Schoolzone says: ‘Pond is also compatible with the publisher’s Talk·2·Talk feature, which allows other languages to be incorporated into the activity and then selected solely or spoken with another . . . As a school with a significant number of EAL learners, this facility proved a wonderful bonus. In one class, we used Gujarati and English together, which allowed for our Reception class to hear numbers to ten in both English and Gujarati together and supported a newly arrived Gujarati-speaking pupil.
‘Pond quickly became one of the pupils’ favourites and, with the available adjustments and the use of the language feature, working with individuals and as a whole class was easy and fun.’
Pond
Pond – the patient, well-paced and picturesque program for primary and pre-school pupils – presents four activities for early number work:
Teddy Bears’ Picnic
One-to-one matching: is there enough food?
Little Ducks
Count the ducks – there are two colours. How many are yellow?
How many are brown? How many altogether?
Butterflies
There are two types of butterfly, but they always move.
Count up or count down.
Fishes and Frogs
There are two types of fish. How many of each and how many altogether. How many frogs and fish? How many more frogs than fish? How many fewer fish than frogs?
Pond covers one-to-one matching, counting up to ten (and counting down) and more than/fewer than. The level of difficulty of each activity can be set to suit individual needs.
Supplied with high-quality recorded speech in English, other languages may be added at any time to support EAL and MFL (see Show me more and Talk·2·Talk).
Optional Talk·2·Talk languages: English, French, Gujarati, Polish, Spanish, Welsh.
In addition, Pond provides optional single- or double-switch access and a background fade for those who need the main elements to stand out more clearly.