May Day: Updates & Downloads

 

May Day

It’s May 1^st! Welcome May Day!

 

 

Who has been up early and out to wash their face in the May morning dew? Does that custom exist where you live and/or have you heard of it? It was a custom that existed in both Ireland and the UK and indeed it is recorded in the ‘Natural History of Ireland’ by Dr. Gerard Boate (1652) (learn more here) and in the Diary of Samuel Pepys, who wrote of Mrs Pepys going to Woolwich to collect May dew as she had been taught by Mrs. Turner it is “the only thing in the world to wash her face with.” Incidentally, the online diary is a wonderful resource. You can search it by keyword. If you search ‘dew,’ you will find 4 entries on the subject.

 

Growing up, we learned to wash our hands in the May morning dew, so it would appear we had it all wrong and explains a few lines and wrinkles on the face right now!

 

 

There are many other customs and traditions related to May Day. Although now known as Mary’s month among Christians, the origins of May celebrations date back to pagan times. Read more about May customs in Ireland here  and here and in the UK here. Learn about the Maypole Dance.

 

US tradition was to make a May Day basket although this custom has now largely died out. There are lots of May Day arts and crafts ideas on line.This link has 3 simple ideas you may wish to try, but a quick search will reveal many more. 

 

Planning

Oracy

With a new month upon us, lots of people have been busy creating resources for families to use. I have selected a few to share with you below and am pleased to say Dumond has also jumped on the trend with our very own Conversation Calendar packed with questions to boost oracy!

 

Those who have been reading the blog for a while will know I am a big advocate of oral language development and promoting talk and communication. You will know I have written about it on this blog, e.g. Promoting Speech, Language and Communication at Home and in several posts for International Teacher Magazine

• Language and Learning

• Building Vocabulary

• Talk About It

To this end, I have created my own calendar for May to encourage conversations and discussions at home. You can find some topic-specific weekly calendars to use with young children to promote speech, language and communication at Connect Ability.

 

For those reading this blog and interested in learning more about oracy, I recommend you investigate Voice21. Their oracy framework and oracy benchmarks are very helpful. Voice21 have some excellent free CPD available in the coming weeks. I can attest to the quality as I joined in the first webinar yesterday and found it very informative. Moreover, it moved at great pace and inspired me to create our  Conversation Calendar.

 

 

 

Well-being

Action for Happiness have released a ‘Meaningful May’ calendar. It features a daily activity to help us respond to this global crisis with a sense of purpose and meaning. Moreover, it is available in several languages.

 

 

Doodling can often be very relaxing. We frequently see it recommended as a mindfulness activity. Why not choose some of the ideas from this calendar created by Kristen Charles and unwind with some artwork throughout the month?

 

 

 

STEAM

I found a snapshot of a really great STEAM calendar and am sharing it here even though I am unable to link you to a version with clickable links. As bitly addresses are used, I think you should be able to able to find the tasks with very little trouble. 

 

 

 

STEAM – Mathematics

Zorbit’s Maths Adventure have put together a calendar of daily maths challenges. These are brilliant as they are tasks that can be done relatively simply and easily at home; few involve equipment. They also promote maths discussions in the home. As this website is Canadian, a few of the special days mentioned will not apply where you live. This can form the basis for some interesting discussions too. Zorbit’s offer access to free home-learning kits but I have not yet had a chance to investigate these. If you are using them, please leave a comment with your feedback on them.

 

 

Alternatively, older children could follow this calendar from Rigour Maths. Note, however, there are different levelled calendars on their website so you will surely find one perfectly pitched for your child. 

 

 

Don’t forget to use you calendar as the basis for a maths discussion about calendars. Does your child know:

• each square represents one day?

• a row represents a week and a week has 7 days?

• we find the name of the day at the top of the column so each of the days in the same column has the same name?

• how to move forwards and backwards and up and down the calendar to find days before/after and weeks earlier or later?

• the day that comes before or after?

• what days are in the weekend?

• what month we are in and how many months there are in the year?

• how to count in ordinal numbers – first, second, third etc.?

 

Some questions and tasks to consider include:

• What day is it today? (yesterday/tomorrow)

• Highlight the weekends on the calendar and discuss how many weekend days there are in May.

• Highlight any important family occasions occurring in May.

• Ask questions to establish on what day a particular date/event falls.

• If my birthday was on the 27th of this month, what day of the week will it be?

• If tomorrow is June 1^st, what date is it today?

• If today is May 16^th, what was yesterday’s date?

• What is the date of the second Wednesday of this month?

• What will be the date next Wednesday?

• What was the date last Tuesday?

• How many days until your birthday/Saturday/a new month?

• Play a true/false game, e.g., May 23rd is a Tuesday.

 

When working with young children, here are some things to bear in mind:

• If your children are very young, calendars are not meaningful for them. Instead, turn your calendar into a visual one with pictures and symbols to show what is happening on a particular day.

• While young children understand before and after, the concept of days of the week is very challenging for them, so do not fret if your child does not yet understand today, tomorrow or yesterday. Try having them sequence pictures of things they have done and use these to prompt recall and talk about the past.

• It can be helpful for younger children to have a blank calendar on which they can draw for themselves. e.g., you could print a blank calendar for the month and have your child use it to record the weather each day. Use this as a basis for conversations. Today is ____ and point to the square for the day. Let’s draw what today’s weather it like (and have child draw picture). Let’s look back to yesterday (show child the previous square). What was the weather like then? Talk about yesterday’s weather and some of the activities your child did on that day. If you have pictures of any of the activities your child engaged in, use these to support the conversation.

• Use blank calendars in pretend play, e.g., at the doctor’s surgery. Why not role-play phoning to book an appointment and having the receptionist mark it on the calendar?

• In this way, your child is gradually being introduced to the idea of a calendar.  

 

P.E.

There are lots of movement calendars available. Here are 2 options for you from Silver Springs P.S. and the Crescent Primary.

 

 

 

 

These are just a selection of the very many excellent activities out there. Giving so many option may seem a tad overwhelming. I recommend you have a chat with your child and select a few to print and refer to throughout the month. Of course, I urge you to download our Conversation Calendar as oracy is sometimes overlooked with the focus on reading and writing but is truly the foundation on which learning takes place. It is imperative children acquire excellent communication and listening skills and that they can express themselves confidently, articulately and clearly. If you have any great activities for promoting confident communication, please do share them in the comments. Similarly, if I have missed any must’have calendars, do link them below also.

 

Take care and stay safe!

Download your FREE Conversation Calendar!