This week’s theme:
The Mysteries of… Summer
This week’s colouring in sheet:
Download and print this week’s colouring sheet here. This week’s features these summer flowers: sunflowers, crocosmias, cosmos, passion flower and poppy.
Fact of the day:
In the UK no one lives more than 80 miles from the seaside. And the tallest recorded sand castle is 16.68m tall!
Resources list:
Youtube; banana, honey, biscuits, pineapple/apple, grapes; beach outfit and accessories, sand or sugar, pebbles, salt water, sun cream; Sand, soil, cooked rice, beaker/egg cup; Paper and pens; plastic bottle or tub filled with beads, tiny stones, sand, dried peas, lentils, or rice.
Activity 1:
Learn some of the Makaton signs to Summer Holiday
Activity 2:
Get dressed for a visit to the beach, pop on your hat, sunglasses, shorts and tshirts. In your beach bag pop in a beach towel, suncream and an inflatable. Bring a crabbing bucket or a net for the rock pools!
If you have some, dip your toes in some sand (or put your finger tips in a bowl of sugar to feel a similar sensation and sound). If you have some, clink together some pebbles, as if you’re walking towards a rockpool on the beach.
Can you move yourself, or some fabric, like the waves, or the crabs; can you scream like the wind or shriek like a seagull; can you smell or taste some salt water; can you smell some suncream; can you put your hands or feet into some ‘tide’ waters; can you move back and forth like the sea’s tides moving in and out which they do daily; can you beat out a rhythm on your thighs of the in-and-out; can you do slow and steady breathing in and out like the gentle tides, watch here or here; can you add glitter to a jar of water to create sparkling, shimmering sea waters?
Activity 3:
No trip to the beach is complete without Fish & Chips – try making yourself a healthier version… For your fish, peel a banana and spread some honey over it – dip it and cover it in crunched up biscuits. For the chips, use pineapple fingers, or slice an apple into fingers. For your mushy peas, crush up some grapes. Serve it on paper for an authentic seaside experience!
Activity 4:
Try making some ‘sandcastles’ out of different materials (sand, soil, cooked rice/couscous, modelling clay, etc) – try out which ones work best, which ones don’t work very well, and which makes the best ‘sandcastle’. You don’t have to use a bucket, you could try making them with beakers, egg cups, bowls, or just formed with your hands. Make some of your own unique flags to stick in the top, attached to a cocktail stick. Share photos of your best ‘sand’castles with us on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!
Activity 5:
Lots of seaside resorts feature architecture and art work from the Art Deco period of the 1902s and 1930s. If you’re interested, you could watch a BBC Iplayer documentary called ‘Art Deco by the sea’ here. Famously, lots of wonderful advertising posters were made for British seaside resorts like this. Create an advertisement poster of your own featuring your favourite seaside resort, to entice people to visit it!
Activity 6:
Play along with ‘I do like to be beside the seaside’ (listen here, or hear the traditional seaside organ version here); using a homemade shaker instrument made from a plastic bottle or tub filled with beads, sand, dried peas, lentils, or rice.