In LIFE AND LIVING PROCESSES why not try some of the following:
LABEL PARTS OF THE BODY, PLANTS AND OTHER ANIMALS.
This can be done almost anywhere any time, by just observing yourselves, plants and other animals and pointing a particular part to name. The parts your child should work towards naming are, for the human:- head, nose, hair, eyes, mouth, ears, elbow, knee, leg, arm, hand, foot, finger, toe and chest. For the plant they include:- leaf, stem, petal, flower, root, seed, branch, trunk, twig and fruit. And for the animal it includes tail, teeth, hoof, wool and fur.
2. USES FOR PARTS OF THE BODY.
This activity can be carried out by asking your child to point to the part of the body they would need to, for example, walk. The other tasks they should be able to associate with parts of the body are:- jumping, waving, holding, standing, reaching, touching, hopping, eating, smelling and looking.
3. ANIMALS AND THEIR SURVIVAL.
Take a trip to a local zoo, safari park or park, and ask your child some of the following questions about some of the animals found there:-
What do these animals need to survive - do they need food - meat or plants, water, shelter and warmth.
Which animals eat meat and which eat grass.
Which animals lay eggs
Where do the animals sleep
Are any asleep in the day and awake at night
4. BALANCED DIET. A child of 5 -7 years of age should have a basic understanding of the different qualities of foods, and know that a balance of all these qualities goes to make a healthy diet. Either with real food or play dough or plastic food, set out a number of ingredients for a menu on a table and having given your child the basic information about what foods contain what 'goodness' try to design a menu that gives you a bit of everything.
The broad headings for the different foodstuffs are as follows:
PROTEINS - Milk, Cheese, Eggs, Fish
FATS - Fried food, Fatty meat, Butter, Full cream
SUGARS - Chocolate, Cakes, Biscuits, Fizzy drinks
STARCHES - Potatoes, Pasta, Rice, Bread
VITAMINS - Brocoli, Spinach, Carrots, Fruits
5. ALL ABOUT ME - start a scrapbook with your child about him or herself, and encourage them to keep up the entries over quite a period of time. The scrapbook could include photographs of them as a baby and toddler, and any information that may have been gathered about their birth weight etc.
Then move on to present day with a self portrait of your child - note what characteristics they see as prominent in themselves and discuss how these came to have such importance in their lives. Help your child to construct a family tree to see their position within generations of their family, and let them interview their siblings to determine what family characteristics classify them as belonging to each other - for example a big nose or blonde hair. Are there any twins in the family
6. GROW A POTTED PLANT - to teach your child about the vital ingredients needed for living, and to bring home the lesson of responsibility for all living things, make your child solely responsible for a potted plant, for a predetermined period of time. The benefits of treating it with care may result in a beautiful flower, and from neglect, may result in a dead plant. A good plant to grow is a bulb as it is fast in flowering in relation to some other plants, and can be grown indoors, where it would rely more totally on the child as the carer. The bulb will need a container, soil, drainage, sunshine and water.
If your child seems particularly responsible over the keeping of a plant, then you may want to increase the responsibility form looking after a plant to feeding a family pet, exercising it, or making sure it is warm, healthy and comfortable.
7. BURIED TREASURE - find a small area of ground, mark it out, and dig about 6 inches down. Place something wooden, something metal, something plastic, something paper and something vegetable in side the plot. Then put the same things in a Tupperware container, seal the lid and bury the treasure, by recovering it with soil. On a date set at least a week hence, go to the plot with your child and dig for the treasure. See what has happened to the various items that were buried, and talk about how this relates to the process of life and death of all living and some non-living things.
8. LOCAL HUMAN IMPACT - talk to your child about an issue close to home that demonstrates how man has had an impact on the environment. There may be a factory nearby polluting the atmosphere, or a new motor way causing noise and air pollution, or, something that may be a positive impact on the environment, a quarry may have been excavated and flooded to provide a new leisure reservoir. If you want to go further with this, take your child to visit the site and start a project on its impact on the local society and on the environment.
9. CREATE A SMALL WORLD - take a small bowl and either let it fill with rain, or fill it with tap water, and then over a period of days and weeks, talk over with your child what happens to the pool of water. If its dry weather you may need to top up the water level, but gradually a whole microcosm of plant and animal life will begin to evolve in the small tub of water. You should find that algae grows around the edges, small midges and grubs gestate in the water, leaves may fall in and begin to decompose - a small world full of life has begun to grow.
10. PLANT SURVIVAL - a good way to teach your child that a plant draws up water for its survival, is to cut a celery stick off the main stem, place it in a beaker with some water and some contrasting food dye, and wait for at least an hour. After which time you should see that the dye has crept up the stem of the celery.
