Jasmine

Dear Jasmine class pupils, parents and carers,

 

We hope you are all well and looking after each other.

We miss you all!

Here are some learning activities and opportunities for all of you to get engaged and have fun together.

 

Kim's Game

Playing Kim´s game is a good way of developing your child´s memory skills and concentration – both skills useful for all learning.

Put 10 things from around the house on a tray - it could be things like a pencil, an orange, some cotton wool, a toy etc.. Ask your child to look carefully at them for about thirty seconds. Then take the tray away and ask them to call out what they remember.

Another way of playing the game is to cover the things, take one thing away and ask the child to spot what is missing. You can put more things on the tray as they get better.

You might be interested to know that the name of the game comes from Rudyard Kipling's story "Kim" where the character Kim plays this game as part of his training as a spy! 

 

Threading

Threading large wooden beads onto a shoelace, a piece of string, or a pipe cleaner can be a lot of fun. As a play activity it might also improve: 

1. Grasping and hand movement skills - that will help develop hand and finger muscles used to hold and control pencils and crayons.
2. Hand-eye co-ordination - accuracy will improve as they try to push the shoelace through the hole.
3. Visual and pre-maths skills - get them to try to form a regular pattern with the beads. For instance, blue, red, green, then blue, red, green again. 
4. Counting skills - count the number of blue beads or red beads.

If you don't have wooden beads, use large pasta tubes (like macaroni).

 

Naming emotions

Knowing the right words to express feelings and emotions is very important for your child. It can reduce frustration and misunderstanding on all sides.

Give them the words to tell you how they are feeling through every day conversations. For instance, "You are always happy to see your little sister aren't you?". "Are you excited about watching your favourite programme?". Encourage them to tell you how they are feeling. 

Here are some words that might express how your child is feeling: sad, happy, worried, cross, afraid, silly, giggly, scared, excited, poorly, sleepy.

Stories are a great way to understand and learn the words for emotions, and to learn to recognise and name emotions in others. That will help your child with relationships.

 

Sorting laundry

Have fun with everyday activities in your home and make them part of learning. For instance, play laundry basketball with your child(ren). 

First, have a game sorting the clean socks into pairs - sorting is an early maths skill. Spread out all the clean single socks on the bed. Have a race to see who can match and roll up the most pairs. Count to see who won. 

Then put the laundry basket on the floor and aim the rolled up socks at the basket, one pair at a time. Let your child stand quite near the basket, and step back yourself to throw from a distance. Count how many times out of ten you can get a pair of socks in. Talk about how far away the basket is for each throw - one step, two steps, three steps? 

This activity improves hand-eye co-ordination skills, and is good sorting and counting practice. It will also help your child understand the idea of distance and teach them how to take turns. Most importantly it's an enjoyable way to spend time together and laundry time will never be the same.  

You can do similar sorting games with cutlery 

 

Nursery rhymes and counting

"Ten green bottles" is a counting song that's fun to sing.  Here are the words for the first verse:

Ten green bottles sitting on the wall,
Ten green bottles sitting on the wall,
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall,
There’d be nine green bottles sitting on the wall.

With each verse the number becomes smaller until in the final verse there are zero green bottles hanging on the wall. (you can Google for more info about the tune)

 

Musical statues game

Put on some music and dance around together or move your body parts, as wildly as you can. Make exaggerated moves. Switch off the music suddenly, and freeze in whatever position you happen to be in - the funnier the better. Hold still like a statue until the music starts again.

For a party game, if someone moves they are out. The statue that manages to stay still the longest wins. 

 

Driving my tractor video and activity

https://youtu.be/i7l9ts5rijs

"Driving my tractor" is an animated video song about a farmer who's having a very busy day with his tractor and lots of farm animals. It's based on a book published by Barefoot Books. Click on the video above to watch it. Your child can enjoy the pictures and the music, but will also be learning lots of new words, and hearing numbers and colours.

If your child shows an interest, there's no harm in playing it over and over. Let them sit on your lap and point out the different animals and other things you see in the pictures. Talk to your child about what makes each animal different - their colours, long ears, how many legs and so on.  Also notice the colour of the tractor and trailer, and how many of each animal there are - so many that they all fall out when the trailer goes over a bump in the road - oops! Use the phrase "It's a very busy day" when you are out and about with your child. 

Always talk to your child about things that are going on around you and what you are doing together - that's a great way for them to learn about their world. 

 

Row your boat song

Row, row, row your boat is a fun song to sing with your child. Pretend you are in a boat - perhaps sitting on the floor.  Sit your child facing you on your lap and hold their hands and, as you sing the song, rock over and back. See the words below. Have fun with your child and listen to what they say to you.

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Row, row, row your boat, gently up the creek,
If you see a little mouse, don't forget to squeak!

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream!

Row, row, row your boat, gently to the shore,
If you see a lion, don’t forget to roar!

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the river,
If you see a polar bear, don't forget to shiver!

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
If you see a butterfly, don't forget to smile!