Learning through play
The Mouse Club games and activities will encourage your child's development as they play and learn.
Find out about Early Learning Goals and how The Mouse Club can help your child’s education. We have suggested activities and games which support each of the goals as well as ideas for you to do with your child away from the computer.
The Early Learning Goals are:
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Personal, Social & Emotional Development
Games
The Mouse Club games encourage and develop a child’s self esteem and confidence as they learn and play.
- Helps to build positive relationships with other children as they learn to take turns & share fairly
- Helps form good relationships with adults and peers
Secret Club
The intuitive games and activities in the Secret club help to:
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Maintain your child’s attention and develop their concentration skills
Develop confidence in your child as they try new activities
Motivate independence
Excite and stimulate your child to learn
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How can you help your child?
Play different board games away from the computer and encourage your child to take turns and play fairly.
If you have time, play in the games section on the Mouse Club and talk and listen to your child.
Working together with your child will help develop their confidence and build positive relationships.
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Communication, Language and Literacy
Read Mouse Tales together
Children can:
- Explore and experiment with sounds, words and text
- Interact with others and learn to take turns in conversation e.g. talking about their favourite story
- Speak clearly and with confidence
- Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences
- Listen with enjoyment and respond to the different stories
- Respond to what they have heard and ask relevant questions
Looking at the stories will help children to:
- Hear and say initial and final sounds of simple words
- Link sounds to letters and recognise some of the letters of the alphabet found within the stories
- Read a range of familiar and common words
- Retell stories in the correct sequence
- Show understanding of the elements of stories e.g. the main characters, sequence of events
Away from the computer:
- Write some words, including simple labels e.g. the names of the mice alongside their pictures
- Draw pictures of the different story characters and write short captions about them
- Talk about the different characters in each story and find out your child’s favourite – why do they like that character?
Make a Card / Email Roly
Will help your child to:
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Practise and develop their writing skills
Choose a picture, write a simple message inside the card and send it to a friend
Write a simple message to Roly and receive a personal reply.
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How can you help your child?
Read stories to your child and look at the pictures together. Encourage your child to chat about the characters as the story develops, as this will stimulate language development and an enquiring mind e.g. what do you think will happen next?
Write your child’s name, start off with quite large letters and see if your child can trace over each letter. This will help to develop hand eye co-ordination, pencil control and encourage recognition of letter sounds and their formation. Always use a capital letter for the start of their name and lower case letters for the remainder.
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Mathematical Development
Learning through play in the Games Section
Using the dot–to–dot activity will help your child to:
- Say and use number names 1 – 10, in the right order to complete the picture
- Recognise numerals 1 – 10
- Begin to use vocabulary to add and subtract e.g. how many dots are left to join, how many dots altogether?
Tic, Tac, Toe
In this activity your child will learn to:
- Count up to three in a row
- Use vocabulary – above, next to, below, to describe the position of the mice
Hide and Seek
In this activity your child will learn to:
- Use everyday words to describe the hiding position of each mouse e.g. behind, in front of etc.
Secret Club
To get into this area your child will learn to:
- Recognise and name familiar 2D shapes e.g. circle, triangle and square
How can you help your child?
Sing counting rhymes together when travelling in the car, walking to the shops or sitting comfortably at home. Maths is all around us, in the home, street, in the car, everywhere we go. Take advantage of the world around us to develop number recognition, counting as you go along, recognising numbers on buses, car number plates, house numbers or prices in the supermarket. Play ‘I Spy’ with your child e.g. I spy with my little eye something red, or something round.
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Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Your child will become familiar with the use of ICT.
Puzzles
This activity will help your child to:
- Use the arrow keys to move the mouse through each maze
Mouse Control
This activity will help your child to:
- Identify different sounds and colours
Blue’s Bits and Bobs - Secret Club
This activity will help your child to:
- Use the mouse to select and deselect
- Drag and drop and create a picture
- Click the print button to print their own work
How can you help your child?
Encourage your child to ask questions as you walk around the park or in the garden and answer them as honestly as you can. Watch as the wind blows the leaves, look out for signs of new shoots in spring, grow seeds together, mustard and cress seeds will grow very quickly.
If the weather is nice, put the washing bowl outside full of warm soapy water and collect lots of plastic containers of different shapes and sizes. Your child will have lots of fun filling and emptying the containers.
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Physical Development
Your child will learn to:
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Handle the mouse with increasing control
Make play dough and shape the dough to make imaginative shapes and objects
Try out different recipes
Print and cut out the gift tags
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How can you help your child?
Spending time with your child out of doors will help develop their confidence and ability to move around spaces carefully and confidently.
At home, playing with play dough, making jigsaws, threading beads, using small construction blocks and simple sewing will help to develop your child’s fine manipulation skills.
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Creative Development
Mouse Piano
Your child will learn to:
- Use the keyboard to explore how sounds can be made
- Click on different instruments to find out how sounds can be changed
- Sing along to the different tunes
Play Dough Recipe
- Use the play dough recipe and make some cakes for a pretend shop. This will help to develop their imagination through role-play activities. Alternatively, make models of pets or a favourite character from the Mouse Club
How can you help your child?
Encourage your child to listen to a range of music. If you feel comfortable, dance and sing along with them.
Be creative together, paint a picture, draw using a range of different pens and pencils and talk about different colours.
Have fun making models out of empty boxes. Collect old coloured envelopes, bits of card and scraps of material and wool. Use your collections of bits and bobs to make collage pictures. Why not frame some of you child’s work and put it on the wall at home.
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