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Every skill
The 47 skills Little Roos practises, from letters and numbers to feelings and the body, each with the games that practise it and where it sits in the curriculum.
Letters and sounds
- Telling look-alike letters apart: Knowing b from d, and p from q: the letters children flip most. 2 to play.
- Knowing the letters: Recognising each letter and knowing its name. 2 to play.
- Spotting a letter quickly: Finding one letter among others, fast. 1 to play.
- Letter sounds: Knowing the sound each letter makes: /s/, not "ess". 2 to play.
- Hearing single sounds: Picking out one sound by ear. 2 to play.
- Hearing rhymes: Knowing which words rhyme: bat and hat. 1 to play.
- Blending sounds into words: Hearing s … u … n and knowing it's sun: the step before reading. 1 to play.
- Hearing syllables: Hearing the beats in a word: ko-a-la has three. 1 to play.
- Reading a first book: Reading sentences and little books made only of the sounds learned so far. 1 to play.
- Building a sentence: Putting words in order so they make sense, and reading them back. 1 to play.
Writing
- Forming letters: Starting each letter in the right place and going the right way (NSW Foundation Style). 1 to play.
- Where letters sit on the line: Which letters are tall, which sit on the line and which have tails. 1 to play.
Words
- Spelling short words: Putting the letters of a word in order. 1 to play.
- New words: Meeting and using everyday words. 6 to play.
- Opposites: Knowing words in pairs that mean the opposite: big and small, up and down, in and out. 2 to play.
- Listening to a story: Listening to a longer story, talking about how the characters feel and guessing what happens next. 3 to play.
- Putting a story in order: Retelling a story from its pictures: what happened first, next and last. 3 to play.
Numbers
- Reading numbers: Knowing numerals and what they're called. 4 to play.
- Bigger and smaller: Knowing which number is more, and which is less. 1 to play.
- Seeing how many: Knowing how many without counting, using ten-frames. 2 to play.
- Making ten: Pairs of numbers that make ten. 1 to play.
- Adding and taking away: Number facts within 20, both ways. 1 to play.
- Longer and shorter: Comparing lengths by looking, and by lining things up at one end. 1 to play.
- Counting on: Starting from a number and counting on, on a number line to 20 (and, in Big Steps, to 100 in tens). 1 to play.
Shapes, colours and patterns
- Shapes: Naming and sorting circles, squares, triangles and stars. 4 to play.
- Sorting by two things: Putting things into groups by what they look like, then by two things at once: orange and round, small and pointy. 1 to play.
- Symmetry: Making both sides of a picture match, as if in a mirror. (Symmetry is a Year 4 outcome; this is a gentle early start.) 2 to play.
- Drawing and colouring: Making pictures: choosing colours and patterns, filling shapes, and drawing ideas of your own. 1 to play.
- Colours: Noticing and matching colours. 4 to play.
- Patterns: Seeing what repeats and working out what comes next. 1 to play.
- Copying a rhythm: Hearing long and short sounds, and playing them back in the same order. 3 to play.
- Loud and soft, fast and slow: Hearing the difference between loud and soft, and fast and slow, and naming it. 2 to play.
- Making up music: Choosing sounds and when they play, then changing how fast and how loud, to make a song of your own. 1 to play.
- Noticing what's the same: Looking closely to find two that match. 2 to play.
Attention and self-control
- Paying attention: Keeping focus when the easy answer is the wrong one. 4 to play.
- Stopping yourself: Waiting, and holding back when your hands want to go. 1 to play.
- Holding something in mind: Remembering a word or a pattern for a moment while you use it. 5 to play.
- Looking and finding: For two- and three-year-olds: looking for something hidden, and knowing it's still there when you can only see a bit of it. 1 to play.
Feelings
- Calming down: Slowing down with slow breathing when feelings are big. 2 to play.
- Naming feelings: Knowing and naming how you feel. 4 to play.
- Getting along with others: Taking turns, sharing, losing well, having a go, saying sorry, and noticing when a friend is sad. 2 to play.
- Taking turns: Waiting for your go, saying "Your turn!", and playing a game together with someone else. 1 to play.
The world around us
- Australian animals: What animals look like and where they live (My animal friends cards). 5 to play.
- Life cycles: How living things grow and change: egg, tadpole, frog; egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. Life cycles are a Year 3 outcome, so this is a gentle early start. 2 to play.
- Weather and seasons: Noticing the weather each day and how it changes with the seasons, and what to wear for it. 3 to play.
- Day and night: Why we have day and night: the Earth turns, and goes round the Sun. A Year 2 outcome, so a gentle early start. 1 to play.
- My body: Naming the parts of the body, and how they work: from knees and elbows (Head to Toe) to the heart's atria and ventricles (the What Makes Me tours). 13 to play.
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