Educational Notes

SHERSTON

Each activity within Tizzy’s Toybox Special Edition focuses on developing and consolidating one or more basic skill. Of course, the activities in the program provide only one of the many ways that each skill can be fostered and below are some suggestions for further activities that you might like to try.

Beads: Comparison of totals of sets, then numerals

Ask the children to make their own necklaces using laces and beads. Compare the necklaces, introducing and modelling the use of appropriate vocabulary: ‘Who’s necklace has got more beads?’, ‘Nital has got fewer beads’. Encourage children to compare the necklaces using one-to- one correspondence, touching each bead as they count, if necessary.

Hang up two washing lines and peg a different total of items to each one every day. Create a theme around the items (for example, breakfast items for the two giants/clothes for the scarecrow) and each morning compare the new totals, writing a daily label to display with the children:

‘Today the red king has got six eggs. The blue king has got three eggs. The red king has got more eggs.’

Give each child a number card (1 – 10) and ask them to thread the corresponding number of beads onto their lace. Put the children into pairs to discuss who has more/less/the same number of beads? How many more/fewer beads they have etc.

Label two corners of the setting ‘more’ and ‘fewer’ and give each child a beaded necklace. Gather the children in the middle of the room and call out numbers 3, 5, 7 etc. Instruct

TIZZY’S TOYBOX SPECIAL EDITION

the children to move to the ‘more’ corner if their necklace has more beads than the given number, the ‘fewer’ corner if their necklace has less beads, or stay in the middle if they have the same number.

Bears: Identifying sounds

Ask the children to sit in a ‘listening circle’. Ask them to be silent for 1 minute and that at the end of the minute each child needs to describe one sound that they heard.

Make an interactive display entitled ‘What can you hear?’ Place lots of everyday items that make contrasting sounds in it. Ensure each group of children spend time exploring the display. What is their favourite sound there? Which item makes the sound?

Talk to children about the sound that their name begins with. Can they draw/find a selection of items that begin with the same sound?

Display a selection of objects on a table. Place a letter onto the front of a bag and ask the children to select some objects that could be put inside the bag.

Bucket and Spade: Positional language

Provide a seat and a familiar toy, for example a teddy and a chair. Invite the children to place teddy in a series of positions in relation to the chair, helping them to use the correct vocabulary each time. Take a photo of each position and create a display.

Choose a volunteer and whisper a position (above/over/underneath etc) to them. Give the volunteer a spade and a bag and ask them to place the spade in the