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If your child is at home as they or a family member are required to self-isolate then please contact the school to ask for a Home Activity Pack. These will be themed around a book or concept and will have ideas for activities you can be doing together from home.
Remember at this age children learn through play. Make sure there is plenty of time in the day for your child to play both independently and with an adult. Give them opportunities to decide what you are going to do together.
Reading together is one of the most important things you can do together. Children learn to love reading when you are enthusiastic and interested in books with them. Look closely at the pictures together, guess what you think will happen, talk about the characters feelings, put on funny voices! Books really help spark young children's imaginations.
You can phone the school on 0208 311 0619
or contact Gill with queries on this email address: headteacher@abbeywood-nur.greenwich.sch.uk
Routine
- To support your children with having a sense of routine while at home it might be nice to continue with some of their favourite familiar times from Nursery.
- Consider doing a daily ‘snack time’ where your children can sit down with you and help prepare simple snacks for the family to share. This is a perfect opportunity for counting together - How many plates do we need? I wonder how many pieces of apple will we have if we cut this piece in half?
- ‘Story groups’ is another one of our favourite times of day and could easily be replicated at home by you reading a story with your child at a set time and singing some songs together. This story could be used to think of ideas for the days activities together - for example if you read a story about a rabbit then can you find out information together about rabbits? Can your child draw a rabbit, or a family of rabbits, or something very unusual like a dinosaur rabbit? Can you move like a rabbit? Or make a rabbit hutch out of a box or building blocks?
Useful free websites:
http://www.lovemybooks.co.uk/age-groups
Excellent website with dozens of books that children can watch being read and activity ideas to go with each story. Both the 0-3 and 3-5 section have many favourite stories to watch and explore and are well worth checking out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/curations/have-fun-at-home
Loads of great games for kids and ideas for adults including suggestions of things to make and play together at home. Also some great advice on all sorts of common home experiences like how to support your child with using their tablet appropriately or how to include more fun maths in their day.
Access to lots of poems and rhymes for young children. Click ‘read more’ next to a poem to see the whole text and scroll to the bottom to watch a video of the poet performing it. The file named ‘Teaching Sequences’ will have suggestions of how to use the poem to support children’s education, many of which can be used at home. The language used in poetry is excellent for helping children to tune into the different sounds they need when learning phonics so definitely give this a look!
https://www.worldbookday.com/share-a-story-corner/
Videos of some of young children’s favourite books being read out.
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/have-some-fun/storybooks-and-games/
More popular children’s books being read, with the added option of being able to choose them in sign language as well.
https://www.playscotland.org/parents-families/im-bored/
Lots of fun simple ideas for you to try at home. Also recipes for things like finger paint, clay and papier mache.
https://www.ltl.org.uk/free-resources/
Fun ideas for learning outdoors, suitable for a variety of ages.
https://irresistible-learning.co.uk/resource/creativity-at-home/
Quick explanation of how to support children’s creativity and imagination. Scroll to the bottom of the page for a link with to 10 ideas for you to try at home. The suggestions contain lots of lovely pictures and explain how these activities can help your child’s development.
Ideas to keep moving!
https://www.nhs.uk/10-minute-shake-up/shake-ups
Quick, fun Disney themed ideas for getting children moving and using energy up in small spaces
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyCLoPd4VxBvPHOpzoEk5onAEbq40g2-k
'The Body Coach' - Lots of videos of 5 or 8 minute workouts for children to follow at home.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz73wN5rMFEyezAKLCvDUcg/videos
Funky Feet Music specialise in getting children moving. Their Youtube channel contains lots of songs and movements to learn and examples of activities like dough disco to support fine motor skills.
Heads, shoulders, knees and toes.
See if you can dance and sing along with your friends at home!
Children’s book authors and illustrators who are reading their books for free
https://www.chrishaughton.com/downloads
Chris Haughton, author and illustrator of ‘Oh No George’ and ‘A Bit Lost’ is doing daily readings of his books live on facebook at 5pm (click on the menu items called #stayathome for previous readings and then click the facbook link under the video clip). He also has some downloadable resources to go with his stories, some of which need to be printed and some of which are ideas for things you can make at home. The videos are on the longer side as they include examples of how he makes his illustrations and also shows pictures children have sent into him so may be more suitable for slightly older children (and start from #stayathome2 as #stayathome1 isn’t a very clear video).
https://www.oliverjeffers.com/books#/abookaday/
Oliver Jeffers, author and illustrator of many stories like ‘A Bit Lost’ and ‘The Way Back Home’ is doing a live daily reading of his books at 6pm on Instagram. His previous readings are all available here on his website.
