Holiday Learning Ideas

Good afternoon parents,

Can you believe that the children in room 19 have completed their first term at school? I have had a really lovely term teaching your child and meeting each of you throughout the term. With the school holidays upon us I thought it could be helpful for you all if I briefly talked about some things you could do over the two week break to give you some ideas on how you could help your child continue with their learning and keep up a small school routine – even if it is for as little as 10 minutes a day.

I would highly recommend buying a writing book from the warehouse stationary or even the supermarket. They are only .50cents and we are using JPP junior print and picture exercise books. Any writing book that has larger than standard writing lines would helpful.

Writing

1.      Practise writing all the letters of the alphabet on lined paper. It is really important that the children do all their writing on lined paper that is the same as their writing books at school otherwise they are not forming their letters the correct way or are aware if they are sitting on the line and underneath the broken branch.

2.      Practise writing their spelling words and high frequency words that are bullet pointed below.

·        The

·        A

·        Went

·        Is

·        And

·        Can

·        Me

·        My

·        Here

·        Are

·        Like

·        In

·        See

·        We

·        Am

·        This

·        To

·        For

·        On

3.      Write a story each day on lined paper about their day. The children could complete this within ten minutes. Encourage the children to use the words they know and keep their work on the line and under the broken branch and use full stops and only capital letters at the beginning of their story.Use sentence starters such as

·        I went

·        I can

·        I like

·        Today I went to

·        I can see a

·        I like the

·        I am

 

Maths

1.      Counting to 100

2.      Counting back from 20

3.      Writing their numbers to 20

4.      Practising their basic facts addition to 10

5. Practise skip counting

 

Reading

It is really important to continue reading with the children over the two week break otherwise children can slip back. At most libraries – Blockhouse Bay and New Lynn  Public Library they have ready to read books available for the children to borrow, these books use the colour wheel system that we use at school. The children are either on Red sticker books or magenta books. This is a great way to practise their reading skills.

1.      Reading books together and encouraging your child to find words they know in the story

2.      Making words with magnets or play dough

3.      Practise writing, finding and reading the high frequency words that are listed above.

4. Practise the letters of the alphabet saying what it is and the sound it makes

5. Practise the blends we have learnt this term bl, br ,cr ,cl saying what that blend is and finding those blend words within a word e.g the, them ,this, blue ,black 

 

Fine Motor

Fine motor activities are so important to improve the children's strength in their hands and fingers. These are small movements such as picking up small objects with tweezers.

Here are some fun craftivy activies you could do over the holidays to help your child

1.      Playdough

2.      Picking up small beads,rice, shells, seeds etc with tweezers and placing it into a container

3.      Threading beads onto a string

4.      Weaving

5.      Painting

We encourage fine motor activities as it links in with the children being able to hold their pencil correctly.

Resources

Here is a website which I use for teaching resources that are all free to download and print. You can find writing templates, high frequency word flash cards, number flash cards etc.

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/