Dance Dance Dance

/ / Parent/Carer Support, Physical Education, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5

Oti Mabuse has joined Joe Wicks in launching live lessons for children during school closures. Strictly Come Dancing dancer Oti will provide education for youngsters currently at home as the pandemic continues across the country.

Oti, who won the BBC talent show alongside Emmerdale star Kelvin Fletcher last year, will provide children themed classes, with Trolls on Tuesday, followed by Shrek on Wednesday and Mary Poppins on Thursday. Friday will see her engage in Jungle Book-themed activities, and there’s no letting up at the weekend, either. She will provide an Aladdin themed lesson on Saturday, with High School Musical on Sunday.

Click on the picture of Oti below to go to her official YouTube channel, where all the videos can be found:

Moon Watch

/ / Parent/Carer Support, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5

As the skies have been clear at night recently, have you looked up and spotted the Moon? At the moment, there isn’t much Moon to see! The New Moon phase started on 24th March so currently we can only see a small part of the Moon. However, each night, we will see a little more.

For today’s activity, be a scientist and start a Moon chart. One key skill of being a scientist is making observations and recording results. Think about how best you can record how the Moon changes over time. At some point over the next two weeks, we see a full Moon. Make sure you note down that date and we can compare when we get back to school, or add your observations to your Google Classroom.

For some of our older children, if you’re really up for a challenge, think about why the Moon looks different each night. Does the Moon change size? Why is this happening?

Create a game

/ / Parent/Carer Support, Physical Education, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5

With the announcement of the postponement of the Olympics, I thought for today’s activity, we could think about the different games we play in PE. Today, try to create your own game.

Think about:

  • The aim of the game (how can it be won?)
  • Equipment needed
  • Number of players
  • Rules

Write it all up into one poster and maybe we can play the game when we all get back to school. Who knows, maybe one day, your game will be an Olympic sport!

Salt Dough

/ / Art & Design, Design and Technology, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5

Another day, another activity! Making salt dough is a really fun and easy activity for children and the chances are you will have all of the ingredients in the cupboard ready to go. Children, if you’re reading, you’ll need to ask an adult’s permission! Children will love using their imaginations to create all sorts of exciting objects (although simple shapes do seem to work best) and hours of fun painting their creations, but do take care to remind little ones that the salt dough is not edible.

Ingredients:

  • 250g of plain flour
  • 125g of salt
  • 125ml of water

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to its lowest setting and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

2. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and stir until it comes together into a ball.

3. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and shape into your chosen model. You can roll it out and cut out shapes, numbers or letters using biscuit cutters, or make any kind of model you can think of. We made some fruit and veg shapes plus cupcakes for a teddy bear’s picnic.

4. Put your finished items on the lined baking sheet and bake for 3 hrs or until solid.

5. Leave to cool and then paint.

Top tips

• Simple designs work best, as the dough isn’t sturdy until baked. If your child can’t decide between a tall giraffe or a flatter gecko, for example, steer them towards the gecko. Also bear in mind that the bigger/fatter the model, the longer it will take to harden in the oven.

• Try using silicone baking sheets to roll out the shapes without the need for extra flour. This saves on cleaning up your kitchen. Silicone sheets are also a quick way to bake without needing baking parchment.

• If you want to make salt dough ‘cupcakes’ like we did, pop your shaped dough into cupcake cases before you put it in the oven and bake the pretend cakes in cupcake trays.

The dough then sets firmly stuck to the paper cases, ready for painting with pretend icing, cherries or sprinkles.

Thank you to the BBC for this idea.

 

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