Home learning 23/03/2020 - 11/05/2020

Drawing/Writing/Phonics 

In Nursery we had the drawing/writing table set up for children to use on a daily basis and all the children in Nursery were very fond of it and loved mark making.  It is crucial that they do not lose the ability to mark make, hold a pencil correctly (tripod grip), sit at the table in the right position as all of this will help them immensely in their future learning in school.

Drawing:

Paper and pencils/colouring pencils is all they need. Alternately, if they are a bit reluctant they can use felt tips, paint sticks (see image) or water colours.  If they say they don’t know what to draw, ask them what they would like to draw (you can show them) or you can open a book or give them an image and they can try to reproduce it (a person, train, car, flower, tree, slide, castle, dragons, any sorts of animals etc…). Make sure it is as fun as possible as we do not want to put them off.

Writing:

The writing I was expecting from the children at this stage and/or by the end of Nursery was being able to write their own name. In the pack that was prepared for you, you can find the letters that we used to help them with this. First of all, give them all the cut-out letters of their name and ask them to put them in order. Let them look at their full name only to check whether they have done it correctly or not. Afterwards, you can ask your child to write their name using the whiteboard and marker (also in the home learning pack). Make sure that they form the letters correctly (see the letter formation chart).

Phonics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffeZXPtTGC4

This is the song we sang every day at the beginning of our phonics session. Children were all very engaged and used to sing it pointing at the sound/letter their name begins with.

The sounds we have done so far and that you should help your children revise them, aiming at three times a week, are: s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g and o.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/what-is-letters-and-sounds/ (This will help you to understand how to pronounce the sounds. Please remember that in Nursery we only teach single letter sounds so we would only focus on ‘s’ for instance and not on ‘ss’).

What we would do is to recognise the grapheme (so basically the written form), look at pictures of objects/things that begin with that sound and lastly on how to write it.

I have prepared a mini activity on the sound ‘g’ that you can use as an example. I will make one for each sound in the following weeks.

Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skills’ development is very important to help children with their writing. Please let the children play with some of these activities daily:

-playdough (400 g plain flour, 200 g table salt, 4 teaspoons of cream of tartar, 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil, 600ml of water mixed with food colouring. Cook in the microwave for 4 minutes. Mix and then again for 3/4 minutes);

-threading (you can use shoe laces and buttons/pasta);

-pegs (this could be done including a counting/matching activity);

- Kinetic sand (it is not too messy)

https://www.argos.co.uk/search/kinetic-sand/?clickOrigin=searchbar:productdetails:term:kinetic+sand

Just to get an idea.

Many thanks

Ms Scarpini

Maths

Numbers:

I will list a progression of skills with some activities that you can do at home so that your child can consolidate or acquire those skills.

We have been working on these areas of learning with the children since the start of Nursery. They represent the foundations of early maths. 

-Recite numbers (say the numbers to 10, then 15 and up to 20).

-Count sets of objects: ask your child to count a given set of objects (some grapes, pencils etc…). Children should line the objects up and touch each one of them while saying the correspondent number. Start with sets of up to 5 objects and then add more. When this is secure, children can count pictures (playing counting games on the computer) or abstract (for instance you can ask them to jump, clap, touch their nose a given number of times). 

-Recognize numerals. Children should start recognizing numerals from 0 to 5 and then up to 10 (You can stick numbers around the house and go on a hunt, write them on paper in a random order and ask them to point to the number you say etc..).

-Forming/writing the numbers. It is important that children can recognise the number they are writing, so, if they can only recognise numbers 2 and 3, practise writing those. See attached the document on number formation.

-Comparing sets of objects saying when they have the same amount. You can use sweets and give some to two members of the family. Children should be able to say who has got more/less or when they have the same. If they are secure, you can ask them to give more to a certain person, or less or the same.

-Matching numerals and quantities correctly. After counting sets of objects let your child pick the correct number from a selection. 

Shapes, space and measure:

-Children should be able to recognise and name shapes such as triangle, square, rectangle and circle. They should also start seeing these shapes in the environment. You can point at some objects around the house and ask the children to tell you what shape they are. (See activity on shapes in the home learning pack)

-Children should be able to use positional language (under, on top, next to, in front of…). Place a teddy bear in different positions around the house and ask your child to tell you where it is (under the table, in front of the mirror, on the sofa etc…).