Our book of the week this week is 'Fidgety Fish'. Listen to the story on the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMwhyyIsQVw
Focus in Maths this week:
Following Directions
Skills:
Activity: To use directions to find something that you have hidden in the house or in the garden. You could hide a piece of fruit, a chocolate bar, a reading book, a toy etc anything you like but call it 'hidden treasure'.
Discuss these questions:
What are directions used for? Why are directions important?
For example, we need directions if we were going to go somewhere new or to help somebody else find something. Ask your child to describe to you how to get to school or walk to their grandparent's house for example. Stress the importance of using certain words to find something successfully.
Introduce these words and write them onto a piece of paper or card that you can cut out and display at home using arrows- see below:
Practise acting out these directions together by directing each other to move in a certain way through jumping or stepping in the right direction.
"The Directions Song"
Are you ready?
Chorus: Jump to the left, Jump to the right, Jump forward, And jump back.
Jump to the left, Jump to the right, Jump forward, And jump back.
Verse 1: Turn around and touch the ground, Turn to the left and turn to the right. Turn around and touch the ground, Turn to the left and turn to the right.
Chorus
Verse 2: Sit down and stand up, Jump up and down and clap your hands. Sit down and stand up, Jump up and down and clap your hands.
The Treasure Hunt
Example- Have a starting point for your 'treasure hunt' and use the directional vocabulary to direct your child to the treasure, for example, move forward two steps, turn right then walk five steps forward, go up the stairs then turn left where are you now?
Next, walk forward ten steps, turn right and jump two steps backwards, make a half turn and look under the bed, you have found your treasure!
Throughout the week practise following directions at home in any fun ways you can, but concentrating on the directional words, forward, backwards, left and right.
You could create a grid like the one below on a piece of paper and draw pictures of anything into the grid squares. Rather than pictures you could use actual objects in your grid. Choose something to put on your start position, for example, a counter, a dice or a coin. It would work better if you had a toy character as then they can see it like a real person and it would help them with positioning and movement.
Example:
Put your counter onto the start position.
Move your counter forward 2 squares.
Turn right then move forward 3 squares.
Where are you? That's right you are on the alien.
Go backwards 1 square.
Now turn right.
Go forward 1 square.
You have reached your destination- the park!
Have fun!
Challenge- If your child has a solid understanding of these directions introduce them to whole and half turns.
Example of a grid:
Following directions can be tricky so just try your best and send us some photographs to the emails below:
Victoria Park work - SullivanC17@Hwbcymru.net
Thompson Park work - WatsonK7@hwbmail.net
Good luck and have fun