Cambridge
Early Years
Let’s Explore
Learner’s Book 2C
Kathryn Harper & Elly Schottman
Contents
Note to parents and practitioners 3
Block 5: Growing 4
Block 6: Animals 18
Acknowledgements 32
2
Note to parents and practitioners
This Learner’s Book provides activities to support the third
Hi, my name is Mia.
term of Let’s Explore for Cambridge Early Years 2.
Find us on the front
Activities can be used at school or at home. Children will
covers doing lots of
need support from an adult. Additional guidance about fun activities.
activities can be found in the For practitioners boxes.
Some activities use stickers. The stickers can be found
in the section in the middle of this book.
Stories are provided for children to enjoy looking at and
listening to. Children are not expected to be able to read
the stories themselves.
Children will encounter the following characters within
Hi, my name
this book. You could ask children to point to the characters is Gemi.
when they see them on the pages, and say their names.
The Learner’s Book activities support the Teaching Resource
activities. The Teaching Resource provides step-by-step
coverage of the Cambridge Early Years curriculum and
guidance on how the Learner’s Book activities develop
the curriculum learning statements.
Hi, my name
is Rafi.
Hi, my name
is Kiho.
3
Block 5
Growing
What’s growing
in the garden?
Choose stickers and say.
I don’t buzz. I don’t sing.
Can you find me?
Look for blue wings!
4
For practitioners
Children explore the picture and discuss what they can see. Children stick the matching pictures in place, e.g., grapes
to grape vine. Encourage children to name the edible parts of plants they see and describe what the people in the
picture are doing. Ask What do plants needs to grow? (water and light). Encourage children to find Mia in the picture.
5
A little seed
Read and write.
Put the pictures in order.
Out comes the sun, Up, up, up! The seed
yellow and round. begins to grow!
I’m a little seed in the
dark, dark ground.
1 Down comes the cool
rain, soft and slow.
For practitioners
Explain that the pictures are not in the correct order. Point to the picture with the traceable number 1 and read the
words, encouraging children to repeat after you. Say Look at the seed in the other pictures. Which picture and words come
next? How has the seed changed? Children write numbers 1–4 to show the correct order of the 4 pictures.
6
Leaves and flowers
Read and draw.
What colour flowers do
you see in the picture?
Draw a line to a leaf that looks like this:
Draw a yellow flower.
For practitioners
Read the sentences together and encourage children to talk about the different colours and shapes they see in the image.
7
Watch my bean plant grow!
Draw and say.
Day
Day
8
Day
Day
For practitioners
Children make observational drawings of their bean plants four times over the course of three weeks.
They use these pages to show how the plants have changed and grown over time. The first drawing
should be made when the bean plants first emerge from the soil, or soon afterwards. This drawing can
be labelled ‘Day 1’. Keep track of the days that pass by posting the count on a sign in the Let’s Explore
Continuous provision area. Children refer to this sign as they label their subsequent drawings.
9
My special flower
Colour and say.
Choose 4 colours for the colouring key.
Colour the flower.
1 2
2
2 3 1
3 1 2
4
4
4 4
For practitioners
In pairs, children choose 4 colours for their colouring key, then colour the flower according to the
numbers. Encourage children to discuss who will colour which part of the flower to ensure they
are collaborating fairly. Once the pictures are coloured, children share their work with another
pair and talk about what inspired them – it might have been a flower they saw in class this week.
10
Rough or smooth?
Touch and draw.
Rough
Smooth
For practitioners
Gather a variety of different fruits with either rough or smooth textures. Children take turns touching
each fruit. Ask Is it rough or smooth? Encourage children to describe the texture of each fruit. Children
then draw each fruit in the table in either the ‘Rough’ or the ‘Smooth’ row, depending on their texture.
11
How to make a sandwich
Draw.
Follow instructions and draw them.
For practitioners
Have children name several favorite sandwiches and together act out the steps for making each sandwich.
Ask What do we do first? What do we do next? What else do we put on our sandwiches? And the last step is to eat
our sandwiches! Children then draw each step of how to make a sandwich in the boxes and number them 1–4.
12
Parts of a tree
Draw.
For practitioners
Take children to find tree leaves outside, or provide a range of different tree leaves. Each child chooses a leaf.
Ask children to look closely and describe what they see. What shape and colour is it? What can they see on
the leaf? What does it feel like? Children draw their leaf with as much detail as possible. Then talk about the
different parts of a tree, using the image in the top left corner to help prompt conversation.
13
What’s made of wood?
Circle.
For practitioners
Children circle the objects that are made of wood. Discuss their answers together. Do they know what
the other objects are made from? Ask Why is wood better than another material to make these objects?
14
What can babies do?
Match and say.
Draw lines from the words to
the babies doing those actions.
crawl clap cry sit wave hug
For practitioners
Talk about the actions and movements in the pictures. Ask What are the babies doing? Encourage children
to use the activity-specific vocabulary provided in the word labels as well as other descriptive words.
Read the words and ask children to draw a line from each word to the baby or babies doing that action.
15
Can you do it?
Mark and say.
Try each challenge! Tick ✔ the boxes.
Stand on one foot. Count to 4.
Can you do it?
Yes, I can! No, not yet.
Hop on one foot 5 times.
Can you do it?
Yes, I can! No, not yet.
Tie your shoe.
Can you do it?
Yes, I can! No, not yet.
16
Touch your nose to your knee.
Can you do it?
Yes, I can! No, not yet.
Pat your head and rub your tummy.
Can you do it?
Yes, I can! No, not yet.
Draw a star.
Can you do it?
Yes, I can! No, not yet.
For practitioners
Read each challenge together and let children tick if they can do it now or not yet.
Encourage children to talk about other physical actions that they are learning to do. Ask them
to show you these movements. Ask Can babies do these things too? What about adults?
17
Block 6
Animals
Can you see the animals?
Choose stickers and say.
18
Who’s with me?
Can you find us
in the tree?
For practitioners
Children explore the picture and discuss what they can see. Children stick the matching pictures in place,
e.g., monkey to tree. Explore the picture together and ask Have you seen any of these animals? Talk about
the animals including what they look like, how they move, what noise they make. Ask children if they
know what animals come out at night. Encourage children to find Gemi in the picture.
19
What’s your favourite animal?
Draw and say.
20
My favourite animal is .
For practitioners
Children draw and colour their favourite animal. They can write what the animal is with assistance
where necessary. In pairs, ask children to take turns asking each other questions about their animal
such as Why do you like them? Why are they special? What noises do they make? How do they move?
Encourage children to share something about their favourite animal with the class.
21
Animal coats
Match and colour.
For practitioners
Children examine the different patterns and try to describe them. They then match
them to the animals and colour the animals in. Discuss each of the animal patterns
and ask Do they look soft to touch? What colours are they? Can you see any stripes?
22
What noises do they make?
Circle.
loud quiet loud quiet
loud quiet loud quiet
For practitioners
Review the terms loud and quiet, reminding children what each one means and that they relate
to volume. Make sure they know which word is loud and which word is quiet. Children look
at the animals and circle the word that most closely applies. They can try to make the sound.
23
Make an animal dance
Move.
Animals:
Dance to some music!
For practitioners
Ask children to identify the animals and show you how each animal moves. Children then choose a row from the table
and perform each animal movement in the row as a sequence. You could play music in the background. Encourage
them to think of different movements the animal might do, e.g., monkey – scratch head, swing through the trees.
24
What’s wrong with the pictures?
Circle and say.
1 2
3 4
For practitioners
Start by reviewing what we can expect to see in the day and at night. How is the light different? The sky? The animals?
For example, sometimes you can see the moon while the mun is still out. Talk about the animals that are active in the
daytime and the nighttime, reminding children of the word nocturnal. Ask Are bats nocturnal? Children then examine
each picture in turn and circle the part of the picture that doesn’t belong, such as stars in a blue sky.
25
Where do they live?
Match.
26
For practitioners
Point to and talk about the different habitats. Discuss what is similar and different about them. Talk about the animals
and where they might live. Children draw lines through the maze to match the habitat to the correct animal.
27
What have they got?
Tick ✔ and say.
wings fur tail feathers claws fins
a shark
a bear
a tiger
a bird
an elephant
For practitioners
Show children how to move their fingers along the rows and identify the different columns. Talk about what each
of the features along the top are. You could use toy animals from the Construction and small world play area to
show an example of each feature. Children draw a tick or smiley face for the features the different animals have.
Use the chart to compare the animals and identify similarities and differences. Talk about how the same features
can look different on different animals, for example, an elephant’s tail looks different from a shark’s tail.
28
What do you like best?
Trace.
For practitioners
Children look at the pictures and trace the heart next to their favourite thing from each line. Discuss their choices.
Use this to draw on the experiences and reflect on the knowledge children have developed throughout this block.
29
I’m a duckling!
Choose and tick.
Mummy duck
Six little ducks that I once knew
A white duck, yellow duck, green and blue.
But the Mummy duck with the feather on her back
She led the others with a quack, quack, quack.
Quack, quack, quack-quack, quack, quack
She led the others with a quack, quack, quack.
Down to the river they would go.
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble to and fro.
But the Mummy duck with the feather on her back
She led the others with a quack, quack, quack.
Quack, quack, quack-quack, quack, quack
She led the others with a quack, quack, quack.
Home from the river they would come.
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, ho-hum-hum.
But the Mummy duck with the feather on her back
She led the others with a quack, quack, quack.
Quack, quack, quack-quack, quack, quack
She led the others with a quack, quack, quack.
30
hungry happy sleepy fast
silly sad shy noisy
Now sing and act out your duck.
For practitioners
As a class, talk about what actions children could do for each of the characteristics above. Ask How can
you show this with your face or body? Children choose one of the ducks from the song: the white duck,
yellow duck, green and blue duck, or the mummy duck. They think about the personality of their duck
and tick the features – more than one is possible. They then sing and act as their duck in small groups.
31
Stickers for pages 4–5
Stickers for pages 18–19
Acknowledgements
The authors and publishers acknowledge the following sources of copyright material and are grateful for the permissions granted.
While every effort has been made, it has not always been possible to identify the sources of all the material used, or to trace all copyright holders.
If any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be happy to include the appropriate acknowledgements on reprinting.
Thanks to the following for permission to reproduce images:
p7 wjarek/GI; p12 fcafotodigital/GI,Yevgen Romanenko/GI, HUIZENG HU/GI; p14 ilbusca/GI, domin_domin/GI, MirageC/GI, Francesco Milanese/GI,
ThomasVogel/GI, AaronAmat/GI, IgorKovalchuk/GI, dlerick/GI, Devonyu/GI; p21Image Source/GI, Martin Barraud/GI, Jami Tarris/GI, Richard Olivier/
GI; p22 Martin Harvey/GI, Jeny S/GI, Digital Zoo/GI, GarysFRP/GI; p23 bradleyblackburn/GI, MediaProduction/GI, GlobalP/GI, GlobalP/GI, GlobalP/
GI; p24 sodar99/GI, John Twynam/GI, Nora Carol Photography/GI, Sebastian Condrea/GI, goldhafen/GI, Alexey_Seafarer/GI, vusta/GI, nizha2/GI; p27
bbevren/GI, JackF/GI, luamduan/GI, GlobalP/GI, Petr Pikora//GI; p31 Benoit BACOU/GI, Michael Duva/GI, GlobalP/GI, Fernando Trabanco Fotografia/
GI, Pakhnyushchyy/GI, GlobalP/GI,Yaorusheng/GI, Jose A. Bernat Bacete/GI, eugenesergeev/GI, Kelvin Murray/GI, czekma13/GI, Senez Studio/GI
Thanks to the following artists at Beehive Illustration:
Lays Bittencourt,Veronika Chaves, Chloe Evans, Helen Graper,Tamara Joubert, Michelle McGovern, Sarah Pitt, Jan Smith, Joe Wilkins.
Cover characters by Becky Davies (The Bright Agency)
32
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