Good morning Reception parents and children,
Welcome to today’s home learning.
Communication and Language/Literacy
Tell a funny story – pass the story
I thought this game may provide an opportunity for your child to use all the imaginative skills we have been learning recently. You can either use The Gingerbread Man story for the underlying plot or make up an alternative story. This is a fun game to play together – it works for just two people or the whole family.
What You Need:
A soft, large ball. Inflatable beach balls are ideal. Or you just use a soft toy or cushion etc.
How to Play:
The person with the ball starts by speaking those magical words, “Once upon a time…”. The first person will then roll the ball to the next person who continues the story. After the next person has added one sentence or a few sentences, he/she rolls the ball to the next person. A cliff-hanger for the next person who catches the ball would add to the fun – I expect you will probably have to provide these. Continue taking turns as the story evolves and until you’re ready to finish the story with an ending.
Letters and Sounds
Play countdown
This game will help your child consolidate their quick recall of sounds/words, especially those digraphs (two letters/one sound). It’s also a great way to help your child understand the concept of time and begin to talk about minutes and seconds – literacy and maths in one!
- Use the list of words below – today we are going to focus on ‘ai’ and ‘ee’. Write the words onto individual pieces of paper. Remember to keep modelling cursive ‘whoosh’ writing – perhaps this is something you are learning together.
- Use a timer – either kitchen timer or your phone.
- Explain to your child that the object of this game is to read as many words as possible before the timer signals ‘stop’. I suggest perhaps 1 or 2 minutes.
- Repeat the game, the objective is for your child to beat their last score.
For support
Play the game using the words in your child’s word bag.
For challenge
Ask your child to write as many words as they can in a given time. You could change roles, your child can be the teacher and reads the words for you to write. Talk about the words and meaning. Can your child say a sentence to include some of the words?
Maths
Classifying and sorting
This is a fairly simple game to play and you can use a variety of objects.
• Gather together a collection of objects.
• Experiment with different ways of sorting the objects.
Examples:
A collection of toys. Sort them into the type of toy eg. cars, bricks, dolls, animals. Or the type of material they are made from, colour, size etc.
A collection of items collected on a walk. You could sort them into things from natural or manmade items. Or perhaps sort a collection of stones by colour or size.
Beads or buttons. Perhaps sort them into shape, size, colour.
For challenge
To extend your child’s learning it can be fun to play ‘guess the category’:
• Gather together a collection of objects.
• Take turns to sort the objects into a category.
• Can your child guess what your category is?
• Can you guess your child’s category?
For example, I played this game with a collection of buttons. We began with an easy category when my partner sorted the buttons into size. However, at one point, my partner sorted the buttons into the amount of holes in each button which took me some time to guess! This is a fun game once your child has really grasped the concept.
British Values
The Rule of Law
The fundamental British values of rule of law, democracy, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs are already implicitly embedded in your child’s curriculum. We are going to focus on one value each week beginning with the rule of law.
The rule of law in the early years is all about children understanding their own and others’ behaviour and its consequences. They are also learning to distinguish right from wrong.
Children enjoy participating in creating rules. If they are involved in making reasonable rules, they will know what is expected of them and others. Their participation will help ensure their willingness to maintain the rules and help develop self-control.
- Talk to your child about the rules you have in the house.
- Discuss why the rules are important, for example, to keep them safe.
- Discuss what could happen if the rules are broken.
- Explore different rules you could adopt in the house.
Ideas to explore rules:
- Make up a few funny rules eg. stay up all night and act out being too sleepy to play.
- Your child could be a ‘rule superhero’. Pretend to break the rules and your child saves the day eg. leave all the toys out and trip over them.
- Make a poster together to display the rules. This could be useful to refer to when the opportunity arises.
Wishing you all a fantastic weekend.
Nicola Palmer