Little Explorers · Home Studio · Age 6
11
Month two — Water everywhere · Week three · Wednesday
Forty-five minutes. Six stations. One very patient snail. Everything on these pages can be tapped, dragged, filled in or drawn on — this workbook answers back.
Before you begin · 2 minutes
Sit side by side, not face to face — it feels less like a test. Let the child do the tapping. Counting out loud together is the point. If a station goes badly, leave it and carry on; the sun on the bar above this page doesn’t mind.
Hear the sh sound in words and know it is two letters making one sound.
Make ten in every possible way, and count on in twos to twenty.
Name four parts of a snail and describe one thing it does to stay safe.
Trace a spiral and two letter shapes with slow, controlled pencil moves.
“sh”, not “shhh-aitch”. Letter names come later this year.
Get one deliberately wrong. Six-year-olds adore correcting grown-ups.
If focus drops, go touch a real puddle and come back. It counts as lesson time.
Snail pace is the pace today. Finish four stations well, not six badly.
Station 01 · 8 minutes · phonics
Today’s word has five letters but only four sounds — because s and h have joined up to become one brand-new sound.
Tap each letter. Then say the whole word: splash. Now press all five at once with your hand — that’s a splash too.
Leave the others alone. Say each word out loud when you tap it.
0 of 4 found
Station 02 · 10 minutes · maths
Ten is the most useful number there is — it’s the whole frame. Every pair you find today hides inside it.
Tap the boxes to drop in raindrops. Make exactly what the card says, then check.
Tap two cards. If they add up to 10 they turn green and stick together.
5 pairs hiding in here
Pip can only hop on the stones in order: 2, 4, 6, 8 … all the way to 20. Wrong stone? It sinks a little.
Next stone: 2
Station 03 · 9 minutes · reading
Read the four pages aloud together, slowly. Turn the page with the arrow. Then answer these three things about it.
PAGE 1 OF 4
Tap the four boxes in the right order — first, next, then, last.
Station 04 · 8 minutes · science
Scientists observe first and read later. Tap the numbered spots on Pip to find out what each part does — then go and find real creatures under the glass.
Part —
Five parts to find. When you’ve read them all, you’ll know more about snails than most grown-ups do.
Move the glass slowly across the grass — with your mouse or your finger. Five creatures are hiding. Under every stone there’s somebody.
Say them out loud and let a grown-up write them down exactly as said, wobbly grammar and all. That’s real science writing.
Station 05 · 6 minutes · pencil control
A snail shell is one long line that never stops turning. Start at the middle of the dotted spiral and follow it out. Slow is strong.
Cut a paper strip about as wide as your finger. Roll it from one end — that’s the shell.
Roll a second, shorter strip the other way for Pip’s foot. It should spring back when you press it.
One blob of glue. Press for the count of ten — maths and craft at once.
Two tiny snips of paper on top. Snails have four, remember: two for eyes, two for smelling.
Write the name on the foot in pencil. Today’s letter is S — big S, small s, and the sh that joins them.
Station 06 · 4 minutes · review
Five questions from today. Getting one wrong is fine — that’s the bit your brain was about to learn.
0 / 5
Every correct answer drops a sticker in the jar. Five stickers = a full jar and a very good Wednesday.
Pip the snail sleeps through dry weather by sealing his shell with a lid of dried slime. He woke up for the rain. That is called aestivation — a big word for a very small animal.
Take home · for the rest of the week
Every morning, look out of the same window and tap today’s square until the picture matches what you see. Keep it up all week — then count the rain.
Ask: which weather came most? Which came least? That’s your first data graph, and you made it by looking out of a window.
Look for these, and don’t fix them mid-lesson:
Whatever you noticed, put it here for next week: