Play is the most powerful way young children learn.

Transcription

1 Play is the most powerful way young children learn. Every time you play, sing or read with young children they are learning about language. By sharing this book and play activities with them they will have the opportunity to: Use their imagination to play, talk and learn. Share personal stories and develop empathy for others. Engage in joyful reading experiences. We hope these activities will provide you with a starting point for fun play with young children. Engaging with Language and Literacy Tough Boris by 'Children can learn to read easily without being taught, by being read to, by playing games with words, and by falling head over heels in love with books.' - Remind yourself of s Ten Read Aloud Commandments before you next read with children. Share them with staff, parents and carers. s Ten Read Aloud Commandments 1. Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud. 2. Read at least three stories a day: it may be the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read. 3. Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot. 4. Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners. 5. Read the stories that the kids love, over and over and over again, and always read in the same tune for each book: i.e. with the same intonations on each page, each time. 6. Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; or sing any old song that you can remember; or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way; or be noisy together doing clapping games. Page 1 of 8

2 Page 2 of 8 7. Look for rhyme, rhythm or repetition in books for young children, and make sure the books are really short. 8. Play games with the things that you and the child can see on the page, such as letting kids finish rhymes, and finding the letters that start the child s name and yours, remembering that it s never work, it s always a fabulous game. 9. Never ever teach reading, or get tense around books. 10. Please read aloud every day, mums and dads, because you just love being with your child, not because it s the right thing to do. Before reading the story you can: Talk to them about who the author and illustrator are and what they do. Ask the children if they know other books written by. Create a display of books for you and the children to share. Talk to the children about pirates. Finding out children s prior knowledge of a subject and letting them share their ideas and understandings with others will help their comprehension and enjoyment of the story. Look at and talk about the illustrations in the story. Talk about the story that is taking place in the illustrations. Children will enjoy the simple, repetitive text of this story. Sharing the story regularly with the children will give them the confidence to join in with reading with you. When children are given the opportunity to take part in reading a story they begin to see themselves as readers. Encourage the children to join in: Let them join in with repetitive or rhyming text Choose someone to hold the book or turn the pages Give them opportunities to share personal experiences that may relate to the stories Visit to hear read Tough Boris.

3 Treasure Chest Of Books Make a special place that will encourage children to independently enjoy books. Find a sturdy box and let the children help you decorate it so it looks like a treasure chest. Display a selection of books in the treasure chest for the children to read. Include books that the children are familiar with so they can experience the story themselves. You may want to create a reading island so the children have an exciting place to read their treasure chest of books. A piece of yellow material, a blanket or cushions can be the sand. Paint a large palm tree with the children and attach it to a wall, hang the names of favourite books, authors and illustrators from the leaves. Budding Authors Give the children many opportunities to draw and write. Provide a variety of writing materials: different thicknesses of pen and crayon and pencil, scraps of computer paper, tiny notebooks, real exercise books, and coloured paper and leave them lying around so that children can draw, or draw/write, or pretend to write, or really write anything from notices for their bedroom doors, to shopping lists, letters to grandparents, complaints to parents, requests to Santa, and so on. It is tremendously important for the recognition of letters, and the relationship of those letters to sounds, that children should grapple with their own print as early as possible. Reading and writing go hand in hand: each depends upon, and improves the other, in a cycle of development. - Page 3 of 8

4 Alphabet Fun Introduce the letter p and the sound it makes. Look at the illustrations in the story and try and find things that start with p, eg, pirate, parrot etc... Get the children to clap their hands every time you read a word that begins with 'p while you are reading the story. Set up a display of items that begin with p and label them. Have the children illustrate their own pirates and add them to the display. Enjoying Imaginative Play Create a pirate setting for the children where they can imagine and play. Paint a pirate ship with the children on a large piece of paper. Attach each end to a chair or box so that the ship can stand up and the children can play inside of it. A large piece of yellow material would make a great island for the boat to land on. Discuss with the children what props they will need for their pirate play. Help them to make treasure maps, telescopes, binoculars, flags, pirate hats, eye patches and pet parrots. Sing Row Row Row Your Boat while you are creating with the children. Encourage the children s imaginative play by firstly helping them to act out the story then let their creativity and imagination take over. Create A Crew of Pirates Trace around each child on a large piece of paper. Let the children paint or decorate themselves as pirates. Encourage the children to describe themselves as pirates, eg, I am fearless. Page 4 of 8

5 Being Creative Through Play Treasure Maps Look at the treasure map that Tough Boris has in the story. Hide a treasure and make some simple maps of your own environment for the children to follow. Help the children to create their own treasure maps. These can be based on your environment or can be imaginary. Box Construction Exploring Our World Provide the children with a selection of boxes and other recycled materials to make their own pirate ships. Look carefully together at the illustrations in Tough Boris and other books or pictures of ships to give the children ideas for their creations. Row, Row, Row Your Boat Make a list with the children of other types of boats. Look in fiction and non-fiction books, on posters and pictures and the computer to find out about different boats. Use boats in the water play. Provide children with appropriate materials and see if they can make a boat that floats. Explore Water Use the story as a starting point to stimulate children s curiosity about water. Provide a challenge for the children to solve, eg, Can they devise a way to get a message to Tough Boris while he is at sea? Can you make a boat that will carry 3 pirates or a treasure chest? Page 5 of 8

6 List any other books, rhymes or activities the children have enjoyed. Make an activity table where children can experiment with floating and sinking. Gather a selection of natural and man made objects. Encourage the children to predict what will float and sink. Let the children test their predictions and sort the objects into ones that float and ones that sink. Buried Treasure Go fishing for buried treasure. Hide magnetic letters in the sand tray. Give the children a magnetic fishing rod to catch their treasure with. You can make a fishing rod by tying a magnet to a piece of string and then attaching it to a pop stick, straw or pencil. Help the children to name the letters they have caught. When the children have caught lots of treasures they can: Match the letters to the letters in their name. Write their name on a piece of card so that they can put the magnetic letter directly on top of the written letter. Sort the letters into upper and lower case letters. Sort the letters, eg, letters with curves, letters with straight lines. Having Fun with Music and Movement Aye Aye Captain When you are teaching this game the teacher is the captain and the children are the pirates. Once the children are familiar with the game they can take turns at being the captain. The captain has a series of commands that the pirates must obey by using the appropriate action, for example, when the captain calls 'Attention!' the pirates salute and reply 'Aye Aye Captain'. Page 6 of 8

7 Other commands include: Man overboard swimming action Climb the rigging climbing action North pirates run in a northerly direction South pirates run in a southerly direction Shark attack Put hands together on top of head like a shark fin Hit the deck lay on the ground Introduce only a couple of actions at a time. When the children can remember them, then introduce some more. You can make up your own commands and actions with the children. String Instruments If possible provide the children with a selection of string instruments that they can observe and or play. Listen to pieces of music that feature string instruments. Invite a musician in to perform for the children. Your local school might have some music students who would love an audience to play to. Look at pictures of string instruments with the children. Encourage children to draw pictures of string instruments. Provide the children with materials to create their own string instruments. Page 7 of 8

8 List any other books, rhymes or activities the children have enjoyed. Page 8 of 8 Other books by to try: Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes Where the Giant Sleeps A Particular Cow Hunwick s Egg Where Is The Green Sheep The Magic Hat Harriett, You ll Drive Me Wild! Sleep Bears Whoever You Are Boo To A Goose Wombat Divine Time For Bed Memories Sophie Shoes From Grandpa Feathers and Fools Night Noises Koala Lou Guess What? A Bedtime Story The Straight Line Wonder Sail Away: The Ballad of Skip and Nell Just Like That Hattie And The Fox Arabella, The Smallest Girl In The World Zoo-Looking A Cat Called Kite Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge Possum Magic