Starting School



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|Starting School |

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|Activities to help your |

|Child at Home |

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|Duddingston Primary School |

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We hope this booklet will help reassure you and give some ideas for home. A lot of these activities would be ones we would do in nursery and be encouraging families with at home. You know your own child best and what they are ready for, but we are happy to help if you have any questions. Parents often ask what they can do to help their child at home especially when the child will soon be starting school. There are lots of fun activities that you and your child can enjoy that will help develop all the skills they need.

This booklet has been produced to reassure parents that many of the activities you do with your child have already helped them to develop a great number of skills. Hopefully it will provide some new ideas and help you to appreciate the things that can be learnt from everyday tasks.

Children learn better when engaged in practical tasks they can see,

touch,

explore,

and ask questions about!

Learning Through Play

When we talk about play, people naturally think about young children, however, all children and young people should have the opportunity to play every day.

Play is important for the early stages of brain development and playing with your child can help build relationships for later life. But no matter what age we are, play helps to develop important skills for learning, life and work. Encouraging play is one of the best things you can do for your child, whatever their age, and it’s free. .scot/parentzone/learning-at-home/learning-through-play/

Social and Emotional Development

A child who is confident, independent and willing to try things for themselves will cope well with starting school. At school they have more responsibility for themselves and their belongings. Taking coats off, hanging them up, unpacking schoolbags, going to the toilet unaided, eating their lunch and learning the rules are some of the things children have to cope with when they start school. At home you can help to prepare them for starting school by working on the activities below.

• Dressing and undressing, fastening clothes, putting on shoes, zipping up jackets, buckling shoes, tying laces.

• Help them to make decisions by giving them simple choices between two things, e.g. Do you want to wear this top or this one?

• Playing board games helps them to learn about following instructions and taking turns as well as developing concentration.

• Tidy up toys – make this easier by concentrating on one thing at a time. Make it fun by helping and having a race.

• Sharing stories is always a good way to discuss and explore emotions and issues surrounding change and transitions, particularly at this time. Some of our favourites include

• Topsy and Tim start school

• First Day at Bug school by Sam Lloyd

• Harry and the Dinosaurs go to School

• Mouse’s Big Day(Twit twoo school) by Lydia Monks

• Whiffy Wilson the wolf who wouldn’t go to school (Caryl Hart)

• The Koala who Could and The Lion Inside by Rachel Field (both about change and being brave)

Physical Development – body

Catching and throwing to an adult or into a container –

use beanbags, different sized balls, scrunched up paper.

Play Kicking games – kick a static ball, a moving ball.

Hopping – play Hopscotch

Skipping without a rope – to music.

Play action songs -

Make an obstacle course to run around. You could try and move around it in different ways too.

Balancing while walking on planks of wood or walking on a line.

Physical Development – hands and fingers

Good hand control makes it easier when learning to control a pencil. All these activities below will help your child in P1 with pencil work

• Dough – moulding, rolling etc.

• Threading – beads, pasta etc.

• Weaving – ribbon, wool, strips of plastic bags etc through mesh or draining board mat.

• Tearing paper – make a picture.

• Cutting with scissors and sticking

• Working with small construction

materials – Lego, building blocks

• Fastenings – buttons and zips.

• Give your child lots of opportunities to use paper and writing materials. Make it easy for them by using thick pencils, crayons and felt pens.

• Using a knife to spread.

• Pouring from a jug – lots of containers in the bath or have fun with water in the garden.

Numeracy and Maths Activities

By taking part in a range of activities around number and maths in nursery and at home, children are more ready to focus on learning strategies and counting in Primary 1.

• Colours and Shapes – look for these around the house and when out walking. Play I-Spy with colours and shapes.

• Setting the table- matching and counting plates etc.

• Use teddies to play hide & seek games using position words – in, on, under, beside in front, behind, between, high and low.

• Build towers, make trains or play dough snakes and use measurement words – short, tall, big, small, long, thick, thin.

• Put toys in order of size.

• Sing counting songs – 10 in a bed, 5 green bottles etc.

• More or less – compare toys, buttons etc.

• Share out sweets or toys.

• Look for numbers on cars and doors.

• Complete a colour pattern using Lego, blocks or beads – red, blue, red, blue and so on.

• Time sequences – talk about your day – “After lunch we will go to the park then we’ll……! Talk about today, tomorrow, yesterday, before, after and next.

• Bake something – lots of opportunities for counting and more, less, full, empty.

• Sort the washing and put the socks into matching pairs.

Language Development

It is important for children to develop an understanding of rhyme and be able to talk about and share stories to enable them to begin to develop skills linked to reading, recognising letters and sounds and their own name which will be a focus in Primary 1.

• Read your favourite stories and make up stories , telling them with and without books.

• Say or sing Nursery Rhymes – play games and miss out words or say the wrong word.

• Play the memory game – Gather 10 objects from around the house and place on floor or table. Cover with a towel and sneak one object away. Can your child guess the object that is missing?

• Look for road signs, street signs.

• Play board games and snap.

• Find the letters in his/her name on signs when out and about, starting with the sound at the start of your name.

• Puppet making – Make your own puppets to retell a story or make up your own.

• Make your name – Use objects from the home or garden to make the letters of your name, e.g. lego bricks, pasta, stones.

Duddingston Nursery May 2020

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