Each day we will be putting up a new challenge for you to do. Some will be education-based, some will be more physical, some will be creative and crafty but hopefully they will all be fun!
If your child would like to send a picture of what they have been up to at home or send a message to us, we would love to hear from them. Please use the email address mrschesterteacher@gmail.com and we will get back to them.
Day 74, Friday 12th June – We hope you have enjoyed our daily challenges for the last few months. Today’s will be the last one we will post as on Monday 15th June we will be posting ideas for lessons/activities you can do at home with a particular theme or topic. These will be displayed on the new ‘Weekly Topic’ tab. Until then though, here is your challenge for today!
– After all that dressing practice yesterday, why don’t you create a scarecrow for the garden and use some old clothes to dress him/her. Here is the Julia Donaldson story ‘The Scarecrows’ Wedding’ on you tube for you to listen to The Sacrecrows’ wedding
Day 73, Thursday 11th June – See if you can get yourself dressed today without any grown up help. You can choose your own clothes, button up your own shirt, zip up your cardigan or coat and tie your own laces.
Day 72, Wednesday 10th June – Draw around your hand (or ask a grown up to do it for you). In each of the fingers, write or draw something or someone that you love. You could ask all of your family to do the same, cut them out and join the hands together to make a chain! We’d love to see a picture of your creations.
Day 71, Tuesday 9th June – Think of a song or a rhyme that you know. Can you change some of the words to make up a new song or rhyme? You could make it really funny! Or you could do it so it doesn’t make sense at all! Why don’t you film yourself singing or saying it and send it to the email address above so we can put it on the website gallery?
Day 70, Monday 8th June – On your walk today, collect lots of twigs, leaves and natural objects that might have fallen onto the ground or been blown down by the wind. Can you arrange them to make a picture? There is an artist called Andy Goldsworthy who makes lots of lovely pictures from nature. Here is one of his designs:
Day 69, Sunday 7th June – Collect a variety of leaves and do some leaf rubbing. What type of pictures can you make with the rubbings? It would be lovely if you could send us some photos of your pictures for the website.
Day 68, Saturday 6th June – Thinking about the people who help us, design a new uniform for one of them!
Day 67, Friday 5th June – Ask a grown up to blindfold you with a scarf. The grown up can then give you lots of things for you to smell – can you guess what they are?
Day 66, Thursday 4th June – Freddie Fox has been helping Mrs Chester learn the letter sound ‘n’ on the phonics page. Can you find some objects around the house that start with this sound?
Day 65, Wednesday 3rd June – Can you find some objects of different lengths? Which one is the longest? Which is the shortest? Can you put them in order?
Day 64, Tuesday 2nd June – Think about all the people who help us in our community and make a list of them with a grown up. What would you like to be when you grow up?
Day 63, Monday 1st June – Colour a picture. You could print one from the internet or maybe use one from a colouring book you already have. Can you stay between the lines? Think carefully about the colours you are using for each bit. Can you remember how we hold our pencils at HETTY?
Day 62, Sunday 31st May – Help to sweep or vacuum the floor today. Put on your favourite song and make up a dance as you go. You could even change the words to the song and make up your own! Get your grown up to film it and send it to us to put in the gallery if you like!
Day 61, Saturday 30th May – Set the table for tea. How many knives, forks, glasses and plates do you need? Write or draw place names for each person that will be eating with you.
Day 60, Friday 29th May – Share a favourite story together. Talk about the plot, the setting and the characters.
Day 59, Thursday 28th May – Tidy up all the books on your bookshelf and make sure they are all the right way up. Can you stack them from the tallest to the shortest? You could arrange them in lots of other ways too; in colours like a rainbow, in alphabetical order, in topics (books about animals, people, transport, etc.) Why don’t you open your own ‘library?’ Make tickets to check books in and out of your library and use a stamper to stamp each person’s ticket. Make sure they bring them back to swap for another one!
Day 58, Wednesday 27th May – Ask a grown up to cut out some 2D shapes such as squares, circles, rectangles and triangles from coloured paper or magazines. Use these shapes to create a picture. Can you make a person? A house? An animal? Why don’t you send us a picture of your creation for us to put on our gallery? Email them to mrschesterteacher@gmail.com
Day 57, Tuesday 26th May – Play with different jugs, bowls, cups and spoons. Can you guess how many cups it will take to fill the jug? Which jug holds the most? How can you find out?
Day 56, Monday 25th May – Look through some family photos. Talk about the things you have enjoyed doing together. If you have older photos, talk about what life was like for parents/grandparents when they were younger.
Day 55, Sunday 24th May – Today, help your grown up to prepare the dinner/tea. What are you going to have? What ingredients do you need? Do you have to weigh them? How long does it need to cook for? Can you set a timer? Perhaps you could design a menu to put on the table for the rest of the family.
Day 54, Saturday 23rd May – Decorate a kitchen roll tube or roll up the cardboard from a cereal box and make a pirate’s telescope. Make a pirate ship out of chairs and sheets and set sail for Treasure Island. Keep looking out of your telescope and write down or draw what you see in your ‘Captain’s log book.’ Ahoy me hearties!
Day 53, Friday 22nd May – Read a favourite story together and then watch the film version (eg. Gruffalo, Stick Man, Kipper, etc.) Talk about the differences between them. What did you like? What didn’t you like? How did it make you feel? Which was your favourite part?
Day 52, Thursday 21st May – When you have your lunch today, have a good look at the food and see if you can find out where it all comes from and how it is made. Remember our story about the little boy called Pip who wanted to make some bread?
Day 51, Wednesday 20th May – Collect a variety of leaves when out on a walk. Bring them home and have a good look at them. How are they the same? Or different? Sort them into different piles however you like – size, colour, shape, pointy, smooth, etc.
Day 50, Tuesday 19th May – Look up some yoga poses on the internet that are named after animals. Can you try them? Which one is your favourite? Can you be a dog, cat, cow or lizard?
Extra challenge for today – Here is a film by a good friend of ours at HETTY, Andrew Mayers. He is showing us how to sign the alphabet using British Sign Language. Why don’t you and your family members have a go at learning how to sign your names using BSL ? You could send us a video of yourselves doing it for us to put in the gallery (using the email address above).
Day 49, Monday 18th May – Explore objects in one of the rooms in your house – perhaps the bedroom, kitchen or bathroom. Look at what they are made from, how they feel and what they are used for. Are they soft, hard, bendy, stiff, rough, smooth? Try sorting them into different groups.
Day 48, Sunday 17th May- Ask your grown up if you can use the pots and pans from the kitchen. Put some music on and use a wooden spoon to bang the ‘drums’ in time to the music – your very own percussion band!
Day 47, Saturday 16th May- See how many things you can find around the house that begin with the sounds c or k (note to parents, at this stage, it doesn’t really matter whether your child can differentiate between the two letter eg. candle and king – it’s more the sound that is important – if they can however, that’s great!)
Day 46, Friday 15th May- Pretend to be a teacher. Can you teach your family something that you have learnt to do while you’ve not been at HETTY?
Day 45, Thursday 14th May- Play indoor basketball using a rolled up sock and a bin!
Day 44, Wednesday 13th May- Play hide-and-seek with a toy, Hide it somewhere and get your family to hunt for it giving them clues such as ‘warmer’ or ‘colder.’
Day 43, Tuesday 12th May – Walk around your house with a piece of paper clipped to a book (like a clip board) and draw pictures of anything you see that starts with the letter sound ‘a.’
Extra challenge – thank you so much to those of you who have been sending in your photos and videos – we’ve had a great response! Please make sure we have them all by Wednesday 13th May as we would hate for you to miss out!
Day 42, Monday 11th May – Count the stairs as you climb them. Now carefully come back down them on your
bottom and count backwards! Shout ‘blast off’ at the end and zoom away like a rocket!
Day 41, Sunday 10th May – Take your pulse and count how fast it is. Jog on the spot for 2 minutes. Talk about how our bodies change when we exercise. Think about how we get hot, or how our breathing changes. Can you take your pulse now and see how it has changed?
Day 40, Saturday 9th May- Half fill an empty plastic bottle with rice, pasta or lentils. Tape the top down securely and decorate the bottle with stickers or paper. Use it as a shaker and shake along in time to some music. You could make a few different sized bottles and listen to the different sounds that they make. Give them out in your family and have your own little musical band!
Day 39, Friday 8th May- Make a writing tray from glitter, sand or soil and practise writing letters with your fingers.
Day 38, Thursday 7th May- Ask your grown up to draw a big outline picture of a dinosaur (or download it from here Dinosaur outline) fill the dinosaur up with lots of different sized ‘d’ letters. Remember, “around his bottom, up his tall neck and down his feet!” (See how Freddie Fox does it on the phonics page).
Day 37, Wednesday 6th May – Guess the animal – without making any noises, act like an animal and see if your family can guess what it is. Can you act like a penguin, a cat, an elephant?
Day 36, Tuesday 5th May – Write out the letters of the alphabet (lower case) on a big piece of paper. Cut pictures out of magazines and see if you can sort them out by putting them underneath the correct letter that they start with.
Extra challenge for today! The wonderful Mrs King from Reception’s James class in Hoole Primary School has started a youtube channel. It has some fantastic craft ideas, stories and healthy recipes that the children will love to create. Head over and have a look by using the following link. Activities with Mrs King
Day 35, Monday 4th May -Draw some pictures of things that you know start with the sound ‘t’
Day 34 – What letter sound does your name start with? Can you have a look around your house and see if you can spot that letter in print around your home environment? Or in a book/magazine?
Day 33 – Can you make up a new song to sing to your family? You could use a tune that you already know and put your own words to it – you could even perform it to someone you haven’t seen for a while on Facetime or Zoom!
Day 32 – Make some invitations and give them out to your family and toys and have a teddy bears’ picnic today.
Day 31 – See how many things you can find around the house that start with the letter s.
Day 30 – Alliteration is when we say words that have the same initial sound, for example ‘silly sausage.’ See how many names you can come up with that have alliteration – little Lola, tiny Tommy, horrid Henry, etc.
Day 29 – Using cocktail sticks and mini marshmallows as ‘glue’, can you make 2D and 3D shapes? A square, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, rectangle or a cube, pyramid, cuboid or cone? This is a tricky activity but a really fun one to do!
Day 28 – Have a look around your house and see how many things you can find that are shaped like a circle. Draw a picture of them and if you can, have a try at writing what you have drawn next to the picture (or just write the sound they start with).
Day 27 – Put some music on and play musical statues! (Have you designed your pancake yet? Today is the last day!)
Extra challenge for today! Design a pancake! Hanky Panky Pancakes in Chester are running a competition to design a new pancake. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning a pancake delivery for a family of four is this – draw your pancake design, give it a name and say what toppings you would put on it then email your entry (picture/drawing/pancake name/topping/filling) to info@toursaroundchester.co.uk The closing date is tomorrow, 26th April – winners will be announced on social media.
Day 26 – How many things can you think of that start with the letter sound g? Have a competition with someone in your family to see who can think of the most.
Day 25 – Our story yesterday was ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar.’ Can you make a butterfly today? Fold a piece of paper in half and open it out again. On one half of the paper, paint some blobs/patterns/swirls. Now fold the paper over again and press down hard. Open it up and you should see a beautiful, symmetrical butterfly. Draw on a body and a face and add some antennae!
Day 24 – Happy St George’s day! Why don’t you have a go at making a dragon, a shield or a sword out of junk modelling today? You could decorate the shield with your own family crest including pictures that represent all the things that are important to you and your family! There are lots of other St George’s day activities to be found here too. St George’s Day activities on Twinkl
Day 23 – Have a go at making a time capsule! We’re all part of a very strange time at the moment and this period of history will be studied in schools for years to come. You could put different photos of what you’ve been doing during the lock-down, diary entries or thoughts, drawings, pictures of favourite TV shows, shopping lists (of what you’ve been able to/not been able to buy, the letter that we were all given from Boris Johnson, in fact, anything at all that is part of life today. In years to come our children/grandchildren/great grandchildren will be taking the capsule in to school as a ‘show and tell!’ (Huge thanks to Kian’s family for this fantastic idea!)
Day 22 – See how many things can you find around the house that start with the sound c You could have a go at making a ‘crunchy caterpillar’ out of an old sock or make a really long caterpillar out of playdough.
Day 21 – Ask your grown up if you can take all the socks out of your drawers and pair them up. You could even have a race with someone else in your family to see who can do it the fastest.
Day 20 – Can you balance on one leg like a flamingo? Ask a grown up to time you and see which member of your family can last on one leg the longest.
Day 19 – Make invisible ink using lemon juice and a few drops of water. Draw a picture or write a message on paper by dipping a paintbrush in the lemon juice mixture. Place the message on a radiator, near a light bulb or in the sun to reveal the message/picture.
Day 18 – Create a touchy feely box/bag. Put an object in a box with a hand sized hole (or use a pillowcase). Can you guess what is inside the box/bag just by feeling it? Challenge your family to have a turn too.
Day 17 – Fill up a washing up bowl and give your toys a good wash. It’s really important at the moment to keep our hands clean so practise washing your hands too when you’re bathing your toys.
Day 16 – Have a look around your house to see how many things you can find that start with the letter sound e
Day 15 – See what you can make out of junk materials today. It might be a robot, a rocket, a house or a person. We would love to see a photo of what you have made, email it to us at mrschesterteacher@gmail.com and we can put it on the gallery on the HETTY Preschool website
Day 14 – If you’re not already sick of chocolate, make some Easter nests. In a bowl, crush up shredded wheat cereal (you could use cornflakes or rice crispies instead) and pour melted chocolate over it, mix until all the cereal is covered. Quickly spoon into cake cases and top with mini chocolate eggs.
Day 13 – Happy Easter! Today is a great day for an Easter egg hunt! Cut out 10 (or 20) eggs from paper or card and decorate them on one side with your child. On the other side, write the letters from the names of people in the family. Hide the eggs around the house or garden. Ask your child to go and find the eggs and then try and rearrange them to make the names of the family (or just find the initial sound of each family member).
Day 12 – Have an Easter bunny Olympics! Set up an obstacle course in the garden (or living room) and time each family member as they complete it. Have a little prize ceremony for the winner! You could even see who can do the most bunny hops in a minute (extend this as a maths activity asking questions like who did the most? How many more? How many would they do in 2 minutes? etc.)
Day 11 – Yesterday we published the story ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ on our story time page. Put a bear (or 2!) in your window at home so that people walking around for their exercise each day can go on a bear hunt of their own. You could even write a note from the bear and put it alongside. Draw a picture of your favourite teddy bear too.
Day 10 – Start a photo diary of what you do each day (you could back date it if you have photos from before today). The children could write a few words or a sentence explaining what they have done and how they have felt today. We are actually living through history, a time that will be studied in school text books for years to come!
Day 9 – Using the beautiful sunny weather that we are having at the moment make shadow puppets onto a wall or the floor with your hands. You could even make some puppets on sticks and try those to and tell a story to your family.
Day 8 – Find a picture from a magazine, a photo, or the front of a cereal packet and cut it up to make a jigsaw. You could even draw or paint your own picture to use instead if you like.
Day 7 – Look around your house and see if you can find all the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 written or printed on objects that you find. They might be on a book, a cereal packet, on an appliance, etc.
Day 6 – Make a picture out of things that you can find in your garden or around your house. You could even take a photo of it and send it to mrschesterteacher@gmail.com
Day 5 – Draw or paint a rainbow or another beautiful picture and put it in your window so that anyone walking past your house on their daily exercise will see it and have a big smile on their face! I’ve done one and put it in my window already!
(Extra challenge – Sunday 5th April at 10am, Watergate Street Gallery are doing an online Easter card creation workshop – click here to take you to the site and sign upWatergate Street Easter card workshop
Day 4 – Put a bit of washing up liquid and water on a plate and mix in the centre. Put straws on the plate and see who can blow the biggest bubble!
Day 3 – Build a den out of sheets, cushions and blankets. It could be anywhere! Under a table, in your bedroom or somewhere else. Take your teddies into it and read your favourite stories to them.
Day 2 – Have a look around your home and garden and see if you can find 10 things that are square shaped (light switch, cushion, window, etc.) Draw a picture of each one and if you can, have a try at writing what they are next to them (or just write the sound they start with).
Day 1 – See how many objects you can find around the house that start with the letter sound m