Teaching And Home Schooling Ideas

On a Saturday we like to do a family painting session and this week we did a video call with family in Australia so we could all paint at the same time. My husband is friend's with Ed Sumner and so we love to paint along with Ed. This week we did David Hockney's Wheat fields a painting from our local area. It's a great way to have fun with the family and get creative so why not take a look at the free videos Ed has on his Cheese and Wine Painting Club page. Grab your paints, paper and paint a masterpiece with Ed. 

Make fatballs for the birds. You will need...  Lard Bird seed Cookie cutters String Greaseproof paper Tray Mix the lard and birdseed. We melted the lard then added the birdseed and mixed the two together. Once the lard began to solidify, we spooned the mixture into the shaped cookie cutters which we had placed on greaseproof paper on a tray.  We added some string so we can hang the fatballs in the garden. We placed the fatballs in the fridge so the lard can harden. Once hard, hang the fatballs in the garden for the birds to enjoy. 

We played fizz buzz to practise some of our times tables. How to play.  1) We chose the 3 and 5 times tables. Write out the multiples of 3 to 51 and write out the multiples of 5 to 50. 2) Are any of the multiples in both times tables? 15, 30, 45. We circled these numbers in our list so it would help us.  3) Explain that as we say the numbers when we get to a multiple of 3 say fizz, when we get to a multiple of 5 say buzz and when we get to a multiple of both then say fizz buzz.  4) Say the numbers 1 to 50 taking it in turn to say a number, remembering to say fizz, buzz or fizz buzz in the correct places. We played this with some friends on video call and it was good fun. 

 Make a rainbow. You will need a tray, a mirror, a torch and white paper. Fill the tray half full of water and place the mirror into the water at an angle. Shine the torch into the water at the mirror. Hold the white paper above and you will see a rainbow on the paper. You might need to move the paper until you catch the rainbow.  You can talk about how the light is refracted by the water. The light is made up of colours that break up when the light passes through a substance such as water that bends the light. The light is shone into the water and bounces off the mirror and comes back to us broken up into the colour particles due to the water. 

A fun word game is the alphabet category game. Think of a category eg animals, then write down animals that start with each letter of the alphabet. A great activity to learn alphabet order, spellings, use of a dictionary to find words. This is a good activity to do with friends and family on a video call.  My son enjoyed this and wants to do this again with food as the category. 

Design a poster to save water. Have a chat about how we use water in the home and outside. Eg we drink water, wash clothes, wash pots, bath, shower, clean teeth, use water for cooking, wash car, water plants inside and out etc. Discuss ways to save water. Eg Don't have tap running when cleaning teeth, have a shower instead of a bath, fill up water bottles and keep in the fridge so not running tap lots of times, collect rain water in a container for gardening, share bath water. Design a poster to help save water. Make your images and wording stand out.

 Times Table Bingo. Write down 6 numbers from a times table.  We wrote them on a house picture. The children might want to write out the whole x table next to the house before they choose the 6 numbers.  I wrote 0x,1x,2x,3x,4x,5x,6x,7x,8x,9x,10x,11x,12x on slips of paper. Then pick a card eg 4x and work out 4x the chosen times table eg 4x6=24.  If you have 24 on your house then cross it off. The first person to cross their numbers off shouts bingo. You can repeat with other x tables. This is a great game to play at home with the family, over zoom with a number of children or in the classroom on whiteboards.

Play guess the number. One person thinks of a number, we started with a number between 0 and 99.  The others take it in turns to ask questions to try to work out the number.  Is the number odd, even, a single digit/in the ones, two digits/in the tens, is it a multiple of..., is it more than..., less than..., is it a square number etc.  You can write down the clues as you find out answers.  You can write out numbers it could be as you narrow it down.  You could look at a number square if you have one to help you or you can cross off the numbers on the square.  Once the guessers have narrowed down the numbers they can take it in turns to guess the number. Once you've worked out the number someone else can think of one. After you have played it a few times, you can extend the numbers to the 100s or 1000s. Happy guessing! 

With the freezing temperatures at night we tried a fun nature activity. On our daily walk we collected some nature items eg leaves, berries, seed heads.  Just be careful if collecting with little ones as some berries, seeds and leaves could be poisonous.  We put them in a tub, then added water and a piece of string we had tied into a loop. Then we placed the tub outside over night to freeze.  This is a fun way to talk about what happens to water in cold/freezing temperatures and then what happens when the sun shines. Talk about water being a liquid and freezing to become a solid/ice when the temperature is below 0, then when heat/sunshine is applied the ice melts back to a liquid. In the morning we hung our ice decorations in the tree. They looked lovely shining in the sunlight as they melted.  We were inspired by mud and bloom on Instagram. 

Design and draw Charlie's next birthday chocolate bar from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  This activity can be done as a follow on from the awesome adjectives or it can stand alone.  Read extract from chapter one of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Charlie can only think of one thing, chocolate and he only gets a chocolate bar once a year on his birthday. Imagine you are Charlie and you are getting a chocolate bar for your birthday. What do you think about the chocolate bar you get on your birthday? It's special, yummy, mouth watering, delicious, scrumptious.... How would you describe the chocolate? Think about size, shape, colour of wrapper, taste, smell....  Size - gigantic, huge Shape - rectangular, a slab Colour - golden, multicoloured Taste - delicious, scrumptious, yummy Smell - heavenly, chocolatey Now design and draw a chocolate bar wrapper/chocolate you will get for your next birthday, (remember you are Charlie.)  Think about size of wrapper, sha...

Read extract from chapter one of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Charlie can only think of one thing, chocolate and he only gets a chocolate bar once a year on his birthday. Imagine you are Charlie. Ask how do you feel about chocolate? It's my favourite thing, I dream about it, it's delicious....  What do you think about the chocolate bar you get on your birthday? It's special, yummy, mouth watering, scrumptious.... Imagine you are Charlie and you get a bar for your birthday, how would you describe the chocolate? Think about size, shape, colour of wrapper, taste, smell....  Size - gigantic, huge Shape - rectangular, a slab Colour - golden, multicoloured Taste - delicious, scrumptious, yummy Smell - heavenly, chocolatey Draw a rectangle in centre of page and write My Chocolate Bar inside, then write adjectives to describe the chocolate bar. 

Think of a word or phrase linked to the time of year or something your child is interested in eg Harry Potter, Easter time, Happy Christmas, Animals of the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, Charles Dickens, Syrian Hamsters etc Ask your child to make words from the letters. We chose Cristiano Ronaldo and we have recently done this again in a zoom call with friends. Our words this time were Charles Dickens as we had been watching a PowerPoint about the author and doing research on Dickens.  I drew a grid with headings - 1 letter word, 2 letter words, 3 letter words, 4 letter words, 5 letter words, 6 letter words etc Write the words in the grid. Think about rhyming words eg sit, nit or toad, road, load, link, sink.  If there is a letter s then which words could be made into a plural eg toads, roads, loads, sinks, links.  We even found some homophones which we had been looking at eg hare, hair, her.  We did this challenge over a few days. We go about 40 words, ho...

Ask what are homophones? Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelt differently and have a different meaning.  Examples Made, maid Which, witch Hare, hair and her Where, were, wear, we're There, their and they're Look at the word there, what does it mean? It means a place.  Point out the clue in the word, there has here in it.  Can you think of a sentence with there in it? Over there is the castle.  Look at the word their, what does it mean? It means something belongs to them.  Point out the clue in the word, there is an I in the word, and I refers to me a person who the item belongs to.  Can you think of a sentence with their in it? Their football is red. Look at the word they're, what does it mean? It means they are, the words have been shortened with an apostrophe. Can you think of a sentence with they're in it? In the nativity they're all going to be shepherds. Now on A4 paper design a poster to explain the meaning of all three words.  ...