Dear parents and carers. 

We hope that you are all keeping well and safe at home with your children. Just to share some of the activities we do with the students each day in class we can support you with learning and some routines within the home during these challenging times.

Movement activities

Every day the students access a range of activities to promote physical wellbeing, in the home this could include stretches, yoga, using gym balls to bounce or walking around the garden. There are physical and fitness activities on You Tube and other websites and we will be adding links to these on our resources page. 

Life Skills activities 

Each day the pupils take part in preparing and making their own morning snacks, this includes making toast and cereal. We use symbols to encourage the pupils to ask for each item or they can point or use their words to make requests. You could offer different toppings for toast such as jam, marmalade, cheese spread or marmite so the pupils can learn new vocabulary and try different foods. It is good for the students to find things they don’t like too so they can learn to say No! 

Maths and English Activities

In Maths we do lots of practical sorting and matching by colour. This helps them to discriminate and choose between objects, There are lots of opportunities for this within the home, from sorting clothes into drawers to pairing socks. We have included some ideas in the resources section. We share reading books in English and ask the students to find pictures in the books. They like to look through catalogues and food booklets also. They have opportunities to make marks, colour and practise writing using pens, pencils, felt pens, paint and chalk.  We will be sending website links to support with learning here.

Cooking activities    All of the students love cooking and we have made up different songs for different foods, some of them might remember some of these and sing them to you. We have made coleslaw, sandwiches, pizza, chana chaat, bread, biscuits and potato salad. We try and encourage the students to be as independent as possible when cooking, we make sure they have safe use of equipment and do not use sharp knives, We have included some links to other easy recipes in the resources section. In the packs sent home there are recipe books and Makaton signs for all of the recipes. Happy cooking! 

Relaxation   We have quiet time every day when at school. A chance to listen to quiet calming music and place their heads on a cushion. The students follow a routine of arm movements and can all follow Hands Up, Sway and Hold hands with some support, There are lots of relaxing links on You tube and we will be adding these to resource links for you. 

Rewards We make sure that the students have learning breaks with things they enjoy, for some it may be playing outside, playing skittles or playing a game on the ipad. It is important that they have reward time and something to look forward to and work towards. 

Stay Safe Everybody – Dawn Convery & Siobhan Thompson