long way.

Parents will then take a picture, send the video or scan the piece of art/card etc and email it to the nursing home directly and the lady Jessica spoke with said that they will print off the pictures and stick them around the nursing home so all the residents can see what the wonderful children from Belmayne E.T have made them. They’re also making a book during this time and our pictures could also go into that.

The email address is hello@carechoice.ie 

In the subject bar put: ‘To the staff and residents in CareChoice Malahide, from (child’s name) in Jessica's/Maria's Senior Infants at Belmayne Educate Together’ and attach whatever they’ve decided to send to them, maybe with a short note.

There is no pressure to complete this but we just thought it would be a caring way to cheer a group of people up during this time and random acts of kindness are the best way to help each other each day!💖

If you have any other questions or wish to send us updates, we are still checking our emails every day! Thank you all so much for the lovely emails so far, we're missing seeing all those smiling faces every day so much!

Thanks a million for all your support, it means a lot to us! 

Stay safe and enjoy the weekend,

Jessica and Maria

💛