For each topic, we’ve brought together lots of different ideas and resources to hopefully keep learning fresh and fun. There’s plenty to choose from so there’s scope to do a couple of activities each day, pick whichever suits best and adjust according to age/interests. The resources are mainly aimed at Early Years / Primary aged children, but there’s no reason the theme can’t be adapted to suit a mixture of ages.
Download & print the PDF version of the topic timetable HERE.
Week 12 – Transport
Tie yourself in knots! Every sailor needs to know how to tie some knots!! Learn 5 easy knots with this VIDEO
Make a junk model boat (use egg cartons/bottles/sticks) – See if they float in the bath or paddling pool to test how sea worthy they are! Mr Bloom makes a bottle boat HERE if you need some inspiration.
Toilet Roll Train – We’ve got to use up all those empty toilet rolls, here’s a quick easy way to turn them into a train! Cut the loo roll in half and then cut a slot in each. Cut out a train shape from card and this will then slot onto the toilet roll wheels (see our attempt below to get the idea!)
Paper plate boat – Cut a paper plate in half for the base of the boat, then 2 card board triangle for the sails.
Make some Paper aeroplanes – Find over 40+ different ways to make paper Aeroplanes on the Fold n Fly website HERE. Please note: it is free to follow the photo instructions on this website but they do charge to download and print a template (which you do not need to do). Please supervise any website use.
Masking Tape Road Map – Dig out some masking tape and design a road system on the carpet! Roads, roundabouts, car parks etc. See our mini version below but let your imagination keep going (as long as the masking tape does!). My little man did try to eat the masking tape…. so do keep a close eye on any small people.
CBeebies Maddie Moate is back with a “5 Cool Vehicles” video and a “How does a bicycle work” podcast. There’s also vehicle jigsaw puzzles on the CBeebies website too.
Network Rail have designed a free to download activity book featuring Emily the engineer. It’s full of STEM puzzles, games & activities all around a train theme.
There’s some great games on the Thomas & Friends website including design your own engine HERE
How about a virtual train ride? This is filmed from the drivers cab from London Waterloo – Southampton Central. Watch HERE.
Watch: Thomas the Tank Engine, Cars, Moana (lots of sailing!), Transformers & Herbie.
Week 11 – Vikings
Make and decorate a Viking sword and shield. See our attempt below.
Murton Park – Yorkshire Museum of Farming are doing FREE Educational Videos on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12pm on their FACEBOOK page. Here our some of our favourite:
Explore how a Viking village may have looked. Click HERE.
Learn to Weave
Ursa shows you how to make a simple loom to weave on, Click HERE.
You will need cardboard (cereal box works well), yarn (string will work at a push, pencil/pen, ruler and scissors.
Make and Play the Viking Game Trip, trap Troll!
Click HERE for the video and HERE for a printable version of the game.
BBC bitesize have some Viking videos aimed at KS2. Take a look HERE.
Make a Viking boat – You could do some junk modelling and make a small boat, or get serious and make a big one people can sit in. Hobbycraft have instructions for one if you need some inspiration. Click HERE.
The Jorvik website is packed full of fantastic resources as part of their “Discover from home” setup.There’s plenty of Viking related things to read, watch and do! See HERE.
These are just some of our favourite’s from the Jorvik selection:
Read: Horrible history Vikings
Watch: How to train your dragon 1,2 & 3.
Week 10 – Under the Sea
Watch the CBeebies Show Andy’s Wild Workouts – Under the Sea episode.
Go diving! Get the kids in their swimwear, goggles/snorkles, lay a blue blanket/towel down and pop blue planet (or any under water film – see below). It will make them feel much more involved and they can practice their swimming too!
Whale size comparison. An adult blue whale can be up to 80ft long (The same as a 25m swimming pool) and weigh up to 200 tons! Hold a 1kg bag of flour/sugar, guess how many bags of flour equal the approximate weight of an adult blue whale (over 1000!!!). What animal is equivalent to the weight of a blue whales tongue? (An elephant) and what is roughly the size of a blue whales heart (a car!!). Find out more blue whale facts with National Geographic Kids HERE.
Download the Shark Tracker app OCEARCH to follow tagged sharks and dolphins around the globe!
Which Shark would you be?! Answer a few questions on this BBC quiz and find out which shark you share things in common with!
Design wordsearches containing lots of ‘under the sea’ related words, then swap and complete each others (if you can!).
Make some Celery Stamp Rainbow Fish. A really simple but effective way to make some lovely art work, with the novelty of using celery to paint it makes it even more exciting than usual! See ours below.
Explore The Deep Sea – Made with by Neal Agarwal. Keep scrolling down as you dive deeper and deeper into the ocean on an interactive exploration through the depths and the life that inhabits each layer.
Click HERE to start exploring.
She’s popular, so she’s made our list again! Take an Underwater adventure with CBeebies Maddie Moate HERE and her video “10 reasons why Sharks are awesome” HERE.
Fish Origami – Make a fish using simple paper folding techniques. Click HERE for the YouTube video.
Join another Cosmic Kids Yoga Adventure! This time with Squish the Fish. Click HERE.
Watch: The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, Blue Planet, Shark Tale, Free Willy, Disney Atlantis, Dolphin Tale.
Week 9 – The Human Body
Senses – Touch/Taste/Smell quiz – Blindfold required! Make some small samples of different foods for the little ones to try and guess using their different senses.
Operation Ouch – A CBBC show with lots of episodes ready to watch. Learn about your brain, teeth and why you shouldn’t pick your scabs! Click HERE.
Make some teeth! You could use blue tack or playdoh to make your teeth. This is a good opportunity to learn more about teeth and the importance of brushing well. Learn more about teeth on the NHS website. You could design a poster to remind people of the importance of brushing their teeth!
Maddie Moate from CBeebies has some great videos on YouTube from her body week. Click HERE for her video about the senses and HERE for the Germs and Blood video.
Draw around somebody and make their organs to stick on in the correct places (you could use wallpaper, lining paper or any wrapping paper you have to draw the body shape). You could make them out of all sorts of household items, or draw them and cut then out instead. If you want to do a smaller version, then draw a body template on a piece of paper and either draw the different organs to cut out and stick or make them out of playdoh to put on! Main organs would include: Brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidney, intestine, stomach, bladder and spleen. For an easy option, there’s a Twinkl cut out option HERE. Take it further by learning about the different organs and what their job is.
Twinkl resource – Print off a life size children’s skeleton, but there’s a catch, you need to assemble it!
Cotton Bud Skeleton Picture – Dig out those cotton buds and create some skeleton pictures (see our attempt below). This can lead onto a conversation about bones and our skeleton. Maddie Moate has done a video about Bones too HERE.
Play “Operation game” It’s the wishbone I find the hardest!
Sing head, shoulders, knees and toes, all actions required! Learn it in French too HERE (why not?!)
Measuring Activity. You will need a tape measure, string, paper and pencils to write down your measurements.
– How long are their feet? legs? arm span? Draw a table to write the measurements in.
– Who’s got the biggest head in the house? (measure circumference).
– A great opportunity for practicing measuring, numbers, estimating and comparing.
Measuring Fibs or Facts:
– Your height equals your wingspan (The span of your arms when you stretch them out to the side. fingertip to fingertip). (Fact)
– Your legs are the same length as your arms? (Fib)
– Our waist circumference is the same as our leg length (Fib)
– Our head circumference is roughly 1/3 of our height (Fact)
– Your forearm and foot are the same length (Fact)
Watch: Inside out, Osmosis Jones
Week 8 – London
Be the Queen for the day! Make a Crown. This could be made out of cardboard and of course would need decorating beautifully! Write a list of the things you would do/change if you were the Queen, you could make a poster to show all your ideas.
Afternoon tea with her Majesty. Make some posh sandwiches (crusts off of course) and scones and off you go! HERE‘s a lovely scone recipe from the BBC to try. See our attempt at the scones below.
Make a Union Jack Flag. A good way to practice using a ruler and trying to achieve symmetry. There’s a Twinkl colour in version HERE to print off for younger ones.
London Zoo have added lots of webcam footage and various animal videos onto their website, so you can take a virtual tour from home. Click HERE.
Take a virtual tour of the Tower of London HERE, includes some commentary as you tour.
There’s also a virtual tour of Buckingham Palace HERE.
and the Natural History Museum HERE
Have a game of Monopoly. Be careful, this can get VERY competitive!
Have a sing song: London bridge is falling down and then do a building bridge activity. You could build bridges out of lego, cardboard recycling, drinking straws, spaghetti. Test the strength of these newly built bridges with a bag of sugar!
Twinkl Resource – There’s a London Landmark Wordsearch
Webcams of London – Live streams of London from various viewpoints HERE.
Ordnance Survey colouring in – this is a more advanced colouring in sheet requiring a steady hand!! Click HERE.
If you didn’t get around to watching one in Theatre week, then it fits into London week too. Catch a West End musical! Shows are be streamed on “The Shows Must Go On” YouTube channel at 7 pm on a Friday. You will then have 24/48 hours to watch the show. The full line up hasn’t been revealed yet so it’s a surprise what’s to come! Click HERE to keep an eye on the page for updates and announcements.
Read: The Queen’s Knickers, Horrible History: London.
Watch: Paddington Bear, Night at The Museum 3 and Basil the Great Mouse Detective.
Week 7 – Butterflies
Learn about Symmetry with simple but effective Butterfly print painting. Fold a piece of paper in half and cut out a simple butterfly shape then unfold. Apply some paint in splodges/patterns on one side of the butterfly. We were a little more generous with paint than normal painting so that it would print well. Then fold in half, press down and reveal the magic! See our attempts below.
Make a Butterfly. We just used paper to make ours, but you could use card or you could use a toilet roll for the body. Use pens/pencils/paints to decorate the wings or glue on shapes (this is what we did). See our attempt below.
Cosmic Yoga (Yoga for kids) has a Hungry Caterpillar special on YouTube. A great wind down for the younger ones HERE.
Make a Butterfly Feeder. There are different ways to do this. For our simple method, you will need a plate/lid/plant pot saucer, some string and fruit that’s past it’s best.
Punch some holes in the edge of the lid to tie the string through to make a hanger. If you had some artificial flowers at home you could decorate the string with these so to attract the butterflies. Hang the plate on a branch, or high fence post (or where ever is suitable in your garden). Keep in mind when positioning your butterfly feeder that some flies/other insects may be tempted by your offering. Once hung up you are ready to add the chopped up/mashed fruit. Strawberries, bananas and melon are popular so I hear! Then the exciting part, waiting to see if you manage to tempt any butterflies!! Fingers crossed! Butterfly conservation have some identification charts on their website for butterflies, moths & caterpillars, so you can work out which types of butterflies are visiting you!
Twinkl have some great Butterfly themed resources:
A workbook about the life cycle of a Butterfly , Butterfly Maths and hungry caterpillar maths for the youngest ones.
Insect Lore Butterfly Kits – They offer the opportunity to watch the butterfly life cycle in your home, a great learning experience for the kids. You can order the kits online although there’s about a months delay to receive the caterpillars at the moment due to demand.
Butterfly origami – Here’s a 3-minute Youtube video demonstrating a nice simple origami butterfly to make. Have a go HERE.
Bake butterfly buns! BBC Food has a recipe to follow HERE.
Askham Bryan Conservation & Wildlife park has some great butterfly craft instructions available on their website:
Butterfly craft
Read: The Hungry Caterpillar
Watch: A Bugs Life
Week 6 – Theatre
Practice some Tongue Twisters – could be used as a little warm up before another activity:
She sells seashells on the seashore.
Red Leather, Yellow Leather.
Betty bought butter but the butter was bitter, so Betty bought better butter to make the bitter butter better.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Cooks cook cupcakes quickly.
Mime acting – Write down different activities on pieces of paper e.g Swimming, eating ice cream, doing homework, driving, getting out of bed, winning a race, ironing, changing a nappy, washing up, painting or playing tennis. Fold up the pieces of paper and take turns to pick one out and perform, the other person then has to guess which one you are performing. (writing down not required for older children who could come up with the different activity ideas themselves without needing prompts).
Object Mime – Mime using an object and then pass the object onto the next person, they need to continue to mime using the same object (or what they believe it to be).
The “and then” game – Lead with a scenario e.g. “You were walking on a beach and then” the person playing has to say the next line e.g “I saw a boat”. The facilitator continues to say “and then” after each sentence to encourage the player to expand their story as much as they possibly can.
e.g. “I saw a boat” “and then” “the boat looked to have several people on it” and then “they looked liked pirates” and then……
Create a character and draw them. What do they look like? Do they carry any accessories? Do they have any super powers? Do they look friendly or mean? Do they have an animal sidekick? Where do they live? What do they do to fill their day?
Time to Dance. Oti Mabuse has been doing daily dance lesson videos for kids on her YouTube channel. She teaches the routine in a really fun, easy to follow way. Dance routines so far include Trolls, The Greatest Showman, Frozen & Mary Poppins.
Write a short script / story. What characters are there? Where is the story set? What do the character’s do/say?
Perform a song. Set the scene with the lights off, a spotlight and audience cheering clapping etc. There’s lot’s of sing along karaoke videos on Youtube if your little one needs some music accompaniment or would prefer words to sing along.
Read a book aloud. Put extra effort into doing different voices for all the characters, use expression where required and make the story come to life! The Worst Witch Mildred Hubble sings a short song giving advice about “reading with feeling” HERE.
Catch a West End musical! Shows are be streamed on “The Shows Must Go On” YouTube channel at 7 pm on a Friday. You will then have 24/48 hours to watch the show. The full line up hasn’t been revealed yet so it’s a surprise what’s to come! Click HERE to keep an eye on the page for updates and announcements.
Put on a Puppet show. Either make characters from a film/book and act out the plot or make up your own characters (or your family members) and perform an original. Make sock puppets, or an easier version would be drawing the character on card, colour in, cutting it out and attaching a stick. Make the stage out of a laundry rack or we used a children’s table on its side with a blanket over.
Or as an alternative, a shadow puppet show! Cut out the shapes using ideally black paper. Tape a stick or pencil/paintbrush to the back. You will then need a while sheet to perform behind and a torch to create the shadows, enjoy!!
Act out a scene from your favourite book / story. Get the fancy dress out and encourage the use of character voices and expression!
Write an alternative ending to a story or the next chapter e.g. after their favourite film ends, what happens next.
Week 5 – Mexico
Use the internet to find out more about Mexico:
– Where is it on a map?
– What language do people speak in Mexico? (Learn some simple Mexican words)
– What is the capital city?
– What currency do they use? (You could do some currency conversion maths)
Draw the Mexican Flag (or print off a version to colour in HERE)
Mexican Food worksearch – You could then talk about the different meals and ingredients you would need to make them and then maybe make one for tea? There’s some yummy BBC Mexican Food recipes to choose from.
Make and decorate a day of the dead mask. You till find lots of examples online or Twinkl have a template to colour in.
Write a postcard from a trip to Mexico.
Make a cactus picture with the mini mumblers handprint, a nice isolation memory to keep! See our attempt below.
Design and make a Sombrero hat. This could be done with a paper plate and a plastic cup/bowl although you can be creative with what you have. Make them as colourful as possible. See our attempt below.
Learn some simple Spanish with Duolingo (a free language learning tool / app)
Listen to some traditional Mexican Music on YouTube turn it into your daily exercise with a bit of dancing!!
Watch: Disney’s Coco for a great insight into Mexican music and the history of the day of the dead.
Junk modelling – Raid the recycling box and make a spaceship, rocket or telescope. Toilet rolls and juice bottles make great rockets!
Design your own planet – Draw a picture and write about your new planet. What will it look like? How will it be different from Earth? Who will live there? What will the weather be like? Let imaginations run wild! Chocolate waterfalls and candyfloss clouds, anything is possible!
Play Space bingo! Design your own bingo playing cards or use some ready made ones from Twinkl HERE
Make a space suit for Barbie / Action Man / Dolly / Teddy (basically who ever is willing!) You could use tinfoil or any spare loo roll (Ha, I know…). Read some NASA facts about spacesuits and spacewalking whilst you make.
Maddie Moate from CBeebies has made some great videos in her recent Space week. Activities include making astronaut food and a fruit salad solar system. Click HERE to watch.
Learn about the phases of the moon whilst eating Oreos (win win!). Separate the Oreos and remove the appropriate amount of filling to re create the different phases of the moon. Learn more about the phases on the moon with National Geographic Kids.
Learn the order of the planets from the sun. My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets (or come up with another little saying to help you remember the order of the planets). Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (arguably a dwarf planet now).
Make a planet, or keep the kids really busy and make the solar system! Planets can be made out of plasticine/play doh, paper mache balloons, Christmas baubles, small balloons, foil balls covered in paper, polystyrene balls or a mobile using cardboard circles.
There’s lots of space themed Cosmic Yoga videos to try if you need some wind down time. Click HERE These includes Star Wars themed, Mike & the Muttnik and Space stories.
Hubble Space Telescope. Find out what view the telescope had on your last birthday, why not check for the whole family. Click HERE.
The National Railway Museum have some great STEM learning resources on their website, including Rugged Rovers A game from the Science Museum that allows you to design and test your own all-terrain space rover(designed for KS 2 & 3).
Make and launch straw rockets! See our attempt below. Make a rocket on a piece of card, then stick a piece of paper to the back that a straw can fit underneath. Blow to launch!
Visit the NASA website for LIVE views on earth from the International Space Station ISS camera.
Read: Whatever Next!
Watch: Wall.E, Space Chimps, Space Buddies or Star Wars.
Save an empty milk bottle cartoon and have a go at making an Elephant milk bottle craft. Use either tissue paper, or coloured paper and get sticking! Stick on or draw some eyes once its all dried out.
The San Diago zoo have instructions for a Handy Elephant craft to create on their WEBSITE.
Have the kids take part in the Mumbler Safari Hunt. Hide the animals around the home/garden and they have to hunt them down and either tick them on the answer sheet or older ones can write the letter and number down. Tip: Don’t make it too easy if you want to enjoy that whole cup of tea in peace…
Elephant Maths!! Elephant addition and subtraction colouring in sheets can be accessed on Twinkl.
Elephants never forget – play a memory game such as Kim’s game. Get a tray and put on it about 20 small, random objects. Let the players examine the items for a minute, then cover them up and have everyone write down as many items as they can remember. For younger children, maybe just remove an item and have them look at the tray again and see if they can recall the missing item.
Write an acrostic poem all about Elephants. Get those adjectives out! Write it out neatly and decorate the page with elephants pictures.
Encourage a bit of freestyle Elephant dancing with this short StoryBots Youtube video.
So you can’t get to a zoo in person at the moment but you can see the elephant from your own home via a virtual zoo! Visit the Houston Zoo and watch their Elephant Yard Cam and see the Chester Zoo Facebook page for their recent LIVE video of their elephants.
Read: Elmer the Elephant
Watch: Dumbo
Learn about the different food groups. From the pizza base, the tomato sauce, then the cheese and whichever toppings you choose, there’s a good learning opportunity to be had figuring out which foods are in which groups. Here’s the NHS Eatwell guide for more information about the different food groups and examples of foods for each one.
Food prep: Make a pizza or some pasta. Pizza could be made easily with a pitta bread base or even a ready-made pizza base. The BBC website has lots of pizza and pasta recipes to choose from.
Arts & Craft with pasta! Lion faced Spaghetti (see our attempt below), pasta necklaces (just thread onto a piece of string – great for fine motor skills) or pasta flowers (paint/draw the stems and the centre of the flower and then use pasta for the petals).
Tuff Tray – coloured spaghetti! A great sensory activity for the younger ones. Put it in a tuff tray (or on a plastic tray / large waterproof tablecloth) for hours of fun. Add some plastic kitchen toys to add to the experience. To make the coloured spaghetti, cook it as normal. Then drain and rinse. Divide up and put into ideally ziplock bags (or food bags/bowls if not available) Use some food colouring and a bit of water and mix it well until all the pasta is coated. Rinse off the excess dye (or it will get everywhere!) before allowing children to play.
Make plasticine or playdoh pizza.
Design & decorate a pizza box. What will your pizza shop be called? What will the logo be like?
Pizza Fractions! Oh yes, there’s no escaping maths. You could do some graphs/bar charts with a vote of people favourite pizza toppings. Or draw some pizza circles and colour in different fractions of the pizza circles. Twinkl has some fraction worksheets, but you could easily make these yourself by drawing & diving circles.
Cutting & Sticking skills. Draw a pizza base and colour it in (or just a paper plate). Then draw a sheet of toppings and cut them out, arrange them onto the pizza and stick them on. We used a paper plate, yellow tissue paper and crayons on plain paper. See our attempt below.
My Little Kitchen – A free BBC online game for younger ones allowing them to practice basic kitchen skills such as chopping, grating and even pizza decorating. Get cooking HERE.
Watch Ratatouille – a Disney film to inspire budding little chefs or Cloudy with a chance of meatballs.
Have a go at making your own dinosaur fossils. You will need salt, flour, coffee grounds & water. Click HERE for the CBeebies website instructions.
Do the Dinosaur stomp with GoNoodle! – A catchy, energic warm-up for the day! Click HERE.
NB. This tune will get stuck in your head, apologies!
Nina & the Neurons – Cbeebies Radio (17 minutes) Nina asks, how do we know so much about dinosaurs when we’ve never even met one? Listen HERE.
Try a Cosmic Kids Yoga Adventure with Tiny the T-Rex HERE
Make a Dinosaur themed Tuff Tray, or an under the bed storage box or just use a table cloth if you don’t have a tray. Dig out those dinosaur toys and then get creative making them a dinosaur friendly environment to play in. See photo below for our attempt but utilise what you have in the house.
Make a Dinosaur skeleton using sticks (collected on your daily walk) or spaghetti. See the photo below for our attempt.
We can’t visit the Natural History Museum right now but we can search their Dino Directory and learn lots of facts about over 300 different types of dinosaurs.
Frozen Dinosaur Eggs – put a small dinosaur toy in a balloon and fill with some water and freeze. They will love chipping away and watching the ice melt to reveal the dinosaur. This activity could also be done in the tuff tray or in a washing up bowl to save a bit of mess afterwards!
Twinkl Resources – Dinosaur dot to dot , Dinosaur Colouring in pages and a Dinosaur wordsearch.
Askham Bryan Conservation and Wildlife park have a Dinosaur hatching egg craft on their WEBSITE.
Maddie Moate from CBeebies has lots of fantastic videos on YouTube. She recently did “Dino Week” as part of her “Let’s go LIVE” series. Watch them HERE.
Put the little palaeontologists to the test with the Dinosaur Quiz from National Geographic Kids HERE.
Play the BBC Bitesize Dinosaurs discovery game. A simple game using your science skills to collect all the dinosaur stickers and become a dino-expert! Play it HERE.
Read: Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs
Watch: The Good Dinosaur, Walking with Dinosaurs, Disney Dinosaur, The Land before Time, CBBC Deadly Dinosaurs or Netflix Dino Hunt.
