Our Star Wars theme continued, with another variation on last year’s BB-8 scrap metal hunt. This time there were magnetic words buried in the sand.
Resources
- Storage box with sand in
- Magnet
- ELC magnetic word tiles
- Tray – not essential but helpful to catch the sand for an easier cleanup
Method
I split the ELC word tiles into two groups. The group of words for Ioan (6 years old) did not show grapheme-phoneme correspondence. I explain more about grapheme-phoneme corresponance in the post, “Tricky Trains“.
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Ioan read the words as he pulled them out of the sand with the magnet. He then put the words on a tray.
The group of words for Finn (4 years old) were easily decodable using phonics. Like Ioan, he read the words as he pulled them out of the sand.
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They kept asking to re-bury the words and have another go.
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Finn wanted to record himself reading his words.
So, of course Ioan wanted a video too.
Whilst I was cooking tea, they took it in turns to pick a word from each other’s pile, for their brother to spell. Finn loves testing Ioan on his spellings.
Finn: DfES Early Learning Goals (2017)
Literacy
ELG 09 – Reading:
Children use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately.
ELG 10 – Writing:
Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds.
DfES Outcomes for EYFS and National Curriculum (2013)
English Year 1 programme of study
Reading – word reading
- Pupils should be taught to read common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word.
Spelling
- Pupils’ attention should be drawn to the grapheme-phoneme correspondences that do and do not fit in with what has been taught so far.
Science Year 3 programme of study
Forces and magnets
- observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others