Supporting Learning at Home
You may find some useful resources here for supporting your child at home. The activities are designed to be accessible for all learners, but may be particularly useful for those with SEND. If you have any questions about any of the activities please do not hesitate to get in contact with Mrs Ferryman.
There are mostly free resources here, one or two are paid resources, however there is no obligation to buy anything, they are just recommendations.
First of all, this is a great list of ways that you can support your child at home if they have additional needs, whether they have a diagnosis or not:
Advice and Strategies for Parents
Following this, here are some resources which will support children in structuring their learning in individual lessons as well as their day as a whole:
Structuring your day:
Visual Timetables are invaluable for children in helping to support them in structuring their day, and knowing what to expect. Below is a link to a timetable that you can use at home if you want to.
Visual Timetable - School Activities
Visual Timetable - Home Activities
It may also help to break activities down in to what you are doing now, and what you will do next. Often, it is helpful to make the 'next' activity something which is motivating, like a game or a reward which will encourage your child to complete the 'now' activity. In really tricky times, it is also fine to put the motivating activity in the 'now' section if you think that you can negotiate with your child to do the work activity 'next'!
Structuring a lesson or activity:
Task breakdown boards are a really effective way of helping a child to structure an activity and something that we use in class. They help a child with their independence as they are able to break down a larger task in to more manageable chunks. There are two to choose from here:
English Activities:
1. Reading every day at home, using something like this Happy Reading Bingo resource to encourage and motivate.
2. Using the spelling lists of statutory words for your child's year group (or year groups below if these words are more appropriate) see if your child can learn a few at a time. If they're up to the challenge, see if they can write some of the words in a sentence.
3. If your child would benefit from more support with phonics, there are sound mats here for every phase. You can also find lots of fantastic phonics games here too.
4. Here you can purchase a book called Toe by Toe. This is a ten minute daily intervention which can easily be done at home. Instructions and the best place to order the book from can be found here.
Maths Activities:
1. There are too many maths activities out there to list! This link will take you to the Twinkl SEND maths page where you can choose from an endless list of mathematical resources which will best suit your child. Twinkl is currently free for everybody.
2. Similar to Toe by Toe, Power of 2 is a daily, ten minute maths intervention which can be purchased here and produces fantastic results.
3. Hit The Button is a fantastic game for practising key facts such as doubles, halves, number bonds and times tables. It is completely free on your web browser, or you can download the app for £2.99
4. These resources are used regularly in the classroom and support children with lots of areas of mathematics:
Speech and Language Activities:
1. Here is a brilliant link to a website for parents who are supporting their children with speech and language needs at home. It includes some great activities and games.
2. There are also some great games here for language and communication skills. Have a look and see what level you think would suit your child best.
3. 30 Day Lego Challenge! This challenge is absolutely brilliant for developing not only communication skills, but supporting motor skills too.
4. These 5 minute challenges are great time fillers (which will most likely last more than 5 minutes!) and support language and communication skills.
Supporting children with Autism at home:
1. The brilliant team at Freemantles Outreach have put together a fantastic resource for parents who are supporting their autistic children at home. You can find it here.
2. Visual Timetables are invaluable for children on the autistic spectrum in helping to support them in structuring their day, and knowing what to expect. There is lots of advice on this on the Freemantles Advice page, however below is a link to a timetable that you can use at home if you want to.
Visual Timetable - School Activities
Visual Timetable - Home Activities
It may also help to break activities down in to what you are doing now, and what you will do next. Often, it is helpful to make the 'next' activity something which is motivating, like a game or a reward which will encourage your child to complete the 'now' activity. In really tricky times, it is also fine to put the motivating activity in the 'now' section if you think that you can negotiate with your child to do the work activity 'next'!