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

I know that some of you have already done some yoga online with our yoga teacher, Georgie.  Here is a lovely video that Georgie has made for all the children that she teaches. It has the balloon exercise that the children enjoy doing and also the fun shimmy song that we do together each week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxiLA44X-Yk

 If you would like to try some more yoga, there is a lovely channel on Youtube called Cosmic Kids Yoga.  Maybe this week you and your child could try a butterfly themed yoga class called ‘Coco the Butterfly and friends’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn65ltyntp4&t=99s

It’s lots of fun… I hope you enjoy it!

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 we would have been reading the traditional tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. When we read traditional tales at Nursery, we read lots of different versions over the course of a week so that children can see that different people tell stories in slightly different ways. We talk about differences in the characters used, the settings, events, the words and the illustrations.   You may well have a version of Jack and the Beanstalk at home, but here are some more versions for your child to listen to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvoJmMW-Wbo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyYh43hxSts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LY0UVBLq7Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnnSRy3v-1Q

In Nursery we encourage children to retell stories in their own words.  This will help them when they start to write their own sentences and stories in Reception and Year 1.  If you have a printer at home then children could use this story map to sequence the events and verbally retell the story:

Otherwise you could look at this powerpoint with your child and get them to talk about what is happening in each picture:

Our new vocabulary for this week would have been ‘story telling’ vocabulary such as “Once Upon a time…”, “They all lived happily ever after” and “The end”.  These are important phrases for the children to know which will help them with story writing in the future. Encourage your child to use these phrases as they retell the story.  Also, as Jack and the Beanstalk has a repeated refrain, we would expect the children to join in with “Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an English man. Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!”.

Physical Development

Fine Motor Skills:

This half term we would be doing lots of work on pencil skills to make sure that all children are holding pens and pencils with correct grip and using them with control.  If you have not already done so, try the lines handwriting pattern sheet with your child.  If they have already completed the pattern sheet, then see if they can draw some lines on a piece of paper with a pen or a pencil – both up and down and also side to side.  Try drawing long lines and short lines.  They will need this pattern to write letters such as ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘h’, ‘l’, ‘t’ etc.

Gross Motor Skills:

A fun game to play this week with your child would be ‘Beans’.  Children have to listen carefully to the type of bean that you say and do the action linked to that bean:

“Broad beans” – stand still in a star shape with arms and legs stretched out as wide as they will go

“Runner beans” – run around the space

“String beans” – stand still with legs together and arms together above the head, stretch up tall

“Baked beans” – curl up on the floor like a little bean

“Jelly beans” – wobble like a jelly

“Frozen beans” – freeze and stand still like a statue

“Jumping beans” – jump up and down

“French beans” – wave your hand around and say “Oooh la la”

See if your child can come up with an action for “Magic beans”!

Self-Care:

Once children move up to Reception, they will need to be able to dress and undress independently for PE and forest school.  This week please get your child to practise putting on and taking off their socks and shoes independently. 

Literacy

This week please continue to work through some of the activities on the Letters and Sounds Sheet about rhyme which is in your home learning packs. Here is a copy of the sheet:

In particular, see if your child can continue a rhyming string i.e. if you say “cat” they can say “mat, hat, bat, rat, sat etc”.  Here is an online game that you could look at with your child (username= march20 and  password=home):

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/member-only/CakeBake.html

For writing this week, please help your child to start writing the other letters in their name.  Use the name tracing card in your home learning pack to teach correct letter formation (starting at the car and following the dotted lines). 

Try to read with your child everyday and also to give them the opportunity to look at books independently.  I have loved seeing videos on Tapestry of some of the children ‘reading’ books to themselves at home!

Mathematics

This week at Nursery, we would have been continuing to work on counting and recording numbers as marks on paper.  Draw some more plant pots on a piece of paper for your child.  This week they are going to draw lines to represent beans growing out of these pots.  Write numbers on small pieces of paper or card and place them face down on the table – use numbers 1 to 3 if your child is less confident and 1 to 6 if your child is more confident with number work.  Ask your child to turn over one of the cards; say what number it is; draw that number of beanstalks on one of the flower pots; and then count to check they have drawn the correct number.  To provide extra challenge for your child, ask them to label the flowerpot by trying to write the numeral on it.

For shape, space and measure, you could work on positional language (on, under, in, behind, next to and in front).  We have done quite a lot of work on this at Nursery but not for a while so it would be good to refresh it.  If you have a printer, here is a positional language game that you could play:

Otherwise, here is a fun video you could watch called ‘Where’s the monkey?’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idJYhjGyWTU&list=PLisGMvEDQqYvdNtbcofKhzRk5FWAAtJUu&index=12

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

This week we would have looked at pictures of castles when talking about the Giant’s castle in Jack and the Beanstalk.  There is a fun episode of Peppa Pig that your child might like to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz7NAaOD_30

In Nursery, children begin to learn that information can be retrieved from computers so if you have a laptop then you could use it to look at this powerpoint about castles and learn some new vocabulary and facts:

Expressive Arts and Design

Our rhyme of the week would have been ‘1, 2, Buckle my shoe:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038dglc

This week’s dance is ‘Shake your sillies out’.  We have done it at singing time before so the children should recognise it and be able to do the actions in time with the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwT5oX_mqS0

As a creative activity this week, maybe you could use recycling to build your own giant’s castle.  Here is an idea from the English Heritage website to get you started:

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/members-area/kids/guide-to-castles/cardboard-castle/