It was lovely to speak to so many of you last week and hear that you are well and coping with life at home. 

Here are some things that you could do with your child at home this week.  There are a lot of ideas but please do not feel that you have to use them all.  Looking forward to September, it would really help your child if you could ensure that they do some  fine motor work, writing and maths each week but at this age the majority of time should be spent playing, exploring, singing, dancing, reading, being creative and having fun!

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

The most important thing at the moment is to ensure that our children feel happy and secure. One of the ways that we promote mindfulness and mental wellbeing in our Morning Nursery Class is to do yoga each week.  Our yoga teacher is called Georgie and she has a yoga channel on Youtube (Georgie Treasure).  Maybe you could try one of her yoga videos with your child at home?  Here is a ‘Happy and Good’ video that she has recorded that follows on from last week’s desert adventure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np3pDd0Xqnw&t=13s

If you would like to try some more yoga, there is a lovely channel on Youtube called Cosmic Kids Yoga which has some special videos for toddlers that would be suitable for our 2 and 3-year olds.  Maybe this week you and your child could try this yoga class called ‘Jungle Safari’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4CaR0syf1g&list=PL5QRpnaX8P2fu1XQpSPABZOmqroYXmOZM&index=3

A practical mindfulness activity for this week could be to make a calming ‘Mood Jar’ with your child.

The idea is that when a child feels angry, cross or frustrated, they shake the mood jar and then quietly watch the glitter swirl and settle while their body and mind have the chance to calm own. Here is one method for making a Mood Jar:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/thingstodo/mood-jar

Communication and Language

This week at Nursery our story of the week would have been Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins.  An online version can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eifx8qR7U_8&t=131s

Watch it a few times with your child and see if they join in with the sound effects!

Our new vocabulary for this week would have been positional language – in, on, under and behind.  Try to use these words with your child.  Maybe you could play a game where you give your child instructions to put a toy in different places e.g. “Put teddy under the table”   

Physical Development

Fine Motor Skills:

This half term we would be doing lots of work on strengthening our finger muscles ready to work on pencil grip in September.  This week your child could practice threading, where they have to use their pincer grip to hold a piece of string.  If you have string and pasta tubes, then your child could make a pasta necklace:

Otherwise, your child could try threading a shoelace through the holes in a trainer or shoe.

Gross Motor Skills:

This week please have a go at running and stopping.  Remind your child to listen carefully and freeze on the spot when you say stop.  If you haven’t got enough room inside to run around, then ask your child to hop, jump or walk around and then to stop when you say so.

Self-Care:

If your child is not already potty trained, then this time in lockdown is a perfect time to work on this.  It will really help your child’s independence and self-confidence if they are able to use the toilet before they start in our Morning Nursery Class. Here is one of the potty training books that we read with the children at Nursery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNoB9Lj5UE

Literacy

This week at Nursery we would have continue to work on Phase 1 of our Letters and Sounds phonics scheme.  Please have a go at some of the other activities from the Voice Sounds home learning challenge sheet:

Also please try to read with your child every day and also to give them the opportunity to look at books independently.

Mathematics

This week at Nursery, we would have been working on counting out 1 to 3 objects.  You can practise this skill in lots of different contexts.  While playing, ask your child to give you 2 cars or 3 bricks.  When getting ready to eat, ask your child to get two forks out or pass you three potatoes.  When going for a walk, ask your child to find 3 pebbles or 2 leaves. 

Also, please have a go at sorting by type.  Here is a Postman Pat sorting game that you could try:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/postman-pat-pats-parcel-sort

Please put photos of any maths work that your child does at home on Tapestry so that I can keep their assessment records up to date!

Understanding the World

On your daily walk, try a five senses scavenger hunt to introduce new vocabulary and get your child to use their senses to explore natural objects:

Also, to follow on with last week’s story of the week, you could play the Noisy Farm game where children have to listen carefully and then complete the activity by moving objects on the screen:

http://www.dearzooandfriends.com/games

Expressive Arts and Design

Our rhyme of the week would have been ‘If you’re happy and you know it’. Practise moving in time with the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa9Kv-fFKB0

We would also have been singing lots of nursery rhymes to make sure that the children know all the common rhymes before they move up to the Morning Class.  Here is a Cbeebies nursery rhyme collection. It has BSL with it which is similar to the Signalong signing system that we use in Nursery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0jFdEJ1UqM

Finally, this week you could have a go at making stick music.  On your daily walk, find a stick and bang it on different objects to see what sounds they make.  Are they loud or quiet sounds? See what happens when you scrap the stick on an object instead of banging it.  Can you child tap out a rhythm?