Play your way to school readiness with Learning Resources®
School Readiness With Learning Resources: Families across the UK are preparing for National Offer Day on 16th April but while many are preoccupied with whether they will get their preferred primary school, a survey by early years charity Kindred² has found that 37% of school starters will enter reception without the basic skills they need.*
Many children are starting school still struggling to get to grips with essential developmental skills including toilet training, fine motor skills, language skills and emotional regulation and teachers report losing 2.4 hours of teaching time a day due to supporting children who lack these skills.*
Leading educational toy brand Learning Resources have introduced a wide selection of toys and accessories to help support families on their journey to school readiness and rather than the lead up to September being daunting, these engaging toys can make preparing for school fun for the whole family. Their toys are designed to support the six developmental areas that teachers are finding children are struggling with; self-care and independence, social and emotional skills. routines, language and communication, motor skills and classroom readiness.
The extensive school readiness ranges from Learning Resources includes:
Self-Care and Independence
Dressing Skills Bean Bags – Help little hands master real-world dressing skills with the Dressing Skills Bean Bags. The bean bags feature illustrations of 8 commonly used items of clothing or shoes on one side, with their matching fastenings on the other. As they use the zip, toggle, buttons, shoelace, and more, children will become more confident at getting undressed and dressed on their own. After the learning fun is over, the bean bags store inside the included drawstring bag. RRP £29.95
Language & Communication
Campfire Chatmallows™ Storytelling Set – Gather around the pretend play campfire for story time together. The fun set has 12 soft squishy plastic Chatmallows featuring a total of 48 story starter icons and 4 Chatmallow sticks. Randomly choose 3 Chatmallows out of the drawstring bag, add them to a stick and use the icons to tell a story. Children will have great fun making up their own stories while building their vocabulary, imagination, and self-confidence. The pretend play campfire. RRP £23.95
Healthy Routines
2-Minute Toothbrushing Timer – Help your child brush their teeth for the recommended 2 minutes a day with this fun 2-Minute Toothbrushing Timer. It’s easy to use and fits in most bathrooms. Once children apply toothpaste to their toothbrushes, they press down on the toothbrushing icon to activate the timer. Listen for the sparkle sound – that’s when it’s time to stop brushing. RRP £10.96
Rainbow Visual Timer – Brighten up your home or child’s bedroom with this colourful light-up Rainbow Visual Timer that helps children see and understand elapsed time. It can be used to help with time management, and for sensory breaks with 5 settings (1, 3, 5, 10 and 15 minutes). It can be used to teach time management and the bright rainbow stripes either light up or go dark to show elapsed time. RRP £22.96
The cute timer can also be used as a comforting nightlight and the timer counts down from 15 minutes to let children know when it is time to sleep. The Rainbow Visual Timer is a valuable tool to support neurodiverse children, providing concrete representation of time passing that also helps to reduce feelings of anxiety. RRP £18.00
Social & Emotional Skills
My Feelings Bean Bags – Help young children identify and express their feelings and emotions with this set of 10 tactile bean bags. Each beanbag features a printed emotion image, including happy, sad, angry, surprised, loved, scared, peaceful, excited, sleepy, and disappointed, in a colour and texture that corresponds uniquely to that emotion. The beanbags store in the included drawstring carry bag and come with a handy activity guide. RRP £29.95
Express your Feelings Bottles – Expand the social emotional learning of our Express Your Feelings Sensory Bottles from Learning Resources with Excited, Impatient, Lonely and Nervous. Each of these 4 bottles has a unique facial expression and colour, and the motion of their contents represent that feeling. The bottles can be used to help children communicate their feelings, or to self-manage their emotions. RRP £25.96
Classroom Readiness
Trace Ace Scissor Skill Set™ – Trace, cut and craft while cultivating early scissor skills. This cute set develops the fine motor skills needed and the tracing and cutting exercises help strengthen hand muscles and improve co-ordination. Trace Ace encourages creative fun too and includes blank colouring sheets with project ideas to cut and create. RRP £9.95
Motor Skills
Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set™ – Help little ones build fine motor skills through sensory play activities. The Squeezy Tweezers’ action is similar to that of a clothes peg and strengthens a child’s pincer grasp. The Twisty Dropper helps to develop open thumb web space and hand arch strength.
The Handy Scoopers are ideal for practising a scissor cutting action, and the Gator Grabber Tweezers guide little fingers into the pencil grip position to get children used to the feeling of writing. Designed for hands-on exploration, these tools are at home in all kinds of settings, from the sandbox to the water table to the sensory bin! RRP £9.95
Early Literacy/Early Numeracy
Light-Up Tracing Centre – Practise writing letters and numbers with the fun, sensory Light-Up Tracing Centre. Choose a card, then use the stylus to copy that shape in the included red sand, creating a glowing, light-up letter or number. Using the high quality stylus helps young children get used to holding a pencil to write. Simply use the tip to draw letters and numbers, and the rake end to rake the red sand to start again. RRP £27.50
MathLink® Cubes Activity Set – Used in classrooms across the UK. MathLink Cubes Activity Set is the award-winning hands-on maths mastery resource that helps children ages 3 and up build a range of essential early years maths skills through hands-on learning at home too. Click together and twist apart MathLink Cubes to complete the activities on the MathLink Activity Cards. These brightly coloured cubes will help to build skills including counting, sequencing, patterning, addition, subtraction, and more. RRP £17.95
To see the full School Readiness range, visit: Learning Resources
