• Could you make a healthy snack together and make it look like a caterpillar? It could be cucumber for the body with a baby bell for the face?
• Could you try any new fruits or foods from the story?
• Can you spot and name all the food in the story when you are shopping?
• How about exploring sensory water using chopped up fruits from the story? Lemon and Orange would be nice to explore.
• You could make a symmetrical butterfly by painting one side of paper, the folding it over.
• You could watch the Makaton signed story

• Could you have an Easter egg hunt in your garden?
• Tasting a range of cooked eggs could be a new experience.
• Could you grow some seeds or bulbs and help to make them grow?
• What creepy crawlies can you find when you’re out in Nature?
• Watch the Makaton signed song “Chick, chick, chicken” by Singing Hands

• Can you count to four in all opportunities?
• Can you point out the number 4 in the indoor/outdoor environment e.g. house numbers, car registrations, in shops and on buses.
• Can you begin to recognise or match familiar shapes in the home environment?
• Could you explore number rhymes using four such as “Four little ducks?” and represent the numbers with your fingers?

• Watch Ganneys Meadow Staff Recordings of rhymes on Tapestry.
• Can you and your child play or listen to the beat of an instrument whilst you sing this song?

• Watch the story with Makaton signs ( link below) Can you
  learn some new signs?
• Put on your wellies and go and stand or stomp in the
  thick oozy mud.
• Use a torch to look around the room and track the light.
• Could you create a den to go inside?
• Visit a local forest/ park and walk through the swish swashy grass.
• To experience a snowstorm, throw scrunched up paper in the air for snowballs
• Play hide and seek with Teddy Bears around the house.
• Can you encourage your child to look at themselves in a mirror and point out their features as you name them?
• Link to story narrated with Makaton signing
  Makaton Signed Story – WE’RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT – Singing Hands

• Watch the story with Makaton signs ( link below) Can you learn to sign; car, kite, ball, tiger, paint, trumpet and kitten?
• Could you find some objects from the story and gain your child’s attention, as you sing what’s in the bag you could produce a new item of interest.
• Can you move like a tiger and go roaring around the house?
• Activities with a ball could include kicking a ball and encouraging your child to track it. If this is too easy, see if you could turn take, throwing and catching. ‘My turn, your turn’.
• Link to story being narrated with Makaton signing –
  www.youtube.com/watch?v=99SARGoQoNc

• Can your child start to show awareness of the number 2 in the indoor/ outdoor environment e.g. house numbers, car registrations, in shops and on buses?
• Support and encourage your child to begin to recognise the number 2 and show an interest in counting. Model counting the objects your child has.
• Gain their attention and support them to begin an interest in number rhymes, such as using two items to represent 2 Little Dickie Birds.
• Using a musical instrument alongside singing is a great
  way to encourage attention and to support discriminating between the different sounds they hear.
• www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b08bzfnh/numberblocks

Watch rhymes sang with Makaton

Ideas to support children’s early phonological development

Use rhymes and songs with words repeated in a string e.g. Row, Row, Row your boat. Clap, Clap, Clap your hands.

Say word strings – link with an object of interest e.g. blue block, green grass

Blow feathers, blow bubbles and listen to the quiet pop. Feel and hear them pop on your hand, knee, foot, head

Listen to the sounds the child is making. Repeat back. Add a new sound.

Make a speech sound, then add on another one and then another one to make a pattern e.g. e…i…o….s