Jasmine
Home learning Activities
Hello,
Please find below some supplementary activities which can run alongside sessions that will be delivered via zoom, should your family need to isolate, and for use whilst the Government advise that we should all stay at home.
Special events have been included first, but do keep scrolling for curriculum based activities which will be added to weekly.
Links for zoom sessions will be sent out on an individual basis from the class email address.
We would love to see photos and videos of you all having fun in your learning!
Jasmineclass@ladyziawernher.primaryluton.co.uk
We hope to see you soon.
Jasmine Class Team
Helpful Strategies
We use a number of strategies to support our pupils with their communication, interaction and engagement in learning.
You may like to try using some of these at home with your child.
Intensive Interaction: Is a strategy used to support communication and interaction with the children.
Intensive interaction requires time given solely to your child, focusing on their attempts to communicate. It is not dissimilar to how you would communicate with a very young infant.
You may begin by imitating sounds or actions that your child has made, leaving gaps in the 'conversation' for a reply. The interaction may last 5 minutes or 50, the aim is to support your child to sustain interaction.
Other benefits may include having fun, and enjoying being with others, sharing personal space, giving and receiving touch, the ability to share attention with others, taking turns with others so that communication can take place, starting to use movement and noises with meaning.
You might like to set aside a few periods of time throughout the day solely for the purpose of using intensive interaction with your child.
Creating an enabling environment
It can sometimes be tempting to help your child engage in their learning, and achieve goals using methods such as hand over hand support.
In Jasmine class we try our best to ensure the environment enables our pupils to engage in their learning with independence. There are a number of ways in which this can be achieved:
Access and support: Ensuring you child is positioned in such a way that makes access to resources easier for them is key. This may mean that being positioned in a chair is good for one activity, but that lying on their side might be more beneficial for another - if you aren't sure experiment with different positions to see what works best.
Some objects may be too heavy or your child may need support to access the objects initially. We find a prompt from the elbow so that hands are able to move more freely supports some of our pupils.
You could also try using a 'hand under hand' approach for pupils who are reluctant to touch - so that they are still able to experience the movement or stimuli but may not necessarily touch yet.
Observation: Look for the most active part of your child, and move your resources in response to where your child is showing intention to 'do'
Non-directive offer: try holding stimuli you would like your child to experience out towards them, to see whether they might reach out for them. For some pupils this may look like a small movement with their hand or foot.
Objects that stimulate the senses: try offering a range of different stimuli which are interesting to all the senses. This becomes of high importance if your child has a visual or hearing impairment.
Placement of objects: Experiment with placing objects on various body parts, and look at how your child reacts and what they do with the objects.
Modelling: Try playing with the stimuli yourself. By playing with the material near your child, it may become interesting and exciting for them.
Spring Term 2021
Our theme is journeys and adventures. For the first half of the term we will be focusing on 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.
We have included the video for you to use along with some suggested resources to help you tell the story with your child.
You might find that Michael tells it a little fast, it is okay to pause the story until your child has had time to explore the sensory resources that you have offered to your child to accompany the story.
Alternatively if you have the story at home you may be able to share it with your child yourself.
| Story | Suggested Resources |
| We're going on a...(Repeated refrain) | Tap Rhythm on a drum/tambourine/table |
|
Uh oh Grass!.... We can't go...(Repeated refrain) |
Grass from your garden/green paper cut into strips to explore |
|
uh oh, a River... We can't go...(repeated refrain) |
Cold/icy water to explore with hands/feet |
|
uh oh, mud... We can't go...(repeated refrain) |
soil from the garden/brown food stuff - chocolate custard works well |
|
uh oh, a forest... We can't go...(repeated refrain) |
Leaves cut from trees/ plants in the garden for your child to explore |
|
uh oh, a snowstorm... We can't go...(repeated refrain) |
Use some paper rolled up to make snowballs to throw, you may have some artifical snow left over from Christmas, or shaving foam to experience |
|
Uh oh, a cave... We can't go...(repeated refrain) |
make the room dark |
|
What's that? One shiny wet nose Two furry big ears Two big googly eyes
|
A wet sponge |
| A furry teddy | |
| Touch your child's face near their eyes | |
| It's a bear! | Teddy to feel |
| Into bed | A blanket/ duvet cover to hide underneath |
Making things happen
At school we allow the children time to experiment with resources in order to learn that we can make things happen with our bodies.
Please use the suggested activities below to support your children to explore, and affect their environment.
| Activity | Possible resources | What to look for | Support |
|
Sensory play
This activity can encourage the children to use their limbs to explore a range of sensory stimuli. You may find that your children react in a positive/negative/neutral way to the stimuli offered. At school the children will be exposed to the same, or similar stimuli repeatedly in order to establish whether their responses are consistent. |
Shaving foam cornflour and water (mixed together) ice Warm water soil leaves grass dry food stuffs - cous cous, rice, porridge oats, lentils |
Look for your children moving their limbs in the stimuli
Look for your child attempting to explore the stimuli in different ways - do they bring their hands together? do they bring their hands to their mouths?
Look for your child listening to the noise that the stimuli makes when they move their limbs in the different stimuli
|
What position does your child need to be in to best access the resources you are presenting to them?
Does your child need something underneath the stimuli that is: a contrasting colour to help them see the stimuli, or helps the stimuli to make a noise so that they know it is there?
Can you add a smell to the stimuli so that if your child has a visual impairment they know that there is something there?
Can you enable your child to access the resources you offer by supporting them at the elbow to reach for the resources? |
|
Suspended resources
At school the children have opportunities to play with resources which have been suspended from an A-frame or a washing line, to encourage them to reach with their hands or use their feet to move the objects.
Whilst you may not have either of these things in your home, you might be able to tie some string or rope from a window handle, to a door handle to create a temporary space to suspend things. |
This activity is very versatile you can suspend anything that your children may find interesting here are a few suggestions:
Any favoured toy, balloons, instruments, Sensory bottles, paintbrushes
|
Look for your children making attempts to locate the suspended resources
Look for your children taking a particular interest in one resource over another (if you have suspended more than one thing)
Look for your children trying again if they haven't succeeded in locating the suspended resources initially
Look for your children reaching slightly further to locate a resource that has been placed slightly out of their reach. |
You may find that your children are best positioned on the floor for this activity.
You may wish to position your child so that they are able to access the resources you suspend with either their hands or their feet.
If your child has a visual impairment you may wish to add something that makes a noise to the suspended resources to make them a little easier to locate. |
Creativity
Painting with cars
Using any vehicles you may have in your home, can you encourage your children to push the vehicles across a page (once covered in paint).
You may wish to adapt this activity if your children struggle to push, by attaching some string to the vehicle so that when they move their hands/arms, they can pull the vehicle across the page.
You could also adapt the activity by placing the vehicles at the top of a homemade ramp covered in paper - your children will need only to knock the vehicle to make marks on the paper.
Cleaning Vehicles - At the carwash!
Once you have got your vehicles messy with paint, you could involve your children in supporting with the clean up process.
Using soapy water encourage your children to support you with the cleaning - look at what your children do with the water - what happens if you use warm water? what happens if you use cold water? Do their reactions vary? Do they have a preference?
You could play this music whilst you play:
Soundabout have produced a helpful document to support with making music at home.
On their website they also offer home learning activities for a cost - this may be something you are interested in: https://www.soundabout.org.uk/
Physical Activity
The instruction video can be used as a guide, or you could use this as you exercise with your child.
Words for each of the rhymes can be found on the word document below the video.
We recommend that you use Rhythm Kids once or twice a week and then follow this with the pupils daily physiotherapy, which your physiotherapist should have provided you with.
Opportunities from other sources
Here you will find links to other sources of support for you and your children over the time we are learning from home.
You might like to sign up for this free theatre production that will be sent to your home by Oily Cart: