Background Information!

This topic supports objectives in the EYFS and National Curriculum for Year One and Two in many areas.

We hope you enjoy trying out the activities and would love for you to send some photos of your learning to

our class emails.

Key vocabulary: sea, coast, shore, sand, pebbles, shingle, tide, beach, lifeguard, environment,

Key Texts: Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda and David

Armitage, Barry the Fish with Fingers by Sue Hendra, Gilbert in the Deep by Jane Clark and Charles Fuge, The

Night Pirates – Peter Harris, Lucy and Tom at the Seaside by Shirley Hughes, Winnie at the Seaside by Valerie

Thomas, Usborne Spotter’s Guides – The Seashore.

Useful websites: Seaside themed cosmic kids –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_0P5grVoyg - Popcorn the

Piratehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhYtcadR9nw – Squish the Fish https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-

radio/music-ks1-sun-sea-song-index/zr4x2sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exFmcLMjKsw

Find out about beach huts and explore ones at the

beaches around us.

Maybe you could create beach hut collages using paper

and materials.

Can you design a beach hut using our Herne Handwriting

patterns? (See Topic resource 1)

Can you use a repeating pattern to decorate your hut?

Look at Topic resource 2

Do you recognise these local places?

Ask your grown up if you can go there.

How have they changed?

How are they still the same?

Arrr!

Find out about pirates.

Can you make an obstacle course in your

garden? Try to

include running,

jumping, hopping

and skipping.

Don’t forget to

to ‘walk the plank’

at the end –

SPLASH! Into

the water you go!

Oh, I Do Like to Be Beside the

Seaside!

Seaside holidays now and then

Find out about what it was like to go to the beach in the past.

Use non-fiction books and website to help you. Find out about

bathing costumes, riding donkeys, bathing machines and penny

licks. Create your own information book using facts and

pictures you have found.

Question parents or grandparents / older relatives about their

seaside holidays when they were little.

How are our experiences similar/different? British shell checklist.

Go for a seaside walk. See what you can spot and collect

(see Topic resource 3)

How many different shells can you find? How are the

shapes or patterns the same/different?

Create a tally to record how many of each shell you

found.

You could even wash and paint the shells you have found! Create arts and crafts based on sea life using

resources such as paper plates, using 2D shapes,

painting and writing messages on pebbles, and

pressing shells into playdough then printing. You

could make salt dough and use it to make sea

creatures which you could then paint and varnish

(use PVA glue)

See Topic resource 4 for ideas.

Continue your mindfulness colouring using the Topic

resource 5. Can you use a different media from last

time?

Maybe try coloured pencils, paints with a thin brush,

sharpened wax crayons or using warm colours such as

red, orange and yellow.

Visit Hampton pier and go crabbing!

Who in your family can catch the biggest crab?

Remember to check the tide times before you go!

Beaches can be beautiful and great

places to have fun but they can also be

dangerous. Hidden rocks and strong

tides are things to watch out for.

Often there are flags which tell us

whether or not it is safe to go in the

sea. Find out about these flags and

what they mean. Then design your own

safety flag to tell people something

useful at the beach.

Think of the five basic animal groups – mammals, birds, fish,

amphibians, reptiles and arthropods (this group includes

insects, ‘mini-beasts’ and crustaceans).

Can you think of an example of each animal that can be

found at the seaside? (There is one group for which that is

really difficult!)

Perhaps you could choose your favourite creature, find out

more about it and create a fact-file. This could include a

picture with labels as well as information about where it

lives and what it likes to eat.

Create your own rock pool in a bowl or on a tray

using rocks, pebbles, stones and shells you may

have. Add washing up liquid to create sea foam,

glitter for sparkle or even salt for the smell of

the sea.

Why does sea water taste of salt? Where does it

come from?

Build a range of

different sized and

shaped sandcastles in

sandpits. Oh, I Do Like to Be Beside the

Seaside!

Create a treasure map using tea stained, ripped paper.

Use cold tea or coffee to paint a piece of plain paper.

Once dry, draw the outline of a pirate island and add

some places onto it. You could have a lake, swamp, forest,

tavern, mountain, lagoon, shipwreck, pirate village and

any other features you can think of! Don’t forget dots

and dashes for the trail and label the features of your

island.

X marks the spot!

Colour your map in and finally rip

around the edge to make it look

old.

Sing topical songs such as ‘Oh I Do Like to Be

Beside the Seaside’, ‘The Big Ship Sails on the

Alley Alley O’, ‘When I was One I Sucked My

Thumb’, ‘A Sailor Went to

Sea, Sea, Sea’ and ‘Baby

Shark’. Can you make

instruments using everyday

objects to add percussion?

Maybe you would like to

create a dance or a puppet

show to the music. Remember to film your

production!

Find Herne Bay on a map of the United Kingdom.

It is right next to the sea; we say it is on the coast.

The coast runs all around the

edge of the UK. This makes

the UK an island. An island is

an area of land surrounded by

sea. Think about features of

the coast and compare them

to features of a rural area,

such as the farmland and

woods around Herne. Now

compare these places to a

city, such as Canterbury.

Design and make a pirate ship that floats using junk

modelling.

Don’t forget the Jolly Roger flag!

Topic resource 1

Topic resource 2

Topic resource 3

T

Topic resource 3

Topic resource 4

Topic resource 5

Topic resource 5

Topic resource 5

English Activities:

For the next three weeks, try doing a little bit of writing each day to link in with our topic of The Seaside. Here are some

activities to spark your imagination:

Handwriting: Try practising writing some of our spelling words in your neatest, joined up cursive writing – clothes,

busy, people, water, again, half, whole, money

The key words for this topic are: seaside, beach, sand, ice-cream, lifeboat, sun, sandcastle, rock pool, tide,

wave, sea, pebbles, cave, sun-cream, beach huts, flip-flops, kite, promenade

Throughout this topic you should aim to learn the meaning of each of these words. Choose 3 of the words and write

one sentence about each. For an extra challenge, write a sentence about all of them!

Read the information on ‘All about Beaches’ (English resource 1) and then complete the questions, answering in full

sentences where possible. It is absolutely ok to read the text and questions to your child if the words are too

tricky, but encourage them to listen carefully and tell you the answer/write it themselves. Remember, all the

answers will be in the text.

Look at the modern day seaside and compare it to a seaside in Victorian times (English resource 2). Write a

description of the modern day seaside underneath the modern day photographs using the present tense e.g. Today

we have swimming costumes that people swim in.

Also using English resource 2, write comparative sentences in the past tense about the seaside in Victorian times

e.g. In Victorian times they wore a full set of clothes when they swam in the sea. Think about what is the same and

what is differently between modern times and Victorian times. Note that in Victorian times they did not have

coloured photographs so the pictures are in black and white.

Think about a time that you have been to the beach. Plan a recount of what you did from the beginning of the day

to the end of the day. Remember that a plan is all about getting your ideas down with pictures and key phrases to

jog your memory. To help you with this you may like to include some of the following information:

- Who were you with?

- How did you get there?

- What was the weather like?

- What did you do when you go there? Swimming/building sandcastles/ rock pooling?

- What did you eat? Ice cream/picnic/fish and chips

- Did anything unexpected happen? Perhaps a seagull stole some of your chips/maybe the tide came in and

flattened your sandcastles/maybe you got a sun tan

Using the plan above, write a recount of your day from the start of the trip to the end. Remember when you are

writing a recount to use language such as ‘I’ and ‘we’. The writing should be in chronological order, reporting on

events as they happened. Can you use some of these fronted adverbials in you recount; ‘first’, ‘next’, ‘then’, ‘after

that’, ‘finally’.

Imagine that you’ve just spent the day at Herne Bay beach, write a post card to your teacher (English resource 3)

to tell them about what you’ve been up to. E.g. To Mrs Cox, I have had a wonderful, exciting day at Herne Bay beach

today! It was really sunny but a little bit windy. Luckily, I remembered my spotty swimming costume so that I could

paddle in the gentle, cool waves. What fun it was! I wish you were here! Love from Tom xx

Design a new flavour of ice-cream and create a persuasive poster to advertise your product and convince people to

buy it. Remember to include:

- Price

- Where to purchase

- Flavour and toppings

- Persuasive phrases (Don’t miss out! The best ice-cream you’ve ever had! Half price today!)

- Descriptive language (sweet, tasty, creamy)

Practise your dictation skills! Get your adult to read out the following passage (without you seeing it!) and write

down what you hear. Remember to use neat, cursive writing, appropriate punctuation and try your hardest with the

spellings.

I spent half of my pocket money on an ice cream at the beach. I ate it with my friends and parents while I sat on

the sand. What a fun day I had! What would you do at the beach?

Make a list of words that rhyme with these beach related words. Remember that rhyming words have to end with

the same sound, but might not be spelt with the same letters.

- Sea

- Sand

- Shell

- Sun

- Hat

Use the rhyming words above to create a poem using rhyming couplets, make sure you decorate your poem with

some illustrations!

e.g.

I sat on the sand

with a shell in my hand.

I swam in the sea

while mum drank her tea.

Think about a time that you’ve been to the beach and compete English resource 4 with descriptive phrases about

what you could hear, see, smell, taste and feel. See if you can include expanded noun phrases (e.g. tasty, yummy ice-

cream), similes (e.g. sea as cold as ice) and adventurous adjectives (e.g. gleaming ocean, glistening sand, salty air)

Create an acrostic poem about the seaside, use the letters b-e-a-c-h down the side of the page, and

write words/ sentences about the beach using the initial letters.

Practise recognising some seaside themed vocabulary by completing a seaside themed word search!

(English resource 5)

English Resource 1 (All About Beaches comprehension)

English Resource 1 (All About Beaches comprehension)

English Resource 1 continued (All About Beaches comprehension)

English Resource 2 (Comparing beaches now and then)

Modern Seaside

English Resource 2 continued (Comparing beaches now and then)

Victorian Seaside

English Resource 3 (Postcard, front and back)

English Resource 4 (Descriptive phrases about the beach)

Feel

Hear

See

Smell

Taste

English Resource 5 (Word search)

Maths Activities:

For the next three weeks, try revising all of the different skills that we’ve learnt this year.

Here are some activities that you could try:

Pick up a handful of pebbles / shells / pasta / small items and estimate (make a sensible guess) for how

many you have in your hands. Then create a tally as you count them out and see if you were right or

wrong! See if you can get more accurate the more you practise.

Look at Maths Resource 1 and complete the bar chart, colouring in a square per item you can see.

Then answer the questions about the data.

Use Maths Resource 2 to collect your own data, then answer the questions using the data that you’ve

gathered.

Draw a picture of a beach scene using only 2D shapes!

Write your own addition maths problems, adding any two 2-digit numbers together (e.g. 26 + 38=)

and solve them using sticks and stones to represent the tens and ones. Remember to gather all of the

tens together, gather all of the ones together, then count them all up!

Look at Maths Resource 3 and complete the seaside themed colour by numbers pictures. Solve the

addition calculations to find the answer that matches the colours.

Practise telling the time on an analogue clock, starting with o’clock and half past. Then move onto

learning quarter past and quarter to, and when secure with this, try telling the time to the nearest 5

minutes e.g. 10 past 3. Tip – look at the minute hand (long hand) first then the hour hand (short hand).

You could even make your own clock using a paper plate.

Set up your own seaside themed shop at home. Find some seaside related items around the house

(e.g. sunglasses, hat, bucket and spade, swimming costume) to make your own shop and then put price

tags on the items (e.g. 50p, 35p, £1, 15p). Pick some items to buy and add them up to find the total. Can

you find the correct coins to buy the item?

Practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. How fast can you do it? Can you do it backwards?

Choose five 2-digit numbers at random, then put them in order from smallest to largest (e.g. 14,

25, 29, 42, 61) Remember to look at the tens first and then the ones. Can you now do it from largest to

smallest? Can you do it with more numbers e.g. six 2-digit numbers?

What do you know about the number 53? Make a poster labelling all the things you know about this

number. Here are some ideas to get you started: It is made up of 5 tens and 3 ones. It is 3 more than

50. It is an odd number.

Use Maths Resource 4 to find a half of shape. Remember that finding half means sharing between 2

equal groups.

We can use arrays to find half of quantities. See the below example.

1/2 of 8:

Count the circles on one line = 4

Using this method, find half of the following quantities: 4, 10, 14, 6, 20, 16, 24

Use Maths Resource 5 to find a quarter. Remember that finding quarters means sharing between 4

equal groups.

We can use arrays to find a quarter of quantities. See the below example.

1/4 of 8:

Count the circles on one line = 2

Using this method, find half of the following quantities: 4, 16, 20, 24, 12, 28,

Maths Resource 1 (Bar chart)

Maths Resource 1 (Bar chart questions)

1. Which item were there most of?

2. Which item were there 2 of?

3. How many sunglasses and sandcastles were there altogether?

4. How many more life rings were there than ice-cream vans?

5. How many items were there altogether?

Maths Resource 2 (Collect and analyse own data)

Ask an adult to help you time yourself and count how many of the following you can do in 30

seconds!

Exercise Number completed in 30

seconds Tally to show the answer

Star jumps

Push ups

Sit ups

Hops

Which exercise could you do most of?

What is the difference in number between the activity you completed the most of and the

activity you did the least of? (most takeaway least)

How many sit ups did you do?

How many push ups and star jumps did you do altogether?

Challenge: Can you make up your own questions and try answering them?

Maths Resource 3 (Colour by numbers)

Maths Resource 3 (Colour by numbers)

Maths Resource 4 (Finding a half)

Maths Resource 5 (Finding a quarter)