In the event that your child is isolating due to COVID- 19, please spend time on some of the suggested activities on this page. Activities/ tasks should not be extensive, but accessed for short periods of time, frequently over the school day. As you can see, many of these activities are cross curricular, meaning they cover more than one area of the Early Years’ curriculum. We hope you enjoy these activities! 

Communication and Language 

• Share a book with an adult. Get your adult to ask you questions about the book. Can you answer, who, where, when, how and why questions? Can you ask your adult any questions about the book?  
• Hold ‘show and tell’ sessions together with other members of your family. What object/item will you choose to share? Explain why you are sharing this item. Can you answer questions from family members about your item? Can you ask questions about your family member’s chosen object that they have shared with you?   
• Sing a range of Nursery Rhymes together. What is your favourite part of the rhyme? Why is it your favourite?  
• Play a selection of listening games, such as ‘Simon Says’ or ‘Everybody Do This’. Follow simple instructions/ directions given to you. Can you be ‘Simon’ now? What will you ask your family members to do? Can you include two-step instructions, for example, point to your nose, then pat your head. 
• Collect natural items from the garden and create a ‘fascination table’ from these objects. Explore found items through magnifying glasses or take photos of them on a phone or tablet. Talk about the objects, for example, where you found them and what they look, feel, smell like etc. 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development 

• Play games that involve taking turns. You could complete a puzzle with your adult, taking turns to place pieces in the correct place. You could play card games like snap and pairs. The more family members who are involved, the better the sharing experience! 
• Keep an emotions diary. Every day draw a picture of how you feel (happy, sad, angry etc.) Talk about how you are feeling and discuss with an adult why you may be feeling this way.  
• Look at different stories. What emotions do the characters display? Why do you think they feel this way? How could you help each character? Discuss strategies for managing emotions with your adult. 
• Choose a toy animal to look after for a day.  How are you going to look after it? What might your animal need? Explore diet and habitat using the internet. You could make props to help you care for your animal, for example, a nest for a bird made from items around the home or behind the sofa could become a rabbit or fox’s den. 
• Provide materials, such as a large stick, stuffing, paper bag and large clothes to create a scarecrow to put up outside or a ‘Guy’ for Bonfire Night. 

Physical Development 

• Practise your cutting skills using a variety of materials and textures. Get you adult to help you hold the scissors correctly and sit up nicely to make sure you are cutting safely.  
• Create a simple obstacle course to practise both large and small movements. You could use benches to walk along, beanbags to throw into buckets, cones to run around and hoops to jump in. Try hard to move with control and coordination. 
• Practise threading using a range of items, such as ribbon, string, beads, tubes of pasta and cotton reels. What could you make?  
• Talk about your lunch or snacks. Discuss making healthy choices. What is healthy? What is not? Can we have chocolate all day, every day? Why not? Talk bout how it is important that we wash our hands before eating. 
• Provide a selection of paper and drawing implements for the children to use. Observe whether they have a comfortable grip, show control and have a preference for a dominant hand. 
• Make play dough or bread together. Explore how to use your hands to knead and pinch the dough to make shapes and create different textures.  
• Create a celebration dance. You could curl up then explode like a firework, stretch and sway like a tall tree or flutter to the ground like a leaf. 

Literacy 

• Get your adult to spread a layer of sand, flour or uncooked rice into the base of a tray. Ask a grown-up to say a sound, then use your finger or a paintbrush to write the sound into the sand/flour/rice. Get your adult to challenge you to write words, like: sun, tap, bed, pig, fin, dot, cut, mum, duck. 
• Listen carefully as you orally sound out these words: pin, sat, tap, net. How many letter sounds are in each word? Try counting on your fingers. E.g. ‘c-a-t, 1-2-3’.  
• Play a listening and drawing game with a family member. Take it in turns to sound out a word by saying the letter sounds and then the other person has to draw the item! Try the words: hat, sun, ten, pan, dog. 
• Write some letters on small pieces of paper or sticky notes. Can you build words with the letters? Record the words you make. 
• Play a game of phonics musical statues. Ask your adult to write some decodable words on pieces of paper (you could use words, at, in, if, on, am, it, dug, pen, fun, bin, tag, kit). Put some music on and have a dance around. Once the music stops, run to one of the words and sound it out. 

Maths 

• Go on a number hunt. What numbers can you find at home? You could look in books, on food packets, on clock faces, on electrical appliances. Be creative. Record the numbers you find on a piece of paper. Di you find o, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10? 
• Go on a treasure hunt. Ask your adult to hide numbers around the home and see if you can find them all! 
• Sing some number rhymes together, such as ‘Five Little Ducks’. You might like to make number cards or use your fingers to represent each number as you sing. 
• Find some 2D around the house. You could cut some out of paper. Use the shapes to create pictures or repeating patterns. Use mathematical language when talking about the shapes.   
• Have some strips of paper in different lengths and decorate them to look like snakes. Make comparisons about the snakes and use mathematical vocabulary, such as longer, shorter, bigger, smaller etc.  

Understanding the World 

• Keep a weather chart for a week. Draw a picture to show what the weather is like each day. Talk about what you notice. Is it hot/ cold? Are there any clouds? 
• Look at celebrations happening currently or those that will happen soon (Halloween, Bonfire Night, Diwali)  There are lots of lovely informative videos on CBeebies:  
  
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/radio/my-cbeebies-special-day-halloween 
  
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/show-me-show-me-fireworks 
  
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-diwali 
• Go on treasure hunts around the garden. Can you find objects which are different shapes, colours or textures? Describe them to your adult. You could hide them while you describe the object and see if your adult can guess what you have found. 
• Create a memory box at home with objects, such as photos of your family, trips you have been on, your favourite toys or special objects. Why have you chosen to include these things in your box? What makes them special to you? 
• Look up ‘hibernation’ on the internet with your adult. Investigate which animals hibernate and what they do to prepare for winter. Complete this quiz on CBeebies to test your knowledge: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/puzzles/hibernating-animals 

Expressive Arts and Design 

• Collect some autumn leaves and other materials from the garden. Use these leaves to make a picture or collage. Perhaps create a picture of a hedgehog, squirrel or another autumnal animal. 
• Draw or paint a picture of fireworks exploding in the sky. How can you make the picture sparkle, just like the fireworks? 
• Create Rangoli patterns or make diva (or diya) lamps to celebrate Diwali. What other decorations could you create for this festival of light? 
• Make some instruments at home to explore the different sounds they make. Here are some ideas you could use: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/5-instruments-kids-can-make Can you control the sound you make? Think about the pitch of the sound – is it high or low? Does the instrument sound like anything else you have heard? Put on a performance with your instrument. Your adults will love it! 
• Explore different construction materials. What do you want to make? How will you make it? What shapes/sizes will you use? Evaluate your creation once you have completed it. Would you change anything? Why/ why not? How could you make it even better? 

Additionally, you can continue to access: 

Alphablocks 

Have some fun with the letter sounds of the alphabet as they play together to tell stories using phonics. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b01cz0p1/alphablocks?seriesId=b00qjwv4 

Numberblocks 

Join in with number games and songs with the Numberblocks who work as a team to solve problems and find answers. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b08bzfnh/numberblocks