Improving The Learning Environment

Last month at the childminding group we audited Inclusive Practice, but it was a bit dry and heavy so this month I put together a more interactive session.  The yellow strips had aspects of the Indoor environment printed on them, orange covered the Emotional environment and green was for the outdoor environment.  the three columns were headed 'Things I do well' 'Things I can improve' and 'Things I might need help with'.  It focussed everyones minds on the task in hand and there was some discussion about what a few slips as minders debated which column they wanted to put it in!

We then took it in turns to read out something from the 'Things I can Improve' column, and shared ideas about how we each achieved it or how we would like to improve it.

After that we wrote a plan:

• 
  
  One thing to change today.
• 
  
  One thing to change by next week.
• 
  
  One thing that needs more planning.
• 
  
  One thing we can all do together.

It was really great because it made it seem achievable rather than just another huge to-do list!  The things we decided to do together covered slips that appeared on everyone's charts - supporting children to recognise and label their own and other's emotions, so the next meeting we will look at some best practice ideas and make some resources together to help us do that. 

The thing I chose to change that day was to make outdoor access more child-friendly and to voice it as an option, instead of waiting for the children to suggest it, which in this grey and cold weather, they hadn't really been doing!

One thing to change by nest week was to have my groundrules up on the wall..... we all know what they are, I remind them umpteen times a day but they have never made their way onto paper!

One thing that we all agreed needed more planning was using ICT with the children.... it was something that we didn't know much about and needed to look into more, we will probably do that together too, and might try to access some funding to build a set of resources that can be rotated around the group members.

I was thrilled to have some really positive feedback about the session, such as:

"It helped me to put a label onto what I was already doing"

 and

"It will help me to show parents and Ofsted what I am doing to improve my practice"

I will be writing blogposts about the things we and I are improving upon so watch this space!!!

St. David's Day Planning!

I will be joining forces with another childminder on Monday to enjoy some St. David's Day treats, and then we will do some more activities at home in the afternoon.  I have a CD of children's songs in Welsh that we will play (CLL, KUW). There will be welsh lamb casserole bubbling in the slow cooker ready for lunch, I always talk about where meat comes from as I think it's important for children to understand their place in the food chain, obviously in a amnner sensitive to their age and temperament!! (KUW, PSED) We will make daffodil paper chains (PD, CD). I have bought some wooden spoons and we are going to get creative and decorate them as welsh love spoons, talking about who we love and why, and who we would give them to! (CD, PSED) For the children that enjoy the challenge of colouring in templates, I have printed some welsh flags and welsh children to colour.  My husband is Welsh so I will be getting him to talk to the children in Welsh and we will make a book in welsh with numbers and colours, animals and food for the book basket (CLL, KUW), if you want to the same, there are great language resources here! And I think that will happily take us through the day.... there are many more ideas out there, please come back on and comment to tell me what you did, or e-mail me!

The Learning Environment

The childminding group that I co-ordinate is reflecting on 'the Learning Environment' this week.  I found a couple of great documents available on line when I was making up the materials.... really easy to use and read and with some lovely ideas both for those starting out and the more experienced ones amongst you!

• The Learning Environment
• Early Years Outdoor Learning

Let me know how you find them!!

Friday's Favourites!

This week's favourites come along with a sigh of relief after passing (I think!) my practical exam on the Montessori curriculum today!  I have discovered three new blogs this week and the rainbow theme omes from them..... gorgeous and inspirational and turning my thoughts towards march planning!

First up is upcycled crayons from 'i make stuff' (see the sidebar for the new blog links)

Then there is rainbow rice from 'pink and green mama'

And finally the thought of 500 coloured pencils from 'The violet hours'.

I'm loving the colours!

Have a good weekend!

Scissor Happy!

(Picture from yellow moon - carousel of craft scissors)

This post is inspired by a recent thread on the childmindinghelp forum about a cutting activity.  Whilst searching for printable sheets I came across lots of different styles and thought that I'd pull them all together into one place!  This isn't all of them, but my favourties and a good selection!

1. Cut, fold and colour to make this look like grass!
2. Snipping a spiral!
3. Cutting out farm animals.
4. Snip and sort cutting book.
5. Colour and cut alphabet
6. Numbers to nine, colour and cut.
7. Snip and stick pictorial labels to parts of the face - fabulous activity this one, you MUST look at it!
8. Cut out and match the symmetrical animal faces - really nice!
9. Some unusual lines to cut here.
10. Dot-to-dot cutting.
11. At the farm cut out and make has two skill levels of 2-4 and 4-6 years old..... this is a really cute activity to do!
12. A Cat's World cut out and make.
13. Picnic basket cut and make - I could eat this one it's so lovely!
14. Make a sandwich cut-outs.
15. Hawaiian girl  - this includes fringing her skirt!!
16. Cutting pages of school essentials - a good transitional activity maybe!

Numbers four to eight are on the TES site, and you will need to register and confirm before you can access the pages.  It takes a few minutes to wait for the e-mail and then confirm.

My youngest daughter started cutting when she was 16 months old.  We have a pair of scissors like these easy grip loop scissors and she was off!  She started by fringing the edges of pieces of paper, before progressing to cutting ragged lines across pieces of paper at about 20 months.  She enjoyed cutting pieces of sellotape to stick down at 2 years old (we had lots of different types - sparkly for gift wrapping, coloured electrical tape etc). At 2 3/4 she is cutting shapes out of paper herself and her accuracy astounds me.  Traditionally scissors aren't offered to children so young but she enjoyed mastering them and it has given her more independence.  She now uses normal scissors competently and has done for some time!

Rolling Around!

One of my little ones seemed to be fascinated with balls and things that rolled around.  I did a bit of reading and wondered if she was maybe showing a rotational schema so planned experiences for her that extended her interest.  It lasted for several months but here are a few of the things we tried:

• A collection of different balls to explore.
• A collection of vehicles to roll and push.
• Wooden planks to roll vehicles down.
• Guttering to roll balls down.
• Differently sized tubes with differently sized balls to explore which balls fitted down which diameter tubes.
• Painting with balls in a tray.
• Painting by rolling toy vehicles through paint and then across paper.
• Enveloping balls with playdough.
• making marks with balls in playdough.
• Putting a soft abll of playdough out with a hard ball and exploring the differences.
• Rolling balls to knock over skittles.
• Throwing/ kicking/ rolling/ bouncing/ catching balls.
• trying to bounce different types of balls.
• Playing with balls in water, dropping them to make splashes, and patting them.
• Looking for balls in the world around us (fruit, the tops of gates, door handles, top of the spinnaret on the mosque).
• A collection of unusual balls such as ball of string, pom-poms, stuffed socks, taped-up paper balls - you could hide them in a box full of shredded paper for little ones to find.

My collection of balls at the moment includes tennis balls, golf balls, a wooden decorative ball from Dunelm, very large glass marbles, and foam balls from a skittle set.  I really like these and these from lakeshore learning.  It's an American company but I can't find anything like it available in the UK, and with exchange rates they might be quite reasonable!

Making Felt Food

I was tidying the play kitchen today, and as I collected the eggs together and put them back into the box, it set me thinking about what else I could make from felt for the children to enjoy 'cooking' with.  I had a little look around and found some fabulous inspiration here.  I especially like the apple quarters!

I found a tutorial for and made a pitta pocket and crisps, I know the pattern is for a sandwich but I thought that a pitta half woud be easier for the little ones to manage so I adapted it!

I made natural coloured eggs from a fabric egg pattern and they were a real hit!

Here's a list of all the fab felt foods you can make!!!

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  Ravioli
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  Pizza
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  Peas in a pod
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  Carrots
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  Banana in peel
• 
  
  Cherry Pie
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  Strawberries

That should keep you going.... I couldn't find a pattern for apple slices that was free so I'll have a go myself this week and if I can work it out then I will post the pattern and instructions on here!!