What, How and Why - English Activities For Children
English Activities For Children
Melanie Bassett, our wonderful administration assistant, has a lot of different strings to her bow - one of them being previous teaching experience as a Baby Sensory class leader. In this guest blog post, Mel shares her key learnings from her time as a Baby Sensory leader, offering an over-arching approach to generating educational activities alongside a few key examples of ideas to try at home with your little ones.
"Three frequently asked questions I ask myself more and more during this time of lockdown. Many moons ago a wise and previous mentor of mine suggested I used these three questions in my teaching practices. This would allow me to challenge and establish a reason and method to each activity/teaching I was to undertake. So with the prospect of home schooling upon me I decided to adopt this approach for the challenge ahead of me. I must add I am not a qualified teacher of children or young adults, but a qualified teacher of babies less than 13 months. During these sessions with the babies I would use these questions to help guide myself and the parents with the babies through the class I would lead.
Frightened and concerned about my capabilities as a teacher to my lively three year old, I grabbed the bull by the horns and jumped right on! Here are a few fun and secretly educational activities to help children big and small keep those busy minds occupied. This guest blog series will be in three parts, starting with ‘early English’, moving on to ‘outdoor learning’ and finishing with ‘inside the home’. Some my daughter and I have done successfully, and some not so much. Some suggestions I have borrowed from close friends and family but all can have the WHAT, HOW and WHY applied to guide you through them together.
Buried Treasure
What – Buried treasure (foam letters, fridge magnets or even cardboard flash cards)
How – Bury the letters in a sandpit or tough tray with sand and encourage your little one to dig around searching for them. Talk about words beginning with the letter found.
Why – Sparking their curious nature and enabling discussions surrounding the letter found. Practice the phonics and challenge them to name words beginning with the letter sound.
Tip: This could also be replicated with water and little nets, minus the cardboard! This could be just as exciting with numbers too. The possibilities are endless.
Treasure Hunt
What – Treasure hunt
How – Using phonics/letters challenge your little ones to search for things around the house or garden using the letters chosen.
Why- Generating interest in new words or sounds in their own home environment which aids speech and language development.
Role Play
What – Reading, Reciting or acting out their favourite story
How – This one is pretty self explanatory but let’s make English fun!
Why - Building upon reading, vocabulary, speaking and listening skills by putting on a show after story time is a real hit in my house. It’s a brilliant way of testing out how much of the story they have absorbed.
English is fun! “Oh no it’s not” from the mouths of babes, or in my case my daughter. Well I say, “Oh yes it is!”. Now make yourself a well-earned cuppa and hopefully one of these activities may allow you to drink a hot drink from your sofa whilst supervising... you’re welcome!