April home link challenge
Baking and cooking can be a simple and effective way to expose young children to early maths concepts. Getting involved in the kitchen early has so many benefits for maths, literacy and spending quality time together. Easy ways to involve young children can be:
- helping out with things like cutting and chopping using butter knives
- Washing vegetables in the sinkĀ
- counting the quantity of ingredients needed
- using either digital or mechanical scales for number recognition
- āreadingā the recipe, looking for numbers in weight or order of instructions
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- 200gĀ milk chocolate
- 75gĀ unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon golden syrup
- 125gĀ Rice Krispies
- 250gĀ mini egg or chocolate button decorations
Please note mini eggs are a choking hazard for small children, if using chop up before placing on the nests.
Instructions š°š«
- Chop the milk chocolate, and place in a small microwave-safe bowl or jug with the butter. Microwave in 30-second increments, until mostly melted. Stir until fully melted and smooth.
- Place the rice krispies in a large mixing bowl.
- Add the melted chocolate and golden syrup to the rice krispies and mix until well combined.
- Spoon mounds of the mixture into cupcake cases. A small cookie/ice cream scoop is helpful for this, but a spoon will also do the trick.
- Shape the mounds into nests, using the back of the spoon.
- Decorate with chocolate or chopped mini eggs
- If you’re planning to eat these the same day, you can pop your mini eggs into the nests now. If you’re making them a day or so in advance and you’re using mini eggs, it’s best to leave the eggs off and add them just before serving, as the moisture from the fridge can make the eggs sticky.
- Place the nests into the fridge for at least an hour, or until firm.
- Store the Easter nests in the fridge in an airtight container for 2-3 days.
For a dairy free option swap out the chocolate and butter for dairy free alternatives.
Pattern Detectives
For February’s challenge we would love for you to be detectives in your world, searching for patterns at home or when you’re out and about this holiday weekend. Be on the look out for all sorts of patterns, either on fabric (like leopard print or spotty socks!) or when you’re out for a walk or in the car (zebra crossings, road signs)
If you feel like you could be a super detective you could even have a go at creating a pattern, using anything you like! Patterns can be anything that is repetitive, and we’d love to see how creative you are with what you use.
Early pattern spotting starts with recognising colours, and what is ‘the same‘ or matching. This would be a great place to start with your child if they’re not at the stage of recognising or creating patterns yet.
We would love to see photos of you and your child being pattern detectives over the holiday weekend, please upload them to their learning journal or alternatively email them in and we will print and display them within the ECC for our STEAM February home challenge.
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Measurement At Home
For January’s challenge we would like you to find out who the tallest and shortest members of your family are. You can measure using lots of different ways, from measuring tapes and rulers using centimetres and metres, to using hands, feet or other objects around your home. Let us know how you chose to measure your family members.
We would love to see a picture you have drawn of your findings, who is tallest, shortest and everyone in between!
December Numeracy Home Link Challenge
Collage Christmas Tree
For December we would love for your child to use their creative skills along with their Maths to create a Christmas tree out of collage. You can use anything you have at home, cut up old newspapers/magazines, boxes, card, wrapping paper, stickers etc. It can be 2D or if you are feeling adventurous it can be a 3D model!
When you are helping your child with this we want to be focusing on shapes, talking about what different 2D/3D shapes you can see/draw/cut. Can you add different shapes together to make new shapes? What shapes do we need to make a tree, baubles etc?
We cant wait to see what amazing creations you all come up with and what shapes you can use and make.
Good Luck!
November Numeracy Home Link Challenge
A Number Search
For this months challenge we would like you to have a look all around your local environment, from your home, outdoors, in shops etc and see if you can find the numbers 0-10! Here are some examples of where you might find them…
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We would love when you find some if you can ask your adult to take a picture with some of them and upload these to your learning journal, so we can all see how busy you have been!
Good luck, we can’t wait to see where you can find some numbers!
One of the children managed to find the numbers, 0,1 and 8 at the swimming pool!
October Numeracy Home Link Challenge
An Autumn Colour Hunt
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To start us off on our monthly numeracy challenges, we are asking you to take part in an Autumn colour hunt!
- What colours can you see, are the leaves green, red, yellow or brown? ā¤ļøšš§”š¤š
- What shapes can you find, can you make shapes out of what you have collected such as a square with sticks?š§š¤šŗļø
- Can you use different coloured leaves to make a pattern?
We cant wait to see what you find and what you can create using natural resources!šØ Please let us know what you have learned while doing this at home! š
If you have any pictures you have made you can either bring them into the ECC to stick in our floor book or send a photo to our facebook, your learning journal, or by email to katie.mcaughtrie@eastayrshire.org.uk.
Look how busy our children have been on their autumn colour hunts!
