Pets

My two year old daughter is obsessed with dogs at the moment.  We have a welsh springer spaniel called Jacob at home who she is forever cuddling, stroking and feeding treats. Every time we go to the lakes to feed the ducks we come across lots of people walking their pooches and we have to stop to stroke all of them.  It's very time consuming!  On a recent walk around Delapre Abbey a lovely lady actually let her take her little dog for a walk around the square on its lead as she loved stroking it so much and kept trying to hold it.  Denny, the dogs name was.  Here she is taking her for a walk...

 

Meanwhile, little D who attend Oakley Childcare also got a new pet; a springer spaniel called Missy.  So to follow their interests and experiences , I put together a little project on pets.

 

First was our vets surgery where all the animals got made better.  Even Caesar our cat came along for a check up. Here he is in the waiting room...

 

 

 

Soon enough there were lots of customers in the waiting room with their poorly pets...

 

 

Medicine was given to make them better...

 

The children enjoyed dressing up and taking it in turns to be a vet.  Soon enough the chair's I had lined up for the waiting room had been turned around and had become a bus and that was the end of the activity!  That's toddlers for you!

 

 

 

Halloween 2012

I apologise for the lack of posts over the past few weeks.  I have been so busy I just haven't had time to blog. This will also just be a quick one to show you a few things we have been doing for halloween.

We did some activities to support expressive arts and design and made some bats using PVA glue, glitter, sequins, etc.  The children that ade these are only two years old.   They used their imaginations and explored different medias and materials.

The children enjoyed getting messy painting their hands to print these handprint ghosts onto black card.  They sprinkled glitter over PVA glue for the "BOO!" underneath

And lastly these pumpkin masks...

 

 

I hope to be back soon for some more blogging!  Stay tuned :)

Tesco Vouchers for Schools

We had two very excited little people this morning when these huge parcels arrived.  It was our order that we placed through Tesco Vouchers for Schools and Clubs!

As you can see, the children were very excited and helped me to pick off the box tape.

In the boxes were 2 active world trays, and active world stand and cover, some sparkly fish, sparkly numbers and some PVA glue.  We also ordered some shaped mirror trays which are being sent separately.  Hopefully they will arrive this week too..

We put one active world tray up in the garden and filled it with a few centimeters of bubbly water and the squidgy fish and numbers.  The children enjoyed finding them under the bubbles, hiding them underneath and filling and tipping water from containers.

 Exploring the squidgy fish

 

I would like to thank everyone for all the generous donations of Tesco vouchers.  We were lucky enough to collect over 6000 and although it was a pain counting them all out, it has been an excellent way to purchase some much needed new equipment which would otherwise prove very expensive.  The equipment we ordered totals over £300, so thank you to everyone who helped to raise so many vouchers.  We are very grateful.

I hope to write lots more blogs about other sensory activities that we will be using the active world trays for over the coming weeks.

Chatterbox Challenge 2013

Some of you may be aware of the children's communication charity I Can. This is a charity I hold close to my heart as my own daughter has speech and language difficulties.

I received an email this morning from them regarding next years Chatterbox Challenge.  2013 is set to be ther year of the Mad Chatter's Tea Party with Humf! 

Launching in September 2012, I CAN is inviting hundreds of thousands of little Chatterboxes to take part in its annual fun and educational event for nurseries, pre-schools, childminding and community groups for children aged 0-5. Now in its 12^th year, this year’s Chatterbox Challenge: Mad Chatter’s Tea Party with Humf asks groups to organise tea parties where children perform songs and rhymes to develop their communication skills in a simple and fun way.

Children will be encouraged to sing songs and rhymes around a tea-time theme for this year’s Chatterbox Challenge with Humf, the furry little character from the popular pre-school TV series currently airing on Nick Jr. The aim of the challenge is for groups across the country to organise a tea party event at their nursery, playgroup or preschool, where children perform songs and rhymes which helps children develop their communication skills.

Additionally, these events will raise valuable funds and awareness for I CAN’s work with children who struggle with speech, language and communication as friends and family are encouraged to sponsor children for their Chatterbox Challenge performance.

When

Chatterbox Challenge week is 1^st – 8^th March 2013. Most groups will be holding their Challenge during this week, but can also do it any time throughout the year.

Who

Children at nurseries, pre-schools, childminding groups and community groups across the UK will be taking part in this annual fun, educational and fundraising event.

I CAN speech and language therapists and teachers have developed the singing and rhyming activities for this year’s Mad Chatter’s Tea Party Challenge with Humf. The lesson plans for Chatterbox Challenge, which include Humf and his friends in the activities and illustrations, link to key aspects of the new Early Years Foundation Stage including Communication and Language, Physical Development, and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

All the activities help support and develop children’s speech and language skills, whilst raising awareness and funds for those children who struggle with talking and understanding.
Thanks to Openreach, more of the money raised goes to support children who struggle with their speech and language.

To register and get involved in this year’s Chatterbox Challenge Mad Chatter’s Tea Party with Humf, go to www.chatterboxchallenge.org.uk

While I do like Humf, the Disney-lover in me will be basing my setting's tea party around Alice in Wonderland and I hope to hold a Mad Chatters Tea Party in March 2013.  Who knows,  we might even make it fancy dress. I might even dress up as Alice herself!  Hats will definitely be a must!

The creative side of me is already thinking of  theming... Alice in Wonderland cupcakes and drinks in little bottles!  I love this Mad Hatter's Tea party that the children took part in at the Monica Ros School in California.  So pretty.  I don't think it'll be warm enough to have our tea party outside next March.  However, saying that, this March was really warm wasn't it?  Maybe there's hope yet!

 

And how amazing are these cakes??

 

 

I think I have found a theme for my Daughter's 3rd birthday next April.  She loves the film at the moment so I think these cakes will be a must for her party.

 

Right, I'm off to download my fundraising pack!  I hope to invite some other childminders in the area to join us, so please let me know if you would like to come.  It's quite far off so will send out invites nearer the time :-)

Fermyn Woods 2012

I wanted to take the children blackberry picking today so we popped on our high vis jackets, jumped in the car and headed to Fermyn Woods.

It was really quiet there today with only a few other children using the park and we had the tots area to ourselves. I had packed the children some snacks and refereshments and they sat in the little wooden houses to eat it.  Unfortunately I forgot to bring anything for Paul and I (always the way). So Paul went off and got us both some tea and coffee and a slice of cake from the Skylark Cafe which came to £8!!!  It was really nice though.  The lady in the cafe bakes all the cakes herself and the scone I had was fresh from the oven.  It was delicious.  She also told Paul the cafe will be closing down soon as the council have said it's no longer viable.  I think this will be a real shame.

 

 

The children then decided they wanted to eat their snacks at the mushroom table...

 

 

And then in the gazebo...

 

We finished up our snacks and went over to the castle play equipment where the children tested out their balancing skills on the wooden bridge and then spent the next 20-30 minutes going up and down the slides!

 

We eventually enticed them away from the slides and we went off on a blackberry hunt.  However the only ones we could find wer not quite ripe yet and the children were lagging as they wanted to go over to the swings, so we turned around and went in the park for a bit.

 

There was a HUGE bird in the sky who seemed to be circling us!  Luckily he didn't choose us for his lunch!

 

The kids had great fun on the swings...

 

And the rocking turtle....

 

And we LOVED the zip wire (OK, I admit I enjoyed it the most!)

 

 

A great time was had by all and we hope to return again next week when the blackberry's are ripe.  I feel another Gruffalo Crumble coming on!

 

 

Graduation Goodbyes

We will be very sorry to see Laila leave us today.  She has been coming to Oakley Childcare for the past two years and her learning and development has come on so much in that time.

We hope that she will make lots of new friends at her new nursery and we wish her every success for the future.

Playdough Cupcakes

I only had two little girls to look after one day last week and they asked to make some playdough.

The girls helped to add the ingredients into a big saucepan and we added lots of purple food colouring which they chose themselves. The recipe I use can be found here.

I set it on the hob and stirred it continuously until it formed a doughy consistensy and then set it to cool on the side while we went to play.

Once cooled, the girls practiced rolling, cutting and mark-making in the dough and cutting out little people which I then had to make playdough T-shirts for!

 

 


I then provided them with some paper cake cases and some birthday candles and they made some playdough cupcakes.

 

 

When Oliver came in and saw we were playing with Playdough he joined us too and made his own cakes! See; not just for girls!

Characteristics of Effective Learning

I have spent the past couple of months reading up on anything and everything to do with the revised EYFS in preparation for 1st September and have discovered that in addition to the 7 areas of Learning and Development there is a huge emphasis on how children learn and how this underpins all learning.

The way in which children engage in activities, are motivated to learn, and think creatively are vital to a child's development.

The Characteristics of effective learning are:


Playing and exploring – engagement

• Finding out and exploring
• Playing with what they know
• Being willing to ‘have a go’

Active learning – motivation

• Being involved and concentrating
• Keeping trying
• Enjoying achieving what they set out to do

Creating and thinking critically – thinking

• Having their own ideas
• Making links
• Choosing ways to do things

I have now revised my observation records to include the Characteristics of Effective Learning and I hope to monitor and audit my continuous provision to ensure I vary the way in which children have opportunities to learn and to support each child's preferred way of learning.

Vacancies

I have limited spaces availble from September.  The spaces I have available are as follows:


Children aged 0-5

• Wednesdays - Between the hours of 13:00 - 18:00

• Fridays - 08:00 - 18:00

School aged children

Spaces are available in the holidays. 

I am unable to do school drop offs or collections at present.


If you know anyone who requires childcare during these hours, please feel free to pass on my details.

Homemade Crayons

Our crayon box was looking a bit sorry for itself last week.  A lot of the crayons were broken and the papers peeling.  I went to Asda and stocked up on new ones but I tried to think of a way of recycling the old ones rather than just throwing them in the bin.  I remembered something I had seen on Pinterest where somebody had melted their old crayons down to make little discs, so I got the children together and we attempted to make our own.

The most time consuming part was peeling off the paper.  The children quickly got bored of this part and I was left to do it myself while they went off to play, but eventually they were all bare and the children came back and helped to break them into little pieces.

We got some paper cake cases which we put in a bun tray and then we began filling them whilst sorting them at the same time.. all the pink ones first... then all the blue ones....

When we were fnished sorting, they looked like this...

I put them in the oven on about 200°C and kept checking on them.  It only took a few minutes before they had melted into liquid in the paper cases.  I took them out of the oven and put them on the side to cool and set. 

After an hour or so they had gone hard so I turned them out of the cases onto a plate.  They had a lovely marbled affect on one side and this colour explosion on the bottom!  The children were very surprised to see what our broken crayons had turned into.

The paper cases had also transformed slighly. They now had a waxy texture and had turned very colourful.  What a shame it would be to put them in the recycling bin!  So out came the glue!  I had run out of green paper so we used green napkins to cut out leaf shapes and long strips for the stems. The children stuck them onto paper to make flowers and drew bees with the new crayon discs.

I cannot believe how easy and effective this activity was and I'm tempted to break up all out new crayons just to do it again!

I was flicking through the summer edition of Creative Steps magazine this morning and saw that they have actually done the same activity in the magazine.  They did some star shapes on theirs and used glitter, which has given me some more ideas for next steps.  Perhaps we will try some different shapes next time we do it and add some different textures.



Olympic Painting

This afternoon, to show support for the GB team, the children did some Olympic painting.

They explored the toilet roll tubes and pushed them into coloured paint to make Olympic rings onto paper. The older children painted unioin Jack flags. 

As with any other messy activity, the children got very messy!

We hung them up to dry and displayed them on the wall when they were dry.