Friday's Favourite's!

I'm actually writing this on Wednesday evening, as I am not working again until Wednesday next week now so thought I would have a complete break (If I can really make myself!!).  This week has been tough with poorly little ones to contend with on top of lack of sleep testing all my skills!  I have spent this evening in a fit of giggles making a birthday cake for my youngest daughter who turns three on Sunday, but tomorrow is her 'official' birthday when we will go to Waterworld to celebrate as a family. We started the tradition of a family day out for birthdays long ago, instead of a party and they are looked forwards to greatly.  All my daughter wanted for her third birthday was a chocolate dinosaur cake and green swim goggles like her sister!  Commence an evening of fun concocting a stegosaurus/triceratops style creature out of microwaved sponge cake, butter icing and a variety of sweeties from the pick and mix!!  My daughter will love it and that is what counts!!  So down to this week's hot picks from the web:

• This train table makeover caught my imagination.... it could work in a builder's tray too I think!
• This collection of Easter poems is a lovely mix, and worth keeping for next year even if a bit late this year!!

That seems to be it this week, everyone is busy with Easter it seems, look out for some April planning soon!

Happy Easter, Jenni

Curly Cursive Writing!

This is a subject close to my heart... a strange topic maybe but my daughter didn't get along with print so we tried cursive and she loves it.  Cursive is 'old style' lettering that is curly and has a flick to lead into it and a flick to lead out of it.  All children will learn a version of it eventually, when they need to join up their handwriting, but most schools teach print to begin with.  Print is the type of lettering that you will see in books, newspapers etc.  The problem my daughter had with print is that all of the letters start in different places, consider 's' and 'e' and 'l', they all begin at a different place, with cursive, this doesn't happen, as all letters begin at the bottom left, with a lead-in stroke to the letter.  This particularly helps when children get muddled up with 'b' and 'd' and 'p'!  Cursive also supports children to form the letters properly as they are less likely to draw a ball and a stick for 'p' for example as they understand that it must flow from the left, so bad habits are less likely to be picked up. 

Lots of schools are beginning to go back to teaching cursive as a starting point, and this may affect you as  a childminder if you find yourself supporting a child with homework that is in cursive, or looking after them in the holidays.  Whilst it is accepted that children who learn letters in cursive usually have no problem in reading in print, it is great to be able to meet the needs of all children by differentiating what you do.  I searched high and low for cursive resources for two years and then I found this site which is well worth a read as it details soooo eloquently all the best bits about cursive!!!! I am biased I know, but my point is that if you care for children whose school teach cursive (even if those children have yet to begin nursery and you know that they will be going there, you can use one of the fonts from this site to produce titles, captions for paintings, headers for your displays, name tags for the child's coat peg and so much more)  The fonts are so affordable and make individualising your planning so easy that it is well worth writing off against tax!!

There will be more to come from this talented lady, as I will hopefully be interviewing her soon!!

Easter Crafts

This is an easter nest halfway through construction, being made from shredded paper and fruit nets chopped into pieces, layered up using flour and water paste as a glue.  To get the nest shape, we covered a small bowl with tin foil to ease getting it out after it had dried!  They were very sticky and messy and went down a storm as you can imagine, although the little ones were fairly covered in little bits of shredded paper!

To complement the nests we made chicks from soft woolly jumpers, adding eyes, beaks and wings from felt.  My nearly five year old hand sewed this chick without any adult help beyond having the needle re-threaded a few times and some verbal instruction!

There are some chick sewing patterns here if you want to try it out, I use embroidery floss as it is fairly thick and holds the fabric better when the stitches are a little uneven or quite far apart.  Four and five year olds are probably fine with a cross-stitch needle, they are thicker than normal sewing needles and blunter at the end.  For really little ones, you can buy plastic needles or 'bodgers' from craft stores or ebay (don't get the ones with a blob on the end, they won't sew through anything!), although with plastic needles you will need a loose knit jumper or it will be very frustrating to get the needle through the fabric and little ones will lose interest.

Frog on a Blog!

I hadn't planned on looking at the lifecycle of a frog with the children, but when we were at my friend's house today, we dashed out inbetween rain storms and watched the frogs in her pond. There were about eleven in there; we heard a male frog croak too! Great balloons of frogspawn were pushing up out of the water! Later in the day we made frog pictures by cutting a pond out of shuny blue paper, adding bubblewrap with permanent marker dots on as the frog spawn, and some felt frogs and pond weed. They looked great!

Here are some froggy links to get you started exploring the lifecycle with your children:

• Small colour pictures to show lifecycle.
• Large pictures, and in fewer stages, with arrows, great for the wall or laminating for the children to use! Also on this page is writing paper and borders with frogs on!
• Lifecycle sheet with writing on explaining the stages.
• Tadpole to frog colouring pages.
• Frogs to colour.

My friend has a lovely set of felt manipulatives for the children to organise into the lifecycle, i couldn't find anything similar on the web, or any instructions to make one either so i have made up my own instructions and here they are!!!!

1. Print out this large frog picture, cut it out to make a template and cut two frog shapes out of green felt, you will need to simplify the sahpe of the feet a little (make them webbed!!).
2. Print out this sheet of tadpoles and froglets and cut them out to make templates, cut two shapes for each one out of felt; black for the tadpole, brown for the froglet with back legs and darg gren for the froglet with four legs!
3. Add detail with a permanent marker if you wish.
4. Sew round the edges with a thread of similar colour to the felt; i find embroidery floss pretty forgiving for this kind of project!!
5. Before you reach the end, stuff the shapes with a little filler, anything you have to hand, fabric scraps, cushion filler, shredded paper etc.
6. Sew up the ends securely.
7. Find some bubble wrap and add black dots to the bubbles with permanent marker to make frogspawn.

Hey Presto you have your own life cycle set made with your own fair hand..... school aged children will be keen to help with the sewing and cutting out too. I like to tell lifecycle stories by telling a magical little tale starting with the mummy frog........

The book 'A New Frog' is a really lovely story that repeats as it goes along, with beautiful illustrations.

Have fun frogging!!

Friday's Favourites!

I have spent the week coping with poorly children, worrying about my friend D, and not getting enough sleep, but have ended the week happy, having made some decisions about some important things and feeling a little lighter for that!!!

Something occurred to me.... I give the parents of my mindees questionnaires to fill in to see how I'm doing and ask them if there's anything else I could be doing...... so why not ask my readers what they think of the blog and what else they would like to see here? So please could you comment or e-mail me with your thoughts and wishes and I can get on to them!!!

I was pleased to have finally started posting about Montessori, it has been bugging me for a while but I didn't know how to get past my mental block on it and just DO it!! Now I have I feel good.  Sarah posted a long comment about it and made some great points... I am composing a reply (i.e. scribbling it on post it notes whilst I cook meals!!) and will post a reply and some more information soon!  Thanks for taking the time to comment everyone!

So now down to business, with my favourite ideas from around the web this week:

• There are some very inspiring activity ideas for Easter on this fabulous new site that I discovered this week (added to my sidebar), please take the time to cruis round the site, there are plenty of photos to see and ideas to use as well as printable resources that support all the areas of learning and development.
• This idea about growing real grasses in baskets started me thinking about how great to grow grass indoors (or any sprouting seeds) to add a new dimension to small world play (the farm is very popular here at the minute)
• These obstacle course markers look great fun and an easy starter to get children thinking about what else they could do!

Have a great weekend!!

Montessori in a Minute - Freedom.

Welcome to the first 'Montessori in a minute' - my aim is to keep it short and sweet, please post any comments or questions below and i will answer in the comments also so that everyone can view them and add to their understanding (hopefully!!). I tried to organise a logical order to introduce Montessori ideas but I realised that starting at the beginning might not interest all of you, so i'm going to dip in and out and explain things as I go along!

The idea of freedom within Montessori is often misunderstood as people think that it means the child is left to do exactly what they want to..... well that isn't really the case!  Freedom comes with responsibilities, i.e. it has limits.  For example, a child is free to use equipment as he wishes, as long as he is using it safely and not abusing the equipment or damaging anything/anyone.  This could be applied to a pair of scissors; the child is trying cutting every different type of material available (card, tissue paper, white paper, corrugated paper, newspaper, drinking straws, wool, fabric, craft sticks, foam etc).  He is learning about the properties of the paper and about what he can do with the scissors amongst other things.  He is absorbed in his self-chosen task and concentrating so this is great, just what you want to see, so leave him to it!!! If however he starts to cut towards his face, cut up a picture another child has drawn, wants to try the scissors on the books or his won clothing, then you intervene as he has stepped beyond the limits.  I promised you similarities to what you do now and here is one..... most childminders have groundrules they expect the children to follow such as looking after eachother, looking after the toys etc so this isn't anything new or different. 

What might be a bit different is that the child is gaining something from snipping a tiny piece of many things.  It is tempting to chastise a child for 'wasting' the paper or 'spoiling' things for others, but if this is what he is interested in, you can look at facilitating his choice by making a special box full of new things to cut just for him.  Include things you would put in the recycle box or bin (clean obviously!!).  This makes your life easier in two ways; firstly you have something that a small child will sit and focus on for some time without you constantly offering him activities, and secondly you will have a happier child as you are helping him to meet a need that he has.  It fits with EYFS as you are 'following the child'!

Another way we offer freedom is for the child to make choices.  You can do this by making the toys and resources easily accessible in clearly labelled boxes, baskets, cupboards and draws, using words and pictures.  If you set out a selection of toys at the beginning of the day and that is what the children choose from, then they do not have true freedom as they are choosing from your choices!!  If this is what they are used to in your setting then it may take a while for them to adjust if you put nothing out and encourage them to choose for themselves.  You will gain valuable insights into their preferences and interests by watching them and joining in with he things they choose.  This doesn't mean that you have to have everything available all of the time, a selection out of storage covering all areas of play such as puzzles, small world, role play, construction, art, books, etc allows choice without overwhelming them or your lounge!!!

An important point about choice is that free choice may need limiting for some children and at some times.  A very young child, or one new to your setting may need a small number of choices such as "would you like to do a puzzle or some colouring now?"  As the child gets used to making choices then you can extend the number of choices as they are comfortable with them.  If a child is being disruptive and disturbing others who are playing happily, you can offer small choices then similar to the ones above (this links to the Montessori way of behaviour management but that's another post!!).

Freedom of movement is now common in most early years settings; at home it can be thought of as once the child has chosen what he wants to play with, then he can choose where to do it.  Some children prefer to lie down, sit at a table or even to stand to do things.  Now there are difficulties with this for example, I would not allow a child to paint lying on my floor just because they wanted to!!  Go back to thinking about groundrules and freedom within limits - you can have a set of rules for individual activities that children will easily learn and adhere to for the safety of others and the protection of your house, such as wearing an apron and painting at the table/easel.  You can provide freedom of choice for activities though by having one or two table tops to use (we have a pine chest that the children either kneel or stand at, as well as a little table with chairs, and small rugs that they can put out to lie on).

Finally, freedom to spend as long as he likes doing something is valuable to the child.  Saying to him "You've been playing with the lego for hours now, come and do some painting" is counter-productive as if it is the lego that meets his needs and interests then he will gain little from painting.  It is perfectly normal for children to spend hours, days or even weeks mainly focussing on one or two activities.  This doesn't mean that you ignore it - you can facilitate his interest by providing complementary materials that may extend his learning - you could even suggest that he prints with the lego or uses it with water, sand or play dough!  Making a planning web or observation web that details the learning you see for all areas of learning and devlopment may make you feel more confident about this and can show that you are meeting his needs.

Routines can interrupt freedom; although they provide much needed security and structure to the day they can interrupt the child when he is concentrating and may not suit all children.  An example of this is 'snack time' - instead of stopping all children to eat and drink at the same time, you could try making available the snacks, whether you put it in a bowl or on a plate for the child to choose from, he can take it when he is ready and when he is hungry!  If you are concerned that he will leave it until really late and then not eat a proper lunch, then explain to him that you will put snacks out for 45 minutes and that when the time is up they will be cleared away and if he chooses not to eat then he will wait until lunch time.  Obviously this is for children that are old enough to regulate their hunger (I suggest 2 1/2 upwards but this does depend on the individual).  At first he may need reminding that the snacks will be out for a limited amount of time, but he will soon adjust to the new 'routine' with snacks and the 'groundrules' of when he can access them!

To round up, freedom has limits and is curbed if these limits are breached.  Generally the limits are linked to personal safety, safety of others and respect for others and the environment. Important freedoms are:

• freedom of choice
• freedom to repeat activities for as long as they like
• freedom to explore/experiment
• freedom of movement

Well that lasted for longer than a minute!!!! I hope that it made sense, please leave me comments!

Springtime Lemon Playdough

This is one child's use of the springtime dough that our childminding group made on Monday!  The dough was scented with lemon flavouring (a baking ingredient but scented essential oil would work very well).  The recipe can be found on this post here.  We sat and observed the children playing with the dough and made some notes about what they were doing, then as a group shared and put them into the six areas of learning. 

PSED: Dispositions and attitudes - children becoming interested and absorbed by what they are doing; self-confidence, particularly if a child is not keen on messy play but then decide to have a go which could be a big step forwards for him/her; making relationships as they play alongside one another, sharing tools and chatting about their play and ideas (fewer resources than there are children can lead to some good problem solving if you support the children to work out a solution to the 'problem'!); Behaviour and self-control - problem-solving and sharing is part of this, as well as following rules for playdough such as keeping it at the table etc; self-care - knowing that it isn't good to eat and washing hands afterwards!

CLL: Language for communication - talking about what they see, smell and feel and what they are doing enhances children's vocabulary, especially if you give them some new 'describing' words.  It could turn into a fun rhyme if you encourage the children to experiment with their words as they play; language for thinking - using talk to organise and sequence what they are doing and thinking, for example they might 'narrate' everything they do, so you know that they are planning and understaning what they are doing.  Using 'positional' language such as 'on top of', 'inside', 'under', 'nest to' is a big step for children in language; writing -  making marks in the dough, shaping letters.

PSRN: Numbers as labels and for counting - children might make representations of numbers with the dough; calculating - count the number of objects they have made, sharing out "half for you" etc; shape, space and measure - talking about shapes "this circle", "that curve there" etc, using words to describe weight and volume "heavy" "more than" etc, having the children measure out the ingredients is even better - the recipe is great for children as it is measured in numbers of cups rather than grams or ounces!

KUW: Exploration and investigation - learning about changes and patterns could be achieved if the children help you make the dough in the first place (powdery flour to wet and sloppy mixture to firm, squashy dough is amazing for a child to see!!); designing and making - constructing with the dough if you add straws of different lengths, craft sticks etc.

PD: Using equipment and materials - children use a range of fine-motor movements and can refine skills such as cutting (scissors or knife), pressing through a garlic press, using tweezers, rolling pins, biscuit cutters etc, all of these help to develop hand and finger strength later needed for achieving correct pencil grip and writing.

CD: responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas - children responding to the sight, smell and tecture of the dough (put it out when it is still warm and reshly made!); exploring media and materials - the children working with colour, texture, shape, space and form in two and three dimensions (how perfect play dough is to meet this aspect!!); developing imagination and imaginative play - I have watched children as they have made bee hives, fairy gardens, fairy houses, birthday party food, you name it, a child can make it out of playdough!

Here is some information linked to the EYFS to do with messy play.

These playdough ideas will give you some inspiration all year round!

I printed these simple number mats to laminate and put out with the dough.

This is the second in a series of our group looking at how everyday activities in your home can support all six areas of learning and devlopment, you may also be interested in the post on cooking!