Please send evidence of any work done at home to nursery@castle.emat.uk or upload it to the EExAT

Week 1

Allow your child to practice dressing and undressing themselves. Provide help where needed but encourage as much independence as possible.

Share a story book together. Encourage your child to turn the pages carefully one at a time and talk about the pictures and the words.

Encourage your child to write their own shopping list as you model writing yours. Praise their attempts at mark making.

Go on a shape hunt around your home looking for circles, triangles, squares and rectangles. For example, you may find that your clock face is a circle; your television is a rectangle and so on.

If you are able to go outdoors, see if you can find any spring flowers. What other signs of spring can be seen? If you are unable to go outside then what can you see from a window? Draw a picture together.

Put some washing up liquid in a bowl and allow your child to stir it up to create bubbles. If you have any straws, encourage them to blow and watch all of the bubbles form.

Make some flower pictures together.

Week 2

Talk about the rules that you have at home together. Perhaps introduce a reward system such as putting a button in a jar each time your child does something good that you can reward. The Nursery children love to get rewards such as stickers or a kind word for doing things well.

Talk about when there is one of something or when there is more than one of that thing. For example one cat, two cats, one dog, two dogs.

Encourage your child to help with the preparation of food this week such as making a healthy fruit salad together.

Share a book together and encourage your child to draw a picture of what happened in the story.

Use the special measure words ‘full’ and ‘empty’ when filling cups, the bath etc.

Cut the tops off some carrots. Place them onto a plate filled with a little water and see if you can get some leaves to grow. I’d love to see a photo of these once they have grown. Putting them in a sunny place helps this process. You can also do this will other root vegetables such as turnips, beetroot and so on. Y

If you have some red and white paint then have a go at making a spring blossom picture. See if you can spot some spring blossom outside. This example was made by printing the blossom with the bottom of a fizzy drink bottle. Talk about what happens when you mix red and white.

Week 3

Give your child some small tasks to carry out this week such as helping to sort the socks into pairs.

Teach your child a nursery rhyme in your home language. If there are actions to the rhyme then please feel free to make a video to upload onto the EExAT, I’d love to see it. There are lots of great nursery rhymes on the CBeebies site https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-songs-index/zhwdgwx

Use the words ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ as you talk together about food this week. Encourage your child to make healthy choices. You could sort the food from your cupboard into a healthy and unhealthy group together.

Encourage your child to make a card to post to a family member. Encourage them to mark make their writing and praise their efforts. Remember that they don’t need to be forming letters at this point in time but if they can write some letters of their name then that would be great. If they can make circular marks or straight lines then that is great too.

This week use lots of positional language with your child. This includes words such as on, under, in, behind. You could play a guessing game where you hid a toy and give clues using these special words.

If you are baking this week, talk about how the scales work and how the clock tells you how long it’s been cooking for.

Enjoy playing with favourite toys together. Spend some time sitting with your child and encouraging them to use their imagination in their play.

Week 4

Look at some photos of your family together. Talk about who is in your family and why they are special. If they live far away then talk about what their country is like.

Listen to the BBC School Radio programme Wiggle Waggle. This week is ‘Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush. Carry out the actions together. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p02frgjw

Count items together such as how many pants are in the draw, how many socks and so on.

Talk about the work that vets do. At the start of this letter is a link to Espresso with a user name and password provided. If you go into Espresso and search vets, it will give you lots of activities and videos to watch.

It will be Queen Elizabeth II birthday on April 21 and she will be 94 years old. Talk about the Queen and help your child to find out more about her by looking online together. Encourage your child to draw or paint a picture of the Queen or write her a birthday card. You can send it to Buckingham Palace. The address is Her Majesty The Queen, Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA. The Queen is shown almost all of her correspondence on a daily basis by one of her Private Secretaries, and she takes a keen interest in the letters she receives. 

Remember to enjoy books together. Please look at the Oxford Owl website where you can find lots of eBooks appropriate for Nursery children to share together.

Week 5

Talk together about friends. Ask your child who their nursery friends are and encourage them to draw a picture of their friends.

Look at some pictures of wild animals together online talk about the animals, what they are called, where they live, what they eat and so on. There is a section on Espresso with videos and activities related to this.

Listen to the BBC School Radio programme Wiggle Waggle. This week is ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’. Carry out the actions together. https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/eyfs-wiggle-waggle-if-youre-happy-and-you-know-it/zj7wcqt

Practice counting as you walk up steps. Encourage your child to count how many times they can jump or how many times they can kick a ball and so on. I would love all of the children to count to 10 and be able to count the actions also.

As you sort your rubbish this week talk with your child about what can and can’t be recycled. Talk about how we need to care for the planet and where the rubbish goes. You can find more information and videos on Espresso about this.

If you have any paints or chalks talk about how the colours can be mixed to make new colours.

Week 6

This week we are thinking about the work that the fire brigade does. Talk about fire safety and how we never play with matches, iron or the cooker. Show your smoke alarms to your child and talk about what to do if they hear the smoke alarm.

Listen to the BBC School programme Lets Move. This week is ‘People Who Help Us’. Carry out the actions together. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/pdfs/letsmove_summer_2010.pdf

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g6v9t

Have a go at some counting games online. Can your child find the total by counting all of the objects? Ask them what one more / less would be. If you Goole Topmarks Maths for 3-5 year olds you will find some great counting games. You do not need a login for this. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/3-5-years/counting

Use some empty packets and lids to construct a fire engine together. I would love to see pictures of these so don’t forget to post them onto the EExAT.

Don’t forget to enjoy stories, books and rhymes together. Talk about caring for the books carefully, turning the pages one at a time. Model being a reader by moving your finger under the words as you read to your child. Encourage them to talk about the pictures and what they think will happen next, how the characters are feeling etc.

Week 7

This week we are thinking about the work that the police do. Talk with your child about how the police can help them if they are lost. Talk about stranger danger and keeping safe. Encourage your child to act in role as a police officer and talk about the jobs that they might do.

Listen to the BBC School programme Lets Move. This week is ‘People Who Help Us –friends, bus drivers, hospital workers, firefighters, traffic poice’. Carry out the actions together. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/pdfs/letsmove_summer_2010.pdf

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g6v9v

Have a go at some counting games online. Please see the links to maths games below.

Talk about the importance of washing our hands really carefully. Demonstrate how to do this and encourage your child to do this each time the visit the toilet or before they eat.

Don’t forget to enjoy stories, books and rhymes together. Talk about caring for the books carefully, turning the pages one at a time. Model being a reader by moving your finger under the words as you read to your child. Encourage them to talk about the pictures and what they think will happen next, how the characters are feeling etc.

Week 8

Talk about the work that doctors and nurses do. Encourage your child to make a picture or model related to the work of the NHS such as an ambulance or to act in role as a doctor or nurse. You may wish to watch an episode of Get Well Soon on CBeebies if you have a TV licence, this can be found here https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08bmd70/get-well-soon-coronavirus

Encourage children to have a go at writing their name. Remember to use a capital letter at the start followed by lower case letters for example: Mark not MARK.

Please watch one episode of Time for School each day. Each episode lasts for just  5 minutes. This link is for all episodes and you will need to stop it at the end of each 5 minute episode. I hope that watching these clips will help your child to remember and talk about Nursery and also talk about getting ready for Reception in September. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNCzejOfjME

In our number work we are thinking about sharing fairly. Encourage your child to share objects out such as grapes, pasta and so on. They could share these between a group of toys. This is a link to an online sharing activity that you could also try together. https://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/busyday/dogs/

Our Wiggle Waggle movement activity this week is The Grand Old Duke of York. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p02frhds

We would love to see any pictures of outdoor exercise that children have been enjoying.