Home Learning

Spelling

Children have a set of words to learn at home each half term, and they are tested in the last week of the half term. The words can be found in the children's planners.

These activities can help children practice their spellings:

Reading

At Shirley Junior School we want our pupils to foster a love of reading, to be able to read confidently and enjoy reading.  All children will be provided with an appropriate reading book for their ability by their class teacher.  These books will either be Little Wandle books, Reading Planet books, or in upper school, books from our Year Group book shelves. 

Each week we ask children to read at least 4 times at home, and to record their reflections on their reading in their planner at least twice a week.

See the bottom of this page for some ideas of how the reflections could look, copied from the planners with permission from the children.

Reading Reflections

Reflecting when reading is a technique which helps children to engage with texts, rather than just reading words on a page. As children become confident with their decoding (reading individual words without the need for sounding out), they begin to develop their comprehension skills (understanding the meaning of a text). By thinking deeply about a specific aspect of a book and reflect upon meaning, children increase their comprehension skills. Decoding and comprehension are needed as children develop into confident readers.

Reading reflections can take place before, after or during reading and can be written or drawn images.

Here are some ideas to inspire reading reflections:

• Meaning - Children identify words which they do not know the meaning of during reading. Using a dictionary, they discover the meaning of these unknown words and record these in their reflections.
• Prediction - Before or after reading, children think about what might happen next in a story. They record their thoughts in their reflections.
• Retrieval - After reading, children draw one of the characters or settings using information from the text.
• Inference - After or during reading, children select quotes to demonstrate a particular personality trait for a character or mood for a setting.
• Choices - After or during reading, children record words or phrases chosen by the author which they found effective as a reader.
• Structure - After reading, children comment on the layout of a text. They could discuss why an author has decided to include specific illustrations or images.

If your child really struggles to record their ideas, please speak to your child’s teacher, who will suggest alternatives, such as the child drawing a picture to show an event in the text, or a verbal discussion which you can record briefly for them. We would encourage children to write their own reflections, however, particularly in upper school, as children’s responses to something they have read can help inform an assessment of their writing, and also because it prepares them gently for their Key Stage 2 Reading test in year 6. Those children who achieve “age related standards with greater depth” in their year 6 reading outcome are most often children who have consistently read and reflected on their reading at home throughout their time with us.

Suggested Reading Lists

In the Upper school planners there are suggested reading lists for children who would like to broaden their reading.

Reading Incentives

Teachers check children’s planners in class once a week and look at the preceding 7 days of reading.  We celebrate children who have taken the time to write their reflections by giving them house points, and we encourage children to engage more with their reading as much as possible.

As part of the new maths curriculum children are expected to know their 2 times table, 5 times table and square number facts by the end of year 3, and all tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4. They need to be able to not only recall the tables facts, but know the corresponding division facts and apply their knowledge of times tables when calculating and problem solving.  

Home Learning

At home, we ask children to practise their times tables using TT Rockstars. They each have a username and password and are expected to use the website weekly at home. Questions will be set every week by class teachers. 

We also ask children to use Numbots for at least 10 minutes each week, to increase the fluency of addition and subtraction facts, so children can recall these facts automatically and use them to calculate accurately and efficiently. Childrens' login for Numbots is the same as their login for TT Rockstars.

Here are a few activities you can do at home to help children learn their times tables:

• Create a dominoes game together for each times table.
• Missing numbers patterns - take it in turns to write out the times table but leave a few missing spaces for the other player to fill in the numbers. e.g. 2,4,___,8,10___.
• Play multiplication bingo (one for the whole family) draw a 3x3 grid and fill in numbers from a specific times table and then someone calls out a number sentence e.g. 4x4 and the players have to work out the answer, if they have it they cross it off- first one to cross them all off is the winner!
• How quickly can the children complete the Times Table Grid Challenge below? Can they beat you?
• Write a multiplication rap and perform it to friends, family or even sing it in the car.
• Write it as a story, poem or a puppet show.
• Sing the tables to a well-known tune (many examples on Youtube).

‘Times Tables In Schools’ by Kate Robinson this is a great booklet on the Oxford Owl website full of tips and information on how to help your child learn their times tables.

Here are some useful websites that might help you:

• Topmarks - Interactive times tables games.
• Primary Homework Help - All areas of maths.
• BBC Teach - All areas of maths.
• Oxford Owl - Help with times tables, has some useful ‘top tips’, videos and activities for learning times tables 
• Activity Village - Times tables worksheets.
• Dr. Mike's Math Games - Fun multiplication activities.
• BBC Guide - The five times table.
• BBC Guide - The ten times table.
• BBC Guide - Introduction to division.

Fun Maths Games

‘Underwater times tables’ here you can select the times table to practice and so you can choose 2, 5 and 10. Choose to practise any times table from 2x to 12x (there is no mixed option). For each times table there are two levels. The first level presents the questions in order, e.g. 1 x 2, 2 x 2, 3 x 2, which makes it a great game for when you are just starting to learn a new multiplication table. There is no timer. Questions go up to 12 x the chosen number. What2Learn.

The Cloud Game from eChalk lets you choose which times table to practise up to 12x or you can choose a mixture. The question appears at the top and you have to click the cloud with the correct answer on it. You will gain points depending on your speed and accuracy and will be rewarded with a fireworks display.

You can test your knowledge of 2x to 9x tables in the 'Spitfire' game from ICT Games. Use your arrow keys to steer the spitfire towards the answer, then press your space key to fire.

The above three examples of games can all be found here Maths Games have a look through with your child and they can choose the ones they like with your help and supervision to get them started.

At Top Marks, there are three games; ‘Hit the Button’, ‘Learn Your Tables’ and ‘Cross the Swamp’, where you can select the times table to practice. ‘Cross the Swamp’ is harder and will need your help to begin with as it includes division it is a great game to develop your child’s multiplication reasoning skills. 

When playing the games you could get the whole family involved as you could play against one another and see who can get the best time!

Please note that Shirley Junior School does not have control over external content of these websites.