Week 2: Activities

 Thurs. 26/03/2020

Message from Ms. Leyla

 

 

Today's song is: Can't Stop This Feeling

Activity 1: Literacy: Letter hunt

Duration: 10-15 Minutes

Materials: 10 plastic or wooden letters including the first letter of the child’s name and family members names. E.g. (A, B, C, H, M, L, R, S, T, K) you can add more letters later to further the child’s interest as a backup. (if you don’t have plastic or wooden letters you could make your own by writing letters on a 1-inch thick piece of card or on cardboard and cut the letters out), rice or sand, tongs/spoon, deep medium sized bowl

Beginning: Put letters into a bowl and pour rice over the top, making sure the letters are hidden. Tell the child today for our activity we have a bowl with rice and a pair of tongs. “I wonder what you will do with it?”

Middle: The child may start to pick up the tongs and begin searching through the rice. When they pick out a letter, ask them, “I wonder what letter that is? Do you know the sound of that letter? Whose name begins with the letter…?”

End: Ask the child to help you pack the materials away.

Extension you could pick a few letters for e.g. B & M, and ask them “I wonder if you can find things in the house that begin with the same letter/sound?” 

(This activity helps your child with letter recognition).

Brain Break !  

Activity 2: Math & Fine Motor – (Cutting around shapes with scissors)

Duration: 10- 15 minutes

Materials: A piece of paper with a square, rectangle and triangle drawn on it (big enough for the child to cut. Otherwise, draw two shapes on one paper and the third one on another sheet).

Beginning:  Show the paper with the shapes on it to the child and ask him/her what shapes they see in front of them. Hand the scissors to the child and ask him/her to cut all the shapes one by one.

Middle: Make sure that the child has a proper grip on the scissors and let him/her cut all the shapes out.

End: Once the child has cut out the three shapes, talk to them about their properties (For example, how many sides/points does a triangle, rectangle, square have?)

Extension: Have the child draw his/her own shapes and cut around them or  child could cut out pictures from a magazine or you could print pictures of objects the child likes each having a different shaped border/frame I.e. circle, square, rectangle and have the child cut them out. 

(This activity helps with recognizing shapes, hand eye coordination and strengthening his/her hand muscles needed for writing.)

 ___________________________________________________

Wed. 25/03/2020

Message from Ms. Leyla

 

 

 

Today's song is: Chicken Dance

 

Activity 1: Math – Numbers

Duration: 10-15 minutes 

Materials: two baskets, recycle paper,

Beginning: Let your child help you to put two baskets and make small balls out of recycle paper (you may use any other item.)

Middle: Let him/her shoot into the basket. 

End: Once finished, let your child count in each basket how many are there in each basket. Then compare and identify which one has more or less.  

Extension: Child could count the balls which fell out of the basket and compare how many went in and how many out.

(Purpose: It helps in counting and recognition of written numbers.)  

 Brain Break !

Activity 2: Science - Sink or float experiment

Duration: 10-15 minutes 

Materials: pick any item from the house like spoon, rock, scissors, feather, paperclip, small car, cotton, bowl (half filled with water)

Beginning: Place the bowl and items in front of your child. Talk about different sizes and shapes of the items. Then talk about sink and float. 

Sinking: Item goes down. 

Floating: Item stays on top.

Middle: Let the child put one item at a time. Let him/her experiment and share ideas. Encourage them to tell you if an item is sinking or floating. 

End: You may challenge your child by letting them predict before they place an item in a bowl. Ask them, “I wonder if the item will sink or float?”   

Use vocabulary: sink, float, up, down, top, bottom, predict, experiment  

Extension: Let your child sort. Let him/her put items that sink in one basket and items that float in another basket. Let him/her count.

(Purpose: This activity helps the children understand the properties of different materials.)

 ___________________________________________________

Tue. 24/03/2020 
 

Message from Ms. Leyla

 

 

Today's song is: Move and Freeze  

Activity 1: Math - Measurement 

Duration: 10 -15 minutes

Materials: A paper and pencil, a piece of yarn or rope. 

Beginning: In the living room, encourage the child to estimate how many steps to go from one place to another point in the house. For example, from the sofa to the TV.

Middle: Walk with the child while counting the steps. Then go back to the sofa and choose another point. Then, ask the child if he/she thinks it will take more or less steps. Again, walk with the child while counting the steps. Encourage him/her to compare the number of steps and use measurement words such as longer, longest (for example: (8 steps to go to the TV and 10 steps to go to the door.) Keep noting the steps on a piece of paper

End: You may help the child use the yarn or a rope to measure the distance and let him visualise the real difference between the two places. 

Extension: if your child is ready, you may repeat the activity a week later with conventional measurement tape.

 (The purpose of this activity is to familiarize the child with measurement and to gradually introduce the conventional method.)

 Brain Break !

Activity 2: Creative Arts: Bottle Shakers

Duration: 10 -15 minutes

Materials: ½ cup of dried beans, corn or rice, funnel, or a spoon, empty plastic bottle (with lid), collage materials (any kind of paper coloured or plain, some stickers, or anything that is available in the house) or tissue paper and glue.

Beginning: Place the materials and ask the child, “I wonder how we can make a musical instrument out of these materials.” Listen and acknowledge what the child is saying.

Middle: Encourage the child to place the funnel on top of the bottle opening and pour in the bean/rice in the bottle. Close the lid tightly.

End: Describe his/her work and encourage him/her to shake the bottle and listen to the rhythm.

Extension: Then bring the collage materials.  encourage the child to use his/her own creativity to decorate the bottle by giving him/her the choice to do what he/she wants.

(The purpose of this activity is to develop the child's creativity while strengthening his/her fine motor skills.)

 

 ___________________________________________________

Mon. 23/03/2020

Message from Ms. Leyla

 

 

Today's song is: Shake your Sillies out

 

Activity 1: Math (Data analysis)

Duration: 10-15 minutes

Materials: Crayons/markers/colouring pencils (whatever is available at home), paper, pencil

Beginning:  Put ten crayons/colouring pencils in front of the child and ask him/her to count them

Middle:  Once the child has counted all the ten crayons/colouring pencils, ask him/her to draw as many tally marks on the paper as the number of crayons/colouring pencils in front of him/her 

End:  Once the child has drawn the tally marks, gradually increase the number of crayons/colouring pencils and keep asking the child to   

draw as many tally marks as the number of crayons/colouring pencils he/she has counted. You can go up to thirteen crayons/colouring pencils

Extension: If the child is able to draw as many tally marks as the number of crayons, encourage him/her to write the total number in the form of a numeral (For example, ‘10’ for ten tally marks).

You could tell the child “Would you like to play a game? (if yes) say “Let’s see if you can find 10 things around the house in 1 minute, get ready get set go!” At the end of 1 minute tell them the time is up, let’s see how many things you collected.” Encourage the child to count. 

Brain Break ! 

Activity 2: Science (Sorting)

Duration: 10 - 15 minutes

Materials: Three different shapes of pasta (spiral/ shell shaped/cylindrical), one medium and three small sized bowls. Extension :Kitchen scales.

Beginning: Place different kinds of pasta altogether in one bowl and ask the child what he/she can do with the different kinds of pasta. Bring their attention to the different shapes of the pasta

Middle: Encourage the child to sort the pasta into different groups according to their shape (spiral with spiral, shell shapes with shell shaped, macaroni with macaroni)

End: Give a 3 to 5 minutes warning before ending the activity. Count the pasta while cleaning up.

Extension: Tell the child you're thinking to cook pasta for dinner but need a lot. Ask them to predict which bowl has the most? In the end tell them, let's check, encourage the child to count them or if you have kitchen scales you could have them check which bowl is heavier.

 ________________________________________________________________

Sun. 22/03/2020

Message from Ms. Leyla

 

 

Today's song is: Stomp and Clap 

Activity 1: Literacy, Writing/ Fine Motor

Duration: 10 – 15 minutes

Materials: Flour, serving tray

Beginning: - cover the tray with flour and ask the child what he/she can do with the flour on the tray

Middle: - To prompt the child, start writing a few letters in the flour on your side of the tray with your index finger. Ask the child if he/she can write his/her name. 

End: - Encourage the child to write the beginning letters of his/her family member’s or friend’s names and then let them write whatever they want to write (Writing for some children is just scribbling, while for others, it could be a few random letters or their names or some other short words). Give them a 3-5 minutes warning before the end of activity.

Extension: Child could write his/her name or last name (family name) on a piece of paper using a pencil or use a small board/laminated sheet and board marker.

(This is a multi-purpose activity that helps children develop their skill of writing different letters and also helps them develop their fine motor muscles.)

Brain Break! 

Activity 2: Fine motor and Math:  Play dough Pizza  

Duration: 15-20 minutes

Materials: play dough, rolling pin, shape cookie cutters (If you don’t have shape cookie cutters you could find different shaped objects at home to make the same impression or make different shapes using play dough), rollers/plastic knife. 

Beginning: Prepare the materials to ensure you also have a set of materials and tell the child that today they will be making a shape pizza, “I wonder what shapes you will use?” (The child may say what shapes he/she will need then say what he will make.)

Middle: Demonstrate rolling the play dough out, adding shapes, cutting the play dough into pieces. Tell the child that you want to give a slice to all members of the family, ask them if they know how many slices you need, they may say 5, (if they give a random number you can ask them to count with you) count out loud and cut the same number of pieces then encourage them to do the same. If they want to do something else you can support them by noticing them and asking them questions.  

End. At the end of the activity, give the child 5 minutes warning by explaining after 5 mins we will clean up, then encourage the child to pack away the materials.

(This activity helps the child identify shapes, count by one to one correspondence and strengthen their hand muscles and develop control over fingers needed for writing).