Introducing Our Travelling Ted

Apologies for the absence of my posts recently.  I have been burying my head in paperwork, and trying to get back to normal after spending 2 weeks at Disney World!

We all had an amazing time and I'm sure you've seen the hundreds of photos I have been uploading on Facebook!

As we try to get back to normality, I would like to introduce a very special person to you.

This is Duffy. Duffy is Oakley Childcare's new Travelling Ted. Many settings, including Pre-schools, nurseries and reception classes use 'Travelling Teddies' with their children.  I think the idea works equally well in a Childminding setting.

How does it work?

The Childminder purchases a teddy bear and a notebook. The children are encouraged to take the bear with them when they go on holiday, visit friends or relatives or go on a special outing/family event.

The parents are asked to record the event in the notebook and if possible include a photograph or postcard.

On the bears return to the Childminder, the child is encouraged to share their experience and any photographs with the Childminder and the other children.

How does this help the child’s Learning and Development?

This activity helps children to learn and develop in a variety of ways and I have linked them to the Early Years  Foundation Stage Curriculum and the Every Child Matters Outcomes.

The children:

• Extend their memory by recalling the event
• Gain self-confidence in retelling their story,
• Learn to listen to others,
• Learn to share,
• Learn about the written word,
• Develop a sense of belonging and of being valued,
• Develop a greater knowledge and understanding of others’ lives and the world in which we live.

Links to the Early Years Foundation Stage:

Personal, social and emotional development - Learning to respect others, about relationships and the importance of friendship.

Communication, language and literacy - Opportunities to speak and listen, availability of print.

Mathematical Development - Counting - How many outings has Duffy had etc.

Knowledge and Understanding of the world - Gathering information on other parts of the country/world, on others lives and cultures.

Physical development - Developing fine motor skills to dress Duffy.

Creative development - Children have time to explore ideas. 

Duffy is a very special teddy as he is a Disney Bear.  He has travelled all the way from Disney World in Florida to stay with us.

Duffy was originally a present for Mickey Mouse from Minnie to keep him company on his travels.

The story goes...

Duffy was previously known as "The Disney Bear" with an entirely different backstory. The original story found on the tag of the first released bear's ear said that Mickey brought his favorite bear to the Magic Kingdom. Mickey sat in front of the castle wishing that he had a friend with him to share the excitement and magic of the park. Tinker-bell appears and sprinkles pixie dust on Mickey's bear, bringing it to life. Mickey then hugs the bear and a Mickey-shape appears on the bear's face, forever bonding Mickey and his new friend. I think I like that version a little bit better, but that's just me.  I was totally captivated by Cinderella's Castle at Magic Kingdom.

Whilst at Disney World, I also bought the children a book; Duffy the Disney Bear: Mickey's New Friend.  This is an extended version of the story above. We will be reding this next week.

If you would like to read the story to your child at home, here is a lovely read-along video...

Duffy The Disney Bear Read-Along Story

We were very fortunate to meet the real Duffy when we were in Disney's Epcot, as shown at the end of the video.  Oliver and Amelia took an instant love of him and gave him lots of bear hugs.

If your child attends Oakley Childcare and you would like to take Duffy on a special outing, please let me know and I will get him and his passport ready for his next adventure!

If you are a Childminder and you would like Duffy to visit your setting, please let us know :-)

Father's Day

 The weather has been so miserable recently.  Our garden has really suffered and the poor chicken's run is just mud where the rain has turned the straw to mulch. I will be so glad when our summer starts so we can get into the garden properly.

We actually made it outside this morning as the sun decided to come out. We tested out our new bubble machine and the children enjoyed catching all the bubbles as they floated around the garden.  We also went to Asda and bought some play sand for the activity table and the children had fun building sandcastles and using the dinosaur moulds.

This afternoon the children were busy bees making cards and cupcakes for their Daddies. We used some black card with some paper ties stuck on the front with PVA glue and a lovely poem inside.

The children then helped to make some cupcakes, taking it in turns to add ingredients and stir the mixture.  We used some football cupcake cases which the children thought the daddies would like.

We left them to cool while we went off to play and then later took it in turns to ice and decorate them while the rest of the children read stories about Dads with Paul in the living room.

 We then finished them off with a cute cupcake box with balls on.

The Daddies really enjoyed their cakes and cards and the children enjoyed the ones that they took home too (well we couldn't JUST give cakes to the Daddies could we?)

Easter Week

We had a week of Easter activities last week before we broke up for the 4 day Easter bank holiday.
The children enjoyed doing our first activity outside in the garden.  It had been very warm outside which was unusual for March.  So it was already time for sunhats and sun cream!

Our first activity were some marble painted easter egg cut-outs.

The children placed their cut outs in a tray containing mables and paint and were supervised as they moved the tray from side to side so that the marbles rolled in the different colours across the egg cut-out creating a marbled effect.

The children enjoyed decorating Easter bonnets on Wednesday ready for our easter bonnet parade on Thursday.

Making Shrinkle keyrings...

We also repeated last year's Easter egg poem activity as they proved so popular...

And some delicious Easter nest cakes and Spring lamb cupcakes! YUM

A great time was had by all! 

I'm sorry to make this post short and sweet. I am trying to catch up on a mountain of paperwork, Ollie & Millie orders and assignments, so i'm afraid I won't go into detail today.

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter from Oakley Childcare. xxx

Level 3 News

I am so pleased to tell you that I have finally started my level 3 diploma in Children and Young People's Workforce. 
I signed up for the course last October and have been waiting all this time for funding to be granted.  My assessor, Gemma, came out to see me last Tuesday who is lovely.  The children will be seeing a lot more of her over the coming weeks when she comes to observe me playing and interacting with them and carrying out my every day duties.  I have been set my first assignment which is 10 hours long and has to be completed in the next 2 weeks.

I am a bit pushed for time; the way the company has issued the funding means I have to complete the course in just 4 months... something which usually takes 9 months- a year.  So I am going to be a very busy bee in the evenings for the next few months.

This course will develop my skills and knowledge in working with children and young people in a variety of settings. The course units include:

• Communication and Relationships with adults and children
• Health & Safety
• Development of children and assessment
• Professional practice and principles of practice
• Safeguarding

My progress will be assessed through written tasks and observations carried out in my setting and an External assessment (online).

Very Hungry Caterpillar Day

This year marks the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was first published in 1969. On March 20th, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day,” schools, libraries and bookstores will be hosting events and activities to mark this special occasion. Additional celebrations and activities based on this much-loved book will be held throughout the year in schools and libraries and by readers and friends all around the world. Also in March, a special edition of the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Pop-Up Book featuring Eric Carle’s illustrations in a 3-dimensional format, will be available for sale at local bookstores.  To celebrate this wonderful book, which is one of my favourites, we have been doing some Very Hungry Caterpillar crafts, and ended the week with a Very Hungry Caterpillar picnic featuring the foods from the story.

 Click here to view a short video of Eric Carle talking about his book The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I have lots of Hungry Caterpillar resources in my setting.  Here are just some of them...

The children particuarly loved playing with floor puzzle.

All week we have had snack time with all the foods from the story...  On Monday he ate through one apple.  On Tuesday he ate through two pears... etc.

The children also did some caterpillar crafts.  They coloured in some caterpillar and butterfly sheets and we made an egg box Hungry Caterpillar.  As we have chickens, I only buy eggs for the children in my care, so I don't have egg boxes that often, so we had to make do with one egg box between all of us to make this lovely caterpillar.  Each child painted a piece of his body and I did his head and his antennas.  He looks quite happy sitting on his leaf...

We also made these lovely handprint caterpillar paintings...

On Thursday afternoon we had  Very Hungry Caterpillar picnic with some of the foods from the story..  On Saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of swiss cheese, one piece of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake and one slice of watermelon....

I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of the things we've been doing this week.  If you would like to see more of my Very Hungry Caterpillar projects please take a look at my other blog here.

Next week:  Easter!

Mother's Day 2012

We have had a week of activities this week ready for Mother's Day on 18th March. 

Our themed stories this week were:

You Should See my Mum.  By Martin Brown.

My Mum is Great by Gaby Goldstone

and Monkey Puzzle by my favourite Children's author, Julia Donaldson

The children have all been busy this week making lots of lovely things for their Mummy's.  We started off with these lovely handprint poems.  I printed the poems onto A4 paper and the children then had their hands painted and printed carefully above the poem; Butterflies for the two little ones and a flower for the older children.

Our Poem prints drying

Next we made some lovely yummy cakes.  The children all helped to add the ingredients to the bowl and watched as I used an electric whisk to mix it all together.  Then they laughed at me as I got covered in mixture as it came flying out of the bowl!!  I must remeber to wear an apron next time!

When the cakes were cooled, the children all iced their cakes with lilac icing and sugar butterflies. 

When our poem prints were dry we mounted them onto lilac card and added ribbon so they could be hung up at home.

We also made these lovely cards using another handprint, this time green, and the children stuck on foam flowers.

We also wrapped up a little present with a poem tag attached:

Unfortunately 2 of the children were poorly on Friday so we were unable to finish our wooden flower photo frames but will save them for next year.


Next week: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day!

Our Elmer Theme

1st March was World book day, so I decided it would be nice if we picked a book and looked at it as a theme for the next week.


The book we chose was Elmer by David McKee.  We went to the library and picked out as many Elmer books as we could find.  There are lots and lots in the series; Elmer and the Hippos, Elmer Friends, Elmer and the Rainbow, Elmer and Wilbur, to name but a few.  But I have to say my favourite is the original one, Elmer.  It is about a patchwork elephant who feels down because all the other elephants are the same colour grey.  He runs away and finds a berry bush, shakes off all the berries and rolls in them until he is grey like all the other elephants.  It's a lovely story.  It promotes PSED, raises points on key subjects such as cultural differences and acceptance of others and values.


I couldn't resist buying an Elmer soft toy and ball for our Story Sack.  Here's some of the books we got from the library, and our new toys:

I also printed off an Elmer banner display and some coat peg labels from Twinkl and lots of other resources... I printed them all off and double laminated them to make them strong and durable.  The children I look after are all around 22 months old, so they have to be quite strong to stand against wear and tear! I made some flash cards, stick puppets, playdough mats and story sequencing cards.

MARK MAKING

The Children enjoyed mark making and colouring some Elmer colouring sheets, developing their Physical Development and Communication, Language and Literacy.  She spoke about shapes and colours while doing so.

PLAYDOUGH

We also did a playdough activitiy on our new mats that I printed and laminated.  We made a trunk for Elmer using the playdough, and the children developed their physical development further by gaining control over tools and equipment such as cutters, scissors, rollers, and rolling pins.

ELMER PASTA TRUNKS!

We looked at the shape of Elmer's trunk.  It's kind of tube-shaped, so I planned another activity which the children thoroughly enjoyed.  I bought some pasta tubes and the children painted them all the colours of Elmer.  When they were dry, we used them for threading and lacing.  The children got in SUCH a mess with this and some decided to paint each other rather than the pasta!  It was a bit of a task getting them all clean afterwards, but the main thing is they had fun and enjoyed themselves! 

For the pasta I used Tesco Finest Paccheri.  It's a nice big, chunky pasta tube, ideal for little hands to hold, and at £1.59 for a 500g bag, it's quite an inexpensive activty. I used Mt Bartlett's 75cm round shoelaces for the  string in which the children used to thread the pasta. They were 90p, also from Tesco.

MILK CARTON ELMERS

Also in my Elmer planning for this week were these lovely Elmer milk cartons.  We have our milk delivered twice a week from the Cool Milk scheme, so we go through no end of milk cartons.  What better way to recycle them then to use them for a craft rather then chucking them in a wheelie bin at the end of the week?

I removed the label, washed out the inside and left to drain and then cut the milk carton at the bottom of the handle, and then about 2cm underneath this as shown:

Then with adult supervision, the children covered their milk carton with PVA glue and added squres of coloured tissue paper (Elmer coloured!) to their milk carton.  We spoke about the colours and about the square shapes whilst we did this.

Once completed, we added some googly eyes and set on the windowsil to dry.

PATCHWORK SHORTBREAD

To follow on from our Elmer activities, we made some shortbread squares and iced them using different coloured icings; red, white, green and yellow. Again, we spoke about the square shapes and the different colours.

TISSUE PAPER PATCHWORK ELEPHANT

I'm not the best at drawing elephants, so please excuse my poor effort here, but I drew a large elephant onto some card and cut him out for the children to get creative on. Then the children glued him and stuck on some patchwork tissue paper squares.

I think he's been eating a few too many berries as his belly is three times bigger than his head!  But you get the general idea!  The children recongnised what it was so it can't be too bad!  Ha ha.

 

ELMER STORY STRINGS

Many children have great difficulty listening to, and retaining information during story time, as well as sequencing and structuring their own attempts at story telling.

Story strings provide a creative, concrete and visually supportive framework to help children improve their performance in these areas.

In addition, story strings also;

·       Develop turn taking skills.

·       Increase vocabulary and descriptive language.

·       Improve listening skills.

·       Encourage imagination and creative thinking.

·       Allow for ownership of stories.

·       Increase accessibility to a range of abilities within the same group.

I set up some chairs in the living room with some string attached and used the story sequencing cards that I laminated earlier in the week to tell the story of Elmer using the cards.  The children all sat around and listened to the story, that is until they beacme more interested in the pegs!  They looked at the cards and we spoke abut the animals, the noises they make, colours, shapes and differences; such as the tall elephant, fat, thin, young and old.

ICY BERRY ELEPHANTS

Our last activity for our Elmer theme was icy berry elephants.  I provided  the children with a tray full of frozen mixed red berries and some elephants.  Just like Elmer in the story, the children stomped the elephants through the berries getting all red and mushy.  We spoke about how the berries felt and after the initial "They feel like berries!" we discovered that they actually felt hard, cold and slippy.  Amelia also discovered that they tasted nice!  Apart from the little red ones... they were yucky!

We have had a lovely week this week and the children have had lots of fun and have learnt lots and lots.  But this is where our Elmer week comes to an end. We are going to read our Elmer books again this afternoon at Storytime for the last time before we return them to the library. I only have two children tomorrow so I'm planning on taking advantage of this lovely spring sunshine at Fermyn woods. 

Next week: Mother's Day!