As I have mentioned before, Primary Education, in particular in Year 1 and 2, relies upon revisiting key concepts 3-6 times a year. This is to make key skills and strategies ingrained and "second-nature" to children and also to progressively add layers of complexity to skills already learnt.
There will be examples of this in today's blog and inevitably, as we move forward, other examples in the future. Where this is the case, I will insert links which will take you to previous blogs that are relevant to the days learning rather than repeat the approach to use.
Don't forget if you have any questions or you wish to share what you have been doing we love to hear from you at our email address:
English - Conjunctions
One of the key ways we teach Year 1 and Year 2 children in the same class, particularly in English lessons, is the ice cream sundae method (I hasten to add this is my name for it - don't Google this!) I alluded to this yesterday but it works like this:
If I order ice cream sundae at a restaurant, the minimum I expect is a bowl, a spoon and some ice cream. If I don't get all these things, it has no business calling itself an ice cream sundae.
In a sentence, these "minimums" are a capital letter to start, finger spaces between words and full stop at the end.
But to make an ice cream sundae really sing, I'm really looking for strawberry sauce, chocolate sprinkles, maybe even a wafer - the more the better!
In a sentence we want adjectives (describing words), conjunctions (joining words) and maybe even an adverb (how something is being done) to make the sentence exciting.
This hierarchy of skills enables children to see what their sentences have got and what could be added to make it even better:
- Capital letters
- Finger spaces
- Full stops (or ? !)
- Adjectives
- Conjunctions
- Adverbs
Today we will be looking at conjunctions.
TASK - Have a go at these sentences. The first one uses "and" and "but" and is directed at Year 1's:
The next one uses a range of conjunctions (and, but, so because, that, when) and is directed at Year 2's:
There is no compulsion to print these out, in fact I would recommend NOT printing as we are looking for the children to write the sentences and add in adjectives if you can. After each sentence, look at the 6 bullet points above and evaluate the things that your sentence has and the things you could strive to include in the next one.
There are copies of these on our class page on the school website:
Maths - Comparing Numbers
Yesterday, we talked about how numbers are represented by tens and ones. This idea of place value helps us compare and order numbers. When looking at 32 and 23, we need to know that the first number represents the tens so it is here we look when deciding which number is larger or greater.
We use the signs <, > and = to compare numbers. Now I always get muddled up which sign is greater than and which is less than (I normally remember equals) but we teach the children about Mr Crocodile who always eats the biggest number:
So the first step is to compare numbers: 6 ? 8
8 is larger so Mr Crocodile will eat it: 6 < 8
You have a go:
Once you have got the idea we can make it a bit more complicated by using calculations to compare. Have a look at this page:
Watch the video and try out some of the activities there or the ones below here:
These ones are trickier and you need to keep your eyes open for whether you are adding or subtracting (good for Year 2s!):
If you need a reminder about the strategies we used for addition and subtraction here is the link to the blog where we first discussed these strategies:
Lots here today but it is designed to cover the range of abilities in KS1 so choose the tasks that you feel are relevant for your child and don't forget to have some relaxation time.
Stay safe - KS1 Team
PS I said don't Google "ice cream sundae method." Actually do; some great ideas for tasty treats!
