School Readiness

From Easter onewards we run “school readiness” activities which will run in session twice weekly for those children going up to school in September. The days and times of the sessions will vary each week so that all children get to take part.

BLENDING & SEGMENTING letters & sounds games

These games will help the children to identify letter sounds and begin to blend them to make words which will greatly help them when they come to learn to read. An example would be objects placed on the floor, a child asked to find h-a-t and they choose the item they think is correct. The group will then clap and say each sound h-a-t. It won’t matter if they choose the wrong item as the adult will praise their try and sound out what they have chosen before finding the hat and sounding it out.

PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES

The children will have a variety of objects to use to help to strengthen their finger and hand muscles ready for writing. Things we will do will include picking balls up with tweezers, threading, using finger and thumb to twist. They will all be fun and you might not associate them with writing but trust me that once they have these skills, writing will become a lot easier for the children. As the weeks go on we will develop the activities at the children’s rate to include writing with a pencil.

P.E.

The focus of these short P.E sessions will be helping the children to become independent in taking off and putting on their own shoes and socks. We will then have a fun session of movement in between! As the weeks go on depending how the children are managing we may lead into changing into full PE kits ready for school!

CHILDREN NOT GOING TO SCHOOL

Do not worry, for those children not taking part in our school readiness activities this year, they will not miss out on special activities. While the school readiness sessions are running, the younger children will be taking part in their letters and sounds games and having Heuristic play sessions as well as the usual fun stuff!