Activities that can be done throughout the week

Which Animals Live in the Rainforest?

• Watch this video ​about animals in the rainforest. Can your child tell you about some of the animals that live in the rainforest? Can they remember any facts? Can they describe the animals?. 
• Ask your child to make their own explorers outfit (e.g. binoculars, sunhat, backpack) and head out to the garden or on your daily walk. What creatures can your child find? Are they similar to any you might see in the rainforest? Take photographs. 

Draw a Picture of a Rainforest Animal on the Computer

• Ask your child to draw a picture of a rainforest animal. Can they use computing software to recreate their picture? Try Paint. 

Explore with magnifying glasses

• Use a magnifying glass to look at leaves or other items that you find in nature.

Play the Animal Jungl​e Quiz​  

• Listen to the clues. Can you match the clue to the correct animal?
• Click her​e to create your own jungle. Drag the animals onto the picture. Where do you think the animals should go? Why? i.e. ​on the ground, in the trees…​

Make a mask

Ask your child to create a rainforest animal mask then talk about the sounds that different animals make. ​CHALLENGE:​ Can they write a sentence to describe the animal ​e.g.  I like the monkey. He is cheeky. He jumps in the trees.

Make a Collage of a Rainforest Animal

• Use collage to create your own rainforest animal using recycled materials from around the house.
   

Make an Animal Home

• Create an animal home e.g. a bug hotel using things from the garden. Use a plastic tub or cardboard box. Ask your child what the animal will need in the home in order to survive.​ 

Weekly Phonics Tasks – alliteration focus

Guidance video

Monday- Think of words to describe the rainforest animals - each word should start with the same letter i.e. ​m​ad, m​unching ​m​onkey or ​l​arge,​ l​oving ​l​ion.

Tuesday- ​ Mirror play (see 2.05 on this video)  - Provide a mirror for each child or one large enough for the group to gather in front of. Play at making faces and copying movements of the lips and tongue. Introduce sound making in the mirror and discuss the way lips move, for example, when sounding out ‘p’ and ‘b’, the way that tongues poke out for ‘th’, the way teeth and lips touch for ‘f’ and the way lips shape the sounds ‘sh’ and ‘m’.

Wednesday- ​ Digging for treasure  - Collect two sets of objects suitable for use in the sand tray (or to be hidden around the home/ garden). Each set of objects must have names beginning with the same initial sound. Choose initial sounds for each set that sound very different from one another. Bury the objects in preparation for the session. As the children uncover the treasure, group the objects by initial sound and each time another is added recite the content of that set: Wow! You’ve found a car. Now we have a cup, a cow, a candle and a car

Thursday- ​Play ‘I Spy in the Rainforest’. ‘​I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with t​’. ​

Friday- ​ Made up animals

Preparation - Think up some strange names for made up animals, creatures or aliens) – the names must be strings of non-words with the same initial sound e.g. Ping pang poo pop or Mig mog mully mo.

Talk to the children about the names you have made up and help them to imagine what the strange creatures might look like.

· Provide creative or construction materials for the children to make their own made up rainforest creature (or alien).

· Comment as the children go about shaping the creature and use the creature’s strange names. Invite the children to display their creature(s) along with the name.

· Make the pattern clearer by emphasising the initial sound of an alien’s name (e.g Fo fi fandle fee). Draw the children’s attention to the way you start each word with the shape of your lips, teeth and tongue.

Letter sounds lessons:

• Mr Thorne’s alphabet series
• Read Write Inc Set 1 sounds

Weekly Reading Tasks

Monday- ​Watch ​Go Jetters: Amazon Rainforest​. Can your child tell you where the tree frog was found? What sound did it make? Which rainforest insect steals the picnic? What happens when the tree frogs aren’t there to eat the ants? 

Tuesday- ​Help your child to look through cookery books for a recipe involving cocoa/chocolate.​ If you have the ingredients, make the sweet treat!​ 

Wednesday- Ask your child to use pictures from a familiar story book to make up​ their own story or to retell their favourite story. 

Thursday- ​Enjoy listening to online stories together including: ​Slowly, Slowly, Slowly Said the Sloth ​and ​The Tiger Who Came To Tea​.  

Friday- ​ Sing Nursery Rhymes together. If you are looking for some new rhymes please take a look at the Nursery Rhymes section on the website. Miss Ibbetson singing Incy Wincy Spider was one of our favourite moments this week. She even made her own spider and sunshine! 

Research has shown that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they're four years old, they're usually among the best readers by the time they're eight.

Weekly Writing Tasks 

We will have added gross and fine motor activities as these are essential activities for developing the strength and brain connections for future writing.

Monday- Gross motor development Throw a dice and get the children to do different rainforest animal action for each number.

E. g 1 – Swing like a monkey

2 – March like an ant

3 – Fly like a bird

4 – Chomp your arms like a piranha

5 – Jump like a frog

6 – Creep like a jaguar

CHALLENGE: Make up different moves based on the rainforest.

Tuesday-  Fine motor development – Use scissors to cut leaves and flowers. If you want to take this further, you could use them to make a rainforest collage.

Wednesday- ​

Fine motor development – Make your own snake out of household items e.g. pipe cleaners (or string or spaghetti), pompoms, and buttons (or cheerios).

and / or

Draw/ paint- Talk about the rainforest with your child and ask: What can you see? What can you hear? Ask your child to draw/paint a picture of the rainforest and say a sentence about what they can see or hear.​  You could model labelling the picture and see if they will copy you.

Thursday- Say or draw a list of all the animals you would find in the rainforest.​ You might model some of the simpler animals names and see if you child would like to write the words too.   CHALLENGE: Can your child think of an animal for each letter of the alphabet e.g.​ a=alligator, b=bird.  Watch our animal alphabet challenge. There is a second video just for drawing a cats.​

Friday- ​ Using the story ​The Tiger Who Came To Tea​, draw a picture of the tiger and label the picture using words to describe him e.g. stripy fur, sharp teeth.  Here’s one way to draw a tiger. You could get your child to animate their drawings like Miss Benton did using the Chatterpix app.

Tip for developing handwriting skills:

Do lots of gross motor/ postural activities e.g.…

• Construct obstacle courses that require crawling and climbing.
• Play ‘Twister’ or ‘Simon Says’ (using odd body parts such as standing on one leg, or balancing on one foot and one hand).
• Play with balls or beanbags whilst the child is sitting, kneeling, half-kneeling, squatting and standing.
• Jump on a trampoline.
• Play games like Play “What’s the time Mr Wolf?” and “Grandma’s footsteps” where your child has to stop quickly and not move.

More activities and ideas for supporting your child’s pre-writing skills.

Weekly Maths Tasks- Number Recognition and Counting

Monday- CHALLENGE 1: Sing a counting song together.

CHALLENGE 2: Get your child to count out objects up to 3, 5, 10, or 20. This could be by touching each object or passing each object. I also love counting steps and stairs.

CHALENGE 3: Get your child to count objects then you could make marks (e.g. lines or circles) to represent each object. Encourage your child to do the same (if they don’t want to don’t worry, you showing them means they will do eventually).

CHALLENGE 4: Write down a numeral for numbers up to 5 or 10 (or maybe 20). See if your child can recognise it and count the same number of objects. Ask your child what other numbers you could write down (they may or may not also want to write the numeral for the next go).

 If your child is starting to become interested in writing numerals, they could do this in chalk in the garden, using felt tips, crayons or anything that will engage your child. To support their fine motor skills think about using bigger tools (such as chubbie felt tips). ​

Tuesday- Get your child can practise making amounts to 5 or 10 using different objects from the garden or home e.g. leaves. Or, make a tens frame​ to practise making different amounts.

Wednesday- ​Play this ​Ladybird Spots-Counting, Matching and Ordering Game. You can tailor the difficulty to your child’s level. 

Thursday- Make a garden/ home trail using arrows made from sticks. Ask your​ child to follow the trail and identify the direction. This could be done on your walk. 

Friday- ​Use a teddy and count forwards (e.g. 0,1,2,3) and backwards (5,4,3)  making deliberate mistakes. Can your child spot the mistakes? Mistakes can include omitted numbers, repeated numbers or a number in the wrong place. ​CHALLENGE​: Ask your child to spot the mistake when the numbers are written down. 

STEM Learning Opportunities #sciencefromhome

Rainforest Materials

• Have a go at coding. We love Coding Safari. It is an early programming app where children have to solve logic problems to get the animals where they need to be.
• A rainforest has lots of tall trees and grows in warm countries that have a lot of rain.  People use the wood from the trees to make paper and furniture.  They also take lots of ingredients like sugar and oil to make food. Here​ you can find a list of food and ingredients that grow in rainforests.​             
• What plants can we find in the garden? Can you name the different parts of a plant? Stem, leaves, branches, roots, flower? Try using some of the material found in your garden to make something useful. For example, a nature paint brus​h.​ 

Additional learning resources you may wish to engage with

White Rose Maths ​ online maths lessons. Watch a lesson video and complete the worksheet (can be downloaded and completed digitally).

Numbots​.​ Please ask your key worker about your child’s login.   

Talk for Writing Home-school Booklets​ are an excellent resource to support your child’s speaking and listening, reading and writing skills.​