SHERSTON
given position around the bag. The other children need to guess which positional word was whispered to the volunteer by looking at the position of the spade. The child who correctly guesses the whispered position is the next volunteer.
Outside, ask children to go under/over/next to etc the play equipment.
Caterpillar: Matching and close observation
Challenge the children to ‘Dress (child’s name)’. Ask a volunteer to model one item of clothing taken from a pair, eg one glove and ask the others to find the matching item from a dressing up box. The box could contain: socks, shoes, gloves, earrings, etc.
Give each child an item and discuss one or more of its features, for example ‘it’s red’ or ‘it’s red and stripy’. Then ask the child to find other items that match the one they have.
Hide some pairs of items (gloves and socks etc – similar and different) around the setting and ask the children to find one item each before returning to the group. They then need to find the person with the matching pair to their item.
Counting: One-to-one correspondence and number cardination
Create instruction labels for each area of the setting, showing how many children can play in each area at a time. Ensure that all the children are aware of what these labels mean and regularly encourage them to check that the correct number of children are indeed there!
TIZZY’S TOYBOX SPECIAL EDITION
Each day, lay out groups of 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 etc items around the setting, eg pencils, rubbers, paintbrushes, shapes, pieces of paper. Ask the children to keep their eyes open for groups of (x) and tell you when they find one. Write each ‘find’ on the board with the name of the child who found it and where the group was found.
Dressing Up: Making sets and recognising familiar roles
Give a group of children a selection of magazines and a target familiar role. Ask the children to find and cut out images of the clothing worn and props used by that role.
Make a collection of hats worn by familiar roles – give each child a different hat and ask them to show the rest of you something that the focus role would do. Can the other children guess what the mime is?
Encourage the children to draw a picture that shows people they think are important, or who help them. Can they explain why they have included each person?
Jigsaw: Spatial awareness
Invite children to create their own jigsaws. Firstly ask the children to draw a simple picture on a piece of card. The children could draw around shapes. Then with adult help, ask them to cut out three or four of the shapes. The children can then swap their jigsaws with other children in the class.
Provide plenty of opportunity to experiment with shape and space: banging round pegs into holes, posting shapes into matching spaces, dressing a doll with
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