Home Learning Ideas
We have made a list of activities to try at home that cover the seven areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum.
Many of these activities should be able to be done using everyday items you already have at home so you shouldn’t need to buy any resources. We have tried to make them open and flexible and easy for you to adapt where needed.
This is not a tick list for you to work down, choose your favourites and do them as many times as you like – repeating them is a good way of embedding knowledge and skills. We hope you have fun as a family giving them a go!
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Physical Development
Communication and Language
Literacy
Maths
Understanding the World
Expressive Art and Design
Playdough is Brilliant!
Playdough is amazing for so many reasons. Not only is it a great way to develop the muscles in children's fingers as they squash, squeeze, roll, flatten, pinch, chop and pull it has so many other benefits too! Here is a really interesting article from the imagination tree, describing all of the benefits of playing with playdough.
https://theimaginationtree.com/benefits-of-playing-with-play-dough/
And here is a tried and tested recipe that must have been used hundreds of times over the last 34 years. So many little hands have enjoyed playing with the playdough from this recipe. Why don’t you give it a try?
Cooked dough (long lasting)
2 cups flour
2 cups water
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbs oil
1 cup salt
Food colouring
Cook all of the ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat. Keep mixing until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Sprinkle a little flour onto a board and knead well to finish.
Welcome to Reception!
Starting school is an exciting and important step in children’s development. Research shows that good Early Years (Nursery and Reception) provision lays solid foundations for future learning and achievement.
At Dale Hall Community Primary School our aim is to work together with you to meet your child’s development and learning needs whilst they are in our Reception classes. We strive to provide a welcoming, safe, caring, stimulating and fun learning environment. Our activities and learning tasks are tailored to meet the needs of our youngest learners. We ensure that we provide playful opportunities that are open ended and challenge children’s thinking. We support their learning by allowing them to explore their own ideas and choose ways to do things for themselves. We encourage them to persist, take a risk, test their ideas, learn by trial and error and to enjoy a challenge when solving problems.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Guidance forms the basis of our curriculum. It is based on seven areas of learning and is broad and open-ended allowing us to follow the interests of the children. The seven areas of learning consist of Communication and language; Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. These are the prime areas. The prime areas support learning in four specific areas. They are; Literacy (reading and writing) Mathematics; Understanding the world and Expressive arts and Design. Our aim is to provide high quality teaching and learning that enables all children to reach a good level of learning by the end of Reception.
It is during their time in Reception that children develop self confidence and a belief in themselves. They try new things on their own and feel pride in their achievements. They become more independent and take care of their own personal needs. They learn social skills and develop friendships. Good Reception provision prepares children for their lives ahead and enables them to take their first steps along a life-long learning journey that could lead them almost anywhere!
Early Years Leader. Starfish Class
You’ll find lots of paint and paper and crafty bits in Mrs Kirk’s house as she loves to be creative. She also likes to cycle and cook. In the summer you’ll find her swimming in the sea, especially if the waves are big!
Assistant Headteacher (EYFS and KS1). Seahorse Class
Mrs Morris loves to be outside. You will often find her walking around the coast and countryside with her family. Mrs Morris has two little boys that keep her very busy... When at home, she is usually busy in the kitchen or playing with trains, planes and fire engines!
Teaching Assistant - Starfish Class
Mrs Banks enjoys spending time with her family and friends. She loves being outdoors and likes anything that involves food!
Teaching Assistant - Seahorse Class
You will often find Mrs Clements in the kitchen baking delicious goodies such as brownies and cakes. She also likes to read lots and to spend time with her family and friends.
Be a Growth Hero and Challenge Yourself!
Each week we will be setting the children a learning challenge to do over the weekend.
It would be lovely to hear all about the weekly learning challenge along with any other learning your child has been doing, or experiences they have had. Tapestry is a great way of telling us about your child's home learning. If you have any problems uploading onto Tapestry or need a little help, please do come and speak to a member of the Reception team.
Please do not feel pressured to complete the challenges if you have a busy weekend planned. You could keep them as a bank of ideas to dip in and out of to support your child's learning at home.
This weeks home learning challenge is...
A parent with a child in year 1 has kindly given us some frog spawn. We talked about it's arrival last week and this week you got to see it! Can you remember what will happen to the frog spawn next? Can you tell an adult? You could look on the internet with an adult and see if you can find out anything else about the life cycle of a frog. Could you draw a picture and write about it?
Can you remember the song 5 Little Speckled Frogs? You could teach this to an adult or a sibling. You could use your fingers or objects to show taking away one each time a frog jumps in to the pond. Can you write the number sentence?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-five-little-speckled-frogs/zjjbnrd
Frogs are really good at jumping. How high can you jump? Can you do a long jump? Who can jump the furthest in your family? Can you take a picture? How many jumps does it take to get from one side of your garden to the other? You could measure this in different parts of your house. Be careful of slippery floors though!
We look forward to hearing all about your learning.
Previous home learning challenges
The children have been using words to describe the position of objects. The words that the children have been encouraged to use are 'in, under, above, below, next to, between and on'.
Can you tell an adult about the words we have been using in maths. Maybe you could get your favourite toy and a box and show them using the words 'in, under, above, below, next to, between and on'. E.g. My toy is next to the box.
Ask your adult to hide your toy somewhere in your house. Ask questions to find out where it is, starting with the room it is in and then more specific questions E.g. 'Is it underneath the...? Is it behind the...?
You could then hide the toy and your adult could ask the questions.
We look forward to hearing all about your learning.
How tall are the people in your house? Can you measure them? What will you use? Can you talk about who is the tallest and who is the shortest? Can you write this down? Is there anything in your house or outside that is taller than the tallest person, or shorter than the shortest person? Can you write this down too?
We look forward to hearing all about it on Tapestry!
Don’t forget to have a rest over the half term holiday and enjoy spending time with your family.
You could ask your adult to take a photo of something that you have enjoyed doing over the school holidays. Tell them to upload it on to Tapestry so that you can tell your friends about it when you come back to school. We will look forward to hearing all about it!
Can you make a pattern?
You could collect some leaves and stones from outside to make a pattern. Have you made a repeating pattern?
Can you draw a pattern? Maybe you could use 2D shapes.
Can you find any animals in the books you have at home that have a pattern? Maybe you can find a giraffe or a zebra. Can you draw the pattern?
Ask a grown up to clap a pattern. Can you repeat it back to them? You could clap a repeating pattern and see if your grown up can repeat it back to you. You could try this with some other body percussion, including tapping on your legs, knees, shoulders and head.
We look forward to hearing all about your learning!
Can you tell a grown up the story of The Gingerbread Man? You could use different voices for each character or act out the story together.
If you don't have a copy of the book you could go to the library or look on the internet together to find the story online.
Can you draw a picture or make a model of the Gingerbread Man? You could use crayons, paints or pencils or make a model using playdough or cardboard boxes and tubes. We would love to see what you make. You could take a photograph and upload it on here or bring it to school to show everyone.
Can you draw a picture of your favourite place? It could be the beach, your house or somewhere you have been on holiday, or it could be an imaginary place. Can you label your picture using the letters you know or write a story? We look forward to seeing your ideas.
Number bonds to 5 challenge.
How to Set up the Challenge
• Gather a collection of five small items, such as buttons, coins or pom-poms.
• Place the items into a small bag.
• Take turns with your child to take some items out of the bag.
• With your child, count each set of items and then count the total.
• Talk about the number bond. For example, ‘I have three buttons and you have two buttons. Three and two make five.’ • Place the items back into the bag and repeat the activity. Try taking different numbers of items and talk about the different ways you find of making five.
How to Get Your Child Thinking
• How many buttons do we have altogether?
• How many buttons have I got?
• How many buttons have you got?
• What number bond did we find?
• How could we rearrange the buttons to find another way of making five?
• If I have zero buttons, how many would you have?
• Can you find another way of making five?
• I can see that you have four buttons. How many are left in the bag?
Can you play some phonics games?
Look at things around the room and say the sound they begin with. Can you hear the sound they end with too? Try writing some of them down.
Play a game with your grown-up. Take it in turns to give instructions. For example, ‘Touch your f-ee-t’ or ‘Stand u-p’.
Can you look in a book and find any of these words? 'the, to. I , no, go, he, she'.
Which words did you spot the most?
We look forward to hearing all about your learning!
Can you draw a picture of your favourite place? It could be the beach, your house or somewhere you have been on holiday, or it could be an imaginary place. Can you label your picture using the letters you know or write a story? We look forward to seeing your ideas.
Can you play a game of noughts and crosses? You will need someone to play with. Instead of using a nought or a cross could you choose a phoneme or digraph that you have learnt? Maybe you could use one of the tricky words you know.
As always we would love to see your game on tapestry!
While you’re washing up or in the bath, can you find out what objects float and which objects sink? Can you record the results? You could write a list showing all of the items that float and all of the items that sink. Could you write a sentence detailing your findings? As always you could tell us about this by taking a photo and uploading it on Tapestry
We look forward to hearing about your learning.
Do you have anything at home that uses technology? It could be an app on an tablet, a simple computer programme or a camera. Could you tell us how it works? What other technology do you have at home?
You could ask your adult to film you telling us about it or they could help you to write it down. You could take a photo or your writing or upload your video on Tapestry.
This week to continue your reading journey we are challenging you to find words and logos you recognise. Please cut them out or print them off. You might find them on food packaging, leaflets or magazines.
We hope to make a display or a class book using the words you know.
It is also the end of a very busy half term! We would therefore like you to spend some time over the holidays having a rest and enjoy spending time with your family and friends. We shall look forward to hearing about what you have been doing when we return to school.
Next week we are going to be learning about 2D shapes. The shapes will include a triangle, circle, rectangle and square. We will also be learning how to describe the shapes using the words corner and side.
Can you become a shape detective?
Can you go on a shape hunt around your house. What shapes can you find? Can you describe them? Can you draw and label the shapes you have found? Can you make a pattern with them?
We look forward to seeing this on Tapestry!
Can you practise counting up to 10? Can you find 10 objects from around your house?
You could ask your adult to write the numbers 1-10 on paper and cut them out. You could then muddle them up and try to put them back in order. What other numbers do you know? What else can you count? We would love to hear all about your learning on Tapestry!
Our Story Based Curriculum
In Reception we follow a Story Based Curriculum. Each term a range of high quality books are chosen which form our ‘termly focus stories’. Many of the activities and experiences which go on throughout the term are linked to the characters, themes and concepts which can be found within these books. Linking children’s learning to storytelling in this way provides many opportunities for children to become immersed in their play experiences having built an understanding of the accompanying book. As a parent or carer to support your children’s learning at home please see our list of books being used. You could visit the local library to borrow a copy of the book, talk about the characters and settings of the story and use the internet to search for audio stories and activities linked to the books.
W/B 16th September
Our first story is 'One Year with Kipper' by Nick Inkpen
W/B 23rd September
This week we will be reading 'I'm Sorry' by Sam McBratney
W/B 30th September
Lots of our learning will be linked to 'Owl Babies'.
W/B 7th October
This week the children will be talking about their families.
W/B 14th October
We will be reading the story 'Rainbow Fish' by Marcus Pfister. Lots of the children's learning will be linked to the whole school focus for eco week.
W/B 28th October
This week we will be reading 'Aaarggghh Spider'. The children will also be using information books to help them to write some facts about spiders.
W/B 4th November
'Aaarggghh Spider' continued.
The children will be talking about their pets this week.
W/B 11th November
We will be reading the story 'MIXED'. By Arree Chung
W/B 18th November
This week we will be reading 'Stickman' By Julia Donaldson
W/B 25th November
The children will be introduced to the Nativity we will be performing to parents and carers. We will be reading stories about the first Christmas.
W/B 13th January - The Gingerbread Man
W/B 20th January - The Gingerbread Man continued
W/B 27th January - Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
W/B 3rd February - Goldilocks and the Three Bears continued.
W/B 10th February - The children will be introduced to the story 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'.
W/B 24th February - Jack and the Beanstalk
W/B 2nd March - Jasper's Beanstalk
W/B 9th March - Non fiction books about planting and growing
W/B 16th March - 'My Mum is Fantastic'
W/B 23rd March - 'The Enormous Turnip'.
The characters in the story are very helpful. The children will be encouraged to talk about and demonstrate how helpful they can be. We will also be looking out for 'acts of kindness' and making a class book.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
It has been another busy week! The children have enjoyed listening to the story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. Some of the children were able to talk about the story as they had heard it before, while others enjoyed finding out what happened to poor Baby Bear’s chair!
During maths this week the children have been using the words ‘more’ and ‘less’, ‘most’ and ‘fewest’. To encourage the children to compare quantities the children have enjoyed playing a game. The name of the game was ‘Goldilocks and How Many Bears’ and the children had to move their counter around the track collecting bears in their cup as they went. Once someone had reached the finish line the children had to compare how many bears they had collected using the words ‘more’ and ‘less’, ‘most’ and ‘fewest’.
The Gingerbread Man Experiment
Have you ever wondered what would have happened if the Gingerbread Man had decided to swim across the river? Well, the children in Reception have found out. We conducted an experiment using a bowl of warm water and a bowl of cold water and two Gingerbread men. First the children predicted what they thought was going to happen when the Gingerbread Men were put in the water. They used their phonic knowledge to write some wonderful words that included float, sink, melt, dissolve, soggy, crumble and wet. We then held one Gingerbread Man in the cold water and one Gingerbread Man in the warm water and we watched and waited…
This is what we found out. The Gingerbread Man did get wet, and crumble and float for a bit and then sink and the water changed colour and the Gingerbread Man dissolved. This all happened much quicker in the warm water than in the cold water. The children were brilliant at making predictions, talking about and describing what they could see, as well as answering how and why questions.
The Gingerbread Man
We have had another busy week! Lots of the children’s learning has been linked to the story 'The Gingerbread Man'.
The children really enjoyed listening to the story. They joined in with the repeated words, and some children were able to talk about what they already knew about the story, while others predicted what they thought would happen next.
After learning about non fiction books and gathering information from the internet we found a recipe for Gingerbread Men. Luckily Mrs Clements had been shopping on Monday so we had all the ingredients we needed to make some!
The children learnt how to follow a recipe and measure out the ingredients . They used some wonderful descriptive language to describe the smells, texture and what they could see happening.
If you would like to make your own gingerbread, please see below for the recipe that we followed.
Stick Man
The children really enjoyed the story ‘Stick Man’. We read to the part where Stick Man is lying asleep in the grate, 'will anyone wake him before it's too late'. We then left the rest of the story on a cliff hanger! The children then had to use their imaginations and come up with suggestions for who they thought might rescue Stick Man. They had brilliant ideas including Captain America, a princess, a crocodile and a dinosaur!
They then used their phonic knowledge to write down their ideas. Later on in the week we revealed the real ending of the story!
Owl Babies
The children really enjoyed the story ‘Owl Babies’ written by Martin Waddell. We talked about the setting of the story and the characters, and encouraged the children to think about how the owls were feeling. They were very good at joining in with the repeated refrain of ’I want my Mummy!’
Some of the activities and resources in our classrooms were linked to the story. The children enjoyed creating their own owl nests using a variety of resources including playdough, sticks and feathers. They practised using tools and scissors while cutting out owls, making patterns and creating their own pictures. They also enjoyed retelling the story and playing an owl counting game too. What a lot of learning!
Our Book of Birthdays
As you are aware we follow a story based curriculum. Our first book of the year was ‘One Year with Kipper’ by Nick Inkpen. This led the children into a discussion about birthdays and how they celebrate. The children talked about a cake they had had, a present they had received and party games they had played. It was lovely to hear so many children speak confidently in front of a small group. They then helped to make a birthday book which is displayed in our maths area.
Our Literacy Workshop and Share
Our fabulous Literacy workshop and share was really well attended. The workshop detailed the way in which literacy is taught in the Early Years at Dale Hall. We shared our handwriting policy and talked about how this impacts on the learning of the children. We also gave information about how we teach phonics and provided parents and carers with an interactive insight into how a typical phonics lesson is taught. Finally we talked about how we teach children to read. This included information regarding books that are sent home to read and also how we read with the children at school. The parents also learnt about how they can support their child at home. After our workshop there was an opportunity for parents and carers to spend time with their child in their classroom sharing their learning. The classrooms were set up with lots of activities that gave parents and carers an insight into the types of things the children are doing at school, and provided them with some ideas for what they could do at home.
The children in Reception have found out all about a cat called Jasper. Jasper wants to plant a beanstalk but is not sure how to go about it! Jasper tries out lots of ways to help his beanstalk grow. In the end Jasper waits and waits and finally his wish comes true! When we read the book some words on the page had been covered up. This meant that the children had to be detectives and listen and look carefully at the pictures to predict what the word might say. During the week children talked about what they would like to find if we climbed to the top of the beanstalk. There were lots of imaginative suggestions! The children then had a go at writing down their ideas.
After being inspired by Jasper the children have been planting their own beans. They talked about what they already know about planting and growing and used information books to help. They then planted a bean and wrote their own instructions to help others to learn about planting beans.
Now the beans are next to the window, and just like Jasper the children are waiting for them to grow!