By Gwyn Mccormack

Here I share some ideas to support the theme of walking to the shop!

Tactile:

Dressing for different weathers to walk to the shop:

Rainy day – cagoule and wellingtons, umbrella – splashing in puddles, simulate sound of rain with watering can on tin tray

Sunny day – sun glasses, sun hat, t-shirt, shorts, sandals.

Snowy day – woolly hat, scarves and gloves, wellingtons.

Windy day – as above

Take a walk and shuffle through dried leaves, listen to scrunch of leaves.

Fan/parachute to create wind

Visual:

• Create collage with dried leaves, children to make rubbings of bark or leave, (draw round in black pen, or make into tactile format using Zychem machine.)
• Make a textured path, each child to add a textured paving stone cut out in coloured cardboard and decorated
• Variation: Make a textured wall, cut out bricks in different cardboard, materials and textures. Put the childrens’ names on each of the bricks.

Sound:

• Listen to the sounds during the walk and make a box with sounds that are the same or similiar.
• Bicycle bell, car horn, engine sound, screeching of breaks, sound of footsteps on grass, pavement, pebbles, noise of people talking.
• Use musical instruments for bell, horn, sound of footsteps.
• Sound made by pelican crossing.

Taste:

• Taste some of the items sold in the shops as you pass them by – bread, cakes from baker, fish and chips, etc
• Stop for an ice cream on a sunny day and hot pies on a cold day!

Smell:

• Smell the shops as they are passed, bakers, fish shop, fish and chip shop, vegetable shop, Indian take away, flower shop.
• Smell the flowers – feel rose petals, shower child with rose petal, tissue paper to replicate rose petals or flower petals.

Literacy and Numeracy:

• Make a journey line of the key places (use objects of reference) to depict the journey the child makes
• Count lamp posts, benches, pelican crossings, number of times a car horn is sounded
• Write a story about the journey to the shop
• Make a supermarket with empty cartons, boxes all different shapes and sizes, stack some old shelves and involve your child and siblings in going to the supermarket to buy specific items. Add audio labels to each item in the shop (RNIB PenFriend) or add some recordable pegs to each item with the price and description recorded onto it.
• Purchase items at the shop – money, capacity of bag for product bought, weight of bag, different types of shopping bags, big, small, plastic, hessian, which bag is the best for the shopping!  Feel shapes of items in shop. Sort items by size, shape. Have fun playing supermarkets!
• Social skills, body language, smiling, looking towards the shopkeeper, saying hello and goodbye, please and thank you to the shop keeper.