Early years

Dear Parent,
 
I want to ensure you all that below are suggestions and not expectations of what you can do with your child during this difficult period. The most important expectation during this period is that your child is safe and happy. We want to ensure that no pressure to complete activities is placed on your children and that they see what they do as fun; this is what they will be used to in class. Your child's learning and activities that are suggested below are aimed to be fun for all. Undoubtedly the worry of children falling behind and not learning will be in your minds. Please be assured that we as teachers will work tirelessly to catch up on any missed learning as your children are just as important to us. We will miss dearly the time away from them and although we cannot see them on a daily basis we think of them everyday. We hope that you all keep safe and follow the advice and  we look forward to seeing videos, photos and comments via school tapestry and Facebook.    
 
We understand that this can be a tough, stressful period and want you to know that we care and will  support anyway possible. We are only a phone call, a Facebook message and a tapestry upload away if you seek any support or help at all.
 
 
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Maths

  •  Bud’s Number Garden - Join Bud the bee to explore his magical garden and practise recognising numbers, counting, sequencing and much more. This game is great for children in their first year of school or for pre-school children who want a taste of what they'll be learning when they start.

  •  Counting - A collection of musical films on counting one to 10, 10 to 20, sets and ordinal numbers.

  •  Measuring - Songs for learning the vocab of measuring as well as how to counting time and money.

  •  Space and shape - A collection of musical films on 2D and 3D shapes, movements, shapes and patterns.

  •  Numberblocks - An animated series full of number tricks, available to watch on iPlayer.

  •  Bitz and Bob - Join Bitz and her little brother Bob in their animated engineering adventures. Available to watch on iPlayer.

  •  Bitz and Bob game - Help Bitz and Bob solve fun engineering problems and earn rewards along the way. A great way to explore maths and puzzles.

Literacy, Language and Communication

  •  School Radio: Nursery rhymes collection - A collection of well-known nursery rhymes and counting songs designed to promote joining in with singing and actions.

  •  School Radio: Playtime - Ideal for shared listening to get kids moving. Presented by Andy Day and Steven Kynman of CBeebies.

  •  School Radio: Listening Skills - A collection of 14 audio episodes inviting children to listen carefully to sounds and identify them. An easy way to promote listening skills and sustained focus.

  •  Welsh language - Learn the names of colours , the days of the week and how to count from one to 100 in Welsh.

  •  CBeebies Storytime App - Read over 40 interactive stories including fairy tales, nursery rhymes and stories with CBeebies favourites like Peter Rabbit and the Octonauts.

  •  Alphablocks - Play to learn phonics with the Alphablocks.

Understanding the World

  •  School Radio: Listen and Play - A collection of 50+ audio episodes that include a story, a song to join in with and simple movement activities, ideal for learning at home. Presented by CBeebee's Cat Sandion.

  •  Maddie’s Do you Know - Learn new things with Maddie as she explores the world around us and discovers how stuff works. Available to watch on iPlayer.

  •  Go Jetters - Funky Facts from Ubercorn and the Go Jetters crew to help explore places all around the world help with Geography.

  •  Kit and Pup - Explore the wonderful world around us with Kit and Pup as they learn about everything from bubbles to trees.

Expressive Arts and Design

  •  CBeebies Get Creative app - Get your kids painting, making music, creating stories, inventing toys and building blocks with their favourite CBeebies friends. Perfect indoor activities to inspire creativity.

  •  Bring the Noise - The campaign to inspire music learning and make every child in the UK a musician. Includes songs, quizzes, musical exercises and more!

  •  Ten Pieces - Resources to help your little ones get creative with classical music.

Wellbeing and development

  •  Personal Development and mutual understanding (PDMU) - A collection of 17 films featuring puppets Pip and Declan to help children understand their feelings and emotions and how they can keep healthy and safe.

  •  My first day at school - A great game to play with your child and walk them through their first day at school.

  •  Starting Primary School - Support and resources for parents to help prepare your little ones take the first big step into Primary School.

  •  Teach: feeling better - A collection of clips presented by Dr Radha Moghil that explore feelings and emotions, as well as providing talking points and tools to feel better.

Physical Education and Development

  •  Super Movers - Resources across the curriculum to help get your little ones learning whilst staying fit and healthy! With subjects spanning from Maths to Modern Foreign Languages,these musical videos encourage movement whilst engaging the brain.

  •  See Bring the Noise for more songs with actions to improve rhythm, timing and counting.

Oxford Owl Class Login use this link to log onto Oxford Owl. Use the username Cambois Early Years and password: earlyyears. It has links to home learning and books that children can read.  
 
Read Write Inc ebooks  click this link to access online ebooks for Read write Inc. Match the level to the reading book that your child has in their home learning bag. This includes  
  • 72 free eBooks matched to Read Write Inc. Phonics Storybooks
  • 62 Speed Sounds practice sheets
  • 28 Ditty practice sheets
  • Parent information booklets
  • 8 Speedy Green Words slideshows
 

Daily RWI Phonics lessons for children
We are excited to announce that from Monday 23rd March we are scheduling Read Write Inc. Phonics lessons on Facebook and Youtube for children to watch at home.
 
We will release three short Speed Sound lessons with one of our trainers every day for the next two weeks. The films will only be available at the times below:

  • Set 1 Speed Sounds at 9.30 am and again at 12.30 pm
  • Set 2 Speed Sounds at 10.00 am and again at 1.00 pm
  • Set 3 Speed Sounds at 10.30 am and again at 1.30 pm
 
50 Fantastic ideas to try at home. So much quality learning can come from activities like helping with the washing, doing some gardening, baking, watching films, colouring, playing board games, writing letters to friends and relatives, reading stories, talking and just spending time together!
 
Daily online lessons for reception children. 

Oak National Academy is a new collection of high-quality lessons and online resources. Backed by the Government, it has been created in response to the coronavirus lockdown.

Our online classroom offers free access to great teachers, delivering video lessons, quizzes and worksheets. Available for both primary and secondary, it covers a range of subjects. We’ve ordered all the lessons so your child can learn along a clear plan. We’ll provide new lessons and resources each week.

Click the link here to access the  site: https://www.thenational.academy/online-classroom/reception/#schedule

While your child is not able to access  nursery, school , we want to support you to continue the school readiness journey with some ideas for simple, play-based activities to try together at home. You might have your own ideas but don’t worry if you don’t - the Northumberland Early Years Team will share a different activity sheet with you each week.
See below links. These will be added week by week
 

Keep your kids’ math skills sharp – without screen time!

Hey parents! We’re all in this together. In response to sudden demand for non-screen learning, we’ve adapted our engaging after-school math activities for your kids to enjoy at home. Below the activities you’ll also find links to our research-proven app and fun videos. Please share these resources far and wide with homebound friends!

Click link here

 

During the school closure period, I’m pleased to inform you about a new service we’re using to support your child’s maths education. The creators of Times Tables Rock Stars have produced a platform for boosting addition and subtraction skills, called NumBots.

 Big Difference

NumBots is an online game and playing little and often will significantly improve your child’s recall and understanding of number bonds and addition and subtraction facts. These are critical foundations in maths so we are excited by the impact NumBots will have.

 Logging In

A log in will be shown on Tapestry for your child. They can play at home on the website (play.numbots.com) or the NumBots app, available for Amazon, Android and Apple devices. Children might need some help navigating to the website and entering the details but once they’re in, they just need some quiet space to get on with the games for 5 minutes.

 Important: please don’t allow siblings, friends or family to answer for them but do support your child if they’re stuck.

 Little and often

In order to get the best out of NumBots children should regularly play for short bursts so we would ask you to give them 5 minutes per day.

 Game Types

  1. Story Mode – the emphasis is on learning the ideas and concepts behind addition and subtraction so it features more diagrams, shapes and question styles.
  2. Challenge Mode – the emphasis is more on speed of recall of key facts, like number bonds to 10, doubling small numbers or adding & taking away in your head.

Hello there, Parents and Carers!

As schools worldwide close for now in response to COVID-19, you might be wondering how best to help your child or children with their studies at home.

Always happy to help, the White Rose Maths Team has prepared a series of five maths lessons for each year group from Year 1-8. We will be adding five more each week for the next few weeks. Every lesson comes with a short video showing you clearly and simply how to help your child to complete the activity successfully.

For the early years activities please click the link here White Rose Maths Early Years Link

Learning at home - Can you find me....?

 
Gathering some stones and painting them during this time will provide endless resources. 
Here is another idea for those stuck at home with young children during this time of Covid-19. I don't want parents to stress about 'teaching' their young children, rather just enjoy this time with them and watching how they interact with their environment. 
 



One activity I saw when visiting a school in Sweden impressed me a lot and this is one that can easily be replicated at home. The children were asked to find 4 objects, 3 the same and 1 different and the children's level of thinking was excellent, way beyond 3 are green and 1 is blue. You can read about that experience here: 

https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2018/03/education-matters-erasmus-plus-visit-to.html

But let's start simple: ask your child to find you 3 things, you decide are they to be the same colour, size, shape, type etc. Once they are confident in this activity you can mix it up a little, can you find me 2 big animals and 1 small animal, 1 long sock and 2 short socks. The sky is the limit with this, you can ask them to find anything or just stick to toys. 
3 is an easy number to start with, children are used to hearing about things in groups of 3 - bears, little pigs, billy goats, owl babies etc. Once your child is confident about 3 you can start asking for 4, 5 etc. Stretch the activity out by asking can you hop and find me, can you crawl and find me. 

You can take this activity outdoors and ask them to find flowers, leaves, shapes etc. if you have a tablet or allow them your phone, let them go find the objects and take a photo and bring it back to you. 

Same but different is another great way to extend this activity, get young children to really look at the items they have collected, ask them what is the same, what is different. Young children are really good at this, much better than adults as they notice the tiniest of details. This is great way to get children thinking about sets and how objects are gathered together by their sameness or difference. Initially you, as the adult might have to give them language to describe their objects e.g. 'Oh so you brought me 2 tiny wooden things and 1 very long thing made out of wool' etc. 
Bottle Babies are brilliant for this activity. 


While you can get out for a walk, ask them to find things that are the same on their walk, as they get more used to this activity you can ask 'why are they the same', allowing the child to tell you why they think they are the same, don't say 'no they are not' if they don't quite get it, just step back a bit and keep giving them reasons why they are the same so they will begin to see it for themselves and be able to say why. 

All this is giving your child an opportunity to develop their listening skills; how many was I asked to get, memory skills; can they remember the number/type as they search around the room or house, language skills and mathematical skills. 

At meal times use this as an activity to get children to help set the table, how many people are there for dinner? How many forks, knives etc. will we need? Can you get me 3 forks and 3 knives and let them set the table. 

The possibilities for this activity are endless and I am sure children will come up with lots of new ways to play this.
Where is Teddy?
 
This idea allows for some many opportunities for young children to really grasp their positional language and 'feel' it as opposed to just hearing it or rote learning it as a phrase. If parents hide the Teddy (or any toy) and then give instructions, look behind the tree, the child will have the chance to grasp exactly what 'behind', 'on top of', 'beside', 'under' really means. 
 
This activity can be extended, using a table or chair ask a child to put the toy on the chair, under the chair, in front of the chair etc. - you could also ask them to follow your instructions, it doesn't have to be a toy. Let your child give you instructions to see if they do understand what they are saying. 
 
This could be extended further by gathering lots of toys, soft or otherwise or random household objects and asking your child to put the saucepan beside the socks or the crocodile in front of the coffee bean, beside the cat, behind the big teddy etc. The possibilities are endless. I can guarantee your young child will have a better understanding of their positional language than if they were just listening to the words being used in every day conversation. 
Experts at Ark Curriculum Plus, working across Mathematics Mastery and English Mastery, have designed a selection of resources to use at home. We want to make sure children still get opportunities to talk and learn with someone every day. Below are resources and guidance that can be used to provide daily sessions for learners.
 
 
 

Get set for Pyjamarama this Friday 1st May 2020

We're putting the finishing touches to our online festival of story-filled fun - and can't wait to share it with you.

We've got a fantastic line-up of events to enjoy, lots of activities to get stuck into and a few surprises, too. From 9.30am on Friday, all you need to do is:

Ideas for Maths

Younger children will likely benefit from activities, games, and discussion with parents. Working with younger children at home, it is important not to see mathematics as a separate or standalone activity but rather as something which can be incorporated into everyday activities, games, stories, and conversations.4

Here are some ways that we can support parents to celebrate maths as part of their day:

  • Board games, particularly ones with linear, numbered, equal-sized spaces can be useful for the development of early number skills. Most families will have ‘Snakes and Ladders’ or something similar; if not, this is a great opportunity to make your own!

E4_IMG_2

 
  • Incorporate mathematics into everyday routines and activities: tidying up and meal times in particular provide opportunities for conversations about counting, comparing, time, and sharing.
  • Snack times and meals are a great opportunity to learn mathematics, such as counting, estimating and comparing. For example, with young children, you could count and match items in a ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic.’ You can compare quantities such as more or less or quantify food items (making sure to link the last number counted to the number of items in the set) or discuss the capacity of different cups or jugs. A parent or puppet can make deliberate errors in counting and sharing, with the child encouraged to identify these mistakes.
  • Use mathematical vocabulary where possible as part of conversations and play: for example, when making comparisons (which is bigger? which teddy is first in line? who has more? are they shared fairly?). Opportunities can also be taken for ‘shape-spotting’ and sorting around the home.
  • Finding the mathematics in story books. www.mathsthroughstories.org contains explicit links to mathematics in stories, but you can also consider opportunities in more common story books for mathematical discussion.
  • Use manipulatives to support learning. For example, building bricks could be used to model simple addition and multiplication, or toys used to make comparisons of size or quantity. Measuring items, scales, construction materials, puzzles, sorting and pattern materials are also great sources for discussion
White Rose Maths
 
Hello there, Parents and Carers!

As schools worldwide close for now in response to COVID-19, you might be wondering how best to help your child or children with their studies at home.

Always happy to help, the White Rose Maths Team has prepared a series of five maths lessons for reception.  We will be adding five more each week for the next few weeks. Every lesson comes with a short video showing you clearly and simply how to help your child to complete the activity successfully.

Please click this link :https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/

 
An excellent resource showing how children can acquire everyday language and parents can support language development.

Resources for autistic people of all ages

Explain changes

Social stories - Carol Gray has created one about coronavirus.

We have also created one about keeping healthy.
More about social stories can be found here.

Guidance with visual supports

Social distancing

Guide to staying at home

Make a new daily schedule

We know it is important to many autistic people to have a daily routine and we have created a template you can use to schedule your daily activities here.

Keep children entertained

Sensory Stuck at Home is a Facebook page where parents of autistic children share ideas of activities to do in the house.

Manage anxiety

Visit the NHS page “Every Minds Matter” to find out how to take care of your mental health during the lockdown.

Mind has created some helpful information about well-being during this unprecedented time of change.

Watch some interactive mindfulness videos.

With the help of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust the National Autistic Society have created a guidance about Managing anxiety in children and young people on the autism spectrum, you can download a copy here.

 

Activities to do at home with your family

Keep exercising

Onthis page you can find movement and mindfulness videos to keep you children active.

Visit this NHS page to pick from 24 instructor-led videos across aerobics exercise, strength and resistance, pilates and yoga categories.

Virtual tours

This website allows you to visit museums from the comfort of your home.

More Virtual activities.

Things to do indoors

Ideas for what to do with autistic children who are stuck at home 

Ideas to keep children busy 

Indoors activities from The Scouts 

Swansea Branch's Pinterest Account - lots of great resources on topics ranging from gardening to science to Pokemon 

You can download this book free of cost and make staying indoors fun and use the time to help yourself and others. 

Resources about coranavirus and how to deal with it

Autistica - Coping with Uncertainty

Social story to help Autistic children/adults

Purple Ella video about how to deal with coronavirus

Children friendly coronavirus social animation

Coronavirus and anxiety advice

More coronavirus and anxiety advice

Mental health and coronavirus

Coronavirus tips

Advice for families re. how to support children who have learning disabilities and/or autism while isolating

Social story to help autistic children

Resources about the impact of coronavirus on schools and services

The National Autistic Society 

FAQs on the how the COVID-19 measures will affect children and young people with special educational needs

Emergency info for Carers

SEND School Closure Home Learning Resource Pack 

 

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Khan Academy Kids is a free, fun, educational program designed to inspire young children to become learners for life.

 

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The robust Khan Academy Kids curriculum and original content make learning engaging and fun for children ages two to seven.