Foundation Plus

FRIENDSHIP
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Here are 5 tips to help your child build friendships👧🏻👦🏽👩🏽‍🦰🧒👩🏾‍🦱🧑🏼‍🦰
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1. Plan a playdate with someone your child chooses🗣
2. Keep the playdate short- 1/2 hours should be great👍
3. Plan ahead📗 Talk to your child and see which activities they may want to do! Also look at what they are good at as this will make them feel happy and comfortable🖍🧸🧩🎤🎨🏏⚽️🧁🍉
4. Embrace the new fads☺️Doing this is great for bonding and communicating with others as they discover something they have in common💙💗🎉
5. Talk to their teacher👩‍🏫 Speaking to someone who interacts with your child a lot may help with advice, guidance and support👌🏻
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“Friends are the people who make you smile brighter, laugh louder and live better.” 💟

THE 5 MINUTE HAND🖐🏾
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Guess what?! This is as simple as it sounds😃 You give your child a ‘warning’ that in 5 minutes they will need to do something👌🏻
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It really helps to show children the 5 minute hand when there is going to be a change in activity. Giving them a few minutes to prepare to leave the park, pack away toys, get ready for bath time, eat dinner, leave for school etc is such a help🌿🍎🥣🏏🧩🎮🚛🛴🛁
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It gives children the option of how they would like to spend their last 5 minutes and normally makes it a lot easier to leave somewhere or move onto the next activity at anytime of the day🤚🏽5️⃣✅
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When children are older you can always negotiate a little and let them finish a certain programme, play one last round etc but just having them prepared will be a huge benefit!
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Try it out if you aren’t already❤️💛💚💙💜

BUBBLE FUN⚪️⚪️⚪️
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Who doesn’t like blowing bubbles?! It is such an easy, budget friendly activity that has so many benefits. Bubble play develops gross and fine motor skills, helps with visual tracking, enhances speech and language and is a fantastic sensory activity too🦶🤚🏽🤲🏾🤏👀🗣
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Why not make your own bubble mix and wand this weekend?🥣🥢⚪️

Homemade bubbles:
-Get a large cup🥛
-Pour in 1/2 a cup of dish soap and 1 1/2 cups of lukewarm water
-Add in 2 teaspoons on sugar to the mixture 🥄
-Stir GENTLY until sugar has dissolved
-Go and blow bubbles! 🌳🌷

Ideas for bubble wands: (You can use an old wand if you have one!)
-paper clips (bend them into wands)🖇
-cookie cutters🔷🔲🟧
-straws
-a sushi stick and a paper clip🥢 📎
-pipe cleaners on a stick
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How about a bubble blowing competition? Who can blow the most bubbles in one go? Who can pop all the bubbles? How many bubbles can you see? Can you pop the biggest bubble? Are you able to ‘catch’ a bubble? 🌳👧🏻👶🏼🔢
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No matter what the weather, bubbles are just the best💙🤍💙🤍

NEW WEEK✔️
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Make Monday the start of something wonderful🎉
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Remember to use your creativity this week and never stop learning❤️

LISTENING👂🔈
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This skill is often overlooked, although it’s incredibly important!
Listening skills aid speech and language development, reading, communication, the ability to follow instructions and help in developing relationships🗣📚🔡👯‍♀️
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Here are a few ideas to help develop listening skills:

- Playing broken telephones☎️ (Make it more difficult by using alliteration or a longer sentence).
- Simon Says 🖐🏾🦶👃🏾👣👂👁
- I went to the shop and bought... 🍏🥕🍞🍦🍉
- A Nature Walk (What do you hear?)🐶🐝🐔🌲🌨🌬
- Listen to a story (Ask questions during and or after)📒☕️
- Give multiple instructions (Please may you get the milk and butter from the fridge)🥛🧈
- Sing action songs (Hokey pokey, head, shoulders, knees and toes)🎤 🎶
- Build or draw something by listening to instructions🟩🟥 ✏️
- Model good listening👂👨‍👩‍👦
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Happy Friday everyone! Have a fantastic weekend💙

ASKING QUESTIONS
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Children ask a lot of questions but this is so important and awesome too👏😀✅They are making sense of the world around them as they learn and grow🌎 Asking questions helps to build knowledge, skills, concepts, vocabulary and much more👌🏻
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“Teaching is 10% asking kids questions and 90% inspiring kids to ask you questions.”💙

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
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Developing gross motor skills is just as important as working on our fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are the larger movements we make with our arms, legs, feet and body💪🏽🦵🏾🦶🧍🏾Children rely on these skills everyday at school and at home 🏫🏡
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You can develop GMS by:
-climbing 🌳
-jumping
-catching a ball⚽️
-balancing➖
-running 🏃🏼‍♀️
-hopskotch
-dancing 💃
-riding bicycles, scooters etc🚲 🛴
-doing an obstacle course
-singing active songs🎶
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Enjoy it and remember that practice and repetition is key⭐️Never stop having fun!
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Have a fabulous weekend💙

FINE MOTOR SKILLS
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The aim of fine motor skills activities is to strengthen the small muscles that control your hand, fingers and thumb🖐🏾🤚These skills help children to perform important tasks, develop hand-eye coordination👁👁 and also improve independence😃
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Below are a few fun, creative and easy way to develop these skills:
-threading, weaving, beading 🧵
-playdough 🟢
-cutting✂️, folding, glueing
-painting with various materials 🖼
-baking 🧁
-colouring in, tracing, writing📝
-sticker collages 🐳🐠🐋
-building with lego or other blocks 🟦🟪🟧
-using pegs to clip onto paper or string
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These activities can often be incorporated into another learning opportunity too! Have fun ⭐️
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PS: With Winter upon us, get practicing on those zips and buttons too😉💙 @ Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal

AUTUMN
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Autumn is such a colourful season! Why not use the last few days of it to do some creative writing? 🍂🍁✍️
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Here are some writing prompts for you:
- It’s Autumn. What do you see, smell, taste, hear and feel when you step outside? 👁👃🏾👅👂🖐🏾
-Write a short story about a leaf that hasn’t fallen from the tree yet 🍁✏️
-You and your friends/family go on an Autumn adventure. Tell us about it 🧍‍♂️🧍🏾👭 🐄🐓🌲🐝 🐑 💦☀️
-Write down ten descriptive words about Autumn🍂☀️🎣🦋🌸
-Write an acrostic poem about A.U.T.U.M.N 🌼🕸🍓🚲🌺🐿
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Before you start, you may want to make an Autumn word bank on your own or with an adult 📝✅
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Have fun and get those creative juices flowing😀

FRIDAY FEELS🎉
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Why not do some counting/times tables to get you to that weekend start line? 🔢✅
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A 100’s chart is so useful for maths activities and can be used for a range of age groups too! If you don’t have one around your home, do yourself a favour and print/buy one today😃
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Head over to our stories to see what you can use your 💯 chart for👌🏻

Have a fabulous weekend💗🟡💚🔵

THE 5 POINT SCALE
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The 5 point scale was developed to support children in talking about their emotional needs. It is an incredible tool to use with children of all ages in the classroom and at home 😀😕☹️😠😡
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Talking about how we feel and why is so important 💙💚💛🧡❤️
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Pop it onto your fridge and give it a try!
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How do you feel today? Are you a 1,2,3,4 or 5? 👍

FRIDAY FEELS🎉
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Why not grab some chalk and do some fun learning outside?
You could also play some family games on this beautiful Autumn day!
See some ideas below:
-self portraits/ body outline trace👤
-tic-tac toe
-noughts and crosses ⭕️❌
- dots and lines •-
-hopscotch ▪️▪️▪️
-target practice 🎯
- 4 square ⚽️🔲

Have fun☀️🌲☁️❤️