Early Years Summer 4 – Week 4

19/6/20

Hello everyone in Early Years!

We hope you had a lovely week and enjoyed the activities last week. Thank you for sharing them with us on Tapestry, we love to see all your wonderful work. We think you are all doing amazingly well!

This week we will be continuing our dinosaur topic but we will also be concentrating on one of our No Outsider themes alongside it. The No Outsiders book we are looking at is called Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly by Sue Heap and Nick Sharratt. The main objective of the book is to understand its ok to like different things.  Please pick activities from both themes to enjoy at home. 

Reception Activities

Task 1 – Share the picture of the different fruit (below) and discuss what they are, if they have had them before and which is their favourite but also discuss the favourites of other members of the household, family members and friends.  Make a list of who likes what fruit. At the end discuss. Does everyone like the same fruit? Why do you think that?

Task 2 – Share the story Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly (see Tapestry)

Explore whilst reading the book what Nick liked and what Sue liked. Talk about how they liked different things. Ask your child Were Nick and Sue friends? Even though they liked different things they were still friends. 

Make a ‘red’ rocket or any colour rocket. 

Task 3 – Look at the picture of the different children (below) Discuss the differences you can see as well as talking about what differences they might have you don’t see – such as their likes/dislikes.  Write down some of the differences simply e.g. hair, eyes. 

Task 4 – Using a large piece of paper ask your child to draw themselves and write I like… you could use a theme such as fruit/food or let them write anything they like, like in the book. Then on the same piece of paper ask them to draw a family member or a friend and write what they like e.g. Mummy likes… My sister likes… After the picture is complete help your child to write We like/love each other. Discuss the picture.

Task 5 – Make some rainbow jelly, discuss as a family which part of the jelly is your favourite and why – is it the colour or the flavour? 

Task 6 – Make a coloured picture – choose a favourite colour and draw and colour all the things you can think of that are that colour e.g. Red – post box, school jumper, car.  Yellow – sun, buttercup, etc. 

Task 7 – Make a rainbow spinner.

Bonus dinosaur activities for both Reception and Nursery (see Tapestry for the stories)


What’s your favourite food? Draw a plate full of your favourite foods, write a list of them or help a grown up to write a shopping list of food to buy this week at the shop.


Create some bedtime rules/routines together – draw and write a list.


Look at the front cover of How do dinosaurs go to school? Before reading or listening to the book, write predictions about how you think Dinosaurs would go to school – E.g. I predict that dinosaurs will… Can you help the dinosaur to know what is good behaviour at school by completing the activity sheet below?

HOT SEAT a dinosaur. This is a fun activity for the family. Someone in the family pretends to be a dinosaur, the other members of the family ask the dinosaur questions.

Finger print dinosaurs. Could you make your own dinosaurs using paint and your fingertips?

Dinosaur skeletons. All those tubes you’ve been collecting – try and make giant dinosaur skeleton.

Blow paint – In the book How do dinosaurs eat their food, look at the blowing bubbles in milk page – do you do that? Can you make a bubble print dinosaur?
What you need: Paper, washing up liquid, a straw and paint. Scissors later to cut out your dinosaur shape. Mix the paint with plenty of washing up liquid into a low container. Pop in your straw, blow so the bubbles come to the very top of your container and then place your paper over the top – look at the effect. Once dry cut out a dinosaur shape

See the following link for further information:
https://kidsactivitiesblog.com/572/bubble-art/

Please see Tapestry for the Reception phonics task.

Reception Maths

We have been asked by some parents to share what your child should be able to do in Maths by the end of Reception. Take a look at the list below and think can my child do this. Please don’t spend the week testing them.  We have sent some activities to help to practise these skills and to show any gaps. We ask that you share anything your child is finding tricky and we can send tasks in the coming weeks that will help to fill any gaps. Please let us know via Tapestry.

I can count to twenty.
I can order numbers to twenty.
I can say a number that is one more or one less than a number I am given.
I can add add and subtract small amounts of objects.
I can solve problems that involve doubling, halving and sharing (using objects)

I can use language to talk about size, weight, capacity and distance.
I can use language to describe where something is.
I recognise, create and describe patterns.
I use language to describe shapes, including their names.

Fun computer games to practise our skills
https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/countingCaterpillar – ordering numbers.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/chopper-squad – one more/one less.
https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/funkyMummy/index.html – doubles/halving.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/addition/robot-addition – adding.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/subtraction/subtraction-to-10 – subtracting.
https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/shiftingShapes/index.html – recognising shapes.

Videos and songs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/clips/z3vwmp3- counting to 20. Counting to 20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idJYhjGyWTU. Describe where things are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKO0yQgJAho. Subitise up to 10.

Suggested activity sheets

Nursery Activities

Task 1 – Share the picture of the different fruit (below) and discuss what they are and if they have had them before. Talk about which is their favourite and also discuss the favourites of other members of the household, family members and friends. 

Task 2 – Share the story Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly (see Tapestry)

While sharing the story explore what Nick liked and what Sue liked. Talk about how they liked different things. Ask your child if Nick and Sue are friends? Even though they liked different things they were still friends. Does your child have different likes/ dislikes to their friends? Do they sometimes like to play different games?

Task 3 – Ask your child to draw themselves with something they like such as fruit/food. Can they describe their drawing? Then on the same piece of paper ask them to draw a family member or a friend and draw what they like. You could annotate the picture or your child may like to attempt to write about who is in the picture and what they like.

After the picture is complete help your child to write We like/love each other. Discuss the picture.

Task 4 – Make some rainbow jelly, discuss as a family which part of the jelly is your favourite and why – is it the colour or the flavour? 

Task 5 – Make a coloured picture – choose a favourite colour and draw and colour all the things you can think of that are that colour e.g. Red – post box, school jumper, car.  Yellow – sun, buttercup, etc. 

Please see Tapestry for the Nursery phonics task.

Nursery Maths

Task 1 ‘Roll a tower‘ – You will need a die/ dice and some building blocks. Ask your child to roll the dice and count the spots. Can they select this number of blocks and stack them on top of each other? How high can you build your tower before it falls over? Can you count all of the blocks?

Task 2 ‘2D Shape Picture’ – Can you make a picture using 2D shapes? Can you tell your grown up’s which shapes you have used? The shapes that we have been learning in nursery are: circle, triangle, rectangle, square, pentagon, hexagon and octagon. You could use shapes to make a rocket, a dinosaur or something completely different. You choose!

Bonus maths activity:
Can you go on shape hunt around your house or outside? You can use the sheets to help you record which shapes you have found.

Have a fantastic week everyone! Enjoy the activities and we look forward to seeing all your amazing work on Tapestry. Love from everyone in Early Years xx