Story stones are probably one of the most well-known resources for encouraging children to become independent story-tellers. They feel so natural and part of humanity’s storytelling past. But what do you do with them when you’ve got them? Here’s the quick answer. How do you use story stones? Some of the most effective ways of …

Want to improve your kids’ math skills? Children really enjoy fun math circle games, and they develop lots of skills during them that they can then transfer and apply in their play and in their lives. Some of the best math circle games use puppets, songs, or simple props to bring them to life. Having …

Eye contact is a skill that can be taught to some extent in all children through fun games and activities. Lots of parents and teachers worry when children don’t give them eye contact. It is easy to understand why. It is difficult to fully interact with others in life without making eye contact. Relationships and …

In ten years of teaching in the early years, I have always found parachute games one of the most exciting strategies for developing teamwork and cooperation. Many of the favourite games, and the ones that children often ask for again and again, are the animal games. What sort of parachute animal games can you play? …

Learning to count forwards is the first priority for children. It is also something they experience more in their lives, and so naturally more important and easier to grasp. But when they have become confident at counting forwards, you can then teach the important skill of counting backwards. You start to teach counting backwards by …

Parachutes are one of the most versatile and fun pieces of equipment to teach a range of skills in the early years. They are fantastic for maths, social skills and physical development. But what about phonics? Though used less for phonics than other areas of the curriculum, parachute games are a brilliant way of bringing …

For any of you that have taught early phonics to young children, the question may well have come up – ‘Do you teach blending or segmenting first?’ This is a common question, but one there seems no official answer to if you consult the usual authoritative channels. I have based my own personal answer to …

Before children learn to write words, they need to orally segment. Segmenting is simply the skill of separating words up into their component sounds. For example, ‘pig’ becomes ‘p-i-g’. ‘Dog’ becomes ‘d-o-g’. It does not matter how the word is written. You are splitting up the sounds not the letters. So ‘chain’ would be split …

Ever noticed that most counting songs count backwards? For example, in Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer, every time you sing a verse one man flies away. Or in Ten Fat Sausages every time you sing one sausage explodes!? For some reason the culture of counting songs is based primarily around the concept of …

Many of us will have experienced that sense of awe that a puppet can generate. Children are not always massively bothered about listening to what the grown up is about to say, but a puppet – well, that’s quite a different story! I really do find it like magic. They sit and stare when the …