Homework

The main homework your child will be given in our unit is reading. Learning to read is one of the most valuable skills that your child can acquire and forms the base of every single lesson the children undertake. Although your child will be taught to read at school, you can have a huge impact on their reading journey by taking any opportunity to practise their reading at home.

However, we know that you may want to support your child’s learning further, therefore we are offering three more homework options that your child can undertake at home.

The first is an online interactive maths programme called Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) / NumBots.

The children will have a small slip of paper stuck to the inside cover of their reading diary. This slip of paper will include your child’s unique username and password to enable them to access their account on the website. Once on the website the children will be able to complete a range of fun and engaging activities that will help to support their maths learning in school.

The year 1 children will only need to access the NumBots website at https://play.numbots.com which includes activities to support their knowledge of counting, addition and subtraction, number bonds, subitising and many more. They do not need to access the times tables activities as in year 1 although we practice counting in multiples of 2s, 5s and 10s we do not teach times tables facts.

The year 2 children will benefit from accessing both the NumBots website and the Times Tables Rock Stars website at https://play.ttrockstars.com. Year 2 children are required to know their 2, 5, 10 times tables by the end of the academic year although it will be beneficial for them if they also know their 3 times tables.

I have attached the parent/carer guides for both Times Tables Rock Stars and NumBots.

The second is an online interactive spelling programme called Spellingframe.

The children will have a small slip of paper stuck to the inside cover of their reading diary. This slip of paper will include your child’s individual login and password details to enable them to access their account at the website http://spellingframe.co.uk. Once on the programme the children will be able to complete a range of fun and engaging activities that will help to support their understanding of how words are built and to deepen their knowledge of spelling rules and patterns.

After the website has been accessed if you click on the 'home' tab at the top it will show the different areas available. If you click on the year group your child is currently in, there will be a wide range of different games and activities they can complete. The High Frequency Words section is also suitable for all the children in our unit.

I have attached the original letter containing more detailed information about Spellingframe.

The third is a phonics/spelling homework option.

During our daily phonics sessions, we are continually introducing new phonic sounds and new tricky words (words that cannot be decoded) to the children. Once the sound is introduced, we will then read and write words and sentences that include the new sound. Every new sound and new tricky word that is taught is then regularly revisited to enable the children to retain the new learning.
Every Monday I will post a phonics homework sheet for both year 1 and year 2 children which will support the learning being taught during the week. This sheet will include the new sounds (graphemes), a selection of words which include those sounds (which will help the children to recognise the sound each grapheme makes), a small selection of tricky words and a selection of dictated sentences. Practising reading and writing these new sounds and words will continue to reinforce the learning at home and will also help with recognition of the sounds as the children are reading their books.

As the academic year progresses the year 2 children will complete the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Phonic Programme and the daily phonics sessions in school will be replaced with daily spelling and handwriting sessions. At this point the year 2 phonics homework sheet will be replaced with spelling-based sheets which will reflect what is being taught in school.
Although there will be separate sheets for the year 1 and 2 children linked to what they are being taught in school, it will be beneficial for the year 2 children to recap the year 1 sheet as it will reinforce and consolidate prior learning.

We will not ask for this work to be sent into school however, if your child is particularly proud of their work and would like to share it with their teacher and their peers then feel free to post a picture onto the portfolio section of dojo.