Activity 1

R and D game

What you’ll need

• R and D worksheets including the dice (with r & d on) and the picture board/letter tiles.(print 2 if you want to play against each other!, 
• Scissors and glue for the dice.

Method

Build the dice and cut out all the letter tiles, ready for the game.

Before you begin, go through each picture with your child to check they know what each one is called. Next, take it in turns to roll the dice. For example, if you get ‘d’, then pick up a tile with ‘d’ on and place it on top of a picture beginning with ‘d’ eg; duck. The first player to cover all their pictures is the winner. Try to encourage your child to say the words out loud to see which sound it begins with.

What did we learn?

Communication and Language: Listening and attention – Showing the ability to use two- channelled attention (meaning they can listen and do for a short time).

Personal, social and emotional development: Managing feelings and behaviour – Can take turns and share resources.

Literacy: Reading – beginning to hear and say the initial sound in words.

Activity 2

We’re Going on an Egg Hunt

What you’ll need

• Collect a couple of empty egg boxes to be used as sorting trays
• Marker pens to write on the boxes.

Method

Some of the children may be familiar with the story, ‘We’re going an Egg Hunt” by Laura Hughes – it’s one of our favourites at Mount Carmel! To remind them, or familiarise yourself with the book, you could follow this link and listen to the story here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q35GN23ZFzM

Use an empty egg box as a sorting tray. Draw on the bottom of each space, the numbers in order.

Go on a hunt around the house or in the garden, counting small objects of the corresponding amount to fit inside. 

Discuss with your child what might fit? Will they need smaller objects for the larger numbers?

To expand the game, you could write the numbers out of order on a new egg box and play a reveal game, where the children must work out what number is under each egg. 

Then encourage your child to get physical! When they guess the correct number, they could try doing that many bunny hop jumps!

Boing, boing, boing!

What did we learn?

Mathematics

This activity focuses on the children’s number recognition. They will be able to recognise that numbers identify how many objects are in a set and may be able to match numeral and quantity correctly.     In counting their ‘bunny hops’ , they will realise that not only objects, but anything can be counted, including claps, steps, or indeed, bunny hops!

Activity 3

We’re going on a shape hunt

What you’ll need

• We’re going on a Shape Hunt worksheet
• Colouring pens or pencils

Method

Print off the “We’re going on a Shape Hunt” worksheet. Sing with your child, to the tune of “We’re going on an egg/bear hunt”,

“We’re going on a shape hunt,

We’re going to find lots of them,

This is fun,

What a wonderful day!”

Help your child to find the shapes in their environment, colouring the shapes as they find them, and counting how many of each they find.

You could even take a camera along for the hunt for your child to take photos of the shapes that they find. 

Discuss how many they found. Which did they find the most of? Or the least of?  Is the door a ‘tall’ rectangle? Is the window a ‘big’ square?

What did we learn?

Mathematics

This activity develops the children’s knowledge of shapes, and increases their awareness of shapes, and their similarities, in the environment. They will be able to talk about shapes of everyday objects, eg, round/tall.