Good morning everyone,
Many thanks for all your posts on Tapestry, I am so impressed by everything the children are doing at home. I appreciate that lots of you are juggling your own jobs too. My activities are just suggestions which I hope will inspire your child.
Communication and Language
Smartie the Penguin
I have posted a PowerPoint story on the Memo section of Tapestry.
The story can also be found on:
https://www.childnet.com/resources/smartie-the-penguin
For very young children, especially those under the age of 5 years old, parents and carers should always supervise their child when online and be easily available to support children if they have any concerns or worries.
The story of Smartie the Penguin is a lovely introduction to what children need to consider in order to protect themselves from harm as they use a range of different devices to access the internet world?
I also recommend this document created in response to the COVID-19 crisis:
Keeping your children safe online – a guide for families of children under 5
Letters and Sounds
Spelling gaps game
This is a simple game. All you do is miss out letters.
What to do:
- Use your child’s word bag for a bank of possible words.
- Write a word eg. st _ p
- Tell your child what the word is eg. stop
- Ask your child ‘What is the missing letter?’
If you decide to use tricky words (star shapes in word bag), tell your child it is a tricky word and cannot be sounded it – they will have to know the spelling.
For support, suggest a couple of possible letters to choose from.
To challenge your child, miss out more than one letter eg. s_ _ p
Your child may even be ready to play a hangman game (though drawing a clown’s face might be more acceptable!)
Maths
Picnic time
This is an excellent game to develop your child’s problem solving skills.
What to do:
- Plan a picnic with your child selecting favourite soft toys as the picnickers.
- With your child choose the food eg. carrot sticks, sandwiches, drinks and fruit.
- Ask your child how many of each item to provide for each toy.
- Ask your child to share out the food fairly.
An example for 5 toys:
- 10 sandwiches
- 5 drinks
- 15 carrot sticks
- 10 apples
Talk about scenarios such as:
- ‘What would happen if one toy didn’t want to eat?’ Ask questions such as ‘How could we share out the food then?’
- ‘I wonder what we’ll do if another toy joins the picnic?’ Establish by discussion whether or not your child would add more food, more toys or take something away.
Lastly, whilst the toys are enjoying their picnic, ask your child to tell the toys what they learnt about internet safety and the story of Smartie the Penguin.
Religious Education
Honour the Blessed Virgin Mary in May
The Church celebrates Mary in May because it is linked to spring, new life and the birth of Jesus. Since the month of May is dedicated to Mary, it’s a great time to honour her with your little one! Here are some suggestions:
- Make a flower crown.
- Make a round cake in the shape of a crown and decorate it with blue icing. Blue being the colour associated with Mary.
- Make a special prayer table. Find a picture of Mary and decorate the table with flowers.
- Say the Hail Mary prayer – encourage your child to begin to learn the Hail Mary prayer.
Wishing you all a wonderful day.
Nicola Palmer