Seeds
Plant Pots

Spring is with us and it is the time of year to get outside and think about brightening our outside spaces. Even if you don’t have access to a garden or balcony, you can still do a lot with pot plants inside and on your window sills.

Gardening with children is a really gratifying activity. It helps children to learn about where our food comes from and the cycle of life. A sensory garden enables children to explore the properties of plants, their look, feel, texture, smell and taste.

Take a trip to the garden centre. For a child, this is a novel and colourful experience. It gives you the chance to show children a wonderful variety of plants. Talk about the differences between them, the shapes and shades of leaves, the fact that some plants are good to eat but others would taste bad and could make you ill. This teaches them to be cautious about the things they may see in the wild and to be careful about picking and eating.

Look for seed packets of herbs and spices. Good ones to choose are the many varieties of mint, parsley, oregano, basil, marjoram. Read the backs of the seed packets out to the children to get them to think about what we need to do next and what other equipment you may need to plant the seeds in. In many cases it is best to plant the seeds in pots indoors to “chit” them. This is when you start the seeds sprouting before you transfer them to bigger containers or to the garden.

A good and immediate way to show children what will happen to the seeds, is to plant cress. Place the cress seeds on damp cotton wool or paper. If you keep them in the warm and damp they quickly sprout and develop and soon the children can put the cress in their sandwiches.

Happy gardening!

Bean bag

Chalk

Draw your basic hopscotch grid, then the first player throws a marker, such as a bean bag, into box 1.

The player hops on one foot (or alternating feet) all the to the last box and back, stopping to pick up the marker on the way.

Players take turns trying to throw in each box in order (1, 2, 3, etc.).

A simpler way to play is to follow the instructions above, but only to hop to the first square, pick up the marker, and return.

This game encourages hand/eye coordination and balance.

Why not ask your child to draw out the hopscotch board and to write the numbers, supporting their mathematical graphics.

Babies need daily opportunities to move freely on their tummies in a variety of stimulating, safe spaces without constraints such as clothing, or straps in baby chairs.

Floor Time

Put your baby on the floor on different surfaces and materials, eg blankets, changing mat, and in different positions, eg, front, back and each side. This will encourage free movement and balance.

Tummy Time

- Let your baby have lots of tummy time from as early as possible - little and often is best. This will encourage neck and head control.

- Lie little one on your chest while sitting in a reclined position or lying down.

- Get down on the floor with your baby. This will help their balance, as they sense the ground beneath them.

- Encourage interaction through talking, singing and shaking toys.

- Incorporate tummy time into nappy changes.

- Interact with your baby in lots of different ways - talking about what you're doing and about what they're doing, singing and reading. This will encourage listening and moving.

- Spend time stroking their hands and feet using different soft items such as feathers, ribbons and cuddly toys, and hard items such as plastic toys. This is good for sensory stimulation.

- Carry your child in different positions - in arms, on shoulder, face down on forearm. This helps with their neck and head control.

Experience the Outdoors

Take your baby outside for a walk in a pram or place on a rug/blanket, or grass if dry, under a tree to watch the leaves. This will stimulate their senses.

Here are some ideas that can help your child develop their mathematical skills both in the home and out and about with the family.

Number
• Counting steps/stairs as you go up – perfect for one to one matching
• Counting red cars, telephone boxes etc on the way to nursery or the shops
• Pairing up socks and shoes
• Laying the table – how many knives will we need?
• Helping peg out the washing
• Doing up their own buttons or someone elses?
• Looking at numbers around us – on house doors, registration plates, shop windows
• Helping with the shopping – we need three oranges and two lemons. How many altogether?
• Talking about the child’s age and those of the rest of the family.
• Use ordinal numbers (first, second, third etc.) in going through steps of a recipe, having a race down the garden, or getting dressed in the morning.

Sets and Sorting
• Sorting the washing
• Tidying away toys – getting the toys in the right boxes
• Talking about similarities and differences between objects or people
• Sorting everyday objects in the kitchen.

Pattern
• Following different sequences e.g. laying the table, getting dressed, in the same way each time
• Singing songs or telling stories with a clear pattern, sequence of repetition, e.g. Old MacDonald, Three Blind Mice, Three Billy Goats Gruff
• Looking at the patterns on curtains, wallpaper, wrapping paper. Children can print their own wrapping paper to wrap a friend’s birthday present
• Looking at patterns on buildings e.g. bricks in wall, windows
• Building with blocks and different construction toys – using one piece after another.

Shape and Space
• Describing different containers and packets in the kitchen and at the supermarket
• Finding shapes in the child’s own environment e.g. road signs, post-boxes, windows and doors, books
• Doing jigsaw puzzles (looking at the shapes of the pieces and the ‘holes’ where they could go, and keeping the overall shape of the puzzle develops spatial awareness)
• Playing with car mats, train sets, or outside on tricycles.

Measuring
• Estimating how much is needed, for example, how much bread to make 4 sandwiches, how much icing to ice the cake
• Playing in the sand pit using different containers
• Bath time or washing up time – pouring from one container to another, filling different containers, using containers with holes
• Talking about events throughout the day in order of sequence
• Drawing child’s attention to the clock – e.g. we’ll have tea when the big hand is on the 6
• Handling money at the shops. Role playing ‘shops’ at home using coins and counting out the right number
• Tidying things away into different boxes and containers – will we fit them all in?
• Comparing different lengths (dog’s lead, socks, shoelaces), weights (shopping bags, toys), areas (footprints of child and adult), sizes (teddies, chairs for child and adult) and capacity (child’s beaker and adults’ glass, bottles of squash).

Sand - or a sunny beach
A stick or index finger

Use a stick to make marks in the sand - vertical and horizontal lines, circles and crosses are good to start with.
Encourage your child to copy you then ask him/her to make marks for you to copy.
Talk about the marks and letters you make and the movements you do to make them. “I’m starting here, then going down, then stop”. “I’m starting here then going round and round and round”. “I’m going to make M for Mummy”

This helps your child develop skills and confidence in forming and connecting the curves, vertical, horizontal and zig-zag lines that form the bias of letter shapes.
Starting big then gradually working down to smaller develops as your child’s hand and eye co-ordination skills and manual dexterity skills mature and integrate.
As your child associates the language of the mark or letter shape with the action of forming these, he/she will be getting kinesthetic feedback which is essential for any motor action.
Kinesthesia is the knowledge of where each body part is and direction in which it is moving.
It is an important component of motor control for legible handwriting.