Archive for May, 2020
Home Learning edition 4
First of all a Happy Eid Mubarak to all our families celebrating the end of Ramadan. We hope you all had a lovely day with family and friends, even if it was from a safe distance or video chat.
This week we have quite a variety of Home learning to share, starting with a poster from Mahdia and Adyan’s family, with pictures of some of their main events during the lockdown.
We recently added a picture of Yusuf and his Stick Man to our Home Learning Gallery. Now we can add the whole Stick Man family, thanks to Talha and his family. Based on the book Stick Man by Julia Donaldson, the literacy homework was to make Stick Man and his family using real sticks!
Talha really enjoyed this task. The family all went out for a walk to collect sticks and leaves. Talha made his stick people completely by himself. Including breaking up the sticks to the right sizes and using his sister Hikmah’s glue gun to stick the pieces together.
Ophelia sent a Get Well Soon card, hand made by herself, to our Prime Minister Boris Johnson while he was struggling at the hospital due to COVID-19. She did receive a postcard as a gesture of reply from the Prime Minister, showing his appreciation on Ophelia’s effort.
We did receive a few more pieces of Home Learning work and we will add these all to our Home Learning Gallery.
To see more of the children’s splendid work go to:
If you would like to send pictures of your children’s work, please send these to:
ict@benjonson.towerhamlets.sch.uk
Add the name and age of your child and remember that if the picture shows your child(ren), school must have your parental consent to publish these on our school website.
If you want to add some more information as some of the parents did above, we could even include this in our next BJblog post.
The Covid19 board game
You might have seen some of the board games designed and made by the children during our Space themed week (See Matt’s first BJblog post), but we definitely have to share this one with you all.
This is Amal’s board game. It’s a revamp of snakes and ladders into a Corona virus and ladders and it actually made us all smile. A good and interesting way of learning about the virus. Thank you Amal and her dad, for sharing it with us.
Matt’s first BJblog post.
Dear Ben Jonson,
Can you believe it has been almost 8 weeks since schools closed for most children? What a long time it feels – longer than the summer holidays! I am thinking of you all. I hope you and your families are all healthy and happy. I have spoken to most of the children in Coral Class on the phone and generally everyone is well, but a little bored. I completely empathise with this feeling, as I am feeling it too. Having said this, thankfully the weather is very nice at the moment.
What are you doing to keep busy in lock down? Have you completed the new outdoor learning yet? If not, please do check it out! Go to the Ben Jonson Primary home page, click the BIG, YELLOW home learning link, find your year group and click ‘Outdoor Learning’ in ‘Week 7 Activities’. Getting outside is a crucial ingredient for overall health; it triggers the body’s production of vitamin D, lowers high blood pressure, helps muscles and improves brain function.
Last week I went into school on Monday and Thursday to look after the few children that are continuing to go in. It was lovely to see them all, and catch up with the adults too. We focused on making and creating. Check out the pictures and descriptions below. If you want, you could try and make similar things at home too.
On Monday, we made Paper Mache Space Helmets. This was a big project that took a couple of days. The results speak for themselves though, look how fantasy they looked at the end! If you fancy making your own, there are step-by-step instructions with pictures on the hobby craft website. Click the link below.
https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/ideas/kids/how-to-make-a-space-helmet
![IMG_0032[1]](https://benjonson.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_00321.jpg?w=161&h=215 "IMG_0032[1]")
![IMG_0023[1]](https://benjonson.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_00231.jpg?w=286&h=215 "IMG_0023[1]")
On Thursday morning, we were animators with a simple Stop Motion app. The app is free to download from the Apple Store; it’s called ‘I can animate Lite’. It was a really fun activity that only requires a tablet/iPad and some plasticine. If you don’t have plasticine at home, you could use Play-Doh, toys like Lego or leaves from the outdoors. As you can see from the pictures, we also made a little studio with a large cardboard box and spare paper.
This activity needs time and a few helpers. If your family members are available (brothers and sisters are very useful), get them involved too. Give them specific roles like director, camera controller, set and props maker.
The key to this activity is patience – the more pictures you take (they are also called frames), the better your animation movie will be. The best way of demonstrating this is to download the app and have a play around with it.
For more information, have a look at the Tate Kids website. There are simple instructions and lots of great ideas. https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/make/art-technology/be-animator
![IMG_0028[1]](https://benjonson.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_00281.jpg?w=455)
On Thursday afternoon, we finished off making board games. Guy started this with the children – I can’t take the credit for this great idea! The children thought about their favourite board games like Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly and Chess. Using these ideas are inspiration, they made their own games out of cardboard. The theme in school was all about space. Check out the pictures below to see what they came up with.
![IMG_0031[1]](https://benjonson.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_00311.jpg?w=224&h=168 "IMG_0031[1]")
![IMG_0027[1]](https://benjonson.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_00271.jpg?w=223&h=168 "IMG_0027[1]")
Looking forward to seeing you all soon.
Best wishes,
Matt
Reading comprehension using Frogplay.
This week, some of the Home Learning tasks in Frogplay will be comprehension. You will need to download a text first as instructed in the help video. This is how:
The download button is in the right-hand corner, next to the help video button.
Open the file and it will appear as an Adobe file 
at the bottom of your screen.
A way to help with the comprehension is to have the text downloaded and printed or showing on the screen with the questions, rather than switching between screens. This is called Split screen. There are many YouTube videos showing you how to split screens in Windows or Mac and even on a tablet (Split view and Active multi window).
Help videos in Frogplay.
The video option will also you give you an explanation about comprehension and some tips.
Here are some more tips:
- Read aloud to an adult or older brother or sister. This makes you go slower, which gives you more time to understand what you read and in turn improves reading comprehension. Plus, you’re not only seeing the words — you’re hearing them, too! You can also take turns reading aloud.
- Reread to build fluency. To gain meaning from text and encourage reading comprehension, you need to read quickly and smoothly — a skill known as fluency.
Rereading gives you a practice at decoding words quickly, so you’ll become more fluent in reading comprehension.
- Talk about what you’re reading. Ask your reading partner, the adult or older brother or sister, about words and sentences you don’t understand, before starting the comprehension activity.
This post can also be viewed as an PDF on the Computing Home Learning page.
Home Learning using Frogplay
Now that the Frogplay World championships are finished (and we are still waiting for the results), we will clear all the old homework and start with new sets of home work for every year group.
Just as before you can use the message option to contact Jan (Aelmans, J) if you have any problems with an activity or questions about Frogplay. If this is not possible through Frogplay, then you can e-mail ict@benjonson.towerhamlets.sch.uk for further support.
Remember you can login to Frogplay on any computer, laptop, tablet and even smartphone with a working internet connection, by going to frogplay.net. All children from Year 1 onwards should have their own login details. If you have forgotten or lost these you can always contact ict@benjonson.towerhamlets.sch.uk
Hope this has been an additional help with the Home Learning so far and looking forward to see even more children completing their tasks using Frogplay!
Frogplay World Championships: The End
A massive CONGRATULATIONS to all who took part, we all know how weird things currently are for everyone, and just hope that the Frogplay World Championships have provided a little distraction from all that and helped with some of the home learning.
If you missed anything, don’t worry, there’ll be an opportunity to unlock those parts again in a future event.
Frogplay is currently checking the scores and will announce the winners shortly. We might not have a winner at Ben Jonson this year, but there will be other tournaments in the future.
Here are the countries we virtually visited over the past nine weeks.
Home Learning edition 3
Hello everyone,
As Tweeted, the Home Learning Gallery webpage is now active, but we do need some more pictures to add. Remember they don’t need to be all about art, as we would like to have all subjects represented. To visit the page just go to the Home Learning page on our school website and click on the link in the yellow box below the Home Learning of the different yeargroups. You can also click on the link below:
https://www.benjonson.towerhamlets.sch.uk/parents/home-learning-gallery
Please read the previous blogpost for more details on how to send pictures. We are looking forward to see even more stunning pictures of the Home Learning.
Home Learning edition 2
Dear all,
We have now added a Home Learning Gallery page to our school website, so we can share the work and pictures of your children with our school community, while the school is still closed. Just click on the link on the Home Learning page to see our growing gallery.
We would like to show not only artwork, but also pictures of other subjects and even of activities you’ve done for home learning. Please send pictures to:
ict@benjonson.towerhamlets.sch.uk
Add the name and age of your child and remember that if the picture shows your child(ren), school must have your parental consent to publish these on our school website.
Home Learning Edition 1
Dear all,
Hopefully you have been following some of our updates on the website and Twitter, but we thought we might post an update on our blog as well.
Our school remains closed until further notice, but teachers have been making learning resources and posting them on our school website, so that children have an opportunity to continue their learning. The Home Learning can be accessed on our website:
www.benjonson.towerhamlets.sch.uk/parents/home-learning
Thank you to all the parents, who sent in work and pictures of their children, doing their learning at home. We are considering to create a page on our schoolwebsite to show all the amazing learning from home.
Photos of learning at home and any ICT related queries should be emailed to:
ICT@benjonson.towerhamlets.sch.uk
Please remember to include the first name and age of your child.
BJ Blog 