Pre-Maths: Self checking colour grading game.

This is a simple game for preschool or early year students when they are practising terms like light/dark and lightest/darkest when learning about colours.

Use paint colour strips from the local DIY outlet that have shades of the same colour on the strip.
Cut in a strip half length ways.
Keep one half as it is.  Cut the other half into individual colours.

Have the child arrange the single colours from lightest to darkest (or vice versa).  Then they can check the order themselves by comparing it with the intact half.

Letter A: a is for apple: dominoes

More dominoes for colour matching - this time for an "a is for apple"/fruit/nature/autumn/plants/farming theme.

  Click here to download the file for yourself.

Word Games: word mining

This is a good way for older students to practise spelling and build vocabulary.  The idea is to take a phrase or sentence and use the letters to make new words.  It can be done with pencil and paper although R found it easier to have the letters on pieces of paper so she could physically re-arrange them. (This was definitely a 'deep thought' activity as you can see!)

 

Just a few (optional) rules if you need to make it harder if you need to:

no proper nouns,

no plurals,

no abbreviations or acronyms,

words must be x letters or bigger.

Choose your phrase to fit your current theme (or have the kids suggest a silly one as we did) and off you go zero advance preparation needed too - doesn't get much better than that does it!

Letter A: a is for astronaut: dominoes

Astronaut dominoes.  Use for colour matching and learning or to match with a space theme or along with other "a is for astronaut" themed activities.

We stuck the pages onto an opened-out cardboard box to make them stronger before cutting along the marked lines to make individual dominoes but you could laminate them for a longer lasting set.

Download the pdf from here 

As of Feb 2021 this link no  longer works - please use this post instead for a remade version.

traditional board games: three mens merels

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Three Mens Merels is a traditional European game that dates back to the Middle Ages.  It is a simpler version of the better known Nine Mens Morris.

The game is for two players and is played on a 3 x 3 grid (see above).

Each player starts with three counters. The players take it in turns to place a counter on one of the circles.  Once all the pieces are on the board players can move one space to an empty adjacent space.  The game is won if you get three in a row (horizontally or vertically but not diagonally) or the other player is unable to move.

To download your own blank board for colouring in click here.

Fine Motor Skills: Ping-Pong Ball Transfer

Good practice for both little ones as well as the big ones as the closer to the hinge you hold the tongs the more effort you have to use to grip.

B had competition for this one!

Sunshine Birthday Cake

A is 7 tomorrow! He wanted to help with his cake this year, and wanted his cake to look like a sun.
Here is the result.

One chocolate cake with buttercream filling (made by all 3 kids), covered with a layer of white fondant icing and then details added in red, orange and yellow fondant icing.  We deliberately kept the design simple so it should be impossible to tell which bits of the decoration are mine and which are A's.

Sherborne Old Castle

We spent a good part of the day running round Sherborne Old Castle - owned by English Heritage.

On the way back we saw A's fantasy car of the moment.