Five Minute Mum: Time For School: Easy, fun five-minute games to support Reception and Key Stage 1 children through their first years at school

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The crucial point is this though, as it is with all my games. Only if he WANTS to. The games are there to provide fun and entertainment for us all. The letter and number bits I put into them are there as a way to bring those vital educational elements into our play without it detracting from the joy. Learning through play always. Find a place to display your letter of the day every day. Fridge? Radiator? A Door? somewhere they can see if regularly and access it from their height. I love Five Minute Mum. She's managed to come up with a huge array of activities for kids that are fun and educational yet don't require an Art degree or Diploma in Patience to execute. Her blog makes these kinds of games accessible to everyone and for that, I am grateful! - Sarah Turner, Unmumsy Mum But don’t panic. I can explain it in five minutes (way less actually, it’s really simple!) and I recently did a short series of videos which linked below, where I explain it all, one minute at a time. Cut up empty toilet-roll tubes and write letters on them. Use a kitchen-roll holder or a broom handle to put the letters on and construct the words vertically.

We are skipping at a frightening pace towards my eldest starting school now. The summer holidays are here, and parents with older children are wondering what to do with six weeks at home entertaining their kids while I try to soak up every second of my wee man before classroom antics turn him into a 12 year old in a heartbeat. Next year I will be that Mum…but for now, it is school that is on my mind this summer and one question; IS HE READY? Your little one has to experiment to find the two ingredients that make the magical fizzing potion. Now we obviously know that is the vinegar and bicarb but they don’t.Mix up the letters in the big bowl saying “Silly soup, silly soup, we’re going to make some silly soup” This short chapter is all based around the maths your child will be taught in their first few years at school - Early Years, Reception and Key Stage 1 - will bring some much-needed laughter to your at-home learning and, if nothing else, give you five minutes where you feel like you are getting it right.

Afterwards leave them to continue to play and mix while you put the kettle on. I made Florence her own potion tray too to play with while Ewan experimented.

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Write letters on ball-pit balls and use a muffin tin or cups or cupcake cases to hold them to create the words. At the moment Ewan (age 4.5) is great with his letters. He’s grasped all of his Phase 2 Phonics sounds pretty well. But when it comes to blending them together to form a word he’s not up for it. He finds it hard and therefore it’s a turn off. So I need some games to make this element of reading a bit more fun.

Anyway I’ll stop jabbering on now. There are PLENTY of fab resources online and Jolly Phonics on You Tube are a good place to start if you want to get to know the initial ‘Sounds’ your child will be introduced to through Phonics in a fun way or I did some Letter of the Day videos which can be found on my You Tube channel. Encourage your little ones to write a letter. A magical one! To a Harry Potter character, to the fairies, to a naughty troll, to the Christmas elf. For Florence who is just 4, she told me what she wanted the letter to say, I wrote it down and she signed her name. When they’ve blended the word, pop it in the little bowl and let them tip the silly soup over your head or their head. Whichever they find funnier. Now make some more silly soup! Tie string from somewhere high to somewhere low. I tied it to an upstairs window and to our slide in the garden below.

Advice + Tips

This game is called Silly Soup and anyone who has worked with children in EYFS will have played it or a version of it I’m sure. But no-one tells the parents!!! Except me. Ha. I’m blowing the top right off all those teacher secrets aren’t I?! 😉 Always let the kids come to you. Try not to clap your hands and say “OK kids we are going to do this activity now.” Even in your best ‘Meryl Streep THIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME acting voice’, they KNOW. They just KNOW. In their little heads they go…”Yep, you’re trying to teach me something. I’m not having it Mum. Sod off. This bit of card that’s been on the floor for three days has suddenly taken my interest.” Nursery doesn’t start with ABC (ay, bee, see) anymore, instead they teach the SOUNDS the letters makes. Which is all Phonics means (phon means sound) because this makes it easier for children to ‘blend’ the sounds/letters together to make a word and therefore read. So instead of saying ‘Suh’ or ‘ess’ for S, they learn ‘sssssss’ (hiss like a snake sound) so when your child reads the word ‘sit’ they sound out ‘sssssss-i-t’ as opposed to ‘suh-i-t’ which would be ‘suhit’ - no such word (no shuit!). I used the example of MOP on my videos. Saying an ‘M’ is a ‘muh’ and ‘P’ is a ‘Per’ means when the children see the letters MOP they would say ‘muopa’ - again, no such word. So the sound for M is ‘mmmm’ and the sound for P is a very short soft P(uh) with the emphasis on the P. Your letter of the day will almost certainly be different to mine, just do whatever aspects of it your little one enjoys.