Keith the Cat with the Magic Hat

Sunday 10 May 2020

We hope that you all enjoyed the long weekend and had some fun for the VE Day celebrations.  This week, we are sharing a story that some of you may know – ‘Keith the Cat with the Magic Hat’ by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet.

Watch it on the link or if you have it at home, read it together. This is a story that has lots of rhyming words in it. Can you hear some of them?

Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.

Creative – Can you make a magic hat or a wand? 

Reading – Being able to listen carefully is an important skill when learning to read. The game below will help you to listen really carefully. It’s available on www.phonicsplay.co.uk.  This website is free to access at the moment  using the username: March20 and Password: home.

Once you have accessed the website, the game we would like you to play is called ‘Welcome to the zoo‘.  Can you guess which animal is in the crate? Listen carefully to the sounds that you hear. Maybe you could practice making animal sounds yourself.

Mathematics- I spy zoo animalsHow many of each animal can you see? Help your child to count carefully. It will be tricky to remember which one you have already counted, so draw a line through them as you go.

Please note- When you open this Twinkl PDF, there is a page to write down how many animals you counted. Don’t worry about completing this part; we don’t expect Nursery children to be able to write digits. Just focus on the ‘I spy’ page and careful counting. 

You could maybe count your own toy animals at home if you have any, or the animals in a book. Count carefully pointing and saying the number name as you go.

CreativeCan you draw a cat?  Use two circles, then add the features. If this is tricky, why not draw the circles for your child to add the legs, ears, eyes and whiskers. Remember to talk about how many you will need to draw.

How many legs has a cat got? Count with your child as they draw on the legs.

Role play – Could you create your own ice cream shop? Paper cones and old yogurt pots could be used for the cones or pots. You could use cotton wool balls, pom poms or play dough for the ice cream. The children could practise their mark making by taking orders and making menus. See how creative you can be; your child will love to help to set this up.

We did a quick search on Google images/Pinterest and there are lots of pictures if you need a bit more inspiration.

Watch – Have you ever wondered how ice cream cones are made? What do you think the ingredients are? Maddie finds out here.

Health and self- care –Encourage your child to put on their own coat and shoes before you go for your daily walk. These self-help skills will really help your child to become more independent. Use the extra time that you have in order to develop this important skill. When we get back to Nursery, we will be amazed at how independent the children have become!

There will be another activity added on Wednesday, so keep a look out for that. We are enjoying seeing your photos, but just an email would be great. Let us know if your child is enjoying the activities or if there is something that they are missing and we will do our best to recreate these on line. Any favourite books for story time on Fridays?

Our email address is scholesf1@spherefederation.org. We would love to hear about what you have been doing. Also we are happy to answer any of your questions too.

Have fun!