Helping your child with vision impairment learn at home

Story

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Resources

Room on the Broom book or audio story, hairbrush and comb, fiction and non-fiction books, box with lid, lego, craft materials.

Activity ideas

Numeracy/Shape, Space and Measure

• The witch’s wand had a star shape on top. Can you find anything star shaped in your house? 
• Go on a ‘shape’ hunt around your house. Can you find any circles? squares? rectangles? triangles? Can you describe the shapes? For example: A square has four corners and four straight sides all the same length. A circle has no corners. A rectangle has four corners, two short sides and two longer sides.
• Look at the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. Can you find any 3D shapes around your house? For example: a sphere (ball), cylinder (tin of beans), cube (dice), cuboid (toothpaste box).

Literacy

• Read or listen to the story and discuss.
• Is this a fiction or non-fiction book? Discuss the difference and find examples at home of other fiction and non-fiction books. Explain how fiction is not about real events. 
• How many rhyming words can you find in the story? Can you make a list?
• Can you write your own magic spell? First write a list of your ingredients, then the instructions for what to do. Don’t forget to include a magic word! What will your spell do/make?

Science

• The witch flies through the ‘stormy winds’ and clouds in the story. Think of as many words as you can which can be used to describe weather (rain, hail, snow, breeze, gale, hurricane, sunshine, hot, cold, warm, drizzle, sleet etc.). 
• Discuss the seasons and think about what happens in each season. 
• Now make a list for each of the four seasons and describe what weather you might expect and what events happen. For example: Christmas, family birthdays, Easter, summer holidays.
• Make a chart for two weeks and each day record what the weather is like using either words or pictures.

Design and make

• At the end of the story the witch got a brand new broom with seats, a shower and a nest for her animal friends. If you were designing a new broom, which animals would you like to join you and what features would you include for them on your broom? Can you draw or paint your design – or even build one out of craft materials or Lego?
• Understanding the world
• Make a list of things that can fly, such as birds, bats, aeroplanes, butterflies, bees, ladybirds, helicopters) and discuss the concept of wings. Do all flying objects have wings? If not, what helps them stay up in the air? Find pictures, information and video clips online to help develop your child’s understanding.
• Look at the characters in the story and discuss which parts of the characters could be real and which are imaginary. For example: A cat has four legs, a tail and it can purr but it cannot talk and does not stand on two legs. Do dragons and witches exist?

Physical

• In the story, the witch flies ‘up’ and ‘down’ on her broom. Practice stretching up to try and reach the sky, and then bend down to touch the floor. 
• Can you move different parts of your body up and down? For example: Your left leg? Your right elbow? Your head? Your right knee? Your fingers? Your left ear? 

Social and Emotional

• The witch said ‘Thank you, oh thank you’ when her new friends helped to save her from the dragon. Discuss the importance of saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and think of examples of when you might use these words. Try using these words over the next week and listen out for when other people use them (at home, on television, in books).

Independence Skills

• The witch had ‘long ginger hair which she wore in a plait’. Can you practice brushing your own hair. Try using a comb and a brush – which is easier?

Music

• Find a clip online of the music from Harry Potter. Think about what makes it sound magical – can you dance as if imagining you are flying on a broom?

Visual skills

• The witch lost her hat, her bow and her wand in the story and had to search very hard to find them. Ask a family member to hide three of your things around the room or the garden. Can you find them? Remember to look up, down, left and right and search carefully. Ask your family to give you clues if you are stuck!

Tactile and fine motor skills

• Find a box with a lid and make a hole in the top, just big enough to get your hand in.
• Ask a family member to hide different objects in the box – put your hand in and feel inside. Can you describe what the objects feel like and guess what they are by touch alone? (eg try hiding an apple, orange, sock, toothbrush, lego brick, spoon)

And something to look forward to when things get back to normal…

Go to the park

• Use the slide, swings and roundabouts to imagine that you are flying on a broom through the air.
• Go on the seesaw – what does it feel like to go up and down?

Aim

• To develop your child’s ability to visually isolate an object from its background.
• To develop your child’s ability to recognise objects within a picture from their distinctive features.

Resources needed

• Picture resource, bold felt-tip pens, magazines, glue, scissors, plain paper

Key language

• Find, ‘spot the...’, identify, same, different, notice, look like, where, how many, more, less, ‘track top to bottom’ ‘left to right’

Activity

• Circle one of the flowers in the picture. Talk about it with your child – What is it? How do we know it’s a flower? How many petals has it got?
• Ask your child if they can see another flower in the picture, just like the one you have circled. Watch carefully as they scan the picture.
• If they are struggling, offer some tips for scanning the page. You could suggest they start by looking at the top left corner of the page, moving their vision across the page from left to right (like a line of print). Repeat this process slowly, scanning down in the same way until you reach the bottom right corner of the page.
• Ask your child to circle the second flower when they have found it.
• Compare the second flower with the one you found at the start. Is it the same? How many more do they think there might be? Let your child have fun guessing before you tell them how many flowers are hidden for them to find.
• Check your child’s answers together.
• Repeat the above exercise, this time you’re looking for the birds; the trees; the scarecrow, the chickens.
• NB. If colour is not an issue for your child, you might want to suggest using a different coloured felt tip each time.
• Or, when checking your answers together, you might want to put a cross over each object you have circled before hunting for the next set of objects in your picture.
• You could extend this activity by looking for your own set of pictures for your child to play detective with.
• Using an old magazine, cut out three objects such as a bus, car and a motorcycle and build up a picture around them.
• Make up a story together to go with your picture.

Aim

• To understand how different materials can have different levels of strength

Language

• Strong, weak, rigid, hard, soft, connect, link, more, less, hard, soft, bend, break, collapse.

Resources

•  Drinking straws, lolly sticks, card, paper, toilet tubes, glue, sticky tape, play bricks, rulers, pencils, string, a plastic cup, 2p coins or similar (other items as you find them from around your home).

Activity

• Place all your materials on an open surface, such as a kitchen table.

• Discuss all of the different items you have with your child and how you could build a bridge together.
• Explain that, together, you are trying to build the strongest bridge possible.
• Let your child to feel each item and ask them to describe them, using some of the words above.
• Now start to design your structure, explaining to your child the key parts of a bridge.
• When your bridge is complete, you can try balancing the small cup on top of your structure.
• You can test the strength of your bridge, by adding coins into the cup, one at a time.
• Count the coins out loud one-by-one as you add them to the cup and keep the total on a score sheet. 
• See how many coins you can add, before your bridge finally collapses.
• As an extension to this experiment, you may wish to design and build a number of bridges and then predict which one would be the strongest and why?
• Finally, you can test out your prediction, using what you have learned from building your first fantastic bridge!

Aim

Language

• Same, different, sounds, listen, say, think.
  
  

Resources  

• Paper, thick pen, scissors, pot or bag, timer and smart device if desired. 

Activity

• On pieces of card or paper, write all the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z.
• At first you may wish to take out some of the less common letters, such as Q, X, Z, to make the game a little easier.
• Ask your child to pick one of the letters out of your pot or bag.
• Say and sound out the chosen letter.
• Then, ask your child to name as many things they can think of, beginning with that chosen letter, keeping a note of all their suggestions, within a certain amount of time.
• Now give your child the task of finding things around the house, beginning with that letter.
• You may wish to use a smart device or mobile phone, to indicate the final thirty seconds, with the ‘countdown’ music, which can add to the fun and excitement.
• Finally, you can talk through the items they have collected and spell them out, to reinforce the spelling, sounds, and use of letters. 

Story

• The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister

Resources

• Book or audio story, bowl of water, bath or paddling pool, pebbles, sand, shiny objects, numbered fish cards, textured & coloured paper, glue, paint, mirror, variety of plastic jugs, bottles and containers.

Activity Ideas

Numeracy

• Cut out 10 fish shapes and label them with the numbers 0-10. Can you put the fish in the correct order?
• Can you draw the correct number of scales on each of the fishes?
• Can you ‘add’ two fishes together? For example: 2+3 =5
• Choose a fish – can you find the fish that is one more than that number?
• Can you find the fish that is two less than your number?

Literacy

• Read or listen to the story.
• How many words can you think of that rhyme with ‘fish’. Write them down – do you know how to spell them?
• Can you write or tell your own story about a character who lives under the sea? What is the character’s name? Describe what they look like. Is your character good/evil/kind/scary? What happens at the beginning, middle and end of your story?

 Science

• Using a bowl of water, drop different objects into it. Do they float or sink? What are the objects made from?
• Print out or draw pictures of as many different animals you can think of on separate pieces of paper (include farm animals, wild animals, sea creatures, birds, pets). Can you sort the animals into different piles according to different characteristics? Repeat with different criteria, using the internet to research your answers if you are not sure eg.
  • Where do they live? (deserts, jungle, sea, garden, etc)
  • Do they have legs, wings, fins, etc.?
  • What do they eat? (animals, plants etc.)

Design and make

• Draw an outline of a large fish on some card. Then cut out circles of different paper to make ‘scales’ for your fish. Make sure you use different colours and textures and don’t forget to add some shiny scales!
• Can you practise colour mixing using some paints? What happens if you mix red and blue paint? Yellow and blue? How many new colours can you make?
• Ask different people in your house to draw around their hand on a large sheet of paper to make different sized ‘fishes’ (see diagram). Can you colour, paint or decorate your fishes?

Understanding the world

• What kind of creatures live in the sea? Can you find pictures of them? Look carefully - do they have legs? Fins? Tentacles? What do they eat?
• Can you find any YouTube clips or TV programmes about life under the sea?
• Discuss the concept of a rainbow – what does it look like? When do rainbows occur?

Physical

• Think about the different movements sea creatures make (crabs scuttle sideways, fish swim, sharks opening their jaws, jelly fish wobble). Play some music and then ask mum/dad/brother/sister to shout out the name of an animal and you have to dance in the style of that animal.

Social and emotional

• Discuss why the Rainbow Fish did not have any friends at the beginning of the story.
• Discuss the importance of sharing and think of times when you have shared things with your friends.

Independence skills

• We use water for washing our hands. Discuss importance of washing our hands properly, making sure you clean between your fingers and the back of your hands using soap.

Music

• Sing songs (often available on YouTube)
  • 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive
  • Baby Shark
  • Ten little fishes
  • Under the sea (from ‘The Little Mermaid’)
• Find a clip of composer Saint Saens ‘The Aquarium’ (from Carnival of the Animals) and dance to it as if you were under the sea.

Visual skills

• Mirrors are shiny…can you find a mirror and practice making different faces? What does a sad face look like? A surprised face? Happy? Excited? Scared? Tired? Angry? Confused? What happens to your eyes and mouth when you pull these faces? Ask your mum/dad/brother/sister to pull a face and see if you can guess which emotion they are trying to show you.

Tactile and fine motor skills

• Practise pouring water from one container to another without spilling any. Use different sized jugs, cups, plastic bottles, funnels.
• If you have a small fishing net, fill a paddling pool or the bath with water and put some plastic toy fishes (or other plastic objects which float) into it. Can you catch the fishes/objects with your net?

And something to look forward to when things get back to normal…

Visit the seaside:

• Play in the sand.
• Paddle in the sea.
• Use a net to see what you can catch in rock pools.
• Build a sandcastle.
• Collect shells and seaweed.
• Dig a hole in the sand.
• Build a tower of rocks and pebbles.

Aim

To build up a story from a simple beginning, adding words or sentences.

Language 

• Adjectives, nouns and verbs.

Activity

• With your child, discuss a story that they particularly enjoy.
• Talk about the different types of words, such as describing words, words which describe a particular action, words which add excitement and words which join the sentences together.
• Now you can begin to start to develop a simple sentence.

You could start with…

• The sleepy cat sat on the mat.
• The noisy dog barked in the garden.
• The cheeky monkey was in the tree.

Now, with your child, try to develop the simple sentences, adding one word at a time. For example:

• The sleepy cat sat on the stripy mat.
• The sleepy cat sat on the bright stripy mat.
• The sleepy cat sat on the bright, fluffy, stripy mat.
• The large sleepy cat, sat on the bright, fluffy stripy mat.

Try to use animals and themes which interesting to your child, to increase their engagement.

As an extension to this game, you could start building your own stories, with each player of the game adding a full sentence to your story. 

You may choose to write your story down as it develops, which you can later illustrate with drawings, to create your own personalised storybook. 

Aim  

To build the tallest tower, using household materials

Resources  

• Spaghetti, plasticine, sticky tape, glue, newspaper, toilet tubes, cardboard and other appropriate materials from around your home and garden.

Language 

• Tall, tallest, strong, strongest, link, connect, stick, bind, together, collapse, high, low, high, higher, massive, enormous, ginormous. 

Activity

• Place all your materials on an open surface, such as a kitchen table.
• With your child, discuss all the different items you have, in order to build your tower. 
• Explain that, together, you are intending to build the tallest tower possible.
• Let your child feel each item and ask them to describe them, using some of the words above. 
• Now start to design your structure, explaining the key parts of a tower. 
• When your tower is complete, you can measure it to calculate its height.

To help your child to measure their tower you may wish to:

• Cut out a long length of cardboard, from a cereal box, for example.
• Using plasticine, place small dots five centimetres apart. You could also cut a small ‘v’ shape each distance, so your child can track their fingers up the side of the card.
• Then together, as you measure your tower, you can count the height of your structure.
• Depending on the age and ability of your child, you can count in single numbers or in ‘fives’, to develop their numeracy skills and understanding.
• You could try different  spacing, i.e. one centimetre at a time or ten centimetres at a time, which will again help to develop key mathematics understanding 
• You can test the strength of your tower by placing a flat piece of card on top of your structure, before adding weights, in the form of similar sized and weighted objects, such as coins or play blocks
• How many coins or blocks could your tower support, before it finally collapsed? 
• Which materials appear to be best to build your tower and why?
• As an extension to this experiment, you may wish to design and build a number of towers and then predict which one would be the strongest and why?
• Finally, you can test out your prediction, using what you have learned from building your first tremendous tower!

Resources 

Toy pig(s), straw, building bricks, sticks, story book (or audio story), craft materials,

 

Activity ideas

Numeracy

• Count the pigs, count the houses, how many Duplo bricks does it take to build a house?
• Which is heavier/lighter? Compare the weights of straw/sticks/bricks. Find five different objects around the house – can you put them in order of weight?

Literacy

• Read the story together
• Re-tell the story together with play objects and puppets/toy animals
• Play games using positional language, such as: Put the pig in the house, on top of the house, between the houses
• Find rhyming words in the story ‘big’ and ‘pig’, ‘huff’ and ‘puff’ – can you think of any other words that rhyme with these?
• Can you rewrite the story? What happened at the beginning? middle? end?

Science

• Look at different materials – what would be the strongest materials to build a house? Wood/plastic/metal/brick/sand/paper/fabric?
• Look at different activities which use blowing – bubbles, musical instruments, balloons, straws in water.

Design and make

• Build houses from wooden blocks, Duplo, Lego, play dough and Sticklebricks
• Make puppet characters for the story with lollypop sticks, paper plates or cardboard
• Paint a picture of your favourite part of the story

Understanding the world

• Talk about the characteristics of a pig (four legs, short curly tail, snout, different sizes and colours)
• Discuss ‘do pigs really talk? (as they do in the story). Listen to audio clips of real pig noises

Physical

• Go outside and play ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’

Social and emotional

• Discuss how the Little Pigs felt at different points of the stories. Were they scared? Happy? Angry?
• Were the Little Pigs kind to one another? Was the wolf kind?

Independence bkills

• Building houses is thirsty work! Can you pour yourself a cup of water from a plastic jug?

Music

• Sing songs and rhyme, such as: ‘Old Macdonald Had a Farm’ and ‘This little piggy went to market’

Visual skills

• Hide objects in a box of straw or sticks. How many can you find?
• Hide a toy pig or wolf somewhere in the room. Can you find it?

Tactile and fine motor skills

• Compare the textures of different materials – can you describe them? Are they soft, hard, rough, smooth, prickly, bumpy?
• Play ‘tug of war’ with a partner using drinking straws – grasp the straw between your thumb and different fingers (thumb and little finger, thumb and index finger) and pull.  Which fingers are strongest?

And something to look forward to when things get back to normal…

• Visit a farm and find some real pigs – what do they sound like? What do they smell like? What do they look like? What do they feel like?

Resources

Story book (or audio story), grass, sticks, flour, tray of water, dark sheet, leaves, pebbles, plastic cups or yoghurt pots.

 

Activity ideas

Numeracy

• Find 6-8 straight sticks in the garden. Can you put them in order of length? Which is the longest? Which is the shortest. Make sure that you line them up carefully with the bottom of the sticks all level (try laying them next to a wall or a large book so that the bottom of the sticks touches the flat surface)
• Get two plastic yoghurt pots or cups. Fill one with grass and one with mud. Which feels heavier? Now fill one with water and one with stones and repeat. Can you use kitchen scales to weigh them to find their weight?

Literacy

• Read the story
• Re-tell the story using lots of expression in your voice. Which bits of the story need to be read quietly/loudly? Do some parts sound better if they are read slowly or fast?
• Think about the words ‘under’, ‘over’ and ‘through’. What other words describe how you can move? Play a game where you tell someone how to get to the other side of the room/house/garden. For example: Go up the step, go through the door, down the slope, across the path, over the grass, under the tree, between the chairs…
• Can you write your own ‘Animal Hunt’ story? Where would you have to go? For example: For a shark hunt you may need to go on the sand, in the sea, through seaweed, over shells etc.

Science

• Make your own ‘snow’ by putting some flour in the freezer. What does it feel like when it comes out?
• Make some ice cubes – pour the water into the ice cube trays (or use empty yoghurt pots). Leave overnight and then take out – what has happened? Put it in your hands – what happens when the ice gets warm? Does it melt more quickly in the sun? Does it melt if you put it in the fridge?

Design and make

• Make a mini garden on a tray or in a box. Put in stones to make a path, stand twigs in play dough to make trees, use a foil to make a stream. Have you got any toy bugs or insects you could hide in your new garden?
• Paint a picture of what you think the bear might look like when you find him. Remember his shiny, wet nose!

Understanding the world

• Gather together ‘natural’ objects you can find, such as feathers, pinecones, pebbles, leaves, shells, flowers, conkers, acorns, sand. Discuss where they come from and compare the textures
• What is a cave? Find some pictures and describe what it might look, feel, sound like and where you might find them. Can you find any clips on the internet about caves?

Physical

• Act out the story so imagine you are swishing through the long grass with your arms, stumbling over tree roots, being blown around in the swirling snowstorm and splashing through the river
• Make your own ‘Bear Hunt’ in the garden and, if it is warm enough, go out with bare feet. What does the grass feel like when you walk on it?
• Walk on leaves/soil/twigs – how do they feel?
• Splash your feet in a tray of water as if you are wading through the river
• Use the dark sheet to hide under and pretend it is a cave
• How fast can you run away from ‘the bear’?

Social and emotional

• Think about the phrase from the story ‘We’re not scared’. What does scared mean? What are you scared of? Why?
• Think about which friends you would like to take on your Bear hunt. Why do you like them? What makes a good friend?

Independence Skills

• When you get ready for your Bear Hunt outside, can you put on your own coat and shoes?
• Can you fasten the buttons? Do up the zip? Fasten the Velcro?

Music

• Make your own musical instruments (rice in a tin as a shaker, a wooden spoon and saucepan as a drum) and chant the Bear Hunt story using the rhythm of your instruments

Visual skills

• Draw a picture of your house at the top corner of a piece of paper and then draw the bear at the bottom of the paper. Draw a wiggly line across the paper to show the route you took to find the bear. Then follow that line again with your finger from top to bottom to practice your visual tracking and hand eye coordination skills

Tactile and fine motor skills

• Ask someone to draw a large, simple outline of a bear on some stiff paper. Can you cut out the bear carefully using some scissors?

And something to look forward to when things get back to normal…

• Go on a ‘Bear Hunt’ in the woods and swish through long grass, stumble over tree roots, paddle in a stream…and run as fast as you can!

Resources

Story book or audio story, teddy bears (3 sizes if possible), bowls, selection of spoons, chairs, porridge oats.

 

Activity ideas

Numeracy

• Have a teddy bears picnic and share out the food equally between the bears. For example, if you have three bears and nine carrot sticks, how many will each bear get?
• Compare sizes of chairs, bowls, bears. Which is the biggest/smallest? Place in order of size. Practice using language of size, such as ‘the blue bear is smaller than the orange bear but the green bear is the smallest’

Literacy

• Read the story together
• Re-tell the story together with play objects and puppets/toy animals
• Goldilocks begins with a ‘G’ – how many other words can you think of that begin with ‘g’?
• Can you rewrite the story? What happened at the beginning? middle? end?
• Think of all the words you could use to describe a bear. For example, fierce, scary, furry, grizzly, huge, brown, wild, cuddly…

Science

• Make porridge with oats and hot water. What happens to the oats when you add the water? Does it look and feel different?
• What other food changes when you add hot water? Try experimenting with making pasta, rice, jelly, mashed potatoes, noodles, packet soup. Compare the ingredients texture before and after.

Design and make

• Can you build chairs for your teddy bears using wooden blocks, lego, duplo bricks, stickle bricks, play dough?
• Make masks for the story with lollypop sticks and paper plates or cardboard. Will your bear look friendly or scary?
• Make a large tactile map of the woods where the three bears lived using large sheet of paper/card. Stick on leaves, sticks, flowers and use tin foil to show stream, tissue paper for paths etc. Show the three bears house

Understanding the world

• Find out some information about bears using books or the internet. Where do they live, what do they eat, how big do they grow, do they hibernate?
• Look at a selection of spoons and compare their similarities and differences. Are they all similar shapes? Are they made from different materials? Are they different sizes?
• Compare wooden, metal, plastic spoons

Physical

• Can you curl up and make yourself as small as possible?
• Now can you stretch up tall and make yourself as big as possible
• How wide can you stretch out your arms and legs?
• Play a game outside where you run around and then ask someone to shout small/wide/tall and you have to stop and make yourself as small/wide/tall as you can

Social and emotional

• How do you think Goldilocks felt when she found the three bears house? Should she have gone inside?
• How do you think the bears felt when they came home?

Independence skills

• Practice using a large spoon to transfer porridge oats from large bowls to small bowls
• Prepare sandwiches for a teddy bears picnic – practice spreading butter with a knife

Music

• Sings songs such as: ‘When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears’, ‘Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch your nose’, ‘5 little teddy bears, jumping on the bed’, ‘When you go down to the woods today….teddy bears picnic’ and The Bear Necessities (from Jungle Book)

Visual skills

• Hide a teddy bear in the room and ask your child to find it. Make sure they are using all of their fields of vision to search (up, down, left, right)
• Look at the pictures in the book. Can your child spot small details, such as a flower, a bee, a snail?

Tactile and fine motor skills

• Go into the garden and find as many different textured things as you can. Can you find something smooth, hard, crinkly, soft, bumpy, rough, shiny, sticky, furry?
• Use play dough to make three bears of different sizes – squeeze, pinch, press and pull the play dough to get the shape you want

And something to look forward to when things get back to normal…

• Go for a walk in the woods. What can you see? What can you hear? What can you smell? What does the floor feel like underfoot? Can you find a small tree? What is the biggest tree you can find – can you stretch your arms around it? Collect different types of leaves – what shape are they?