Good morning parents and children,
Welcome to today’s Reception home learning.
Communication and Language/Literacy
Making alterations to the story of The Gingerbread Man
In some way, we have already thought about making alterations through substitution and addition. However, now we are going to try to make changes that have a consequence. By ‘alteration’ I mean a change that is significant and changes the direction of the story – alterations have a knock on effect!
It is worth beginning by just making changes within the story – so that your child will still have the overall comfort of the original. This acts as a large writing frame and provides structure within which they can manoeuvre. You could try altering:
- the nature of one of the characters eg. the fox is kind and helpful.
- setting eg. on the moon.
- the end of the story eg. The Gingerbread Man and the fox go on an adventure.
- a key event within the story eg. The Gingerbread Man didn’t run away.
I hope your child enjoys making changes to the story – I find this normally generates quite a lot of amusement. Again, if you could act it out with your child and make the changes as you play, your child will probably be more inventive. Perhaps at a key point, stop and say ‘Hey we could change that bit’.
Letters and Sounds
Crocodile in the river (or is it a fox in the river?)
You will need:
Large piece of blue fabric
Pieces of paper with sounds written on – see below
What to do:
- Lay the fabric on the floor like a river (you can play this game outside and use chalk to draw the river instead)
- Tell your child he/she has to cross the river, but a crocodile lives in it.
- Assume the role of the crocodile and stand in the river.
- The only way for your child to cross safely is for he/she to make a bridge.
- Ask your child to lay down sounds to create a given word as the bridge eg. ‘pet’ as in the picture.
Suggested words (you don’t have to do them all!):
qu – quick, quit, quack, queen (sounds: qu, i, ck, t, a, ee, n)
ch – chop, chin, such, chip (sounds: ch, o, p, i, n, s, u, p)
sh – shop, ship, fish, rush, cash, shell (sounds: sh, o, p, i, p, f, r, u, c, a)
th – this, that, with, moth (sounds: th, i, s, a, t, w, m, o)
For support – try the following words:
mat, pen, pig, cat, dog, mum, dad (sounds: m, a, t, p, e, n, I, g, c, d, o, g, m, u, m, d)
For further support, just tell your child the word and ask them to sound out the word before crossing the river eg. ‘mat’ – your child tells you ‘m-a-t’.
Maths
Positional Language
Go on a hunt to find the Gingerbread Man! Of course, you could use any toy for this hunt or draw a simple picture of the Gingerbread Man.
The gingerbread man has run away but left directions of where he has gone. Your child has to follow the directions around your home or outside to find him. Use prepositions such as ‘under the table’, ‘on top of the cupboard’, ‘behind the laundry bin’ etc.
Swap roles and ask your child to hide the Gingerbread Man or toy and give you directions of where to find it.
Gingerbread Man Puppets
I have posted on the Memo section of Tapestry characters from the Gingerbread Man story. Encourage your child to develop their scissor skills cutting out the shapes, sellotape them onto a stick. You will have your very own puppets to retell the story.
Celebrating our Learning
Word webs
Story maps
Gingerbread Man cooking
Retelling the story to an audience
Reading The Gingerbread Story in my own language
Story scribing
Patterns
Sharing
Writing like a Jedi/writing in flour
Strong fingers
Thank you so much for all your Tapestry posts! You are an amazing Reception class.
Mrs Palmer