Teaching And Home Schooling Ideas

Make birds from foil and kitchen roll. We have made a kingfisher and a robin.  You will need...  Foil Kitchen roll Felt tips or water colours Coloured card for beak and feet Glue Scissors Roll up some foil into a sausage shape and then shape into a bird shape.  Make one end the head and beak shape and one end the tail shape. On a piece of kitchen roll either felt tip or water colour paint the kitchen roll the colours of your chosen birds feathers.  If using watercolours wait for kitchen roll paper to dry and then tear up paper into small pieces.  Glue on the coloured pieces starting at the tail and working up the bird covering the foil.  The pieces can overlap and don't have to be completely glued down as this gives the impression of feathers. Cut out a diamond shape from coloured card for the beak and fold the diamond in half and glue in place. Cut out two black circles for the eyes and glue in place. Cut out leg and feet from coloured card and glue in place. Let the children look

If your child enjoys art and drawing. Why not enter the York Walls in Spring competition by Little Vikings. Here is the picture I did whilst my son and some of his friends on zoom had a go at drawing, colouring and painting their pictures. Send a photo of your child's art work to hello@little-vikings.co.uk. Include their name and age.  The competition will close on Sunday 21st March 2021. Visit the Little Viking's website for more information. 

 Rainbow Spellings Write a set of words for spelling practise in different colours then write each word in an arch shape in a rainbow colour to create a rainbow. Looks pretty and they get to practise writing out their spellings in felt tip or gel pen colours. 

Mandala art uses dots in circular patterns which have a spiritual and religious connection as the circular patterns can  represent the cyclical nature of life. You will need...  Black paper Paint or acrylic pens Cotton buds Cocktail sticks/ pencils Starting in the centre of the pages, make patterns using dots and colours working outwards.  Cotton buds make larger dots and cocktail sticks or pencil point make smaller dots. You can also create smaller pictures which can be turned into cards with mandala dots. We look forward to seeing your mandala art. 

One of the lovely teachers at my son's school had done a video lesson on mental health and well being for the mental health week which was at the start of February. The activity that went with it was the scribble game. Draw a scribble and then see what objects you can see in the lines and shapes. We loved this and both had a go. I had to turn my sheet around a few times before I saw a duck and a penguin! My son found a dog, ufo, hamster, a beaver's tail and an egg timer. Why not have a go and post your picture's here, we'd love to see them.

We love watching the birds from our kitchen window feeding from the bird feeders.  We made a feeder from a plastic milk carton in first lockdown.  We spotted lots of birds in the garden this morning - robins, sparrows, blackbirds, pigeons, great tits.  This inspired us to make another bird feeder.  Today we have made a recycled milk carton bird feeder. You need...  Milk carton Paper String Felt tips Glue Scissors Wooden lolly stick Bird seed How to make....  Cover the carton with paper.  Decorate the outside.  Cut hole in front.  Add a lolly stick for the perch. We put a hole in the front and back and pushed the lolly stick through both to keep it in place.  Put a hole through the top and thread the string through.  Fill with bird seed.  Hang outside and wait for the birds to find it.  Let us know which birds you see in your garden. 

Looking for Animal Tracks. We are lucky to live in the countryside and as we live on a farm we have fields to explore. Recently we managed to spot a number of animal tracks.  Next time you go for a walk in the countryside see if you can spot some animal tracks.  In the meantime, why not see if you can identify the animals we spotted from these photographs.  We'd love to know what you think. 

 Happy Valentine's Day. Create secret valentines messages or affirmation hearts to make any day special. Cut out a heart shape. Write a message in white wax crayon. Use water colour paints or watery paint to discover the message.

Everyday we do a zoom call with a group of friends in the village and we do an activity together.  As it was Friday before half term and the children have all worked so hard these last six weeks and I think they are all stars. We drew a 5 star hand.  Draw around your hand. Go over the outline in felt tip. Draw a star on each finger. Write your name on the hand. On each finger write one thing you are good at.  I wrote reading, art, looking after pets, cooking and my son wrote kind on my hand, which was lovely.  This is a lovely well being activity, giving the children the chance to think about things they are good at. 

Have you had some snow and managed to build a snowman? Finally we have had enough snow to build Bob the Snowman! You could get the children to draw a snowman and write an acrostic poem about the snowman. An acrostic poem is when you use the initial letter from the word to start the sentences.  Snowman Steve stands slightly sloping!  Nose pointing towards the house.  On the grass he stands majestically.  With eyes searching for the warm enemy!  Melting fast in the sun.  Away he goes.  Not back until it snows again.  If you have named your snowman you could use the name of your snowman for the poem. Think about what your snowman looks like - tall, short, wide, smiling, what is your snowman wearing, how have you made the face, arms, buttons etc think about snowy words - icy, melts, white, frosty, frozen, icicles, snow crystals, snow flakes, thaws, powdery snow, wet....  Have fun. 

Get the children to decorate a box with stickers, photos, paper, wrapping paper, drawings of things they like. We lined the box inside with tissue paper to make it special.  Then put in the box things they can use to make themselves feel happy. Eg dvd, book, paper to write a letter/card to a loved one, colouring book, paints, soft toy, fidget spinner, game, jigsaw etc We did this activity at virtual cubs , then we showed some of our friends on zoom and made another one, I joined in too and made one for myself, everyone's well being is important. It was lots of fun.  If the children are feeling sad, unhappy or overwhelmed they can look in their well being box for comfort. 

If your child likes drawing you could get them to draw a picture of their face. We used a mirror and looked at the shape of our face and our facial features and had a go at drawing our face.  We used pencil crayons to colour in.  We also talked about things we liked about ourselves physically eg hair, eyes etc We talked about charactistics that were positive about ourselves or that we were good at or enjoyed eg happy, organised, creative etc We talked about interests and things we liked eg football, art, animals, reading etc We did this on a zoom call with some friends and gave positive suggestions about each other. We wrote the words around our face, or in a list on the back of the portrait if we didn't want to write around the drawing. It was a lovely way to highlight all the positive attributes of each other and the drawings the children produced were excellent. I somehow managed to draw the teenage version of myself! 

A great way to get children writing is to use a photograph. Last week school sent my son a photo of a spooky looking house which we used as a stimulus for writing the start of a story.  Features to think about for a story opening.  Use of questions to hook reader in.  Create intrigue with use of good adjectives, adverbs, similes, personification, metaphors.  Use dialogue.  Set the scene describing the setting or characters.  Dive straight into the action We created a helping hand for story starts.  Use an atmospheric photograph as a stimulus. Could be a building, animal, countryside/city scene, holiday beach picture. We'd love to see your writing.