Class 1
Welcome to the Class 1 Page.
You will find regular updates of things to do at home with your children.
Mrs Garren’s Email: CPSClass1@corporationroad.darlington.sch.uk
Week commencing 13th July
| READING |
Listen to the story of Farmer Duck. It starts at 3 minutes.
Talk about the characters/events/setting of the story.
Can you hear the rhyme in the story? ‘There once was a duck, who had the bad luck.’ Can you continue the rhyme using real and nonsense words?
- Play I Spy using robot talk. Can the children find a s-o-ck, p-e-n, c-ar, c-u-p, t-e-dd-y (t-e-dd-ee) (use your robot voice to speak, you could even move like a robot too!)
Break the word up into sounds, can the children hear and blend the word in their heads and go and find the object.
You can play this game at any time during the day, it doesn’t need to be an activity. While you are getting dressed “Put on your t-o-p/sh-oe-s, c-oa-t” “Wiggle your f-i-n-g-er-s. Touch your -n-o-se.”
- Discover a new story.
Follow this link and enjoy listening to some exciting stories read by actors and watch the gorgeous animations. Choose a story you have never heard be
| WRITING |
- Talk about the animals that live on a Farm. Have you been to a farm? What animals did you see?
Choose your favourite farm animal or one you would like to learn more about and research it using the internet.
Draw your chosen farm animal using appropriate colours. Can you hear the sounds in the word? P-i-g, c-ow, d-u-ck. Write the word. Tell your adult about the new facts you have learnt.
- Practise prewriting shapes. Lines up, down, side to side, circles, zig zags, waves, diagonal lines.
- Write your name. I bet you are great at it now! If you can write your first name, start practising your surname.
| MATHS |
Listen and join in with the song ‘5 Little Ducks.’
5 Little ducks went swimming one day,
Over the hill and far away,
Mother duck said ‘Quack, quack, quack, quack’
But only 4 little ducks came back.
4 little ducks went swimming one day……
3 little ducks….
2….
1….
Sing the song together, you could even make 5 Little Ducks or use your family to act out the song. Talk about ‘how many’ you have left each time, can you count accurately and say how many are left?
Play the shape monsters game.
Feed the correct shapes to the monsters and watch them gobble them up.
Can you name the shapes? Talk about what they look like? Have they got straight or curved sides?
Can you draw them in the air? On the carpet with your finger? On paper? With chalk?
- Play Hide and Seek and practise counting to 10.
Change the number, e.g. count to 7, and see if you can stop when you get to the correct number. Use positional language to describe where you found your parent/carer/friend.
- Lay numbers 1-5 or 1-10 muddled up on the floor, these could be paper or chalked.
Call a number and get your child to splatt the correct numeral using their hand, a fly swatter, spachula or whatever you have.
Week Commencing 6th July
| READING |
- Listen to the story ‘Room on the Broom.’
This is the full movie version you could watch.
Join in with the repeated refrains, e.g. “The Witch tapped her broomstick and WOOOSH they were gone!”
Predict what you think will happen next in the story? What do you think will happen when the Witch is caught by the Dragon? Who do you think will save her?
Talk about the characters in the story.
Sequence the story. Which character did the Witch meet first? Who did she meet next? What happened at the end of the story?
Listen and see if you can fill in the missing rhyming words at the end of each sentence.
“The Witch had a cat, and a very tall…..” Can you think of other rhyming words for cat and dog? Can you think of some silly nonsense words that rhyme as well, like tat or lat?
- Can you pretend to be the witch and create some silly soup in your cauldron?
Collect some objects, sing the song, “We’re making lots of silly soup, we’re making soup that silly. We’re going to put it in the fridge to make it nice and chilly.”
Can you put something in my soup that starts with the sound……..?
- Play the Phase 1 Phonics game.
Listen to the animal really carefully. What animal is making that noise?
| WRITING |
- Draw a picture of the characters in the story. Can you hear and say the sounds in the words? Cat, dog, frog. Have a go at writing them. Which sounds can you read?
- Collect sticks and wrap coloured wool around them. This will help make your fingers strong and develop your fine motor skills.
- Practise writing your name. You could use a stick and write it in the mud when you go to the park? Or write your name in different colours like a rainbow.
- Develop your gross motor skills. Put on your wellies and go to the park or in the street and jump in the puddles. How high can you jump? How hard can you splash the water? Listen to the noises that the puddles make? Can you hear the splash, splish, splosh.
| MATHS |
- Make some 2D shaped wands. Use an old cardboard or cereal box and cut out some shapes. Talk about the shapes you are making. Can you count the number of sides they have?
Colour them in or decorate them and attach them to your straws/sticks etc. What spells can you make using your new wands? - Make potions like a Witch or Wizard. You can use lots of different materials, salt, sugar, mud, soap, glitter, water, washing up liquid, petals, herbs, lentils, peas, mixed spices, shaving foam, spaghetti, pasta, lemons, limes etc.
- Collect various sized and shaped containers, teapots and spoons and explore making different potions, mixing together your ingredients. What changes can you see happening? What colours are they? Do any of the ingredients disappear or dissolve? How does the textures feel? How do they smell?
Explore the capacity of the various containers. Which holds more/less water?
Explore how to make them full, half full and empty.
Count how many spoonful’s of ingredients you have put in. How many cupfuls of water will fill the biggest/smallest container?
WARNING this will be very messy and very fun!
4. Using a paper plate, write 3 or 4 random numbers 1-5 or 10 around the edge.
Then draw groups of spots to match the numerals. So if you have the number 3 on the plate, draw a group of three spots. Get your child to read a numeral, and put a peg on it. Then find the group of spots that matches the numeral counting carefully and put another peg on this.
This is helping your child match the correct numeral to the quantity.
Week Commencing 29th June
| READING |
- Listen to or read the story The Gruffalo
Can you join in with the repeated refrains in the story?
Can you predict what will happen next? Who will the Mouse meet?
What will happen when the Mouse meets the Gruffalo?
Who were the characters in the story?
Talk about what happened in the story.
Can you think of words to describe the Gruffalo? Scary, smelly, nasty etc.
The Mouse is very brave when he meets the Gruffalo. What makes you feel brave/scared? How did you make yourself feel better?
You could visit the Gruffalo trail at Hamsterly Forest and find the sculptures.
- Talk about the rhymes in the story. Can you finish the rhyme? Mouse-house, snake-lake
- Gather a group of objects together and play I Spy. Or play when you go to the park or for a walk.
- Hairy Letters App, or Pocket Phonics are good for early introduction to sounds for reading and writing.
| WRITING |
- Draw a picture of the story and retell it to your adult. Can you remember the sequence?
- Draw a picture of the Gruffalo using the book to draw how he is described (terrible tusks, terrible teeth, knobbly knees etc.) Can you hear, say and write the initial sounds to label your Gruffalo?
Or
Draw your own terrible creature. Label it and tell your adult all about it!
- Practice writing your name in different media (salt, rainbow letters, chalk, shaving foam etc)
Practise any letter formation you might be struggling with.
- Draw a map of the journey the Mouse took through the deep, dark, wood. Draw all the things he passed as he was walking.
| MATHS |
- Count to 20 and exercise with Jack Hartman.
- Write numbers 1-5/10 on paper for your child. Can they recognise the numbers and order them correctly? To help you could draw spots under the number for your child to count.
- Get your child to close their eyes, and either you, or a naughty toy steals a number. Can your child tell you which number is missing? If they struggle, they can count from 1 until they get to the space to help them.
- Play with dice. This is great for counting the spots, adding two amounts together and saying ‘how many,’ subitising (recognising the number of objects in a small amount without counting them), see who can get the biggest/smallest number, say when you rolled a double and got the same amount.
Week Commencing 22nd June
| READING |
- Listen to the story Handa’s Surprise.
Read the title and look at the front cover of the story, can you predict what do you think the surprise could be?
Talk about the characters in the story. What animals are featured in the story? Are there any you have or haven’t heard of before?
The story is set in South West Kenya? Can you find it on a map? Can you find out more about this country? How is it similar/different to where you live?
What happens at the beginning and the end of the story? Why are there tangerines in Handa’s basket at the end of the story? Is Akeo happy to receive tangerines from her friend Handa?
- Choose one of the animals in the story that you would like to find out more about. Use the internet or non-fiction books to find out some interesting facts about this animal.
- Collect some fruit to put in your Silly soup. Sing the song ‘We’re making lots of silly soup, we’re making soup that silly, we’re going to put it in the fridge to make it nice and chilly.’ Say an initial sound that one of the fruits begins with. “Can you find me a fruit that starts with the sound ‘p’?” Can your child select the correct fruit and put it in your bowl?
- Clap the syllables in the fruits in Handa’s Surprise. ‘tan-ger-ine’ (three claps), ba-na-na (three claps), man-go (two claps). What other words or fruits can you clap?
| WRITING |
- If you were going to give your friend a gift, what would you give them? Draw a picture of it. Listen and say the initial sound, can you write it?
- Draw or paint some fruit. Use the appropriate colours for the yellow banana, red apple, or green pear?
- Handa’s basket was woven. Can you do some weaving. Watch the video and follow to learn weaving, this will help fine motor and hand eye coordination skills. You could cut your paper into a basket shape and weave a basket like Handa.
| MATHS |
Count the fruit in your house or when you next go shopping. How many bananas are in your bunch? How many oranges are in your pack? Which fruit have you got more/less of? If you eat one, how many do you have now?
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/ladybird-spots
Play the ladybird counting game.
Make fluffy shapes. Draw shapes on a piece of paper. Get a piece of cotton wool, pull and stretch it, this will help your fine motor, and stick the cotton wool into the middle of your shape. Don’t go over the line so you can still see what the shape is. What shape have you made?
Week Commencing 15th June
| READING |
Listen to the story ‘Have you filled a bucket today?’
Talk about the story and the meaning behind it. How do people feel when their bucket is full or empty?
Think of some ways you can be a bucket filler, e.g: smiling, giving someone a hug, saying something nice, helping etc, and also some ways of being a bucket dipper, e.g: lying, being unkind, arguing etc. Use the story to help you get some ideas.
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources/phase/1/sound-starters
Play a Phase 1 Phonics game. Click on the sound buttons and listen carefully and see if you can say what the sounds are.
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources/phase/1/hickory-dickory-dock
Practise rhyme by singing the nursey rhyme Hickory, Dickory, Dock.
Say the words out loud as each line appears. You will hear a sound that goes along with each animation. Click the ‘Next’ button to watch the next animation with its sound and words. Join in with the words and imitate the sound effects.
Pretend to be the mouse and act out what he is doing as you read each line.
Talk about the words in yellow – dock, clock, tock. Help your child to hear that they rhyme. Support the children in finding alternative words that also rhyme. Substitute these words in the rhyme.
‘Hickory, dickory, dog, the mouse ran up the log.’
‘Hickory, dickory, gat, the mouse ran up the cat.’
| WRITING |
- Decorate and write a card to someone you miss or just someone you love to help fill their bucket and make them feel happier. Send it in the post or pop it in their letter box when you go for a walk. Remember to write your name in your card so they know it’s from you.
- Get your own bucket. Every time you are a bucket filler, write or draw it on a piece of paper and pop it into your bucket. See how quickly it fills to the top.
- Develop your gross motor skills having a dance with Jack Hartman
- Help hang out the washing on the line and use the pegs to strengthen your fingers for writing.
| MATHS |
Have you got some Dominos at home? These are great for developing maths skills as well as turn taking and sharing. You can count the spots, match the number of spots together saying when they are the same. Count the two amounts and say how many you have altogether and say who has more or fewer spots.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/ladybird-spots
Count the spots on the ladybird and say how many they have and match the number of spots on the ladybird to the correct numeral.
Cut some old toilet or kitchen roll holders and reshape them back into various 2D shapes, circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. Talk to the children about the different shapes you are making. Get your paint and enjoy printing shapes onto paper. Talk about the shapes you are using and how many sides and corners they have. Can you make a repeating shape pattern? Triangle, circle, triangle, circle etc.
For this activity you will need some Rich Tea biscuits, icing in a bowl and some Smarties in a bowl (or other form of sweets that can be counted)
Get one biscuit, put icing on the top, spreading it all over. Show your child a number 1-5 or 1-10 and get them to count out the correct number of Smarties onto the table.
Ask your child: “How many (orange) Smarties have you got? Which colour have you got only 2 Smarties of? Which colour have you got the most of? How many red and blue Smarties have you got altogether?”
Put the Smarties on to your biscuit and save it for later.
Repeat the activity with your child choosing another number.
When you have two biscuits you could ask them “How many Smarties have you got altogether on both biscuits?”
When you have made your biscuits, eat them! Yummy!
Week Commencing 8th June
| READING |
- Listen to the story ‘Oliver’s Vegetables.’
Talk about the events in the story. Who are the characters? Where are the characters in the story? What vegetables did Oliver eat in the story? Have you tried these vegetables before? Maybe you could try them this week. What is your favourite vegetable?
- Sing Nursery rhymes. Pause at the end of the sentence and allow your child to fill in the rhyme. Emphasise the rhymes in the songs. “Dog and log rhyme. Can you think of any other words that rhyme?”
- Play the ‘mystery bag’ game. Hide a few objects in a bag. Say the rhyme “mystery bag, mystery bag, what’s inside the mystery bag?” Sound talk the object (c-u-p) and get your child to blend the word together to tell you what it is.
Can they be the teacher and segment the word so you can guess what it is?
| WRITING |
- Make a diary of all the vegetables that you eat in one day. Draw pictures of them. Can you hear, say and write the initial sound in the words?
- Grow some carrot tops. Keep the top off your carrot when you are cooking, place it on a small plate, pour water onto the saucer and keep in a sunny place in your house. Keep watching your carrot top and see what changes you notice. Can you see the roots growing? Are there any leaves? Draw a picture of the changes you can see as you watch your carrot top grow. Label your picture.
- Have a look in your kitchen at different foods. Talk with your adults about healthy and unhealthy food and sort some of the food into healthy and unhealthy. Cut out labels from foods or pictures from magazines (you can pick these up in Tesco or Aldi) and stick them onto a paper plate to show all the different healthy foods you could find.
| MATHS |
- Cut some potatoes in half and cut out shapes into the potato (triangle, square, circle, rectangle.) Create some potato prints. Make a pattern using your potato shapes. Can you make a repeating pattern? What shapes are you using?
- Gather some vegetables in your house or have a look when you are at the shop. Look and talk about the different sizes of vegetables. Which is the biggest/smallest? Which is the heaviest/lightest? Order your vegetables by size from the biggest to the smallest. Extend your sentences, for example: “The onion is smaller than the pumpkin, but it’s bigger than the mushroom.” If you have balancing scales (not with numbers) at home use these to explore weight.
- Go on a colour hunt in the vegetable aisle of the shop. What colours can you find? Can you find a green vegetable? Are there any that are blue?
- Choose two new fruits or vegetables to try as a family. After you have tried them take a vote about who liked that new food and who didn’t. Tally the results and write the number. How many people liked the food, and how many didn’t? Was this number the same? Were there more or less people who liked/didn’t like the food? At the end of eating them all have a vote for your favourite. Count the results again and write the number. Which food was the most popular? Which was the least?
Week Commencing 1st June
| READING |
- Listen to the story of ‘The Little Red Hen.’
Join in with the repeated refrains in the story.
“Who will plant this wheat?”
“Not I” Said the Cat.
“Not I” Said the Dog.
“Not I” Said the Mouse.
“Then I will.” Said the Little Red Hen, and she did.
Talk about the characters in the story, were they kind to the Little Red Hen? How are you kind to your friends? How do you think the Little Red Hen felt when no one would help her? Sequence the story. What did the Little Red Hen do first? Next? And Last.
Talk about the ingredients the Little Red Hen needed to make her bread. Look at recipe books you have at home or online, read them together and talk about the ingredients and how the recipe is set out. Choose a recipe to follow and make. Go to the shop and buy your ingredients, follow the recipe and make something delicious.
- Go on a sound walk. As you are walking around the streets or in the park, stop and listen really carefully. What different noises can you hear? Can you hear birds tweeting? A motorbike or a car? Children playing, or an aeroplane?
- Read a book together that you have at home. Go on a sound hunt in the book, can you find the sounds in your name in the book? Look around your house too, can you find the sounds in your name hidden around your house?
- Get three paper cups and write a sound on each one, talk to your child about what these sounds are. Get three small toys which begin with the sounds on the cup and talk about what they are. Hide one of the toys under a cup, this can match to the sound or not. Swap the cups around so they are muddled. Get your child to say the sound on the cup that the toy is hidden under. Does the toy start with that sound? If not, can you match it to the correct sound.
| WRITING |
- Write a shopping list of the ingredients you need to bake something delicious or for your weekly shop. Draw the picture of what you need and see if you can hear and say the initial sound, can you write the sound?
- Put some porridge oats or flour in a tray and practise writing your name. Can you say the sounds in your name?
- Make some dough like the Little Red Hen. Experiment adding more flour or water and look and talk about the changes that are happening. Does your dough become sticky or gooey? Is it hard or soft? Then use your dough to help make your fingers strong by poking, squeezing, prodding and rolling.
Go to the Dough Disco to develop your hand, eye coordination and your fine motor skills.
4. Paint on toast. You could use, plain yoghurt, milk or butter and food colouring.
Talk about the marks that you have made.
| MATHS |
- Cut some squares out of paper and put different spots on them 1-5/10. Hide the paper on a toy, maybe a pirate ship for example. Cut some squares and write the numerals on them. Get your child to choose a numeral, read, it and then search the pirate ship for the matching card with spots on. Encourage them to count the spots and check.
- Sing the song 5 Speckled Frogs.
3. Go onto our FREE class login on ‘Busy Things.’ Use the login username CPClass1 and the password Class1 and enjoy the activities on there for FREE.
Week Commencing 25th May
| READING |
- Listen to the story ‘The Rainbow Fish’
Do you think the Rainbow fish is very friendly and why do you think he is not friendly? How do you think the fish were feeling after the Rainbow fish would not share one of his scales? How would you feel if one of your friends had something you really liked and would not share it with you? Do you think it is a good thing to share with others?
What did the other fish in the ocean do to the Rainbow fish when they saw him and how do you think Rainbow fish was feeling? Who did the Rainbow fish go and visit and why? Would you be scared if you had to go to a dark cave and why would you be feeling scared?
After reading the story ask – What was the story about? Who were the characters in the story? What was the title of the story? What was your favourite page in the story and why? You can then ask them to draw a picture of their favourite part of the story. Talk about different feelings and you can ask them to draw a picture of different faces to describe demonstrate different feelings – sad face for feeling sad.
Listen and say the sound that the different animals begin with – o for octopus, f for fish, r for rainbow, s for starfish. Can you copy letters for the animal’s names?
2. Use books or the internet to find out some facts about a creature that lives under the sea. Draw a picture of this creature and listen and say what sounds it starts with. Can you write that sound?
3. Gather some objects to play I spy with. Ask your child ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with….’ And see if they can choose the correct object from the pile.
Let them play teacher and give you an I spy clue. This can be done with colours for younger children.
4. Practise your listening and attention skills playing this listening game. Listen carefully to the sounds you hear and guess what they are. Were you right?
Have a listen to the sounds you can hear around your home.
| WRITING |
- The Rainbow Fish gave away his most favourite possession. What is your favourite possession? Draw a picture and write about it.
- Enjoy some messy mark making and paint on toast. You can mix food colouring with plain yoghurt, milk or butter to make paint and then use a paint brush to make marks on your toast. Tell an adult about the marks you have made. What do they mean?
- Using an old toilet roll draw lines, castle turrets, straight lines, wavey lines, or zig zags. Get your child to practise their scissors skills and accuracy by cutting along the lines
- To help develop fine motor, push some holes through another toilet roll, get some straws and your child can thread the straws through the holes.
| MATHS |
- Play the underwater counting game on Topmarks.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/underwater-counting
- Sing the song ‘Once I caught a fish alive.’
‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
Once I caught a fish alive,
6, 7, 8 , 9, 10
Then I let it go again,
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on my right
Count your fingers and look at the numbers in the song.
- Fish have lots of coloured scales. Sometimes their scales have a pattern that repeats itself like a Clown Fish, or an Angel Fish. The Cuckoo Fish has a spotty pattern. If you google ‘striped fish’ you can find some examples.
Have a look at some pictures of fish and see if you can spot the patterns.
See if you can make a fruit kebab pattern with your family. Your pattern could be grape, apple, grape apple, grape, apple, or banana, pear, banana, pear, banana, pear.
Compare your pattern with your families.
As an extension you can create your own patterns using things you have at home already, like your toys. Perhaps you can order your cars in a repeated pattern, or even your building blocks.
Go on a pattern hunt at home or on your next walk. What patterns can you find? Maybe a spotty cushion, or a striped zebra, or a flowery curtain, or a coloured flower with an exciting pattern.
- Write numbers on pieces of paper and scatter the randomly on the floor. Using a fly swatter, hand or other objects in your house, call out the number and your child to quickly swat the number you called. Can they beat you to swat the number?
You could try this with letters also, start with letters in their name.
- Have you got the game Snakes and Ladders at home? Play as a family, it has such great learning opportunities like, adding, sharing, taking turns, losing, counting, and number recognition. Have fun!
Week Commencing 18th May
| READING |
- Write your name on a piece of paper and talk about the sounds in your name. On a walk, see if you can find something that begins with each sound in your name. Write it on your paper and then draw the objects when you get home.
- Watch the story ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’
As you listen to the story join in with the repeated refrains. Predict what will happen at the end of the story.
Look at the last page, how does the Bear look? Angry? Sad? Why?
Maybe he wanted to play with the family. Maybe he wanted to eat them for lunch. What do you think?
Sequence the story. What did the family go through first, second, third etc.
Listen to the noises you hear in the story, swish, swish, splash splosh, squelch, squirch.
Listen for the noises you hear or make when you go a for walk. Maybe go through the puddles or the mud in your wellies and listen to the noises it makes.
3. Learn a new nursery rhyme. This website has a great range of nursery rhymes on it, find a new one to learn.
http://www.wordsforlife.org.uk/songs
| WRITING |
- Set up some vets or doctors using stuffed animals or dolls. Add some plasters, bandages, empty soap dispenser, empty tub with pasta or something in as ‘tablets,’ Calpol syringes are good to use as pretend syringes if you have any. Give the children some paper and pencils and roleplay together going to the Doctors or Vets. Encourage your child to mark make on the sheet the information that they ask. Remember to extend their language as you play.
- Develop motor skills and scissor practise using an empty toilet paper or kitchen paper roll. Draw a smiley face in the middle of the toilet roll and colour half the top of the kitchen roll as ‘hair’ Using child friendly scissors, give your toilet roll a hair cut by snipping down the coloured hair. It might be tricky, keep persevering.
- Research Bears with your family using books or the internet. What can you find out about bears? Where do they live? Is there more than one type of bear? What do they eat? Draw a picture of your favourite bear. Can you write b for bear?
| MATHS |
- Practise ‘more’ and ‘fewer’ using dice.
Draw two ice cream cones on a piece of paper (just triangles) write ‘more’ under one and ‘fewer’ under the other. Roll two dice. You can download an app if you don’t have any dice. Can the children say how many spots are on the dice without counting? Which has more spots on it? Place the dice next to the correct ice cream cone. Count the spots and then draw the number of scoops on the ice cream cone. Use coloured pens or pencils to represent strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, mini choc chip etc. Look and see which has more/fewer.
You could repeat this with aliens and add eyes or buttons on the belly. This can be a tricky concept for some children, if they are struggling you could use pasta, sweets or other physical objects to show the difference between the amounts.
- Make potions outside in the sun. Get various sized bowls, jugs, spoons etc and ingredients. You could use anything, lentils, pasta, flowers and petals, mud, water, cereal, grass, the possibilities are endless. This is a great opportunity to use lots of exciting vocabulary, count the amount of spoonfuls you use, language of size, weight, full, empty, and half full. Get creative, make mess and enjoy making potions.
- Go on a number hunt when you next go for a walk. What number is your house? Can you spot numbers on other houses, on street signs? Take pictures of the numbers you spot and have a look through them when you get home.
- Go on your own bear hunt when you go for a walk. Use positional language to describe where you are and where you’re going. What can you go over, under, through, behind?
- Have a Teddy Bear’s picnic. This activity has a lot of opportunities for mathematical language and learning. Set up a blanket inside and outside and invite all your teddies or toys to the picnic. You could even write them an invitation beforehand. How many guests have came to your picnic? Set up your picnic with the correct number of plates, forks, cups etc so everyone has one. Make your favourite sandwiches and cut them into shapes, share out the food with your teddies and toys, fill everyone’s cups so they are half full.
Play the Topmarks Teddy game and feed the Teddy the correct number of cakes.
Week Commencing 11th May
| READING |
- Play a listening game to help support your child’s listening skills.
Pause the video at each sound and see if they can guess what it is.
- Watch the story ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar.’
Talk about the story as you are reading it. Can your child predict what will happen to the Caterpillar when it is in its cocoon? What happened to the Caterpillar at the end of the story?
Can you sequence the order of the food that the caterpillar ate? Which food do you like eating, maybe there are some that you don’t like eating?
- Think about the initial sound that your name starts with. Go on a hunt around your home and find some objects that begin with the same initial sound as your name! Or gather these together before for your younger children. Also add some objects that do not start with your child’s initial sound, so they can spot the difference.
When you have your collection get all your Silly Soup stuff together, bowl, spoon and all your objects you have found, you could add some dried rice or pasta to add an extra sensory element.
Sing the song, tapping your knees to keep the rhythm as you sing,
“We’re making lots of Silly Soup, we’re making soup that silly, we’re going to put it in the fridge to make it nice and chilly.’
Pick one of your objects to put in your silly soup, say the initial sound, is it the same as the initial sound in your name? If it is put it in your soup. Yum!
| WRITING |
- Develop your gross motor in the sunshine by washing your car, bike or scooter. Use a bucket of soapy water, sponges, brushes, cloths, a toothbrush and give it a good clean. You could also use your brushes and water to make marks on the ground, walls and fences. What marks can you make
- Cut out green circles and write your child’s name on the circles. Can they order their name and make the caterpillar body? Can you write your name underneath your caterpillar
- Look in books or on the internet to find information about a caterpillar and its lifecycle. What do they eat? Look for Butterflies when you next go for a walk, where do you usually find them? These videos are nice to show you the life cycle of caterpillar and how it turns into a butterfly.
Talk about the information you have found about a caterpillar and a butterfly. Draw a picture of a caterpillar and a butterfly. Can you label the names and the body parts?
4. Strengthen your fine motor skills. Collect leaves on your walk and hole punch some holes around the edges. Use string or wool to thread through your leaves. You could thread them together in a long line to make a decoration for your garden.
| MATHS |
- Use shapes and create animals. Find some things around your house that are various 2D shapes and draw around them on paper to create different sized shapes. Cut out the shapes for your child (they could cut them out themselves, but this would be a cutting activity, which would be good, maybe give them a few to do themselves.)
Arrange the shapes to take a picture, could be an animal, car, bus etc. Stick them down if you like but if you don’t you can use your shapes over and over again. Talk about which shapes your child has used. How many circles etc have you used? Look at the different sizes of the shapes you have used. Count the sides and the corners.
2. Go onto our FREE class login on ‘Busy Things.’ Use the login username CPClass1 and the password Class1 and enjoy the activities on their for FREE.
Go onto our FREE class login on ‘Busy Things.’ Use the login username CPClass1 and the password Class1 and enjoy the activities on their for FREE.
3. Build a tower using Lego or blocks. Keep it to 6 or 10 initially depending on your child’s counting ability, if they can touch count to 10 accurately, you could start adding a few more to stretch them. Put a small figure on the top of the tower that your child needs to rescue by building another tower. Roll a dice (you can download a dice app if you don’t have one) count the spots and make your tower, keep rolling and adding blocks, counting how many you have altogether each time you add. Once you reach the top you have rescued your toy! Hooray! Have another go!
4. Sing the days of the week songs. Which one is your favourite? If you have a calendar in your house have a look at it and look at the days of the week. What do we call Saturday and Sunday? The weekend!
5. Collect Spring items on your walk, and when you get home use these to make number cards for yourself to use. Cut out the cards from a cereal box or old cardboard box, write the number and then stick your Spring items over the top in the shape of your number. You can use these number cards all the time now.
Alternatively, leave the number as it is and add the correct number of objects at the bottom under the number, e.g. 6 Daisies under the number 6, 2 leaves under the number 2.
Week Commencing 4th May
| READING |
- Sounds Hunt
Choose two sounds to focus on, write them for your child to see. Remember to use the lowercase sounds (buh, mmmm, llll etc.) not the name of the sounds, (Gee, EM, EL etc.)
Set a timer and go and find objects around your house that begin with those sounds. Match them to the correct sound. Can you try and write the sound?
- Listen to the story Stickman
Join in with the repeated parts of the story
“I’m not a ….. why can’t you see! I’m Stickman, I’m Stickman, I’m Stickman that’s me! And I want to go home to the family tree!”
Read the story again and emphasise the rhyming words, for example ‘me’ and ‘tree.’ Ask your child to think of more words to continue the rhyming string, such as ‘bee’, ‘see’, ‘key’. Challenge them to think of their own rhyming pairs.
Talk about how Stickman is being used. What might you use a stick for? Collect sticks on your walk and use them in the imaginative ways that Stickman was used for or some ways of your own.
Look at the illustrations on each page, can you see the changes in the seasons? What is different/the same? On your daily walk look out for more signs of Spring. Blossom on the trees, bees and butterflies etc.
Collect sticks and other natural materials as you go on your walk. Can you use them to make your own Stickman or Stick Lady Love?
Sing songs about the weather:
I Hear Thunder – Sing to the tune of ‘Frere Jacques’ or just chant the words
I hear thunder, I hear thunder,
Hark don’t you, hark don’t you
Pitter patter raindrops, pitter patter raindrops
I’m wet through, so are you!
Its’ Raining, It’s Pouring
It’s raining, its pouring,
The Old Man is snoring
He went to bed and bumped his head
And couldn’t get up in the morning
The Sun has got his hat on – https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/something-special-sun-has-got-his-hat-on
Rain, Rain go away
Rain, rain go away
Come again another day,
Baby wants to play
Rain, rain go away
Change Baby to Daddy, Mummy, Sister, your child’s name etc.
This is an animated film version of Stickman which is lovely! https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06t09rk/stick-man
| WRITING |
- Write your child’s name at the top of a piece of paper, cut out the sounds in their name and let them match and order their name, say the sounds in their name as they match them.
Can they write their name underneath?
Get squiggling with Squiglet as he draws pictures and shapes to practise his pre- writing skills.
- Stickman lives in his family tree with his family Stick Lady Love and his stick children three. Draw your family and write their names.
| MATHS |
- Listen and sing the Shape Song.
What shapes can you see? Did you see any of these shaped objects in your homes on your shape hunts over the past few weeks?
- Feed the Monsters the Shapes
Match the shapes to the correct shaped monster. Can you name the shape?
- Find some sticks on your daily walk and compare the length of your sticks. Can you find a stick that is longer, shorter or the same length as your first stick? Who found the longest or shortest stick out of you and your family? Order the sticks by length.
Arrange them into shapes. What shapes can you make? Count the sides and corners, how many do they have? Can you find any curved sticks to make a circle? You could use your sticks to draw shapes in the mud or write sounds in your name.
- Get an assortment of objects which are similar but can be sorted, animals, clothes, various buttons, balls, stones etc. Allow your child to sort the objects in anyway they like, there is no wrong answer, and then get them to tell you why they have sorted them in that way. Maybe by size, colour, likes and dislikes, rough and smooth, two legs and four legs. There are so many ways. Count how many are in each group, which has more/fewer, do any have the same amount?
| COMMUNICATION & LANGUAGE |
Some children struggle to pronounce words. To help get or draw a picture of an object/animal and cut it into the number of syllables it contains.
El-e-phant would be cut into three pieces.
Pen-guin, two pieces
Mo-tor-bike, three pieces
Win-dow, two pieces
All-i-ga-tor, four pieces.
As you say the word, tap each piece (syllable) this will help your child add them all into the word.
Week Commencing 27th April
| READING |
- Listen and watch the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
This is the story song version from Debbie and Friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7dfBMmMeak
Join in with the repeated refrains “Grandma what big eye/ears/teeth you have.”
“All the better to see/hear/EAT you with.”
Use different voices as you act out the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.
As you are reading, choose a part of the story and talk about the illustrations. What is happening in the picture? Where are the characters? Who is in the picture? What will happen if…. Why? How can we tell?
- Gather a few objects which begin with the sounds ‘s’ and ‘a’ (snake, spider, apple etc, not ship, or shoe as these begin with a ‘sh’ sound.) Write a ‘s’ and an ‘a’ on two pieces of paper. Can your child say the objects name ‘sssssnake,’ hear and say the initial sound and then match it to the correct letter, sorting all the objects. Have a go at writing the sounds.
Please say the sound of the letter, e.g ‘ssssss’, ‘ah’, not the letter name, e.g ‘Es’, ‘Ay.’
- Sit in a quiet part of your house and listen to what you can hear. Clock ticking, washing machine, door bell. Go outside and listen carefully again, what can you hear? Car, motorbike, birds etc.
| WRITING |
- Draw a map to show the route that Little Red Riding Hood took to get to Grandma’s house. What did she pass on the way? Can you draw and write what they are?
- Red Riding Hood lives at home with her Mum and goes to visit her Grandma. Who lives in your house? Who is in your family? Draw a picture and label their names.
| MATHS |
- Learn about a rectangle
Listen to the song about rectangles. What objects in the song were rectangle shaped? Can you go on a rectangle hunt in your house and find anything rectangle shaped? Explore the objects you find. Do they roll like your circle did or not like the triangle and square? Why not? Because they have straight sides.
Draw a rectangle on paper, in the air, in the steam on the mirror, in the mud with your finger or a stick, in salt, sugar, or oats in a tray.
- Order numbers 1-5 or 1-10. You could do this on the floor or on a washing line. Get a naughty toy who steals a number. Can you say which number has gone missing?
Play count the Yeti game. Count how many Yeti’s there are and throw the snowball to splat the correct numeral.
| COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE |
- During a meal include a variety of food textures and talk about soft, crunchy, chewy etc.
- Cut out all the pictures of boys and girls from a magazine and sort them. Talk about what that are doing stressing the pronoun he or she. “He is eating an ice cream.” “She is riding her bike.”
Cosmic Kids is designed for yoga, mindfulness, and relaxation for children alongside fun and engaging stories. Have a go!
Week Commencing 20th April
| READING |
- Gather a few objects from around your house. Play I spy with these objects. “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with a” “apple” etc. Keep the choices limited as children are just beginning to hear these initial sounds. Please use sound names and not letter names (a, for apple not A for apple).
- Read or listen to the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Predict what Jack will find at the top of the beanstalk? Were you right?
Why did Jack steal from the Giant? How did he feel when the Giant was chasing him? How did the Giant feel when Jack was stealing from him?
Join in with the repeated refrains “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.”
After reading the story ask – What was the story about? Who were the characters in the story? What was the title of the story? What was your favourite page in the story and why?
Watch the story song of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Debbie and Friends also has story songs of The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and many more which are fun to listen and sing along to.
| WRITING |
- Plant some beans. Talk about the steps you are taking as you plant your beans. If you plant your beans in a clear jar or cup with some cotton wool, and not in soil you will be able to see the roots growing better.
Discuss what your beans need to grow? Put them somewhere sunny and water them every day. Keep a diary of the changes you see happening as your plants grow, draw pictures when you see the changes and make marks to label what you can see. Can you hear and say the initial sounds in the words? Sssss, stem, rrrrr, roots.
- Mark make in salt, glitter, oats, slime, whatever you have available. Practise your pre-writing shapes, circles, lines up, down, side to side, diagonal lines. Write your name, practise any sounds you know, maybe ‘m’ for mam, ‘d’ for dad.
| MATHS |
- Learn about a square
Listen to the song about squares. What objects in the song were square shaped? Can you go on a square hunt in your house and find anything square shaped? Explore the objects you find. Do they roll like your circle did or not like the triangle? Why not? Because they have straight sides.
Draw a square on paper, in the air, in the steam on the mirror, in the mud with your finger or a stick, in salt, sugar, or oats in a tray.
- Use your building blocks to create a castle for the Giant to live in. What shapes have you used to build? Which is the best shaped block for the walls, or the roof?
- Measuring with a stick. Use it to find things that are longer, shorter and the same length as your stick. Draw and label them.
- Cut out leaves and number them 1-10. Can you put the leaves in the correct order up the beanstalk? Use cereal or beans if you have some and match the quantity to the correct numeral.
- Draw around all your family’s feet and cut them out. Who has the biggest foot? Whose foot is the smallest? Can you order them by size? Can you make a Giant’s footprint that is bigger than all your feet? Use language bigger, biggest, smaller, smallest. “My foot is bigger than your foot, your foot is the smallest.”
| COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE |
- Play alongside the child and narrate what you are doing, “I’m building a tower, oh your tower is bigger/taller) use lots of gestures to back up what you mean e.g. raise your hands in the air to gesture taller.
- Play ‘I went to the shop and I bought…. some chocolate’, next person “I went to the shop and bought chocolate and crisps.” Take turns to repeat and add one more thing each time.
As well as language development its good for short term memory. You could change it to zoo animals, farm animals, household objects and have real objects or plastic toys to help, such as different foods or plastic farm animals.
Practise your self-help skills such as: getting dressed and undressed; learning how to use the toilet; putting on socks and shoes and taking them off; taking your coat on and off, zipping and unzipping your coat.
Week Commencing 13th April
| READING |
Sing, sing, sing!
Sing Nursery Rhymes all the time. Make up songs together as you play or go about your daily life. This is helping develop your child’s understanding of rhyme and rhythm. E.g.
To the tune of ‘E-I-N-G-O’
“We’re putting on our socks, we’re putting on our socks. E, I, N, G, O, We’re putting on our socks.’
To the tune of ‘This is the way’
“This is the way we chop the carrot, chop the carrot, chop the carrot. This is the way we chop the carrots, ready for our tea.”
“This is the way we roll the dough, roll the dough, roll the dough. This it the way we roll the dough, to make a sausage.”
To the tune of ‘Wheels on the Bus.’
“The birds in the sky go tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet.
The birds in the sky go tweet, tweet, tweet, all day long.”
Use other rhymes and get creative. The children will join in, they are used to Mrs Brennan and I doing this all day, every day, poor things!
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
Listen to the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Join in with the repeated refrains “Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?”
After reading the story ask – What was the story about? Who were the characters in the story? What was the title of the story? What was your favourite page in the story and why? You can then ask them to draw a picture of their favourite part of the story.
Talk about the order of the story. Can the children sequence what happened in the story? Which Billy Goat crossed the bridge first, second and third? Can the children retell you the story in the correct order? Make a bridge using Lego, blocks, any recyclable material you have or create a big bridge outside if you can. Act out the story with your family or toys. Can you use different voices for the Troll and the Billy Goats?
What’s in the Bag?
Play ‘What’s in the bag?’ Hide objects in a bag, e.g.: c-u-p, p-e-g, c-ar, s-o-ck, etc. Robot talk what is in the bag and see if your child can say what they hear? Can your child swap roles and be the robot?
| WRITING |
- Practise writing your name. Make your name a rainbow by going over it lots of times in different colours. Remember to write your name in lower case.
- Practise prewriting shapes. Lines up, down, side to side, circles, zig zags, waves, diagonal lines.
- Draw a picture of your favourite part of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Tell and adult about the marks you have made. Can you hear any of the sounds the words start with? T, t, t, troll, g, g, g, goat. Write your name on your work so every knows it’s yours.
| MATHS |
Triangles
Listen to the song about triangles. What objects in the song were triangle shaped? Can you go on a triangle hunt in your house and find anything triangle shaped? Explore the objects you find. Do they roll like your circle did last week? Why not? Because they have straight sides.
Draw a triangle on paper, in the air, in the steam on the mirror, in the mud with your finger or a stick, in salt, sugar, or oats in a tray.
Teddy Numbers
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/teddy-numbers
Give Teddy the correct number of Easter eggs. Start with 5 and then 10.
Cars
Make a carpark for your cars using an old cereal box. Write numbers 1-5 or 1-10 in each car parking space, and label each car with spots to match, using a sticker or paper and Sellotape.
Play with the cars matching the correct number of spots on the car to the numeral in the car park.
Sort the cars into size, colour, or any other way you can think of.
Race the cars and see which comes first, second, third etc.
Write big numbers 1-5 on the floor, on paper and drive the cars around the number saying the number name.
Sort your vehicles into those that go in water (boat), fly (aeroplane) and on land (car, truck)
Which have you got more/fewer of?
Roll your cars down old guttering or tubes outside. Measure how far they have gone. Which has travelled the longest/shortest distance? Measure the distance using a tape measure, hands, blocks.
| COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE |
“Sort it out”
What you’ll need: Gather items from around your home-toys, clothes and food items. Place them into a bag or box. Tell your child that you’ve been having a tidy up, but you need help to sort out the items so they can be put away. Ask your child to pull out an item and then ask, “is It something we eat, or something to play with?” Get them to sort the items into separate piles. Chat about the items “Yes, you’re right, gloves are clothes, and they are something we wear on our hands when it’s cold.”
Role Play
You don’t need to set up anything elaborate i.e line some chairs up for the bus and take turns been driver passenger etc, lots of opportunity to develop language.
Practise your self-help skills such as: getting dressed and undressed; learning how to use the toilet; putting on socks and shoes and taking them off; taking your coat on and off, zipping and unzipping your coat.
Week Commencing, 6th April
Play Silly soup.
Get a large bowl and spoon and various objects from around the house e.g. cat, pig, shoe, sheep, tiger, spoon, monkey etc. To start with choose objects with the same sound, e.g all ‘s’ or all ‘m’ sounds, then to challenge your child mix up the sounds that the objects begin with.
Sing the song to the tune of ‘Pop goes the Weasel’ and stir your soup.
I’m making lots of Silly Soup,
I’m making soup that silly,
I’m going to put it in the fridge
To make it nice and chilly
Watch this link as an idea how to play the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GoH2K_WaLs
Ask your child ‘can you find something that starts with a ‘sssssss’ sound to put in our soup? Remember to use the sounds and not the letter names. What else can you find that starts with ssss?’ etc. ‘Well done, ssssnake does start with a sssss sound.’
Read or listen to the story of The Three Little Pigs
Join in with the repeated refrains “Little pig, little pig, let me come in.” “Not by the hair on my chinny, chin, chin.” “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!”
After reading the story ask – What was the story about? Who were the characters in the story? What was the title of the story? What was your favourite page in the story and why? You can then ask them to draw a picture of their favourite part of the story. Talk about different feelings. How did the pigs feel when the Wolf knocked on their door? How did the Wolf feel at the end of the story?
Talk about the order of the story. Can the children sequence what happened in the story? What material did the first/second/third pig use to build their houses? Can the children retell you the story in the correct order?
Build houses out of bricks using your lego or blocks or make a den in your house. Can you act out the story of The Three Little Pigs using the repeated refrains. Get all your family to join in and act out the story together.
Discover a new story.
https://www.youtube.com/user/StorylineOnline
Follow this link and enjoy listening to some exciting stories read by actors and watch the gorgeous animations. Choose a story you have never heard be
| WRITING |
Develop your gross motor
Watch Debbie Doo and exercise your elbows, shoulders and arm muscles.
Other ways to develop gross motor are by going outside running, playing hopscotch, ride your bike or scooter.
Develop fine motor skills
If you have playdough, or if you don’t make your own and go to the ‘Dough Disco’
Smack, squeeze, roll and poke your playdough to make your fingers strong.
- Thread pasta onto string and make pasta necklaces.
Make and decorate an Easter Card to someone in your family.
Maybe someone you miss and haven’t seen for a while. Write your name in the Easter card. Could you post it in the letter box, or through their post box on your next walk?
| MATHS |
Learn about circles
Listen to the song about circles. What objects in the song were circle shaped? Can you go on a circle hunt in your house and find anything circle shaped? Explore the objects you find. Do they roll? Why? Because they have a curved side.
Draw a circle on paper, in the air, in the steam on the mirror, in the mud with your finger or a stick, in salt, sugar, or oats in a tray.
Look at your train track. Have any of the track pieces got curved sides like a circle?
Practise counting to 10
by singing the Easter Bunnies song. Make up your own to 20 if you can already count to 10.
Play the Underwater Counting Game.
Can you count the sea creatures and match the amount to the correct numeral, 5 and then 10?
| COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE |
- Clap syllables in words, your name, objects around the house, favourite foods. E.g pen (1 clap), win-dow (2 claps), saus-a-ges (3 claps)
- Talk at bath time… body parts, mathematical language, full/empty more/less etc. Use verbs eg. washing, cleaning, splashing, pouring etc.
Model full sentences “I am washing my face.” “I am pouring the water into the bath.”
Week Commencing 30th March
| READING |
Play I Spy using robot talk.
Can the children find a s-o-ck, p-e-n, c-ar, c-u-p, t-e-dd-y (t-e-dd-ee) (use your robot voice to speak, you could even move like a robot too!)
Break the word up into sounds, can the children hear and blend the word in their heads and go and find the object.
You can play this game at any time during the day, it doesn’t need to be an activity. While you are getting dressed “Put on your t-o-p/sh-oe-s, c-oa-t” “Wiggle your f-i-n-g-er-s. Touch your -n-o-se.”
Read or listen to the story of the Gingerbread Man.
How did the Little Old Woman feel at the beginning of the story when she didn’t have any children? Lonely. What does this word mean?
Join in with the repeated refrains “Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man.”
After reading the story ask – What was the story about? Who were the characters in the story? What was the title of the story? What was your favourite page in the story and why? You can then ask them to draw a picture of their favourite part of the story. Talk about different feelings and you can ask them to draw a picture of different faces to describe demonstrate different feelings – sad face for feeling sad.
Can you bake a Gingerbread Man or make him using playdough or draw and cut him out? https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/gingerbread-men-0
Use your Gingerbread Man and any other animals or toys to act out the story. In your story the Gingerbread Man could be chased by a T-Rex or a Barbie, use what toys you have at home and use your imagination to create your own story.
Sing Nursery Rhymes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP-MbfHFUqs or ask Alexa to sing you some.
| WRITING |
Draw the animals in the story The Gingerbread Man.
Ask what sound the different animal begins with – h for horse, f for fox, c for cow. Can the children hear and say the initial sounds in the words? Help them label their picture and write the animal names. The children might try and write the sounds, or they may make their own marks which represent the word, both are great!
Draw a picture to tell me about what you have been doing.
Write your name on your work so I know it’s from you. Email it to me and I will draw and email you a picture back!
| MATHS |
Hide a toy around your house/garden, or play hide and seek with your family.
Encourage the children to ask questions “Is it behind something?” “Is it under something?”
When the children have found it get them to describe where the object was “The teddy was under the bed.” “The doll was next to the chair.”
To develop your child’s understanding of positional language tell them where the toy is “The Bear is behind the lamp.” See if they can understand and follow the instruction.
Use Lego or blocks to create a Rocket ship to go to Space.
Build and construct your model and talk about the shapes you are using. Are you using squares, rectangles, circles, triangles? Have your shapes got straight or curved sides? Is your model tall or short? Take a picture of your model and send it to me on our class email so I can see it.
Follow the link to play the Gingerbread Game, counting, matching and ordering numbers.
Go on a Spring walk.
Collect twigs, petals, leaves, stones on your walk. When you get home count how many of each you have got, what colours did you find? What did you find more/fewer of? Have you got the same amount of any of your special finds? Use what you have found to make a Spring collage picture.
| EXTRA-CURRICULAR |
Watch a Rocket Launch.
Count backwards from 10 with the Astronauts. Talk to your adult about what is happening. Where are the Astronauts going? Do you think they are going to the moon or another planet? What might they see when they get there?
- Use recycled materials to create a rocket ship.
