Talk Like A Pirate Day

Today is 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' so whilst it isn't a real "Jobs People Do" it is one that a lot young children wold say they want to do when they grow up - so I thought that it was worth a post.

Maybe you could have a pirate learning day?

Here are some ideas:

• make maps (art skills plus try coordinates)
• counting treasure (either make simple circles of gold card or practice real money skills)
• treasure hunts (writing, reading and solving clues)
• singing pirate songs
• reading pirate books

Incidental Learning – But I didn’t teach them that!

How often does your child demonstrate their knowledge and you sit there thinking – how on earth does he know that, I’ve not taught him it? I know it happens a lot in our house. We don’t sit around all day with colour, letter and number flashcards (although we do have some that they play with from time to time!) yet somehow; maybe through osmosis, children seem to manage to learn this and so much more.

So how do children learn acquire general knowledge? The answer is simply by their observational skills and being given the opportunities to see things, ask questions and have information shared with them. All of this learning is incidental so they don’t realise they are doing it, as far as they see it they are going to the supermarket, watching television, having a bath or sharing a book but in reality they are doing so much more.

This post gives some ideas of how you can incorporate these incidental learning opportunities into your day.

First, make use of clocks! When your children wake for the day show them the time it is – talk about the big hand being on the (whatever) and the small hand being on the (whatever – preferably after seven!) or read the numbers on a digital clock. You’ve immediately started teaching telling the time / number recognition and you are still all in your pyjamas! You can repeat this activity throughout the day pointing out lunch time, bath time, bed time etc and telling them that at certain times things will be happening.

Breakfast and getting dressed give a whole host of opportunities. Labelling foods and clothes, colours, counting as you do up buttons, reading labels on food packaging plus developing the self-help skills related to eating and dressing.

Moving onto the household chores; sorting washing is great for learning colours – and the sooner you can get your child to pair up the clean socks the sooner it’s one job you can pass on! Tidying toys is an excellent opportunity to teach categories – all the animals in one box, musical instruments in another and the cars in a third. Cooking is a fantastic activity for incidental learning. Not only is your child learning the culinary skills, they are also reading (following recipes), measuring and counting, developing fine motor control – stirring, rolling, spooning, cutting etc, plus increasing their general knowledge by talking about food labels, where ingredients come from, plus all the describing words for example; dry, powdery, wet, lumpy, hot, cold, smooth or my son’s favourite ‘gungy’! Again a trip to the supermarket has a whole host of possibilities; colours, labels, counting, writing and reading lists (very small children can use picture lists) and money skills.

Of course children’s toys all have educational potential too. Whilst building with blocks talk about their shapes and colours. You can count the carriages on the train when playing with train sets and talk about where the people are going. Dressing up activities provide opportunity to explore topics such as people who help us through talking to your children about what they do, where they work, the vehicles they use etc, and role play with pretend food and plates / cutlery means you can talk about sharing, counting and even meal planning and healthy eating. Games can teach turn taking, matching, counting and many other skills.

Then at the end of the day, counting the stairs to get upstairs reinforces counting and bath time provides another great learning opportunity, the simplest of bath toys – a set of stacking cups is a brilliant for learning colours, sizes, measuring volume and pouring. Lastly bedtime is a lovely time to share books snuggled up together – rhyming books help with phonic development, counting books are good for teaching numbers and all books provide the opportunity for learning to read simple words, talking about the plot, the characters, predicting what comes next and a whole host of other things.

Lastly, there are lots of reports about television being ‘bad’ for children – but a few well chosen programmes can enhance their knowledge base (and yours!). For example, at three my son was telling me about the sewage treatment process thanks to Come Outside and Something Special has taught us all lots of signs and helped the children with their language development. Again, programmes such as the Numberjacks, Fun with Phonics and Alphablocks introduce numeracy and literacy skills without children really thinking about them.

So, in answer to the question – how did they learn that – the answer is you probably taught them without even thinking about it, what you see as a simple discussion about the weather will stick in a child’s head and before you know it they are telling you about the seasons, or even the water cycle!

Does Cooking with Children = Mess or Learning?

There is an article on the BBC website If flour + sugar + children = mess, why let them bake? written by Katy from I Can Cook which got me thinking about cooking with children.

Of course cooking with children is messy but it also has a whole host of learning opportunities.

First, you need a recipe. Finding a recipe using cookery books, shows the use of non-fiction books and gives the opportunity to use an index or you could use a computer search engine. We have found using an internet search for a recipe interesting to see variations of the same recipe and deciding which one works best for us.

Then reading the recipe - older children can read it for themselves, younger ones will need help. This shows that reading is a useful skill and demonstrates the use of instructional text. If your children like cooking get them a notebook and help them make their own recipe book. This helps them practice writing skills (don't forget to add photographs or illustrations of the finished product). They can copy in favourite recipes but also make up their own simple ones for their favourite things like cheese on toast, home made ice lollies or popcorn, which gives them practice at writing instructions.

Next we need the ingredients (learning through shopping is a whole other post see summer holiday market shopping or super maths for supermarket for some ideas). Have you got everything you need or do you need to make some substitutes (strawberry jam for raspberry jam, sultanas for raisins (or chocolate chips!). Looking at the ingredients gives the opportunity to increase vocabulary and general knowledge - what is oregano? where is butter kept? how is tomato puree made? what are raisins made from? where do bananas come from?

Measuring out ingredients using both weight and volume is a great practical maths lesson, what is bigger a teaspoon or a tablespoon? How many cups of flour do we need - can you count them?

Then the making part - this involves many fine motor skills; pouring, scooping, cracking eggs, stirring, whisking, cutting, grating, spooning, kneading, rolling, squeezing, sprinkling, spreading - every part of the making process using motor skills (which in turn will help them improve their handwriting!).

Recipes that involve cooking (or freezing) also teach patience / time telling as you can't eat them immediately!

Some of the things we have made recently...

Emotions

As I was viewing the photos on my camera I came across one of the stone face that the six year old had made at Beavers...

and this made me think about how this idea could be adapted to create a craft activity to help children learn about emotions.

First of all you need a collection of pebbles or stones, then things to decorate them with - as you can see this one uses googly eyes, wool and a bit of pipecleaner but you can use whatever you want - if you wanted you could just use paint or a marker pen to draw on the pebble.

Then make a collection of different faces; happy, sad, scared, surprised, angry - talk about the emotion, what makes people feel that way, or act out scenarios with your pebble people. You could also make an identification game by putting the pebbles in a bag and picking one out - or a matching game matching the pebble to a picture of someone showing an emotion or a scenario.

You can find a range of resources to help children learn about emotions at Littlesheep Learning.

Seaside Fun and Learning

Are you off to the seaside this summer holiday (not sure whether we are or not yet - it wasn't on the boys MUST DO list so it depends how things pan out) but if you are there are lots of learning opportunities at the beach.

First, the beach is one big open space and if you are lucky enough to go to one that isn't crammed full of other holidaymakers (memories of the Norfolk coast in mid-winter when we very definitely were the only ones there spring to mind!) there is lots of space for running, jumping and throwing balls; plus the obligatory digging - trenches and sandcastle building and carrying buckets of sand / water / pebbles. All of these activities will help children develop their gross motor skills which in turn help develop their fine motor skills. Another thing that you can do is write big letters and draw huge pictures in the sand - this is great fun for children who may usually be reluctant writers.

Then of course there are all the different object labels to be learnt - sand, sea, cliff, rockpool, lighthouse, shell, crab, starfish, seaweed , bucket, spade, ice cream - the list is endless! And for older children identifying the different types of creatures in a rock pool - how many different types of crustacean can you find?

Lastly the shells and stones can be used for counting, adding and subtracting, comparing sizes and much more.

Have fun on your trip to the beach and see how much "accidental learning" goes on!

Lego Learning

I have three boys (aged six, four and two) so perhaps unsurprisingly we have LOTS of Lego in our house and it is something that they all play together with. Legoland is on their top places to visit and on Monday we had a great day out at the Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester.

Duplo is a firm favourite for building houses for all sorts of toys, building bridges for the wooden railway and building towers, trains and all sorts of other constructions. Building with Duplo and then standard Lego is great for fine motor skill development as children pick up the pieces and connect them together (tip: pulling apart Duplo is easier than putting it together). We have now started to move onto "little Lego" and are enjoying building models following the instructions.

There are many other targets that can use Lego as a tool...

Colours - match, sort and identify the different colours

Sorting - by colour, shape or size of brick

Patterns - make colour patterns using the blocks (or use them as mosiac tiles)

Shapes - use Lego bricks to build / identify different shapes (both 2D and 3D depending on the bricks you have

Counting - simply use the bricks in place of counters or count how many bricks were needed in your creation. You can also use them for addition and subtraction and solving word problems - make a tower with 3 green bricks and 5 red bricks, how many bricks did you use altogether? or take two blocks away, how many blocks are in your tower now?

Measuring - use your Lego bricks as a unit for measuring (see No Time for Flashcards for a great demonstration)

Literacy - put words or letters on your Lego bricks to make great literacy manipulatives (see Filthwizardry for an excellent example)

Questions

I know my children ask a lot of questions and I feel fairly confident to answer most of them, but a news report on the BBC website says that four in five UK parents have been stumped by a science question posed by their children, a poll has suggested.

The top three most-asked questions by children were: "Where do babies come from?", "What makes a rainbow?" and "Why is the sky blue?" (have your children asked you those ones yet?) and more than half of the 1,002 parents surveyed thought their children knew more about science than they did.

The survey of UK parents with children aged five to 16 was carried out to mark the launch of a new website by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The website - Science: So what? So everything - gives information to parents on answering those tricky questions from children, as well as downloadable activity sheets and ideas of places to visit.

How to answer about where babies come from? The website explains that babies are created when a cell from the mother and a cell from the father join together or "fuse". After the two cells fuse, the site goes on, they divide over and over again to create a ball of cells called an embryo that goes on to become a baby that grows inside the mother for nine months.

The website explains how a rainbow is made from light and water - with help from the sun.
And the sky is blue, it says, because the sun produces white light which is made up of all the colours of the rainbow.

But a clear, cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more easily than they do red light.

So if you are stuck for the right answer and want another resource - take a look at Science: So what? So everything

Summer Holiday: Market Shopping

Tuesday is Market Day and school holidays are no exception to the need to get fresh produce so that is our first activity of the day but how can this activity be extended. In our blog post on Super Maths for the Supermarket we looked at some of the maths related activities that supermarket shopping could involve and many of these are the same when shopping at the market.

Other activities that could be incorporated into market shopping are:

• writing a shopping list (or drawing one)
• reading a shopping list
• labelling the different fruits and vegetables
• labelling the colours seen on the stall
• thinking of recipes to use the ingredients
• classifying foods into food groups - fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, fish
• counting in 6's (eggs!)

As the rest of the day seems quite likely to be raining other ideas to extend the 'shopping' theme of the day include:

• playing shop (see this previous post)
• playing the Shopping List Game with the Fruit and Veg extension pack
• learning about money

Learning whilst Playing

With all the lovely hot and sunny weather the chances are that your children are busy playing outside and you may be thinking that there is no time for learning.

At Littlesheep Learning, we have the solution for children learning colours, shapes, numbers and letters with our range of learning beanbags. These can be used in the garden and children can learn whilst they are playing and probably not even realise it! Take a look here for lots of bean bag learning ideas and have fun.

Order your colour, shape, number or letter beanie bags today and save 10% in our special relocation sale (offer ends 31st July 2008).

Incidental Learning

I forgot to post the other day to highlight an article I have had published at Treehugger Mums looking at Incidental Learning - But I didn't teach them that.

Incidental learning is unintentional or unplanned learning that results from other activities and is the way many children learn whilst they are playing. The article gives ideas as to how children learn through everyday activities, take a look and see what learning you can incorporate into your daily life.


Treehugger Mums - is a website written by mums for mums with pregnancy and parenting-related information, articles and the Treehugger Mums Shop where you can buy baby slings, real nappies, breastfeeding accessories and natural toiletries.

Writing Difficulties

Many children with writing difficulties have dyslexia and / or dyspraxia (developmental coordination difficulties) − these conditions often occur together and affect all aspects of a child's life, both in school and outside. It is vital therefore, that schools and early years settings are able to identify difficulties in this important area and put in place appropriate interventions where necessary.

Some things to look out for are children who difficulties with:

• throwing and catching
• dance/music and movement
• manipulating small objects (building bricks, jigsaws)
• getting dressed/undressed
• using cutlery / scissors
• handwriting
• organising themselves and their work
• sequencing
• laterality (knowing left from right)
• following multiple instructions

Children with motor coordination difficulties may also have poor posture and limited body awareness, moving awkwardly and seeming clumsy; this can be especially noticeable after a growth spurt. They may also tire more easily than other children.
For children who find writing difficult the following things should be thought about:

• the sitting position: ideally both feet on the floor with the table and chair at an appropriate height
• the possibility of using a sloping writing surface
• anchoring the paper / book to the table to avoid slipping
• providing a 'cushion' to write on can be a help, for example, an old magazine, used paper stapled together
• the writing implement − try triangular pencils or different pencil grips, for example standard triangular pencil grips, Tri-go grips or Grippy grips
• avoid the use of a hard-tipped pencil or pen
• providing opportunities for practising handwriting patterns and letter formation in alternative mediums for example sand, cornflour gloop or playdough
• providing lines to keep writing straight
• limiting the amount of writing required − think of other ways information can be recorded including making use of computers

The formation of letters is a very specific area of skill development and providing opportunities for practising, without making it a chore is important. Precision teaching is a good example of distributed practice and may include exercises such as a one-minute daily exercise to see how many b and d words the child can successfully write. This type of exercise provides the child with instant feedback and always focuses on success. Progress can be easily monitored by keeping a daily count or by using a weekly probe sheet.
Practising holoalphabet sentences, for example 'the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog' or 'the five boxing wizards jumped quickly' are useful, as these contain the 26 letters of the alphabet and make it easy to monitor progress on letter formations.

Other ways of encorporating writing are drawing / painting patterns (a wet paintbrush on dry concrete slabs) and encouraging incidental writing for example writing names in birthday cards, writing shopping lists, keeping a diary, writing out recipes. It is important that these activities are fun, and always praising the child for effort.

Encouraging Reading

As this year is the National Year for Reading and next week includes World Book Day, I thought I would write a post about how parents can encourage their children to read. Most parents (and grandparents) want their children to do well at school and want to support their learning so here are some ideas to help. The trick is to find ways of fitting this into busy schedules and to keep it fun. Even very young children can benefit from 'sharing books' − discussing pictures, looking at words, talking about the story and characters.

When trying to start reading activities with your children it is important:

• keep it short
• choose the time carefully − not while your child's favourite TV programme is on or when they are tired etc
• do it regularly − 10 minutes every day or three times a week is better than trying to fit in a 'long session' at the weekend
• make it enjoyable
• understand the task and the learning purpose
• use rewards.

Some ideas for reading activities:

• use the local library for free access to a variety of different books to stop you getting bored of the same ones (unfortunately young children do like repitition so be prepared to need to read the same book every day for weeks!).
• play reading games including; I spy, bingo, letter and word lotto, word jigsaw games for example, Nonsenses and Pass the Word
• put a word of the week on the fridge, you could use word flashcards or magnetic words / letters
• find time to listen to your child read and read to them.
• ensure that incidental reading is part of everyday activities; reading recipes, DIY instructions and travel brochures can all provide opportunities for reading in the home over and above books and comics
• read the same book as your older independent reading child and then then talk with them about the characters, the plot and their favourite parts.

Down on the Farm

Another post in our series based on the activities at the Stay and Play group we go to. This post is based on helping children learn about farm animals.

Activity Ideas

• Visit a farm
• Play listening games e.g. Cock-a-doodle Moo!
• Make a farm collage - cotton wool makes great sheep, stick on feathers for ducks, use real grass, leaves and twigs to creat the fields and foil to create a pond
• Play with farm animals or finger puppets

Books

• The Usborne Farmyard Tales collection by Heather Amery
• 1001 Things to Spot on the Farm by Gillian Doherty
• Muddle Farm by Axel Scheffler
• Noisy Farm by Rod Campbell
• Farm Animals (Usborne Beginner Series) by Katie Daynes

Songs and Rhymes
In addition to the many songs and rhymes about individual farm animals for example; Baa Baa Black Sheep, Five Little Ducks and This Little Piggy went to Market, there are lots of songs farm animals collectively.

Old MacDonald had a Farm
Old MacDonald had a Farm
E-i-e-i-o
And on that farm he had a [pick a farm animal]
E-i-e-i-o
With a [animal noise][animal noise] here and a [animal noise][animal noise] there
Here a [animal noise], there a [animal noise], everywhere a [animal noise][animal noise]
Old MacDonald had a Farm
E-i-e-i-o

I went to visit a Farm one Day
I went to visit a farm one day I saw a [farm animal] across the way
And what do you think I heard it say?
[Animal noise],[animal noise],[animal noise],
[Animal noise],[animal noise],[animal noise],[animal noise],
That's the way it goes
[Animal noise],[animal noise],[animal noise],[animal noise],
Everybody knows.

Repeat these songs as many times as you want using, cows, sheep, ducks, horses, pigs and any other farm animal you can think of.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

We've just been decorating our tree and I've realised that even something as simple as this can offer endless possibilities for learning and generalising knowledge.

First, there is the waiting - that is the bit where the adults are putting on the lights! Our pre-schooler found this very difficult as he was very excited to be involved in decorating the tree.

Then the decorations, these hold several different learning opportunities, you can label the items - tinsel, baubles, beads and the ornaments - snowmen, angels, Father Christmas, reindeer. You can practice colours and shapes (depending on your decorations!). You can practice prepositions / adjectives / opposites - on the tree 'v' off the tree, high 'v' low, top 'v' bottom, put it next to the star / above the snowman / below the bauble / under the tree.

Lastly there is the big lesson of not touching the finished tree! Our toddler is still learning this one so I keep being presented with the baubles with him saying 'ball'.

Paperchain Learning

We've been making paperchains and whilst threading, looping and sticking (and stapling!) I started to think of all the learning opportunities that this activity can create.

Firstly, if you aren't using a pack of precut strips (like we did) then there are lots of skills needed to prepare your paperchain strips and then the paper needs to be measured and lines drawn on using a ruler or folded to divide up the page, then the strips need to be cut practicing scissor skills.

Whilst making the paperchain, the repetitive threading is an excellent fine motor task. Incidental learning can also occur if you label the colours / pictures on your paper strips or make patterns with different colours to practice sequencing skills. Precut strips are often gummed so licking and sticking the ends is good for children who have oral-motor difficulties and need to practice sticking their tongue out. Fixing your chains with a dab of glue or sticky tape will help children co-ordination and using a small stapler is also great fine motor skill practice.

Have fun making your paperchains this Christmas.

Christmas Cooking - Christmas biscuits

If your children are anything like mine getting into a mess in the kitchen is a great way to keep them busy. Cooking is a great tool for incidental learning; you are making use of maths skills with the measuring, using literacy skills - reading and following the instructions and the mixing, rolling, cutting and icing are great to help develop motor skills.

Today I've promised the children that we'll make Christmas biscuits this afternoon. If you want to join us making Christmas Biscuits, you will need:

Equipment:

• scales
• mixing bowl
• fork
• plate
• teaspoon
• biscuit cutters (you can get some lovely ones from PinkFairyCake)
• rolling pin
• baking tray
• oven gloves,
• wire tray

Ingredients

• 175g/6oz plain flour
• 50g/2oz caster sugar
• 100g/4oz butter
• 5ml/1tsp vanilla essence
• Icing / sprinkles to decorate

Method

1. Heat the oven to 170˚C/325˚F/Gas Mark 3.
2. Grease the baking sheet with butter or margarine.
3. Weigh the flour and sugar and put them into a bowl.
4. Weigh the butter and cut into small pieces.
5. Add the butter to the flour and sugar.
   Mix together with a fork and rub everything together with your fingers.
   Rub the mixture together until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.
6. Measure the vanilla essence and add it to the mixture.
7. Gather all the mixture together and squeezing it gently to make a ball
8. Sprinkle flour on to a clean work surface and put your mixture on to it.
9. Knead it with your fingers until you have a smooth, firm ball.
10. Put some flour on the rolling pin and gently roll out the mixture until it is about half a centimetre thick.
11. Then cut out your shapes using your cutters (f you want to make tree decorations from your bicuits use a skewer to make a hole for your ribbon).
12. Gather up any spare bits of mixture and roll it out again to make more biscuits.
13. Carefully pick up the biscuits and put them on to greased baking sheets.
14. Put the baking trays into the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until the biscuits are a light golden colour.
15. Leave the biscuits to cool for 5 minutes before lifting them on to the wire cooling tray. (If you are making decorations poke the skewer into the holes to make sure they don’t close up as the biscuits cool).
16. Use icing / sprinkles to decorate if you want to.
17. Eat! (or give away as presents)

Christmas

December is now here so over the next month I'll be posting some suggestions of art and craft activities and other learning opportunities with a wintery and Christmas theme. From writing letters to Father Christmas to making Christmas cards and wrapping paper there will be ideas for everyone. I'll also share some of our favourite books from our Christmas story box which made their appearance by magic on 1st December.

Five Little Ducks

Everyone knows the rhyme 5 Little Ducks went swimming one day and this is an excellent rhyme to use to start teaching children about counting and about ducks. Here are some ideas!

Activity ideas:
Different activities will be suitable for children of different ages so you may be able to revisit this list over a number of years!

• Go and feed the ducks
• Play with bath ducks in water
• Share rhymes about ducks (see suggestions below)
• Share books about ducks (see suggestions below)
• Play with the 5 Little Ducks Teaching Song Mitt
• Draw and colour pictures of ducks
• Talk about the noise ducks make - you could play listening games and listen for the duck
• Talk about where ducks live
• Talk about the lifecycle of ducks from eggs, to ducklings to grown up ducks

Songs and Rhymes
The most popular duck rhyme has to be 5 Little Ducks went swimming one day (start with 3 for younger children!), this is a rhyme that varies everywhere it is sung but here is our version!

Five little ducks went swimming one day,
Over the pond and far away,
Mummy Duck said "quack, quack, quack, quack",
But only four little ducks came back.

Repeat with four little ducks, then three, then two, then one until 'no little ducks came swimming back'. Then we sing:

Daddy duck went swimming one day ,
Over the pond and far away,
Mummy Duck said "quack, quack, quack, quack",
And all the ducks came swimming back.

Another rhyme is:

Five little ducks that I once knew,
Three were fat and skinny were two,
But the one little duck,
With the feather on his back,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack.

Down to the river they would go,
Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, to and fro,
But the one little duck,
With the feather on his back,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack.

Back from the river they would come,
Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, ho, hum, hum,
But the one little duck,
With the feather on his back,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack.

Lastly,

Isn't it a bit of luck
That I was born a baby duck
With yellow socks and yellow shoes
I can go wherever I choose?
Quack, quack, quack quack

Books

There are many books based on the 5 Little Ducks song, my favourite is

• Five Little Ducks by Penny Ives

Other 'duck' books include:

• One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root and Jane Chapman
• Nine Ducks Nine by Sarah Hayes
• Duck (Read & Learn: Life Cycles) by Richard Spilsbury
• From Egg to Duck (How Things Grow) by Sally Morgan
• I am a Duck by Linda Bygrave

New Series of Posts

I've been tidying up and I've come across the piles of handouts from the Stay and Play sessions we go to, so I thought I'd write a series of posts based on these. This term the theme has been animals and each week there is a song, a story and activities based on the theme. I'll try and post every few days for the next week or so and then continue to post them each week. Look out for suggestions surrounding ducks, frogs, farm animals, jungle animals and more! These play ideas are great for incidental learning and increasing a child's general knowledge.

Super Maths for the Supermarket

As I was shopping in the supermarket with my children I realised that there are a whole host of learning opportunities that it offers. This post will focus on numeracy (maths) skills - maybe after next weeks trip I'll look at literacy or another development area!

So here are some of our teaching and learning experiences:

• Counting; ask your child to get a certain number of an item e.g. get me four carrots or count how many are in the packet e.g. counting the three peppers in the sealed bag
• Number recognition; what numbers can they spot - the aisles are numbered as are the tills (checkouts), look for the numbers on packaging e.g. the number of eggs in the box or the number of pints in the bottles of milk;
• Size comparisons; which is biggest / smallest, longest / shortest
• Weight; which is heaviest / lightest, how much does it weigh? (in stores that allow you to weigh your produce)
• Simple story sums; we've got three potatoes and one more makes? if there are four of us for dinner and we are going to two sausages for dinner how many do we need altogether?
• Identifying 3D shapes; for example, tins are cylinders, cereal boxes are cuboids and oranges are spheres

And for older children you can introduce money questions and budgeting questions

• which one costs more / less?
• how much for two?
• how much change do you get?
• price comparisons - if six yoghurts cost £3 and four cost £2.20 which yoghurts are cheapest?