Learning points: introducing the concepts for the week and the letter b. instilling a love of books and reading; the foundation of language and literacy development.
Category Archives: Online Curriculum Week 3
Language and Literacy: Let’s explore the letter Bb.
Learning points: help children to say the sound “b”, recognise the sound “b” in different words and help older children to recognise the visual formation of the letter “b”.
Do you know baboon starts with the letter “b”? What other words begin with “b”. Let’s explore together….
Additional supports to download:
B is for Baboon colouring sheet
Bb is for Baboon Worksheet for Giraffes (letter formation)
Additional Montessori inspired activity: Sensory writing Tray.
Fill the bottom of a tray with sand/flour/salt or even shaving cream. Give your child the visual letter card to copy and invite them to draw it in the tray with their finger. Benefits include: Development of fine motor skills, hand eye co-ordination, development of the sense of touch, letter recognition and letter formation.
Foundational Concepts: Yellow, circle and crescent shapes
Watering Whole @Home Curriculum Week 3
Did you have fun exploring the colour Red with us last week? This week let’s explore the colour Yellow. Corn is yellow! Bananas are yellow. In our story of the baboon who went to the moon he describes the moon as a “yellow eye”. What other things are yellow? Reece had fun exploring with red and yellow paint last week and made a very interesting discovery when he mixed the two colours together! Can you share with us what happens when you mix red and yellow together too? Let’s explore the shapes circle and crescent.  Did you know the moon is always round, but the moon does not have any light of its own…we can only see the moon by the light of the sun and sometimes the light of the sun cannot reach the whole moon and we only see part of it. So sometimes the moon will look like a circle and sometimes the moon will look like a half moon, and sometimes the moon will look like a crescent. Additional supports: Song by Teacher Inger (VIDEO) 
Our moon is round as round can be Will you draw your moon with me Round and round in a circle we go Let’s draw our moon a bright yellow Our moon is crescent as crescent can be Will you make a crescent with me Let’s stretch up high and bend to the side let’s make a crescent in the sky Additional supports: Moon shapes colouring sheet (circle and crescent) |
Science: Exploring the moon
We love this song from StoryBots all about the moon!….
ROTATIONS OF THE MOON
Our moon rotates around our earth, once each day.
Try this activity to help your child understand the rotation of the moon:
Stand in the middle of the room and explain that you are the earth. Invite your child to be the moon by running or walking all the way around you.
MOON ENVIRONMENT
Create a moon landscape for your child by placing pillows all over the floor. Then cover the floor with white or yellow sheets.
Encourage your child to explore the moon and walk across the moon surface, wearing their moon boots. You may also want to play some moon music too.
 Extension: Moon Journal for giraffes – let’s track the different shapes of the moon with this moon journal from “Buggy and Buddy” and see what we discover! |
Baking/cooking: Recipe Suggestion: Round Moon Cheese Cookies with Jam Craters!
Watering Whole @Home Curriculum Week 3
These cookies are sugar-free, so delicious and very easy to make. Learning points: Cooking and baking is wonderful fine-motor work, building up all those hand and finger muscles through pouring, squigging, moulding and poking etc. It’s also develops math skills through measuring and counting and helps children learn to follow directions too. Here we are also consolidating our learning of circles, moons and craters. Ingredients: 150g flour ½ tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt 130g finely grated cheddar cheese 130g grated chilled butter 3 TBS jam (strawberry or apricot) Directions: Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt  Add grated cheese and mix Add grated chilled butter Rub ingredients together and slowly form a dough. Add a couple of TBS of cold water if it feels too dry.  Make round moon balls and poke craters in the centre of each. Fill the centre with jam.  Bake for 10min then reduce the temp to 160 degrees and bake for 5 more min.  |
Arts and Crafts: Sensory art…the moon and its craters:
Watering Whole @Home Curriculum Week 3
| Materials you will need: -black paper or card -white crayon or chalk -something round to trace the Moon shape -flour, water (and white powder paint if you have) -paint brush -something small and round like a bottle top to make our craters with -star stickers Directions: 1. Trace a circle on your black paper  We tore up and glued on tissue paper for extra texture which was a wonderful fine motor component, but wasn’t really necessary.  2. Mix together flour and water (and white powder paint) into a thick paste and paint in your moon  3. Press your circular bottle top onto your Moon to create some craters and add some stars  Because the mixture is quite thick it takes a couple of days to dry. |
Gross Motor and Fine Motor Fun with Teacher Julia:
Watering Whole @Home Curriculum Week 3
Gross Motor and Fine Motor with Teacher Julia: This week Julia is sharing a fun gross motor obstacle course with a fine motor component too, as well as some @home-friendly fine motor games to play this week. |
Life Skills and EQ: Creating a Visual Routine and “how do you feel” chart.
Watering Whole @Home Curriculum Week 3
Have you had a chance to download last week’s visual routine? Special thanks goes to kj designs who has illustrated this visual schedule especially for the Watering Whole! Visual routines are a wonderful way to create structure and predictability to your days which will help with anxiety, reduce conflicts between you and your children and help with time management skills. How are you feeling today? This week we are sharing a downloadable from the creators of the feeling buddies curriculum that we utilise in our preschool:  How Do You Feel Chart You must be able to name it in order to tame it! Help children identify the emotion they are feeling with this handy chart. These images were custom-designed based on Dr. Bailey’s extensive research about facial expressions and emotional recognition. An essential tool for emotional awareness lessons! |