Activities to Support at Home
Activity ideas to keep your young brains busy and your growing bodies developing
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, PSHE is referred to as personal, social and emotional development. This area of your child's learning is concerned with wellbeing – knowing who you are, where you fit in and feeling good about yourself. It is also about developing respect for others, social competence and a positive disposition to learn.
- Share stories – retell and act them out
- Make cakes together
- Chop the vegetables for dinner together
- Give your children responsibility to help with household chores – spray the window cleaner and clean the windows is a favourite!
- Look at Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube and join in together
- Sharing a family meal and talk about your day.
- Sharing with others
- Naming their emotions
- Managing their own basic hygiene and dressing independently.
Physical Development
- Threading pasta on to wool or string
- Water play in the bath – scooping, pouring and measuring
- Design a treasure hunt around the house
- Junk modelling
- Make playdough together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv73CEzY1jg This is how!
- Musical movement games – like musical statues
- Lego and block play. Plan to build something and see if you can follow your plan
- Make sensory tray with shaving foam, soap, jelly etc
- Painting with water in the garden
- Rough and tumble play
- Building dens and tunnels with blankets and under the kitchen table
Communication and Language
- Storytelling with homemade puppets – use old socks, lolly stick and straws
- Singing nursery rhymes and action songs, such as Simon Says
- Make music with saucepans and pots
- Play guessing games – such as think of an animal and model giving clues to help your child guess the animal
- Play memory or language board games
- https://wetalkmakaton.org/ - Learn to sign the Makaton Sign of the Week
- Listening to stories and talking about them
- Talking about activities they have done or are going to do using past, present and future tenses.
Maths
- Pairing socks
- Playing board games with dice and counters
- Bigger and Smaller games – describing the 3 Billy Goats Gruff or using Goldilocks
- Add numbers to pegs and get your child to help order them
- Measuring ingredients to cook/ help make dinner
- Sing number songs
- Sorting toys by colour or shape
- Sorting coins playing money games like shops
- Build train tracks in different shapes
- Build towers from blocks – how many blocks did you use? Can you use the same blocks to build a different tower?
- Make a bowling game with toilet rolls
- Identifying numbers when out and about: on buses, door numbers etc.
Literacy
- Share story books and talk about what is happening on each page
- Play lotto games – matching pictures
- Sing Phonics songs
- Hide an object in a ‘mystery bag’ and give clues to what might be inside
- Tap out syllables to break up your name on musical instruments
- Writing their name
- Listening to and answering questions about stories identifying characters.
Understanding the World
- Blowing bubbles
- Make bread or pizzas for the family to share
- Read information books on frogs and chicks etc.
- Hunt for bugs in the garden
- Use Nature Detectives for lots of exciting activities to do at home: https://naturedetectives.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/
- Planting seeds such as cress – and watching them grow
- Look at science experiments for Early Years https://www.firstdiscoverers.co.uk/early-years-science-activities-eyfs/
- Observe the weather each day and make a weather chart
- Make a family tree – who is in your family
- Freeze small toys in ice – and work out how to get them out of the ice
- Feed the birds in the garden and keep a tally of which birds visit your garden
- Make seed bombs by mixing seeds with clay to make a small ball. Dry them out and wrap to give as presents. Make a label to attach.
Expressive Art and Design
- Dancing to music – make up a family routine
- Sing familiar songs and make up your own words to nursery rhyme tunes
- Make shakers with pasta or rice in pots
- Make your own paint with shaving foam or coloured ice
- Make props for your favourite story and act it out together
- Rough and tumble play
- Building dens and tunnels with blankets and under the kitchen table
This is not a tick list for you to work down, choose your favourites and do them as many times as you like – repeating them is good!
Resources
Please find below links to helpful resources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/numberblocks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/curations/starting-school-curation
Websites to Support Reading
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading-owl/reading
www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/onlinestory.htm
http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/children/booklists/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/english/