Updated: Nov 25, 2021
Children in nursery will be learning to:
Begin to develop complex stories using small world equipment like animal sets, dolls and dolls houses etc. (Expressive Arts and Design)
Children in reception will be learning to:
Spell words by identifying the sounds. (Literacy)
Toy figures such as dinosaurs. You could use any figures or characters.
Take some toy dinosaurs outside to your garden or to the park. Use them to create and act out stories. Model how to add a storyline and create conversations between the dinosaurs.
As you play with the dinosaurs you could add some sound effects to help act out a story. Say 'wheee!' as you move a dinosaur down a branch. Encourage your child to make dinosaur sounds and stomping or swishing sounds as they move the figures.
By exploring voice sounds, your child will hear the difference between different vocal sounds and explore speech sounds while helps them to begin oral blending and segmenting. This means children will begin to merge sounds to make words or sound out words out loud. This will help them when the begin to read words.
Sound out a word, making the dinosaur stomp every time you say a sound. Then blend the sounds together and say the word e.g. r-o-ck, rock. This is called oral blending and will help them when they start to read words.
You can also use the dinosaurs to sound out words. Say the whole word, then make the dinosaur stomp for every sound they can hear e.g. rock, r-o-ck. This is called oral segmenting. The children pull apart the word saying the smallest units of sounds they can hear.
Children can find oral blending and segmenting a little tricky. They are great skills to practise as it will help children when they begin to sound out words to read, spell and write.
Try to choose words with 3 units of sounds.
Examples:
fern (f-er-n)
egg (e-gg)
teeth (t-ee-th)
tail (t-ail-l)
long neck (l-o-ng n-e-ck)
If you have a go at this activity and share any photos on social media I would love to see them. Please tag @miniwritersclub and let me know how you get on.
Anna
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