March 2020

Salt Dough

/ / Art & Design, Design and Technology, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5

Another day, another activity! Making salt dough is a really fun and easy activity for children and the chances are you will have all of the ingredients in the cupboard ready to go. Children, if you’re reading, you’ll need to ask an adult’s permission! Children will love using their imaginations to create all sorts of exciting objects (although simple shapes do seem to work best) and hours of fun painting their creations, but do take care to remind little ones that the salt dough is not edible.

Ingredients:

  • 250g of plain flour
  • 125g of salt
  • 125ml of water

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to its lowest setting and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

2. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and stir until it comes together into a ball.

3. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and shape into your chosen model. You can roll it out and cut out shapes, numbers or letters using biscuit cutters, or make any kind of model you can think of. We made some fruit and veg shapes plus cupcakes for a teddy bear’s picnic.

4. Put your finished items on the lined baking sheet and bake for 3 hrs or until solid.

5. Leave to cool and then paint.

Top tips

• Simple designs work best, as the dough isn’t sturdy until baked. If your child can’t decide between a tall giraffe or a flatter gecko, for example, steer them towards the gecko. Also bear in mind that the bigger/fatter the model, the longer it will take to harden in the oven.

• Try using silicone baking sheets to roll out the shapes without the need for extra flour. This saves on cleaning up your kitchen. Silicone sheets are also a quick way to bake without needing baking parchment.

• If you want to make salt dough ‘cupcakes’ like we did, pop your shaped dough into cupcake cases before you put it in the oven and bake the pretend cakes in cupcake trays.

The dough then sets firmly stuck to the paper cases, ready for painting with pretend icing, cherries or sprinkles.

Thank you to the BBC for this idea.

 

Maths at Home

/ / Mathematics

Over the past week or so, many educational companies have been offering their online services free of charge. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, this can be quite overwhelming. To help parents support their children, I’ll be adding useful websites every so often, but just one at time – bitesize websites!

This morning, I heard Carol Vorderman on the radio. Working together with Pearson Education, she has created a website called The Maths Factor, which is an online maths tutoring site for primary school-aged children. At the heart of The Maths Factor is The Maths Factor Course. The Course is organised into 32 topics, designed so that children continuously build on and practise basic arithmetic skills, particularly: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Children progress through the topics by completing daily sessions.

The Topics

The topics are in sequence with the national curriculum. The Maths Factor Course has 3 main ‘stages’, each represented by a bird character:

  • Explorer bird: Key Stage 1 level topics
  • Adventurer bird: Lower Key Stage 2 level topics
  • Pioneer bird: Upper Key Stage 2 level topics

To make sure that we don’t interfere with what children are being taught in school, we cover all of the key teaching methods.

The Sessions

The Maths Factor’s short sessions have been designed for daily use – repetition consolidates learning, so we want children to practice, practice, practice! We teach concepts in small steps, emphasising fun and ultimately increasing children’s confidence.

Each session starts with a lively video tutorial by Carol, followed by a fun warm-up and then a practice. There are over 1,000 of these sessions, arranged within the 32 topics.

Outdoors Art

/ / Art & Design, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5

Yesterday, the first day in our new routines, it was great to see so many of you starting your new independent learning in such a positive way! Across the Google Classrooms, it was great to see children working together to solve their maths problems, writing stories together and just generally being positive and encouraging each other! Teamwork, Respect, Integrity, Enjoyment and Discipline are all very much alive and well!

It looks like it’s going to be a sunny day today – Spring is definitely here! For today’s activity, if you can, why not try some outdoor artwork in the garden today. One idea is to use chalk and masking tape to create some unique designs.

First, pick an area to tape up. If you have a paved area with flagstones, one flagstone is perfect. Next, put some masking tape across the area. Using different colours of chalk, colour in each section before removing the tape to reveal your masterpiece! If you are up for a challenge, try and tape up your initials!

If you can’t do this activity outside or you don’t have any chalk or tape, you can still join in! Instead, use plain paper or a page in your exercise book. First draw out some straight lines going from one side to the other, crossing across the page. Then use colouring pencils or felt tips to colour each section.

As always, send your photos in to [email protected]

Rainbows

/ / Art & Design, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5

Good morning Cannon Park!

I hope you’re all safe and well. Today is the first day of a very different routine for many of you but I know you will all continue to demonstrate our school values wherever you are this morning.

Each day, I will posting an activity on the website – an activity that many of you will be able to join in with. I will also add useful websites to further your learning. If you join in with the activity, please feel free to send in a photo to our new website email address [email protected]  and I’ll add some to the website.

For the first activity, I thought we’d start with one about hope and positivity. With social distancing and lots of places including many school closing, children are connecting with each other by painting colourful rainbows and putting them in their windows for others to see. Today, why not create your own rainbow and stick it in your window. You might want to use felt tips or paint or even do a collage.

We may not all be in the building but we are still all one school.

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