Nursery Castles Language, Literacy and Early Phonics Ideas
Week 3 - 04/05/20
Story of the Week - 'Jack and the Beanstalk'
Click on the video to watch an adaptation of the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’
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Talk to your child about the story. Discuss their favourite and least favourite parts of the story. Share your favourite and least favourite part of the story too!
Ask some follow-up questions to develop understanding of the story.
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Sequencing and Retelling the Story
Download and print the sequencing pictures below. Ask your child to colour in the pictures and carefully cut them out. If you don’t have a printer, your child can draw and colour their own 4 pictures!
Once the pictures are cut out, ask your child to put the pictures in order. Use the following prompt questions to encourage your child to retell the key points of the story:
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jack_and_the_beanstalk_sequencing.pdf | |
File Size: | 797 kb |
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Week 3 - Early Phonics - Syllable Awareness
This week, we will embed the skill of identifying how many syllables are in words, and extend the skill by seeing if they can hear and identify the number of syllables in words without having to clap and count the syllables. The final game ‘Syllable Lotto’ will test your child’s skill of hearing and identifying which words have 1, 2 or 3 syllables. This is a difficult skill though, so if your child finds it difficult, continue with clapping and counting out the syllables until that skill becomes really easy and automatic. We suggest doing these activities in order, as they are set in order of difficulty.
1. Count and Clap SyllablesClick on the button below to join our friends from 'Scratch Garden' as they clap and count words with 1-3 syllables.
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2. Castle Syllable ChallengeDiscuss the new words that we learned when discussing the castle pictures.
Review the castle pictures again (see Week 3 Overview). Click on the button below to either print the worksheet or to guide the activity. If you have no printer, draw out the dots for your child to colour in how many syllables are in each word. |
3. Syllable LottoClick on the button below to access the game. Taking turns (adult and child), try to fill up your lotto boards by identifying which word has 1, 2 or 3 syllables. See if your child can hear how many syllables there are without clapping and counting them! Remember, you can return to clapping and counting if this is too difficult.
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Syllable counting and clapping can be practiced with any word, at any time throughout the day. A simple way to incorporate syllable counting into your day, is to ask your child to clap out the syllables of what they’d like at mealtimes, e.g. peas, car-rots, po-tat-oes, chi-cken, etc.
Week 3 - Early Writing - Scrolls
A long time ago in castles, they didn’t have coloured or white paper like you. They used heavy yellow scrolls to write on and then rolled them up and wrapped a ribbon or string around them to give messages to people!
Would you like to make your own scroll? You can create wrinkly scroll paper using white paper, sponges/paintbrushes and coffee/strong tea. Simply sponge/paint the cold coffee/strong tea onto your page and wait for it to dry. Once your scroll paper is dry, here are some ideas of things that you could write or draw.
If you have feathers at home, you could pretend you are using a quill to write, by taping feathers to the top of your pencils! Remember, besides writing names, early writing for most Nursery-aged children is mark-making. Invest in the mark-making process by asking your child what they have written or drawn; they will know exactly what it says/depicts, even if it looks like squiggles to you! |
Week 3 - Communication and Language - Knight
Look carefully at this picture of a knight on a horse. Can you think of some sentences to describe the picture? What time of day do you think it is? Where do you think the knight is going?
Week 4 - 11/05/20
Story of the Week - 'Zog'
Click on the video to hear a book reading of 'Zog,' written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.
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Talk to your child about the story. Discuss their favourite and least favourite parts of the story. Share your favourite and least favourite parts of the story too!
Ask some follow up questions to develop understanding of the story.
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Developing Characters from the Story
Zog, Princess Pearl and Sir Gadabout have a very important new job to do as air ambulance and flying doctors! But first, they need to prepare for their journey. What do you think the flying doctors need to pack in their bag?
Click on the button below to print, cut and stick the things the doctors will need to pack in their bag, or simply use it as a thinking prompt and draw out the things that the doctors will need in an outline of a doctor’s bag. |
Movie Time
Later in the week, as a special treat for all your hard work, you could ask your mum or dad to make a bowl of popcorn and some hot chocolate for you to enjoy while you watch the movie ‘Zog.’ Click the button below to access the BBC iPlayer link.
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Week 4 - Early Phonics – Syllable Awareness
This week, we will continue working on the difficult challenge of internally counting the number of syllables in each word. To build up to this, play a couple of warm up games with your child. Try playing ‘Active Syllables’ and ‘Silly Sound Syllables’ before 'Syllable Lotto.'
Active SyllablesStack and turn your topic word cards and action cards upside down. On your turn, pick a word card and an action card. Using the action you have chosen, split the word into syllables and see if you can count the syllables in your head. Tell an adult how many syllables you counted. Try again if you got it wrong! If you got it right, you can keep the word card! Click on the button below to print the cards or make your own.
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Silly Sound SyllablesStack and turn your topic word cards and silly sound cards upside down (same word cards as Active Syllables). On your turn, pick a word card and a silly sound card. Split the word into syllables using the sound you have chosen and see if you can count the syllables in your head. Tell an adult how many syllables you counted. If you got it right, you can keep the word card! Click on the button below to print the cards or make your own.
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Syllable Lotto
Repeat last week’s game ‘Syllable Lotto.’ Click on the button below for the resources. (If you don't have a printer, call out the words and have your child count syllables in their heads and then point to a written number 1, 2, 3.) Your big challenge this week is to see if you can figure out how many syllables are in the words WITHOUT clapping out the words! You could try making Silly Sounds in your head to count the syllables. (See Silly Sound Cards)
Parents: We would really appreciate your feedback on how your child is getting on with internally counting syllables, as it is a really difficult skill. If you could complete the following survey, it would really help us with our planning for next week. Thank you!
Week 4 - Early Writing
Encourage your child to think about their favourite scene or character from the story. Ask these questions as a prompt to build on their answer and develop thinking skills.
Scene:
Character:
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Week 4 - Communication and Language
Using the plan below, chat to your child about times when they felt brave and to help them consider new challenges that they might like to overcome. Take your time having this chat, as it can take some thinking time. Try not to answer for your child while they’re thinking!
Explain the definition of 'bravery' to your child:
"In this week's story, Sir Gadabout had to be really brave when he faced the dragons to rescue Princess Pearl from the dragons. Being brave means that you do something that was hard for you to do at first, because you felt worried or afraid, but after you did it you were really proud of yourself! You might have had to be brave on the day you started in Nursery, or the first time you went swimming, or the first time you slept all night in your own bed."
You could give them a recent example from your own life too! Then, ask your child the following questions to prompt thinking around the subject of bravery.
Explain the definition of 'bravery' to your child:
"In this week's story, Sir Gadabout had to be really brave when he faced the dragons to rescue Princess Pearl from the dragons. Being brave means that you do something that was hard for you to do at first, because you felt worried or afraid, but after you did it you were really proud of yourself! You might have had to be brave on the day you started in Nursery, or the first time you went swimming, or the first time you slept all night in your own bed."
You could give them a recent example from your own life too! Then, ask your child the following questions to prompt thinking around the subject of bravery.
- Can you think of a time when you had to be brave?
- How did you feel before you did it?
- How did you feel afterwards?
- Is there something new that you’d like to try but you feel worried or afraid?
- What can I do to help?