Phase 3 Resources

Letters and Sounds

I have made some fill the gap and match the pairs resources to help children with reading the digraphs and trigraphs from the Letters and Sounds Phase 3.

	Matching Pairs This is a simple game, basically the children read the word and then match up to the correct picture. I tend to ask the children to be competitive and see who can collect the most pairs. Download here.
	Fill the Gap I’m going to laminate these cards and put Velcro in the space so that when the child puts the sound in the box it will stick in. It’s all about choosing the correct sound for the word. Download here.

These resources are designed to try to encourage the children to read the trigraphs and digraphs as a single sound and not sound out each individual letter. I’m not sure if it’ll work but I am hoping to try it.

Phonics Resources

Working with Di and Tri-Graphs

I’ve noticed while doing phase 3 of the Letters and Sounds scheme that the children are struggling to use the digraphs and tri-graphs from that phase.

For example, when reading words containing that digraph, I encourage the children to sound it out. They are sounding out each individual letter, eg r-a-i-n instead of
r-ai-n. So, to help the children with their reading I’m going to make some phonic resources which I will of course share on here.

I’m thinking of highlighting the graphemes to encourage the children to read them as a collection of letters with one sound. For example:

train          stairs          fork          down

I’m hoping that highlighting these sounds will help the children to read them as a single sound without sounding out each letter.

I’m hoping this will make a huge difference but I have noticed that the Letters and Sounds scheme really works and the children make fantastic progress!

Chinese New Year

Display and Resources

This year (2013), Chinese New Year is Sunday 10th February, although celebrations will take place for the entire weekend. I will be teaching the children about Chinese New Year the week commencing 11th February.

I do enjoy sharing Chinese New Year with the children in school. They have already explored Christmas and New Year a month before so are open to understanding that in China they celebrate New Year at a different time.

Chinese New Year is an excellent way to explore new cultures and talk about different ways of life. There are so many different resources and learning opportunities, there is even a story!

This is the Chinese New Year display in my classroom, it’s almost taking over one wall!

I am very fortunate to have a mother-in-law who can send me beautiful Chinese artefacts to show the children but there are a number of shops in my area which can supply easy to find resources.

You can also find resources for Chinese New Year from learning libraries.

I bought a number of the resources I use in my classroom from the China town in Birmingham.

I’m going to talk about the resources I have in my classroom based on the best of my ability, however if I say anything wrong, please leave a comment and let me know!

ICT in the Early Years

Providing Learning Opportunities

Providing learning through ICT is extremely important in the Early Years. The children we are teaching will have jobs in the future which haven’t been invented yet, using technology that currently exists in science fiction and they will be performing services that we currently don’t know we need. It is our job to provide ICT opportunities to provide children with the skills they can build on to prepare themselves for the future.

Saying that, we don’t want to have them sat in front of a screen for hours on end. The trick is balance.

My ICT Area

It’s important to remember that ICT means Information and Communication Technology.

I am very lucky in my classroom that I have space for an ICT area on which I have two computers. The PC was donated as an old computer from anther school. It is perfect for our purposes as the children don’t do anything difficult on the computer.

The netbook on the left is a Fizz Book. I cannot recommend the Fizz Books enough! They are fantastic! Every Early Years classroom should have at least 6 Fizz Books for the children to use independently.

They work as laptops, tablets and they have an in-built camera. They are fantastic! The children really love using the Fizz Book and are engaged and excited to learn when the activity involves using the Fizz Book. Also, they are not indestructible but they are more sturdy for use by young children. Highly recommend them and hope your setting can get some!

Other ICT Activities

While computer use is the obvious place to look for an ICT lesson, there are other ICT devices you can use with the children in your class.

Maths is Everywhere!

Not Just in Maths Lessons

When children struggle with recognising numbers in the classroom I always ask parents to do number walks with their children because maths is everywhere!

This is the Maths is Everywhere display I have at school. I use it to illustrate that there are lots of everyday items that have numbers on them. There are always opportunities to share counting and number recognition with children.

It is incredible how prevalent numbers are in our every day environment.

As the collage shows, there are numbers on our every day objects such as house phones and mobile phones, computer keyboards, street signs, television remote controls and even television channels.

Watches and clocks obviously have numbers on them, but also car number plates and microwave controls.

Receipts, train and bus tickets, measuring tapes, bathroom scales and kitchen scales all use numbers, as well as the labels in clothes. I didn’t include house numbers on my collage but they are an easy one to spot as children walk to school, as well as bus numbers!

You could ask the children to do a number walk and see what numbers they can spot! The higher the numbers they can see, the more points they get! The children can count up the points and find out who is the winner!

Fine Motor Skills

Pre-Writing Activities

As you know, Reception is where Britain's youngest learn how to write.

There are a number of steps that precede learning to write:

Reading	Writing
1, Looking at books and words	1, Making marks on paper
2, Hearing and recognising noises, linking those noises to pictures	2, Telling an adult that the marks mean something
3, Picking up the first phonic sounds	3, Beginning to write the letters in their own name

Before even making marks on paper, children need to be able to hold a pencil. This is where the fine motor skills come into their own. these are exercises that strengthen the muscles in hands, wrists, arms and shoulders.

In our Reception, we spend most of the Autumn term focusing on fine motor activities for those children who need it. Many high attainers can begin Reception with excellent fine motor skills and are ready for writing, sometimes lower attainers are physically ready to write, but all children can benefit from Fine Motor activities.

Here follows a list of Fine Motor activates which will hopefully give you some inspiration:

Pennies in a Jar

image from dorkymum.wordpress.com

Picking up small objects and putting them into small holes actually requires a lot of co-ordination. If funds are a bit tight, you can cut out pieces of card in different shapes and use a small Pringles tin as a pot, simply cut a hole in the plastic lid. Children could have fun decorating the tins.

Alternatively, you could pick up a cheap piggy bank from a car boot sale.

This activity improves children’s pincer movements and builds up strength in the muscles in their hands.

Threading

A lot of fine motor activities are putting small objects into small holes, like coins in a penny jar. Threading is much along the same lines, children push any type of thread through holes in card or wood.

image from apartment therapy.com

There’s also the threading beads onto a cord which follows the same principle.

image from ot mum learning activities.com

Children really like making necklaces for adults so they can be quite motivated to thread beads, you can also encourage them to make patterns out of the beads using different colours or shapes and you can encourage the children to count how many beads they have threaded, so that’s maths in there too!

Pegs in a Peg Board

There are thousands of pegs and boards you can use for children to practice with. All of them work on children’s fine motor skills to some degree.

image from toys are tools.com

The little children do enjoy the challenge of filling the board and like creating a repeating pattern. You can also encourage children to count how many pegs they’ve done and ask them to see who can put the most pegs in the boards.

Tweezers

The action of using tweezers exercises key muscles in the hand. Encouraging the children to pick up small objects and place them in small containers encourages increased coordination and improves those all important fine motor skills.

image from learning resources.com

These are the exact tweezers that we use in our setting and the children really enjoy using them. I used Activia yoghurt pots for the children to take small objects out and put others in.

The objects you could use are small toys, dried peas, pasta shapes or anything small you have in your classroom.

Play Dough

Whether shop bought or salt dough, children love playing with play dough!

image from sure baby.com

Sure Baby.com have a recipe for edible play dough! Amazing!

With play dough, children can roll, squeeze, poke, push, flatten, squish, mush, bang, pinch and stretch. They can use small movements to make something specific and big movements to explore shape. Using play dough tools also encourages fine motor skills as children shape and cut the play dough.

Tracing Lines

This might seem a little like worksheets, but pages where the children can follow lines not only improves fine motor skills but also gives children the chance to practice concentration.

image from pininterest.com

I’ve noticed that the children do find these sheets difficult initially but it is important to repeat activities in the Early Years so that children can really get to grips with them.

Write Dance

Or something similar. Write Dance is fantastic and really improves fine motor skills. I have used Write Dance in three separate settings and implemented it in my own, it really improves the fine motor skills in those children who are really struggling.

You don’t have to use the words with the CD, there are instrumental tracks which are much better. Read the dance instructions as they will tell you what to do and have a cheat sheet beside you as you’re doing the dance with the children.

Write Dance takes five minutes out of your school day and could be used as a brain break between sessions.

More Coming Soon!

There are some ideas to get you started. I’ll post more later but if you have any other ideas please get in touch!

It’s Finished!

The Reception Space Station

My role play area is finished and I absolutely love it! It was made entirely by my teaching assistant and it looks amazing! I can’t thank her enough!

The role play area for this half term is a space station. We have used a mixture between pictures and images from Twinkl and things that the children have made themselves. There are lots of speaking and listening opportunities as well as fine motor and construction.

The planets and the rockets hanging from the ceiling were all made by the children themselves. As you can see, the wall is interspersed with images of space from the internet.

We blacked out the windows to allow the children the feeling of being in space. Space images were placed on top to give the children the space experience.

An alien one of the children created, hanging from the ceiling. I want the children to know that if they create something amazing then it will be displayed.

The children have been very creative using their construction and fine motor skills to make some amazing aliens to show us.

Using some boxes we had left over from Christmas gifts, and some kitchen foil, we made this amazing computer for the children to use in the role play area. I saw some children using this computer, they were planning their trip on the space station. Very cute!

I made these badges for the children and I was recently handed one so that I knew I would be allowed into the space station to join the children for a Space Party! Very exciting!

The box for our space shuttle here was almost thrown away! I managed to nab it and it has become the space shuttle. Painted grey and with shapes put on the outside (to encourage shape language) has inspired some wonderful pretend play!

Space is one of my favourite topics so we obviously have some role play costumes and resources already in th classroom. The children have really enjoyed the topic and are even giving me some topic based writing examples!