2s

Some of the boys and girls have shown a real interest in roleplay in the garden. They set up an ice cream shop taking turns to serve their friends and be a customer. They have been using the till and money to pay for their ice creams.

A few children have also been looking for different types of minisbeasts in the garden.

Some children have also been investigating using water and in the sand.

3-5s

Some of the children have shown an interest in lava so they worked together to create a volcano.

A group of children have also been learning about plants helping to plant seeds and learning what the plants need to be able to grown.

Others have been interested in creating their own potions collecting together different items investigating what happens when they mix them together.

In the garden, some children have shown an interest in climbing and jumping off apparatus whilst others wanted to play group games such as hide and seek or duck duck goose.

Shelley used the wooden blocks and planks to make her own see-saw.

Inside, some children have been playing table top games together taking turns and developing their sorting and matching skills.

Others have been exploring stories.

Kayden has been investigating different ways to make water travel both in the water tray and outside.

A few children have been using the blocks to build their own planes.

Aria noticed the bird feeder on the tree. She decided she wanted to make a bird box and worked together with Ivy to design one. Once they had designed it they collected items they needed to put inside their bird box.

2s

3-5s

2s

3-5s

1. Click on the link below to listen to the story We’re going on a bear hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. You can pause the video throughout and encourage your child to talk about what they see and what is happening. You could ask them how it would make them feel at different points in the story. At the end you could ask your child what their favourite part of the story was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyI6ykDwds

2. When you are out for a walk or in the garden, pretend you are on a bear hunt and re-enact the story together. See if your child can remember parts of the story and the sounds for each part.

Through the grass (swishy swashy, swishy swashy, swishy swashy)

Through the river (splash splosh, splash splosh, splash splosh)

Through the mud (squelch squerch, squelch squerch, squelch squerch)

Through the forest (stumble trip, stumble trip, stumble trip)

Through the snowstorm (hooo wooo, hooo wooo, hooo wooo)

Through the cave (tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe)

3. Play a listening game together. Give your child instructions to find an object in the house and move around the object using the language of over, under and through from the story. Support your child to understand the concepts of over, under and through e.g. “Go under the cover”, “Go through the door”, “Go over the pillow.” etc.

4. Go on a bear hunt. Take turns to hide your child’s teddy, cuddly toy or another well known object in the house. Give one another clues saying “hot” if you are getting near to where the toy or object is hidden or “cold if you are far away from where the object or toy is hidden.

5. Continue to support your child to develop their independence skills. Encourage your child to help tidy up around the house.

1. Click on the link below to listen to the story the bus is for us by Michael Rosen and Gillian Tyler. You can pause the video throughout and encourage your child to talk about what they see and what is happening. At the end you could ask your child what way they would like to travel the most from the ideas in the book. Listen to the story again if they can’t remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akPQGBj-bLs

2. Today’s story is all about enjoying going on the bus. Ask your child what does a bus have? Give your child an example ‘the bus has wheels, what else does a bus have?’ Sing the wheels on the bus together.  Encourage your child to say what could come next in the song e.g. the wipers, the doors, the horn, the driver etc.

3. In nursery we do teddy time. We lie down, close our eyes and listen to some soft music to help us relax with a teddy placed on our tummy. When we do this our imagination can take us to different places. Like all the places they went to in the story, I wonder where your imagination might take you today. Click on one of the links below and encourage your child to close their eyes and lie down listening to the music. Play the music for a minute or two then pause it and you can talk about what you both imagined yourself doing whilst you had your eyes closed. You may find other relaxing music on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwHO92Tu97JWHzl3RmadNug

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

4. Play a feelings game together. Focus first on happy and sad. Show your child a happy face and ask them to show you their happy face. Now show your child a sad face. See if your child can show you their sad face. Talk about what makes you feel happy and what makes you feel sad. Encourage your child to do the same. If your child understands the concept of happy and sad you may want to explore worried and angry with them.

5. Support your child to continue to develop their independence skills by putting the dishes away.

1. Click on the link below to listen to the story Leaf by Sandra Dieckmann together. You can pause the story and encourage your child to talk about the characters and what is happening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-FK8HocVaU

2. Talk to your child about included. INCLUDED is one of our SHANARRI words. At the start of the story Leaf the polar bear was not included by the other animals as they thought he behaved in a strange way. Talk to your child about how they can make others feel included at home or in nursery.

3. Talk to your child about their likes and dislikes. Play a game to find out what they like the most. You could get them to go to one side of the room for one option and the other side of the room for the other option. Do you like playing inside or playing outside the most? Do you like pizza or chicken nuggets the most? Do you like Paw Patrol or PJ masks the most?

4. Set time challenges to complete together. This could include who can stand on one leg for the longest, who can run on the spot the longest, who can stay quiet for the longest etc.

5. Support your child to develop their fine motor skills. Encourage them to help clean the counter top or table.

6. If you can take your child to a local green space, practise throwing and catching with a ball, a pair of socks or anything you can find in your home. When speaking to your child model language such as ‘my turn’ and ‘your turn’. If there is siblings taking part use their name for their turn also.

1. Click on the link below to listen to the story Goat’s coat by Tom Percival and Christine Pym together. You could pause the video or at the end talk about the kind of character Goat is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkNgTF5UNvo

2. Talk to your child about Respected. Respected is one of our SHANARRI words. In the story Goat shows great respect to the other animals helping them out and looking after them. In return they show respect to him by helping him out. We often talk about respecting our resources at nursery and each other. Encourage your child to respect their toys at home by putting them back where they belong and respecting other people at home. Tweet us, email or text us and share examples of your child respecting their home and others they live with.

3. Play a guessing game together which focuses on listening. Ask your child what animal might make the noises “woof, moo, meow etc”. Give your child clues so they can guess what you are thinking of. e.g., “it’s an animal with 4 legs and it goes woof.” You could use animals from todays story. If your child is able to, encourage them to give you clues about an animal. Take turns to give clues and guess the animal.

4. Use plastic tubs, containers, cups or anything you can find in the house to fill up in the bath or when washing the dishes with your child. Demonstrate to your child what full and empty look like and what heavy and light may feel like whilst modelling language using the words full, empty, heavy and light. Take turns to do this together.

5. Support your child to continue to develop their fine and gross motor skills. Whilst making your child’s bed encourage them to join in asking questions such as where does the pillow go? Do the buttons of the cover go at the top or the bottom of the bed?

1. Click on the video below to listen to the story Kitchen disco by Clare Foges and Al Murray together. Once you have finished listening, talk about your favourite fruits together and why it is important to eat fruit.

2. In the story the fruit come alive at night and have a disco together. Put on your favourite music and play musical statues together.

3. Talk to your child about nurtured. Nurtured is one of our SHANARRI words. This week’s story is all about fruit.  At nursery, the children help with planting and nurturing plants (including fruits) to grow. Talk with your child about what plants need to be able to grow.

4. Encourage your child to sort by colour around the house. You could give them a collection of items or pile of clothes e.g. t-shirts or socks for them to put into piles. For example, all the blue things together and all the green things together or they could go looking around the house to find items of their own to sort by colour before putting them back where they belong.

5. Support your child to continue to develop their fine motor skills. Encourage them to help you hang up the washing.

1. Do some dancing together. Search Just dance kids on Youtube. There are lots of different dances linked to children’s favourite characters and songs with actions for you to copy together. Or put on your favourite music and dance together. 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=just+dance+kids

2. Talk to your child about achieving. Achieving is one of our SHANARRI words. Talk to your child about anything they have been trying really hard to do or something they would like to be able to do and set a target together. It might be putting zipping up their coat, getting dressed by themselves or putting their shoes on. 

3. Encourage your child to do some matching around the house. This could include matching together pairs of socks or shoes or sorting out cutlery. If they understand this concept, they could try counting how many they have altogether. 

4. Make a model using anything you have lying around the house e.g. recycling such as cardboard boxes, plastic yoghurt tubs, milk jugs or anything else that you can find. 

5. Do races in the garden or when out for a walk. This could involve a running race, hopping race or skipping race.  

1. Sing some counting rhymes together. Click on some of the links below and others you find by searching counting rhymes on Youtube. 

1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ir_l7qTiZ4

One elephant went out to play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQf6yWEScB8

2. Talk to your child about being safe. Safe is one of our SHANARRI words. At nursery children help to prepare snack cutting up different foods. They talk about how to be safe when cutting. Talk to your child about how to be safe when they help you to prepare foods or how to keep safe when you are out for a walk.

 3. Play hide and seek together.

 4. Play a listening game together. Take turns to hum a tune your child knows well and encourage them to listen and guess which song it is.

 5. Whilst looking out the window or out for a walk encourage your child to tell you what they see. Add a word onto what your child says modelling how to describe it to them. E.g. if your child says “car” you might say “A red car.”