Learning Box Five Little Ducks Parent's Guide Learning at Home Five Little Ducks is designed to teach your child a wide range of skills. These are introduced in carefully graded steps so that you have control over the pace at which your child learns and progresses. This program: * teaches sorting and matching, two important skills needed to develop your child's number and word ability; * teaches that each number is used to represent a certain number of objects; * develops the concept of counting by showing your child how numbers form a sequence (1,2,3,4,5, or 5,4,3,2,1); * gives practice in recognizing and understanding the numbers 1,2,3,4,5; * makes counting fun. On this cassette are ten activities: Early 1. Where do I belong? (sorting shapes) numbers 2. What colour am I? (sorting colours) 3. How many? 4. What number? stage 1 5. What number? stage 2 Counting 1. Count the ducks demonstration (numbers 5-1-5) 2. Count the ducks stage 1 (numbers 1-5 in order) 3. Count the ducks stage 2 (numbers 1-5 at random) 4. Number the ducks stage 1 (numbers 1-5 in order) 5. Number the ducks stage 2 (numbers 1-5 at random) Initially, do these activities together, but very soon your child will be able to do them alone. IMPORTANT: Read this guide carefully and familiarise yourself with the activities before introducing your child to them. Step 1 a Use the rhyme of the Five Little Ducks in the rhyme book to introduce your child to numbers 1-5. b Now play the rhyme tape. c Use the rhyme book to introduce your child to the objects belonging together; e.g. cup and saucer, spoon and bowl, etc. d Use the rhyme book to introduce your chid to the idea of "homes"; e.g. fish live in the fish bowl, ghosts live in the castle, etc. Step 2 How to plug in your Spectrum: a Connect your Spectrum TV socket to the aerial socket on your TV. b Connect your Spectrum EAR socket to the EAR socket on your cassette player. c Connect your Spectrum MIC socket to the MIC socket on your cassette player. d Connect your Spectrum 9V DC socket to the Spectrum ZX Power Supply Unit. e Now plug your cassette player, Spectrum ZX Power Supply Unit and TV to your mains sockets. f Switch on your TV and turn the sound down to its lowest setting. Find your computer channel. When SINCLAIR RESEARCH appears on the screen, you have found the right channel. If SINCLAIR RESEARCH does not appear on any channel, you will have to tune one of the channels. Refer to your TV manual for instructions on how to do this. g Insert tape, side B upwards, into your cassette player. Rewind to the beginning if necessary. h Turn the volume control on your cassette player up to just below maximum. Now you are ready to load the program. Step 3 How to load the program: a Press J on your Spectrum keyboard. b Now hold down SYMBOL SHIFT and at the same time press P PRINT twice. LOAD "" should now appear on the screen. If not refer to the Checklist. c Now press ENTER. d Depress the PLAY button on your cassette player. e A coloured border should appear on the TV screen. f Next, stripes should appear in the border as the program loads. g When the striped border disappears (after approximately 4 minutes). you can stop the tape. Your program is now ready. h You may need to adjust the controls on your TV to obtain the best results. Checklist 1 Is everything plugged in and turned on? 2 Is your TV on the correct channel? 3 If the stripes do not appear on the screen when you depress the play button on your cassette player, check the connections between your Spectrum and cassette player, and between the cassette player and the mains. The cassette lead has two grey plugs and two black plugs. Make sure the same colour is plugged into the same socket on both the Spectrum and the cassette player; i.e. EAR to EAR and MIC to MIC. 4 Is the B side of the cassette facing upwards? 5 Is the cassette wound back to the beginning? 6 Is the volume on your cassette player adjusted to just below maximum? 7 When you have checked all these, pull out the 9V DC plug to switch off your Spectrum. Reconnect it and start again. Step 4 How to begin an activity. a The first thing to do is to choose whether you want your child to practise early numbers or counting. Press 1 to choose early numbers, or press 2 to select counting. b Now press ENTER. c On the screen will appear a list of activities, 1-5 for early numbers, or 1-5 for counting. To select the one you want, press the appropriate number key. (Each activity is explained in full in Step 5). d Now press ENTER again. e Before you begin, put the overlay over the keyboard. The screen will tell you which overlay to choose. f Now press any key to the pink area of the overlay to begin, e.g. ENTER. Step 5 Early number Activity 1: Where do I belong? a As a demonstration, two homes will appear on the screen; e.g. a fish bowl and a castle. Now one character will appear and go into its appropriate home. Then a second character will appear and go into its appropriate home. b Now a character will appear above one of the homes. Use any key in the blue area (e.g S) to move the character so that it is above its right home; i.e. fish above bowl. c Now press any key in the pink area. d If your child has got it right, the character will go into its home. If your child has got it wrong, he must try again. e When all the characters have been put into their homes, press any key in the pink area for another go. f Initially, do this activity together, but very soon your child will be able to do it alone. g To move on to another activity, follow the instructions in Step 6. Activity 2: What colour am I? a Three objects will appear one by one, and form a row at the bottom of the screen. They will all be the same, but each will be a different colour; e.g. a blue, red and green car. b Now another car will appear. Use any key in the blue area to move this car until it is above one of a matching colour. c Now press any key in the pink area. If the colours do match, the object will slide down to join the object of the same colour. If not your child must try again. d When your child has matched all the objects, press any key in the pink area and begin the activity book again. e Initially do this activity together, but very soon your child will be able to do it alone. f To move on to another activity, follow the instructions in Step 6. Activity 3: How many? stage 1 a Up to three pictures appear on the right of the screen; e.g. one saucer or three sails. b Now on the left of the screen will appear some corresponding objects; e.g. cups or boats. There will always be more objects on the left than there are pictures on the right; e.g. four cups but three saucers (but never more than four). c Use any key in the blue area to move one object from the left next to a picture on the right. Each time your child moves an object next to a picture, a piece of a clown's face will appear in the middle of the screen. d If your child tries to move one object too many, ALL the objects will return to the left of the screen and the activity will start again. e When all the pictures on the right hove been matched, press any key in the pink area. f If your child has got the matching right, the happy face of the clown will be filled in. Press any key in the pink area for another go. g If your child has got it wrong all the objects will return to the left of the screen and your child must then try again. h Initially, do this activity together, but very soon your child will be able to do it alone. i To move on to another activity, follow the instructions in Step 6. Activity 4: What number? stage 1 a The screen shows one little duck. Press any key in the pink area and the number 1 symbol will appear beside it. b Press any key in the pink area again to make two ducks appear and so on. c Use this activity to introduce your child to the number symbols 1-5. As the ducks appear on the screen, ask your child to count how many ducks there are. d To move on to another activity, follow the instructions in Step 6. Activity 5: What number? - stage 2 The procedure for this activity is the same as for Activity 4 but the number of ducks will appear in a random sequence; e.g. 4,2,3,5,1. Counting Activity 1: Count the ducks demonstration a The screen shows five ducks forming the number 5. Press any key in the pink area, and the number 5 symbol appears. b Now press any key in the pink area, and all the ducks fly off one by one, and four fly back to form the outline of a number 4, and so on. c As the ducks form the numbers, you might like to read aloud the Five Little Ducks rhyme, from the Rhyme Book. d To move on to another activity, follow the instructions in Step 6. Activity 2: Count the ducks stage 1 a The screen shows a lake scene with the outline of a number. Count out the number of ducks using any key in the blue area. When the correct number has been counted press any key in the pink area. Each time a key is pressed, a duck flies onto the screen. b If your child presses any key in the pink area before there are enough ducks to fill the number outline, the ducks already on the lake will dive into the water and your child must continue counting. c If there are already as many ducks as the number, the extra ducks fly past and the ducks on the lake all fly off after them. Your child must then start again. d When your child counts out the right number of ducks, they will all quack happily before flying off. The next number outline will then appear. e The numbers appear in the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2, and 1. f Initially do this activity together, but very soon your child will be able to do it alone. g To move an to another activity, follow the instructions in Step 6. Activity 3: Count the ducks stage 2 The procedure for this activity is the same as for counting Activity 2 but the numbers will appear in a random sequence; e.g. 4,2,5,3,1,2,5, etc. Activity 4: Number the ducks stage 1 a The screen shows a lake scene with the outline of a number. b Your child must press the appropriate number key to make the right number of ducks fly onto the screen and land on the number outlined on the lake. c If the number entered is too small, that number of ducks will fly across the screen but will not land. If the number key pressed is too large, the correct number of ducks will land on the lake and the remaining ducks fly past. After a few seconds the ducks on the lake will take off and fly after the other ducks. Your child must then enter the number again. d When your child presses the right number key, the ducks quack happily e The numbers appear in the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2, and 1. f Initially, do this activity together, but very soon your child will be able to do it alone. g To move on to another activity, follow the instructions in Step 6. Activity 5: Number the ducks stage 2 The procedure for this activity is the same as for counting Activity 4 but the numbers now appear at random; e.g. 4,3,1,5,2, etc. Step 6 How to finish an activity Hold down CAPS SHIFT and BREAK SPACE and press 1 once. You can now choose another activity as before. To choose the other exercise, hold down CAPS SHIFT and BREAK SPACE and press 1 once. How to end the program To end the program, simply disconnect the Spectrum ZX Power Supply Unit from the mains. How to switch of the sound To switch off the sound, hold down keys CAPS SHIFT and BREAK SPACE and press 3 once. To switch the sound on again, repeat this action. How to pause To pause: Hold down keys CAPS SHIFT and BREAK SPACE and press 4 once. To continue, repeat this. NOTE: These key combinations have been carefully designed to make it difficult for your child to carry out any of these actions accidentally. (c) Five Ways Software Limited 1984. Arrow, 17-21 Conway Street, London W1P 6JD.