Manav Rachna International School Sector-14, Faridabad Session-2015-16 Parent Involvement Activities Level: Nursery Summer!!!Summer is almost here. Let’s give summer a big fat cheer! Of this fact I’m surely clear Summer is the best time of the year! Dear Parent Summer holidays are here again to give us respite from the scorching heat. We hope that our kids would enjoy their vacation time and learn through their surroundings and experiences. As we believe in experiential learning all the activities have been designed keeping in mind the child’s learning in their immediate environment. Children love to do things on their own, be it messing up with colours, creating abstract art on blank sheets, innovating with clay, sand or blocks and we need to give them an environment congenial for learning. So parents, have fun doing all the activities with your kiddos and capture some precious moments while doing these activities and paste the picture in the scrap book and send them to school for us to cherish those precious moments. Kindly refer these suggested sites and do age-appropriate activities www.kidszone.ws/thematic/summer.htm www.enchantedlearning.com www.pitara.comvication.shtml www.sparklebox.com www.starfall.com www.funbrain.com www.jollyphonics.com Here are some fun filled activities loaded with lots of learning. Do them with your child and watch them enjoying learning. SALT ACTIVITY Set out a box or pan of salt. Let your child make the numbers using their pointer fingers COUNTING SEEDS Cut an apple sideways and let your child discover the star. Next, have them look for seeds and count the number of seeds they find. If you want to turn this into a snack, clean out the seed area and scoop peanut butter into the hole. Makes a great snack. SHAPE GAMES STRING SHAPES Give your child a 12’’ piece of ribbon Have them practice making different shapes with their piece of ribbon COUNTING NATURE Take your child outside and play a counting game. Let your child take turns choosing an outdoor item. Then ask your child to count how many things they can find around. Example: Trees, toy cars, swings, flowers, etc. COUNTING PUSHES If you have a swing in your garden, encourage your child to count with you each time you give them a push VEGETABLE GAMES NAME THE VEGETABLE First set up a vegetable display table with 4 or 5 different seasonal vegetables. Have your children come up and hold each vegetable and repeat the vegetable name. Then place the vegetable in the bag. Have the children take turns reaching into the bag, grabbing a vegetable naming the vegetable before they pull it out of the bag. COUNTING POTATOES Set out a basket of potatoes. Have your child remove potatoes from the basket and set them on the table or floor, while he repeats the following rhyme. One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four potatoes, five potatoes, six potatoes, seven potatoes, more. Eight potatoes, nine potatoes, ten potatoes, stop! Have child repeat the rhyme while he replaces the potatoes in the basket. Hands on learning 1) Animal Puzzles Craft Don’t throw away those puzzles with missing pieces, recycle them instead! Use the remaining pieces in a craft activity by making them into different types of animal’s likebat, butterfly, elephant etc. It’s so easy .Stick the puzzle pieces on to some paper and see what animals you can create. What you’ll need: Recyclable puzzle pieces Paper Glue Craft items(paint, felt pens, googly eyes ) 2) Animal Sand Play Let your children play with sand and trace different kinds of animals. 3) Painting Patterns Using Nature We can make lots of lovely nature crafts and our crafting doesn’t cost us a lot because all our craft accessories are easily accessible outside. You are not limited by your craft accessories either because nature can be used in a variety of ways. All you have to do is go outside for a little nature hunt. Paint, press and roll all your nature items to get some lovely textures and patterns on the paper. The messier your children’s fingers are the more lovely patterns and textures that are created. To paint patterns, we can use: Paint Dried flower and leaves Seed pods 4) Making Clay Fossils Have you made fossils with your children yet? You can spend time with your kids creating many different types of fossils just using a few items from around our home making them. What you’ll need: Clay o Nature o Plastic animals o How to make fossils: It’s quite simple, which makes this activity perfect for children. Knead the clay until it’s nice and smooth. Then, roll it out until it’s flat. Lay out some items on a table. We used nature (seeds and leaves) and some plastic animals. Ask your child to use the items to make imprints in the clay. Let them choose whatever they like. They can make nature fossils, animal fossils and even footprint fossils! Let them dry in the sun. 5) Finding Animals in Clouds Cloud watching can take five minutes. It can be done almost anywhere and it’s a great way to use your imagination in nature. Cumulus clouds, with their ever changing fluffy cotton wool appearance, are the best for finding shapes. Lie down under the sky and enjoy finding out different kinds of animal shape clouds. FUN ACTIVITIES RHYME TIME Let’s enjoy each day of our vacation by tapping our feet on our favorite rhymes with puppets. (eg- “s” spider- Incy wincy spider) PICTURE READING To make children more independent through reading!! Let’s explore the “world of books” and ignite their imagination by giving them their favourite story books. NATURE WALK TIME (Focus: Listening skills) Take your child for a nature walk and let him/her listen to the environmental sounds. SORTING FOR CONCENTRATION (Focus: Motor and thinking skills) Dig the letters (s,a,t,p) in clay, sand or rice in a bowl. Ask the child to find the letters. Once found encourage the child to name them for recognition and sound. PAINT FUN ( Focus: Fine motor skills) Let the child write the letter (s,a,t,p) with the paint. GAME TIME ( Focus: Learning through playing) Hey kids! Let’s scratch our heads and get started with one of our favourite games – Name, Place, Animal, and Thing. Children have to think about the following letters while playing the game ( s,a,t,p) PLAYDOUGH TIME Give your child playdough and let them explore their imagination. HAVE LOADS OF FUN!