Learning through play
Help your child develop their understanding of ordinal numbers (these describe an ordered sequence) e.g. “first”, “second” and “third”.
Example activities:
1: Toy car race
Have a race with toy cars, and ask your child “which car was first?”, then “which car was second?”, “which car was third?” and so on.
2: What’s your favourite?
Talk about your favourite foods, colours or songs together. What would be their first choice? What about second and third choices, and so on.
Top tip: Follow your child's interests, children can learn a lot through play.
If your child enjoys football you could practise counting and recording goals. Who has scored more goals? Who has scored less goals? How many more goals do I need to score so I reach 5 goals?
If your child enjoys cooking, you could practise measuring and support understanding of good hygiene. Maybe your child could write a menu for what they are making.
If your child misses somebody they could write and post them a letter.
Below are some ideas of how you can practise recognising sounds & numbers or reading words in a fun way. Play balloon pop by writing words/sounds/numbers on balloons and asking your child to find and pop the one you say. Why not label cups with sounds and make words to read or label cups with numbers can your child put them in order?
Combine exercise and learning. Set up an obstacle course or set of challenges for your child to complete when they get to the end of each challenge they have to complete a learning task e.g. read the word/count/solve the maths problem/write the word or sound. If they do this correctly they complete that level / mission and get to move onto the next fun challenge. If they don't, no problem, practise makes perfect! Show the child how to complete the learning task and then set them off to repeat the challenge again and have another go at the learning challenge at the end.
