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Week Beginning Monday 25th May 2020

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 16:18:27 GMT

Dress up

If your children own emergency services dressing up clothes, encourage them to put these on and act out different roles. Add resources from around the house to extend their ideas, learning and play. Act out scenes, get them involved in pretending to put out fires, put the baddies in jail or supply them with pretend medicine/bandages to make family members feel better.

Role play

Set up a pretend hospital. Include thermometers, plasters, bandages, pretend tablets (can be created out of sweets, cut up fruits, and placed into a bowl or cup). Set up a reception with some paper and pencils, pretend to be different patients, encouraging your children to act out the role of a doctor/nurse, creating notes and deciding what procedures will make you feel better. Swap the roles around, let your children think of illnesses/accident’s and you take control, listen to what they think will make them better and follow their play.

Emergency Services Chart

Take your children for a walk, create a chart before you leave. Put fire engines, police cars and ambulances on your children’s charts, whilst you are out walking see how many of each vehicle you can spot. Each time you and your children see one tick your chart. For older children, this can become a little competition to see who can find the most emergency vehicles the quickest. When you are back home, count up the amount for each section. You can repeat this for a couple of days to see the difference in number.

Week Beginning Monday 18th May 2020

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 16:08:26 GMT

Emotion Monsters

Using resources around the house, paper plates if you have them (if not use paper and cut out circles) create emotion monster faces. Provide your children with coloured pens, pencils, child friendly scissors, glue, and any other resources you may have available. Talk about different emotions with your children, find pictures online to support their understanding of different facial expressions. Encourage your children to produce different emotion monsters, some being happy, sad, grumpy, sleepy etc.

Emotion Chart

Create an emotion chart for the members of the family within the house. Write each members name and their emotion next to it, supply your children with emotion stickers or cut outs, let your children put the correct emotion next to their family members word. During this activity, you could talk to your children about the different emotions we sometimes feel and how we can change feeling sad to feeling happy. Also, this could be a time where your children learn it is ok to feel sad and could then be supported with a cuddle.

Bottle Shakers

Using some old water bottles, fill these with water, some food colouring (juice if you don’t have any) and a little bit of oil (add some glitter if you are feeling creative). Tighten the lid so your children cannot open them. Let your children explore the finishing product, observe how they play with these bottle shakers, if they are gentle then talk to your children about feeling calm, if your children are a little more heavy-handed talk to your children about feeling upset or angry.

Explain to your older children how these can be used to express our emotions and how we do not always have to verbally explain how we are feeling

Week Beginning Monday 11th May 2020

Tue, 12 May 2020 15:06:57 GMT

Curiosity Week

It is curiosity week! Explore your gardens or outdoor areas, collect a variety of natural resources, some big, some little, some hard, some soft, some lumpy, some smooth etc. Take them home and create a sensory bin, let your children explore the different textures using their senses. Encourage communication from your children, extend and build on describing words they may be beginning to use. Explore each object individually, looking and comparing similarities and differences to others within your sensory bin. Involve maths, ask the children how many resources they have, what shapes they are and which are the smallest/biggest.

Towers

- Using your natural resources, encourage your children to create towers, using and building up the control of their fine manipulative skills. Introduce maths into this activity, ask your children how many objects they have used to create their tower, introduce words such as ‘more and less’ ‘big and little’.

Floating

Set up a bucket with water inside (clear if possible) use your natural resources to complete a floating and sinking activity. Test each object, get your children to decide beforehand if each object will sink or float, place the object in the water and watch away. Discuss with your children how lighter objects float better than heavier objects

Spring Pictures

Once your fun activities are finished, provide your children with some glue, encourage them to make some spring pictures using the natural resources found. Promote messy play and independent thinking.

Week Beginning Monday 4th May 2020

Fri, 01 May 2020 15:59:29 GMT

Toy Washing Station

Get a large bucket/tub, fill it with warm water and lots of soapy bubbles! Get the children to wash their toys in the water. Talk to them about textures and encourage the use of their senses. Discuss with the children the importance of staying clean, you could even pretend to give the toys showers or baths and compare your children’s bath time to their toys.

Sign of the Week:

Soap

Car Wash

Create a car wash! Gather some toy cars, old toothbrushes, paint brushes or sponges. Fill a bucket up of warm water and add lots of soapy bubbles. Find toy money or use pennies (dependent on age) and pretend to pay for a car wash. Get your children using their resources to wash your car! Encourage role play and taking on other roles through this activity. If you’re feeling extra energised, get your children to help cleaning your family car, give them a sponge and some water and support them washing whilst building on their independence.

Animal Wash Station

Create a farm/zoo with your children’s toy animals, add an area of soil if you have any at home. Set up a wash station, pretend that the animals are due a bath time, get your children to wash and dry the animals. Discuss where each animal lives and why they may carry dirt.

Encourage self-care through this activity, ask the children why we must stay clean and how we can achieve this. If you have any real pets and are feeling brave, let your children help you bath them!

Week Beginning Monday 20th April 2020

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 09:56:38 GMT

Shields

With the children’s support, cut up some cardboard in the shape of a shield. Using home resources, let the children decorate their shields before role playing in a pretend battle. Encourage messy play, talk to your children about the colours and textures of the resources they are using.

Traditional Lunch

To celebrate St George’s Day, prepare a traditional English lunch/dinner for your children. (At the Homestead, we were going to have mincemeat pie, chips and peas, with a pudding of butter and scones) Encourage the trying of new foods, tastes and textures and support the likes and dislikes of different foods.

Stars and Moon

As Ramadan begins this week, read and watch online stories covering different religions and support the understanding on how we are all different. Encourage the simple understanding on what Ramadan is and why it is celebrated.

Some Ramadan stories and videos can be found at:

https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/short-stories/the-ramadan-lantern-story

https://www.islamicity.org/19566/ramadan-stories-for-children/

To support the idea of fasting, create star and moon cut outs, talking to your children about fasting and supporting their understanding of Muslims eating and drinking once the sun has gone down and the moon has appeared. Allow your children to get creative, decorating their stars and moons. To show multicultural support, you could even place these in your windows for the remaining month, reminding your children of their value.

Coronavirus Book for Children

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:00:00 GMT

Coronavirus Book for Children

The brilliant Axel Scheffler has produced a book about Covid-19 Coronavirus just for children - and it's available as a FREE download. Please share so it's available to every family who needs it.

https://nosycrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Coronavirus_INS.pdf

The Gruffalo illustrator worked with consultant Professor Graham Medley, two head teachers and a psychologist to make sure the book got the messages right, answering questions about quarantine, how you can catch the virus and what happens if you get ill.

Publishers Nosy Crow have asked for donations in lieu of payment, to go to our fantastic health workers: www.nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/

This is great for our little ones and to keep as a keepsake to remember how we came together ❤

Week Beginning Monday 6th April 2020

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 16:19:11 GMT

Egg Hunt

Create an Easter egg hunt in the garden or around the house. Hide eggs for the children, create small clues for them to follow. Introduce prepositional language such as ‘behind, in front of, next to, on top of’ to support their understanding and learning. Give the children clues, letting them know when they are close to finding an egg. Make the egg hunt as fun as possible, for older children, create some barriers, put an egg up high and encourage their problem solving to retrieve it.

Sign of the Week:

Easter

Design Your Own Easter Eggs

Using plain or coloured paper, design an outline of an egg for your children. Provide them with colourful materials, scissors, glue, coloured pens and pencils, allow your children to become creative, designing the egg of their dreams. Talk to your children about Easter and why it is celebrated. Be sure to display their creations once they have finished to create a sense of achievement.

Easter Cakes

To celebrate Easter, bake some cupcakes/muffins with your children, try adding different ingredients to create different tastes and smells. Introduce a variety of fruits and flavours, let your children self-select the ingredients they would like to include. Get your children involved as much as possible, support them with measuring the ingredients, and mixing them around in the bowl. Once your cupcakes/muffins are cooked, let your children decorate them Easter style, involve icing and other resources to make them look and taste extra yummy!

Chocolate Nest Cakes

If you have any spare rice crispy’s or corn flakes at home, gather them together, try melting some Easter egg chocolate too. Mix the cereal and chocolate in a bowl before emptying the contents into cupcake holders, add a little decoration to the top and then put them in the fridge. Return to them later on in the day to find and enjoy your chocolate nest cakes.

Easter Stories

Create a small den, gather some bunnies and teddies, create a story time for yourself and your children. Find some Easter stories online, encourage the listening and involvement of your children. Talk to your children about why Easter is celebrated, find stories to support their understanding on this. For older children, encourage the repetition of what they have learnt through story time and the key information they understood.

Some Easter Stories Can Be Found At:

Pasta Easter Eggs

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 10:36:25 GMT

Pasta Easter Egg Activity

Why not try making these fun pasta Easter eggs!

You can make any design on your Easter eggs! You can even decorate other Easter shapes. To make different shapes, grab some Easter cookie cutters and trace around them to make shapes like flowers or a bunny.

You will need:

cardboard
pasta
glue
paint

Week Beginning Monday 30th March 2020

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 15:12:09 GMT

Spread the Germs

If you have access to paint at home, encourage your children to take part in the spreading of germs activity. Put some paint on yours and your children’s hands, get them to rub their hands together, looking at how the paint spreads from hand to hand. Get the children to touch their faces, show them in the mirror how the paint spreads to their face. Talk to the children about the spreading of germs, supporting them with the knowledge that washing our hands with soap and warm water can get rid of the paint, as well as the germs on their hands. Encourage hand washing after every activity, before meal times and after a cough or sneeze. We too have been encouraging the washing of hands whilst at nursery so this should be familiar to the children.

Sign of the Week:

Wash hands

Hand Prints

Draw around your children’s hands on some plain paper, give the children some colour pens and pencils, let them draw and colour germs onto their hands. Talk to your children about how germs can make our tummies poorly and the importance of regularly washing our hands. Look at stories and short videos online about germs, support their understanding on where germs come from and how we can dispose of them.

Mud Kitchen

As the weather is lovely, explore your gardens/outdoor areas with your children. Create a mud kitchen, with a bowl, collect natural resources, mixing them together, exploring the different textures and allowing the stimulation of the children’s senses. Talk about how the different resources feel, comparing sizes, shapes, colours etc. For older children, encourage them to draw the resources they have found whilst in the garden. Support communication on the descriptions of resources found. At the end of this activity, you can even talk to your children about how germs would have been created on their hands from the garden area. Encourage the washing of hands after this activity has ended.