HOME LEARNING IDEAS...

Here are just a few activities that you could choose to use at home to support your child's learning at home.

OFFLINE IDEAS...

Nerf Guns

A cool way for our Rimu Syndicate MKids to reinforce letters, words, numbers, blends, the list goes on...

Or our Kauri Syndicate MKids to reinforce times tables, division, basic facts, place value, the list goes on...

Have fun!

Design your own race track...

Builders tape, masking tape, or chalk...

Design your own race track - inside or out and let the racing begin!

curriculum activities

Mostly online, but some off-line options

Reading

Visit You-Tube for access to more picture books or audio books.  Search up your favourite titles or authors.

RNZ Story Time Website

This website allows you to explore a range of reading texts.  You are able to search by title, author and listening age.

Click here to search the site.

Storyline Online

This website provides access to a range of stories that your child can listen to.

Click here to search the site.

KiwiKids news

Kiwikids news has current events articles that kids can read and explore.

There are also questions with texts and follow up activities that can be completed if you choose.

Click here to visit the Kiwikids News website.

Reading at home

Read and talk together

Here’s a tip – talk a lot to your child while you are doing things together. Use the language that works best for you and your child.

Read with others

Here’s some tips –

Keep the magic of listening to a good story alive by reading either made up, retold or read-aloud stories to your child – with lots of excitement through the use of your voice!

When they are reading, the most common difficulty your child is likely to have is working out the meaning of new words, phrases and expressions. To do this your child will use their knowledge of words and word patterns (eg prefixes, suffixes and root words) to help build meaning. You may need to remind your child to read back and forward for clues to help their understanding of what they are reading. Talk with your child about the meaning.

Read...

Here’s a tip – help your child link stories to their own life. Remind them about what they have done when a similar thing happens in the story.

SPELLING

Maths

MATHS ACTIVITIES

How old are you?

Resource credit:  Enhancing creativity through maths· 

Learning at home activity: HOW OLD ARE YOU?

(Activities progressively get more difficult)

1. Can you write down your age and represent it in 5 different ways (e.g. words, numeral, with a drawing, on a number line, in a story?).

2. Using your age - how many sums can you create that equal your age?

3. Can you write down and order all the ages of people living in your house?

4. Can you add up all the ages of your household?

5. Can you plot all your ages on 3 different number lines (e.g. 0-100 or 0-1000 or 7-47)?

6. What is the difference between the age of the oldest and youngest member fo your family?

7. How many days have you been alive? How many hours? Minutes? Seconds?

8. How many days / hours / minutes has your entire family been alive?

Why what big feet you have!

Resource credit:  Enhancing creativity through maths

Learning at home activity: WHY! WHAT BIG FEET YOU HAVE!

(Activities progressively get more difficult)

1. Measure the length of your foot (you may need to draw around it or use your shoe). What can you use in your house to measure it? (Informal units for K-2). Can you measure it using 3 different things in your house (eg lego pieces, almonds, crayons etc)...what do you notice about the length of your foot when you use different things to measure it?

2. Measure the length of each room in your house using your foot length - order the length of your rooms from the shortest to longest.

3. Measure the length of your foot in centimeters. What else can you find in your house that has the same length as your foot?

4. Measure the length of both feet - is there any difference in the length? Check the length in millimeters to find the smallest amount of difference (sometimes people have one foot longer than the other).

5. Can you convert the length of your foot into Millimeters and Meters?

6. Using your foot as a unit of measurement (e.g Your foot is 24cm long), investigate the area of a room in your house (eg 5 feet lengths vs 8 feet = (24x5) x (24x8) = Area of room)

What's the time, Mr Wolf?

Resource credit:  Enhancing creativity through maths

Learning at home activity: WHAT'S THE TIME MR WOLF?

1. Using a stopwatch (or on a phone), close your eyes and press 'STOP' when you think it has been 1 minute. How close were you? Try it a few times to see if you can get a better idea of how longer a minute is.


2. Using a stop watch see how many things you can do in 1 minute (how many times can you write your name? say the alphabet? draw a smiley face? do star jumps or push ups?).


3. Make a list of things that you do at home that takes seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or even years.


4. Create a timetable of your day including start and end times and how many minutes / hours each activity will take.


5. Throughout the day practice reading the time on an analogue and digital clock.

NZ MATHS ACTIVITIES

Websites

20 Maths Games for 5-8 year olds

Resource credit:  Kathleen Morris

Mathematics at home

Talk together and have fun with numbers and patterns

Help your child to:

Here’s a tip – being positive about mathematics is really important for your child’s learning – even if you didn’t enjoy it or do well at it yourself at school.

Use easy, everyday activities

Involve your child in:

Here’s a tip – mathematics is an important part of everyday life and there are lots of ways you can make it fun for your child.

For wet afternoons/school holidays/weekends

Get together with your child and:

Here’s a tip – the way your child is learning to solve mathematics problems may be different to when you were at school. Get them to show you how they do it and support them in their learning.

Art - Drawing/creating

Create a kiwi...

Now here is a challenge/wero for our MKids.

Have your child create their own kiwi using natural materials (leaves and sticks).

Take a photo of their creation.

Do some research and find out some facts about the Kiwi.

What other NZ animals/birds can they make?

Make a Starfish...

Make an eleven-armed starfish out of clay (or you can use playdough! Use air-dry clay or make salt-dough (see recipe below) with salt, flour and water to sculpt a starfish. (Eleven-armed starfish actually have between 7 and 14 arms, although 11 is the most common number, so you can choose how many arms yours has.)

Salt dough recipe - click here

Literacy ideas - School kit @ Home

Credit: SchoolKit @ Home

WATCH: This video of kids trying food from different children's books

TALK: Would you try any of the foods in the video? Explain why for each one? What is the most delicious thing you've ever eaten? How about the most disgusting? Would you rather eat a delicious meal that looks disgusting or a disgusting meal that looks delicious?

DO: Create a menu for a restaurant, filled with the most disgusting dishes you can imagine. Think of all the foods you hate and the worst possible combinations of them.

Singing and Dancing

Writing 

Animal mix up writing

Write a story to explain how this ele-fly or butter-phant came to be.

How did the animal body parts get mixed up.

Create your own list of mixed up animals.  

Can you draw a picture for each animal on your list?

Now write a story/narrative about your Tiny Dragon.

Writing at home

Write for fun

Here’s a tip – keep writing fun and use any excuse you can think of to encourage your child to write about anything, any time.

Talk about your child’s writing

Here’s a tip – talk about what your child writes. Be interested. If you don’t understand what their story is about, ask them to tell you more about it. Use questions they will want to answer.

Write for a reason

Here’s a tip – be a great role model. Show your child that you write for all sorts of reasons. Let them see you enjoying writing. Write to them sometimes, too. You can use your first language – this helps your child’s learning, too.


Te REo

Resource Credit:  Roschelle Koia

LEARNING THROUGH PLAY

Learning Through Play

Check out some of the different learning through play activities listed below.