What can you see?

One of our favourite types of book at the moment are 'first word books' and in particular - First hundred words. This book is popular because the illustrator is the same person who illustrates 'the Apple Tree Farm books' and the First Experiences Books and my children love Stephen Cartwright's illustrations!

This type of book is one of the types of book that grows with your child. To start with they enjoy picking out the odd words that they know and pointing to the "big" items on the page, then as they get older they can actually hunt (and start remembering!) the items to find on each page. They can also look at the picture in more detail, describe what is happening and spot the more subtle things. It is also great for children who are learning to read as the words are printed underneath the picture so they can start to recognise the sight words.

The book has scenes from around the house; the living room, getting dressed, eating breakfast in the kitchen (my children find the broken egg and the burnt toast most amusing), tidying up (uh-oh what is going to happen to Dad's plate?), bathtime and bedtime, in the community - the park, the street and the swimming pool and having a birthday party. The swimming pool and changing room pages show body parts, whilst the shopping pages illustrate colours and finally the very last page has a numbers 1-5.

We love this book and I am sure you will too!

Today's Target: Colour Matching

Like most other families that live within a 30mile radius of an IKEA store we have these sets of coloured plates, cups, bowls and spoons.

Also (I guess like many other children) our children love to have "matching" sets at each meal time. This causes a bit of angst at the moment as our youngest likes the green set best and our green spoon got lost! However, joking aside, this is a great introduction to colour matching in every day life.

We have also used the bowls as "sorting pots" with other coloured items (for example; coloured paper clips, mini pompoms, crayons, toy cars) matching all the same colour things together in the bowl of that colour.

Learning colour matching is a skill within Mathematical Development - sorting familiar objects to identify their similarities and differences, making choices and justifying decisions and as part of Creative Development as children explore colour.

Other colour matching games that are enjoyed in our house are:

New Products: Jobs People Do

We are pleased to announce that Littlesheep Learning is now stocking these lovely Jobs People Do books published by Usborne Books.

These books contain a story which follows the person through their working day, with plenty of excitement and drama along the way! They are written with experts in the field to ensure complete accuracy, creating an informative yet enjoyable idea of what people do at work. It is beautifully illustrated with Jo Litchfield’s model characters.

Book titles are: Daisy the Doctor, Frank the Farmer, Fred the Firefighter, Sam the Chef, Tessa the Teacher and Vicky the Vet.

These books can be found in our new People Who Help Us category along with a range of occupations glove puppets - look out for more new products in this category soon.

Press Release: Beanbag Fun to Learn Colours and Shapes

Issued Date: 24th February 2009 For Immediate Release

Beanbag Fun to Learn Colours and Shapes

Learning Colours and Shapes is an essential part of a preschoolers learning as part of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

These sets of Colour and Shape Beanie Bags are a toy that makes learning fun. Children love the bright colourful bean bags which at about ten centimetres in size are ideal for small hands to manipulate and parents love the fact that they come in a drawstring cloth bag for easy storage. Previous customers have commented on the play value, longevity and quality of these items and their ability to withstand mucky fingers!

Some ideas to help children learn shapes and colours using the beanie bags:

1. Put the bean bags in their storage bags and take turns to take one out and identify it
2. Spread the bean bags out and see who can find a specified one first
3. Match the bean bags to the same shape or colour flashcards or objects
4. Identify colours or shapes by practicing throwing and catching - throw me the red one or catch the square one

Toys and resources to help teach colours, shapes, letters and numbers are available at Littlesheep Learning http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/.

## Ends ## 24th February 2009

Editor's notes
1. For more details, contact Elaine Lambe: elaine@littlesheep-learning.co.uk

2. Elaine’s website is: http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/

3. Media information is available at: http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/media_information.php

4. Photographs can be provided on request

Bean Bags

We have some more new products at Littlesheep Learning we received the box late yesterday and it is very exciting unpacking them and finding that they really are even better than they look in the pictures. We are pleased to announce the arrival of colour, shape and number bean bags. We'll add some teaching ideas for these products shortly - so do add your ideas!

The colour beanie bags set of 10 coloured bean bags (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, grey and brown) have the name of each colour stitched onto one side and are ideal for early colour recognition. Each bean bag measures approximately 10cm and can be stored conveniently in the drawstring cloth bag.


The shape beanie bags are a set of 8 shaped bean bags (circle, square, rectangle, triangle, star, oval, pentagon and hexagon) with the name of each shape stitched onto one side and are ideal for early shape recognition. Each bean bag measures approximately 10cm and can be stored conveniently in the drawstring cloth bag.


The number beanie bags set contains 20 bean bags with the name and number stitched on either side - ideal for a wide range of counting and number games. Each bean bag measures approximately 7cm and can be stored conveniently in the drawstring cloth bag.

We hope to be adding alphabet beanie bags in the future so do keep checking back for updates.

October 2006

The one problem with owning a retail business is that Christmas has to start early and Littlesheep Learning is no exception. We have now added Christmas stock to our Seasonal category, including our very own Littlesheep Learning Resources Christmas Flashcards.

We also have added more items to our Clearance sale so take a look for new bargains.

Sight Reading - High Frequency Words

Introduction
High frequency words are the essential words which pupils will need, to be able to read even very simple texts. Some of these words have irregular or difficult spellings and are often difficult to predict from the surrounding text. The list is in two sections with 45 words to be achieved by the end of the reception year (YR) and approximately 150 words to be learned between Years 1 and 2. By the end of Y2, pupils should be able to read all these words easily, in and out of context.

Reception Words

I	are	big	it	he
go	the	she	at	am
come	of	and	play	all
went	we	they	no	is
up	this	my	yes	cat
you	dog	see	for	get
day	me	on	a	said
was	like	away	dad	to
look	going	mum	an	in

Reception Year Words are available as laminated flashcards from Littlesheep Learning

Year 1 and 2 Words

about	can't	her	many	over
then	who	after	could	here
people	there	will	again	did
him	more	push	these	with
an	do	his	much	pull
three	would	another	don't	home
must	put	time	your	as
dig	house	name	ran	too
back	door	how	new	saw
took	ball	down	if	next
school	tree	be	first	jump
night	seen	two	because	from
just	not	should	us	bed
girl	last	now	sister	very
been	good	laugh	off	so
want	boy	got	little	old
some	water	brother	had	live(d)
once	take	way	but	half
love	one	than	were	by
has	made	or	that	what
call(ed)	have	make	our	their
when	came	help	man	out
them	where	may

Plus: days of the week, months of the year, numbers to twenty, common colour words, pupil's name and address, and the name and address of their school.