Summer Homework
Summer Time = Recycling Time
Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
Hello mummies & daddies,
During the summer you should try to set up a routine for your kid, from Monday to Friday, of no more than 20-25 minutes. It's better to do a little bit every day than to try to do everything in one go!
The one thing we would really like to insist on, though, is reading. Try to at least keep on reading one story (a short one, just a couple of pages) each week, and if your child is ready for it, introduce them to the pleasure of reading for reading's sake. Ask him or her, what they would like to read about and try to find something suitable. It may be Geronimo Stilton's adventures, or a book on dinosaurs! This works best in your child's native language, little by little they will be able to move on to the other languages.
Ideally, you should organize your child's routine throughout the week, alternating between maths & language with the recommended workbooks and writing practice, practising a bit of reading, and finishing each session with a bit of oral exercises such as talking in the target language and mental arithmetic (addition & subtraction, counting backwards and forwards, etc.).
The recommended workbooks for this summer are:
- Progress with Oxford: Starting to Write Words Age 4-5 (ISBN-10: 0192765698 / ISBN-13: 978-0192765697)
- Progress with Oxford: Addition and Subtraction Age 4-5 (ISBN-10: 0192765604 / ISBN-13: 978-0192765604)
- Progress with Oxford: Numbers and Counting up to 20 Age 4-5 (ISBN-10: 019276554X / ISBN-13: 978-0192765543)
Suggested Activity Books:
As we have mentioned during the tutorial sessions, you also need to keep up with language exposition. Depending on whether your kid talks in Spanish, Catalan, English, etc at home, you will need to insist on English plus Spanish and/or Catalan., or just Spanish/Catalan, etc.. To do this you can ask your child to watch their favourite TV programs in different languages; you can look up appropriate episodes on Youtube or you can use one of the suggested apps or webpages (see suggestions for Spanish/Catalan on the side bar).
Suggested Youtube videos, "SuperWHY", "Numberblocks" & "Come Outside"
READING & WRITING:
To practise writing, we are suggesting two different activities:
a) Writing controlled dictations after finishing reading the recommended stories. Depending on your child, this can be just a couple of words or a whole sentence.
b) Emergent writing by keeping a summer diary. Ask your child to think about the week, about something special that they have done and to try to write about it. Don't give them the correct spelling, let them try to figure it out on their own. The rule of thumb is that you should be able to understand what he or she was trying to write by reading it out loud. Afterwards, you give your child the correct spelling, and finally, your child copies the correct spelling.
eg line 1: I gou to de parc. (your child)
line 2: I go to the park. (you)
line 3: I go to the park. (your child)
READING:
On the left bar you'll see three links:
- "I know my phonics"
- "I can read" Level I
- "I can read" Level 2
The first one is for kids that are still struggling and need to do a bit of review. I have also included a document that you can download with easier, decodable texts.
For the kids that are already reading, generally speaking, I recommend that you start with Level 1+ and that you move to Level 2 only when your child find Level 1+ too easy.
ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAYS!!!
Suggested web subscriptions
Online learning for kids 3-7 years old with educational games, songs and read-along stories.
Even if you don't get a paid subscription, you can still access some of the features with a free basic account.
Collection of interactive and fun educational games. Children learn with activities that are challenging, yet age appropriate.
This site also offers a paid subscription that gives you access to maths and reading activities as well as several songs.
BrainPOP Jr. is a subscription-based educational video, game, and activity site for students in kindergarten through third grade. The main page is divided into maths, reading and writing, science, social studies, health, and arts and technology. This is a bit more difficult, I would recommend it either for native speakers or for next year, when your kid is in Primary 1.
Suggested apps
This is a bit more difficult because sometimes apps work for iPhone but not for Android, or the other way round, or they are only available for the UK, etc.
For the summer my two main recommendations are "PP Stories" for letters revision and reading and the full version of Quick Maths Jr. If you want to have something to expose them to the language BrainPop Jr has a movie of the week that can cover anything from maths to history of the USA., and the company Tinybop Explorers has several apps about different topics from The Human Body to Volcanoes and The Weather!
I also think it's a good idea to follow the advice of websites such as commonsensemedia.org to have a look at the different options. I'm including the link to their recommendations for 5 years old:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/reviews/age/5/category/app/genre/educational-games-60
Finally, remember that Starfall has several apps.
Science Corner
And last, but not least, SCIENCE 😀
I'm including here a downloadable document with 3 cool experiments to try at home. Have fun
And remember... Stay safe!
