Creativity

I have always considered that I am quite creative and that I offer my children creative opportunities.  I have always valued process over product for example, very rarely do all the children make a version of the same thing.  Recently I had my last assignment for my Montessori course to plan; it had to be a creative activity.  I suddenly came up short.... I didn't ACTUALLY know much about children and creativity or how it should be provided for to achieve the best results for the children. Well I learned quite a lot!!

There are many different definitions of creativity but many include something along the lines of 'bringing past experiences into new situations, problem solving and creating something unique and original to the child'.  It isn't just about artistic materials, creativity occurs in block play, speech, construction, cooking, just about everywhere in fact!

I mentioned above that I value process over product and there is indeed a process to being creative.  It has two distinct stages; the first is exploring and getting the hang of new equipment and ideas, and the second is making new connections (i.e. being creative!!).  Have you ever noticed that after introducing something new to a child, they explore it for a while then go off and take no notice of it for quite some time (hours, days, weeks or more) then all or a sudden they return to it and seem to be using it really skilfully?  That is part of the creative process too, just letting it sit for a while and sink into the knowledge and structure that exists already within the child's brain.

Piaget described his theory of 'assimilation' and 'accomodation'.  Assimilation is when a child comes across something that is new but fairly similar to what they know and understand already and the information is assimilated into the existing structure.  Accomodation is more of a challenge for the child because this happens when something different occurs and the child's brain must alter the understanding it already has to accomodate the new information.  An example would be a child that has experience of playing with wet sand.  To extend the learning another day, water and flour are combined for the child to play with; this is different to the wet sand but the properties are not too far removed from what the child knows already and the experience is assimilated.  Another day the practitioner puts out cornflour and water that behaves very differently to wet sand and flour.  This requires more time as it has challenged existing understanding and must be accomodated.

The reason I have explained all this is beacuse there is a fine line between planning creative opportunities that are challenging, but not so very different from what the child alrady knows that they see it as threatening and won't get involved at all!!  Just as in planning in other areas of the curriculum, planning for creative development should follow the child, building on what they know and can do already.  I am working on improving this for the older children in my setting by enabling open access to a wide variety of materials for the children to follow their own interests for as long as they want to.  Most of my plans won't be put in place until September after my veranda has been built as outdoors is a key component in my planning!

A Home-made Weaving Frame

Another garden installation that has been in the pipeline that I got around to actioning this week!  The frame is the lid from an old rabbit run that has a wire grid fixed to a wooden frame (no sharp edges!).  I bought a bulk bag of ribbon offcuts from e-bay and tied them to the top ready to be woven down the frame.  To my surprise the littlest one that I look after (21 months) was the most interested and spent quite a long time trying to push the ribbons through and then pulling the loops through.  A great shady corner activity I think!

An Outdoor Reading Corner

I have had this in the back of my mind for some months now but in a much more complicated format involving sewing cushion pads and hanging fabric and all sort of things.  On Sunday I just decided to use what I had to revamp this little unused corner of the patio.  It is a bench seat that my husband built a few years ago and makes the perfect quiet little nook to sit and look at books.  It has only been there for a day but already all of the children have visited it for a little sit and a ponder or a read...... I'm really pleased!  My eventual goal for the garden is to have everything that is available indoors available outdoors so that it continues to be well used through the Winter.  Later on in the summer I am having a veranda built over half of the patio so we can use it all day even when it rains all day!!

Now That's What I Call a Sandpit!

We have been 'planning' to do this for ages but it didn't really get off the ground until this week!!  The first picture is one of our raised vegetable patches that has had most of the soil removed and then been used as a dumping ground for roots and branches as they were dug up.  I should point out that this is in the 'supervised only' end of my garden, that is gated off from the 'free-flow' end!!

The story begins on Monday...... knowing that I had a not very nice headache that was here to stay, I sent my husband out to buy a bag of play sand as I'd thrown out the last lot after it was used in potion making and went green and manky!  To cut a long story short, there were no bags of play sand to be had, so he ordered 1.6 tonnes of it to be delivered..... yes, really.... 1.6 TONNES!!!!!!  Cue him having to sort out the designated sandpit and line it before hand!!

This is the sand arriving, not on a grab truck to be neatly dropped over the garden fence as we had expected, but in a lorry on a hopelessly inadequate pallet truck that dug into my drive and pulled the tarmac up!!  The children were highly entertained by the process of bucketing the sand through the house and down our long garden to the sand pit, my husband less so!!

And here is the finished product, 8' by 6' of beachy heaven!!  The children were hardly out of it all afternoon..... it is big enough to roll around in and do sand angels in.... wonderful!!  The children have only played at surface level so far, they haven't worked out that it is nearly 1' deep and they can dig big holes.... I'll save that joy for next week!

A Week of Play...

Well I was graced with either a stinky virus or a migraine or both from last Friday, hence the lack of posting.  I am still not better but at the stage where paracetamol and Ibuprofen can at least keep it at bay and allow me to function in a more human way!  So this week I have done a lot of sitting as still as possible on the back step, verbally facilitating play after setting up various 'play stations' around the patio.  It's not something that I usually do but it worked really well.  I have also done more observing of interactions than I normally have chance to do and it made for happy watching as I saw friendship bloom between my two littlest charges!!

The picture above is the water tray set up with mega bloks and wow people.  I have never thought of combining them with water before but it ran for a long time with lots of different scenarios being played out.

There was also pasta in the red table..... like the foam last week I have been skeptical about pasta but it allowed for a lot of small motor movement practice such as spooning and pouring and a large amount of imaginative play pretending to feed each other, as well as some exploration and discovery (a.k.a chucking it in the water tray and squishing it into the play dough when I wasn't looking!!)

As far as my two littlest ones went, they were actually role-playing together, very simple things like making cakes with play dough, or getting into the car and waving bye-bye but it was all generated by them and it was so lovely to see!  Note to self, I must just sit and play more often!!

Block play and the EYFS

As part of a series on core experiences I have looked at Block play and what children can gain from it as part of continuous provision.  Although the ideal is to have unit blocks, they are expensive and for many people they will still be on a wish list!!  I have mobilo, stickle bricks, duplo, mega-bloks, small wooden blocks, tree blocks and am waiting for a set of hollow blocks to arrive.  They have all been well-used by different children at different stages of their development; often they go back to them after a few months and use them in a more sophisticated way.  It is recommended to have an area for building in that isn't in the middle of the room so that structures don't get knocked down and the children can come back to them later if they want to.  This is hard to achieve in many settings due to space constraints - you could have a rolled up mat to put out to build on that provides a visual boundary that encourages the blocks staying on the mat and other children to walk around.  Without further ado, here are some things that block play supports children to explore:

• PSED - A safe way to express emotions, particularly if children are small-world playing with block constructions.  Building something that wasn't there before and being able to express ideas in this way raises children's confidence and self-esteem.  Working together with other children provides opportunities for practicing turn-taking, sharing and negotiating.
• CLL - The vocabulary that children acquire directly related to what they are doing is very important, introduced to them by an adult or older child; Talking about the blocks that children choose and what they are building supports conversational skills, sequencing and expressing ideas. For younger children the symbolic representation of a block or blocks as other items is an important step towards recognising words as having meaning. making signs for their block structures or drawing pictures of them before they have to be taken down to tidy away, introduces new ideas of what writing is about for children. Positional language such as on top of, next to, behind begins to be used.
• PSRN - using language such as more than/longer than, cube, square, triangle.  Exploring ideas of half and whole, area and length are all important concepts that the children will be exploring.  If you have unit blocks for them to use they will see equivalency in action as four blocks that size are the same as one this size so fractions are seen and used before they are understood as being fractions!
• KUW - Children investigate the scientific principles of balance, gravity, stability and cause and effect as they try out various structural arrangements.  They learn about how the blocks can be put together to make different types of structures.
• PD - hand and finger strength is developed as children manipulate smaller blocks and the control of large motor muscle groups is refined during the use of large blocks such as hollow blocks.  Children can experience risk taking within a safe environment that is important for them to develop a sense of safety.
• CD - Children can develop new ideas about the world around them and then bring their concept to life with the blocks, they are working with different textures and shapes often, combining sizes and colours of bricks and blocks to achieve new effects.  Imaginative problem-solving abounds as the children create a stage for their stories and imaginations to flourish in.  Children see their building from different perspectives as they stand up and move around, giving depth and understanding to buildings they see on the street.

Sources used are here.
How to make your own blocks!
Lots of ideas for setting up a block play area and resources you can use!
Brilliant article from Nursery World about blocks

How do Plants Grow?

I am doing a Montessori Early Years Teaching Qualification and my latest assignment requires that I write a planning web for a topic before choosing one of the 'cultural activities' and doing it with the children.  As it is currently a 'hot topic' with the children here, I decided to plan for 'How do Plants Grow?'I thought of lots of things to extend children's knowledge about plants and their growth and decided to share them here as I'd like to do lots of them and post about them and then you will all know what I am talking about!  I have combined Montessori curriculum headings with EYFS to suit all interested parties!!

Literacy (Communication, Language and Literacy)

• Booklets or spinning books (i-dials) on the life cycles of seeds.
• Sequencing cards on stages of growth.
• Books and stories
• Language tray with initial sounds that relate to seeds and plants (b-bean, p-pot, c-compost, s-sun, w-water, g-grow, l-leaf)
• Word wall - new vocabulary relating

Mathematics (Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy)

• Measuring the plants as they grow.
• Ordering seeds and beans from largest to smallest.
• Making bird cake from seeds - following a recipe card.
• Volumes of compost in pots.
• Measuring rainfall.

Creative (Creative Development)

• Make bean collages.
• Sunflowers - Van Goch painting, pallet of colours mixed to match and paint sunflowers.
• Natural paints using mud, dandelions, other flowers, leaves.
• Maracas with dried beans/rainmakers.
• Music and Movement - growing as plants grow.
• Songs and poems about growing.

Activities of daily living (Physical Development - fine motor)

• Sorting beans.
• Transferring with tweezers or tongs.
• Spooning beans/seeds.
• Pouring dried beans and seeds.
• Matching seed packets to seeds.

Cultural (Knowledge and Understanding of the World)

• Cooking and tasting recipes from around the world that use beans.
• Biology - set up a wormery and put leftovers from the children's fruit into it.
• Botany - parts of a plant/ what parts of a plant do we eat?/ life cycle of a bean
• Science - what plants need to grow/ celery stalks and food colouring/ dark box for plant to grow to the light.
• Leaf shapes/types.

Sensorial (CD, PSRN)

• Paint colour swatches in green to match to leaves of plants as they grow.
• Matching herbs by their smell.
• Leaf skeletons in the nature basket.
• Matching shapes to plant related items - cone (pot) seed(ovoid) etc.

Although Montessori curricula don't specifically have a section for Personal, Social and Emotional Development, by the approach that Montessori setting take, PSED is supported through all other activities, so you can look for aspects of this as the children take part in activities, just as you would normally.  I'm hoping to post about these activities as we go along, and will link them back to this plan as I go to make it easier to find them.  I'm anticipating that we will spend all summer investigating the way things grow though, so don't be disappointed if it isn't all here in the next couple of weeks.... if you want more information about any of these activities now, please leave a comment and ask and i will do my best to help you out!

What to Buy?

I notice on the childminding forum that I go on that there are often questions about what resources should be bought when child minders are setting up for the first time.  There are usually a range of responses but often they focus on large scale and very commercial items.  Last week Nursery World magazine had a very sensible supplement with it that suggested what was needed for under threes.  I have summarised the main points here for anyone that is interested, and added a few comments of my own here and there! First off some quotes from the article:

"It is easy to get seduced by glossy catalogues offering colourful must-haves that actually have limited learning potential"

"Look for versatility, durability and longevity.  Wooden toys are more expensive but buying cheaper plastic items can be a false economy"

"It is the role of the adult to plan how children will be able to use the equipment, rather than buying the equipment without a purpose"

"Wood is more sensory than plastic and more durable.  Wooden toys retain children's interest for longer"

"The best resource for children is a knowledgeable and highly attuned adult"

"Invest in some high-quality items and then bulk out your provision with cheaper buys, natural materials and recycled items such as cardboard tubes and cartons"

Suggestions for resources:

• Cushions and mats for creating cozy spaces and defining different areas. 
• Rocking Toys.  I am cautious about having these indoors as a childminder due to the potential for squashed fingers underneath. 
• Stackable toys - good old blocks and bricks.
• Sorting toys - rather than shape sorters, that can be frustrating for little ones, collect 'heuristic play' materials - a range of natural materials and various small boxes and baskets for the children to discover shape and space for themselves.
• Small-world play - small wooden cars, trucks and planes and very simple wooden people, as well as a plain wooden, open fronted house that can be many things.
• Role-play - go easy on the fancy costumes that limit possibilities and stock up om various fabrics, hats shoes and accessories that expand the possibilities of dressing up.
• Pullable and pushable toys - carts, trolleys, animals, wheelbarrows, pushchairs.
• Soft toys - not highly rated by the author of the article but I value the gradually expanding collection of very beautiful and life-like British wild animal soft toys that I have.  They are used daily wither for play or cuddles!
• Dolls - a range of genders and ethnicities and fit for purpose such as hard bodied to go in the doll bath and soft bodied for changing clothes quite easily.
• Puzzles - simple is better, shape peg puzzles or those demonstrating size from largest to smallest.
• Mirrors - wall-mounted, infinity cube or hand held.

Dare to be different..... you don't have to have all of the same resources that everyone else has!  I decided a long time ago to declare an embargo on bleeping, buzzing and flashing plastic toys and I have never regretted the decision.  It makes for a more peaceful background where I can hear the children making their own sound effects!  Also consider that less is more - you don't have to have the super-giant sized tub of duplo or 30 figures to play with....... smaller amounts call for children to be imaginative and creative with the resources and you will see fascinating ebb and flow in the way their play develops!

I'd love to hear your comments on this article and how you decide what resources to invest in!

Water Play

This is a photograph of the exploration that went on in the water tray recently.  We had been to the Sealife Centre and I bought small figures of a seahorse, starfish, ray and crab.  These were the creatures that the children had been most interested in whilst we were there.  I put an inch of water in the tray, along with some smooth pebbles and shells; in this picture the children were covering all the creatures in the shells and pebbles to camouflage them as they had seen the rays doing at the centre!  The water tray is a very simple and low-cost set-up of an under bed storage box placed on two upturned milk crates.  It is easy to store, easy to clean, easy to use for something different, and with a lid to put on to keep it clean!

I later added some clear plastic fruit boxes that utterly absorbed one of the little ones as the water flowed in and out.  She made piles of stones then covered them with an upturned box, then pressed her face to the base to look as she could still see the stones and usually when something is covered with an upturned box she can't see it!  I would like to introduce clear plastic bags to extend her investigation next week (under very close supervision of course!!)

Another very simple idea that has been a bit recently is placing a deep box of water under the end of the guttering system with some cups and jugs.  All of the children experimented with pouring the water at different parts of the guttering and trying to catch it at the bottom as it trickled back into the box.  When they weren't looking I added green food colouring and the children brought out another piece of guttering so there were two tubes then flowing into the builder's tray.  Add some cardboard packing and dinosaurs and another half hours messy play was created!

Some other ideas that I would like to try are:

• Clear tubes wound round some upside down wire baskets, complemented by funnels and jugs, and coloured water so the children can see how the water moves through the tubing depending on how much they put in and where etc.
• A pump such as the ones you empty fish tanks with where you squidge the bulb in the middle and it starts the flow of water to transfer it one from place to another.
• I would also dearly love a concrete water channel in my garden with a hand-pump at one end!!!!
• For babies I have put just half a centimetre of water in a builder's tray and allowed them to crawl through it to experience it with their hands and feet, either in a nappy/nothing in warm weather or an all-in-one waterproof in colder weather!

This article has ideas for linking water play to the EYFS as a core experience and part of your continuous provision planning.  To extend children's thinking about water there is Water Splash from the charity Wateraid. The on-line booklet 'Learning Through Play in the Early Years' has a great resource list for waterplay along with what ideas the tools and materials can support children to learn.

Telling the Time

I picked up this clock box in a second hand sale for a pound a few months ago but it has been irritating me a little as it never really 'fitted' anywhere..... too big for the bookcase and too enticing for the littlest ones to take them in and out and carry them round.... all very well but I have books for them to do that with if they wish and I wanted these to be used to explore the passing of time!!  So I re-purposed them into an activity box that can be used independently or with support from an adult.  This is what I added to the box:

• Blank clock faces printed and laminated with a whiteboard pen to draw in the hands.
• A larger clock with moving hands - make your own from here!
• Quarter past and quarter to cards from here (fourth down in the right hand column)
• Half past cards from the same site (fourth down in the left hand column!)
• Days of the week sequencing cards based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar story - these help children to put them in order by themselves as the number of fruits the caterpillar eats through increases as the days go on..... they also encourage children to expand into literacy!
• I made this simple activity to introduce the months.
• Ordinal numbers showing 1st to the 31st.
• The Seasons of a tree.
• I have also made a card for each child with their photograph and birthday on it.
• These resources from twinkl also look great
• I'd like to add one or two of these large sand timers when I can.

Bedtime Reading that will Make you Excited to get up in the Morning!!

This book poses questions to consider and then offers ways to achieve something special in your setting.  Many of the resources are found and car boot items making them inexpensive to set up.  The ideas are flexible with space requirements, therefore ideal for homes and childminding settings.  Although this is an American book, there are many contributions from 'home daycare facilities' that are the equivalent of childminders in the UK!  This book doesn't blast you with theory but gives short, punchy information blocks on an essential, need-to-know basis then offers inspirational photographs of how to make use of that in many different ways.  Given how many of the pictures include comfy chairs, rugs, side tables etc, it is quite reassuring to think that we are halfway there as childminders in creating the home-like environment that many of the contributors to this book are aiming for!!  Although not the cheapest book you could buy, it is one that you will refer to for years to come, and offers a refreshing alternative to the pressure to own every plastic resource known to man!!

Designs for Living and Learning - Transforming Early Childhood Environments

Nursing a poorly guinea pig

This is me syringe feeding Woody, one of our little guinea pigs.  We found him this afternoon huddled up outside the run and enclosure.  he didn't attempt to run away and when we picked him up it was clear that he was very weak, dehydrated, thin and cold.  He must have wriggled out somehow yesterday and I missed him when I locked up in the dark last night.  There was torrential rain, wickedly cold winds and low temperatures here overnight and the little dab was out in it all.  I remembered advice from the vet for another guinea pig years back and we got some organic apple and pear baby food to syringe feed.

This is my daughter drawing up the food for him.  Thankfully after a few hours of extra feeds and once he had warmed up a bit, he seems to have perked up a little and is sitting up for himself now and eating a few of the tempting morsels the girls found for him in the fridge and the garden (he loves dandelions!!).  I tucked him in my husband's jumper pocket for a bit more warmth (and to watch the snooker, what boy doesn't enjoy a bit of snooker!!) and hopefully he will have a good night and be even better tomorrow!

Friday's Favourite's!

Well it's Friday again and it's been another busy, happy week that has flown by. I love watching the children and seeing their little mile stones, this week one of my little ones learned how to clamber up the metal bars of the climbing frame to go down the slide all by herself.... a real WOW moment for her!!

• These garden play mats look so lovely.... how about a bit of old mac underneath them and turn them into picnic mats that roll up really small?
• This new website is building up some wonderful resources - have a cruise round their site and see..... they'll even print it for you if your printer is out of action!!!!

OK so this post didn't make it onto the blog for Friday, it has been one of those weekends, but there has been plenty going on behind the scenes, look out for posts on Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican festival chalked in for Wednesday, group plans for Child Safety Week in June, and some water activities!

Herons are Huge!!!!

This was our impromptu life size heron painted this afternoon; we did this to help the children understand about the bird that they had seen on a nest high up in a tree at the nature reserve!

And this is the heron through a zoom lens!  We had gone to the nature reserve to look for signs of shrews; we didn't find any!!!! But when we investigated the persistent chuckling sound, we found huge nests containing heron hatchlings and the parents flying in and out at regular intervals to feed them.  They are big birds (up to 104cm tall) and make an impressive sight soaring out of the tree tops above!

With the help of a bird book, some cardboard, and enthusiastic painting from the children (including R who painted practically everything in his sight grey!!) our heron was born.  It is now cut out and wrapped in clingfilm in the wild area of my friend's garden, awaiting a nest to be built on Friday!!

having re-discovered my artistic side today, I might do some garden birds for my garden with the children.  fancy a go? This book has beautiful illustrations easy to copy and is a great first book for bird spotting with children:

• RSPB My First Book of Garden Birds

Core Experiences

Core experiences is one of the 'buzzwords' that is popping up more and more lately.  I see it as a version of 'continuous provision' which different early years settings use for their EYFS planning.  If grey is the new black, then continuous provision is the new long term planning!  I think it is particularly suited to child minders because of the number of daily routines or activities that can be linked to all of the areas for learning and development within the EYFS.  As well as considering the core experiences in your continuous provision, you can put in mealtimes, going to the shops, walking to school etc. 

It sounds like just another load of paperwork to create but I think it needn't be like that!!  I am planning to create mine gradually as I go, I have already made a start when I considered how baking linked to all of the areas of the early years foundation stage.  Once written I am going to put them in a folder and parents can see what is on offer, as well using it to aid evaluation of observations and planning of next steps.  It provides a way of reflecting on the resources that you already have and how you might use them, as well as what you would like to add in or remove.  If you don't know the six areas of learning and development well already then you will by the end of your continuous provision planning!!

Some key points about core experiences:

• Officially there are fourteen of them but you can adapt them to your early years provision.
• The ideas is that they are areas that the children can access every day or regularly, rather than one-offs.
• It isn't about making sure that the children use all of the resources and cover all of the fourteen core experiences, but that they can follow their own individual pathway, becoming more skilled and advanced as they go.
• Children know that the resources will be there and can plan in advance what they would like to do.  This brings children into the planning.
• It is important that the children can return to their model/picture the next day if they want to, so think about some space to put things so that they can return to it; this shows that you value what they are doing and encourages concentration and perseverance.

Some core experiences to consider:

• Book area.
• Cookery.
• Role-play.
• Gardening.
• Outdoor play.
• Malleable materials (dough etc).
• Music, dance and movement.
• Emergent writing and book-making.
• Painting and colour-mixing.
• Craft.
• Sand and water.
• Construction and block play.
• Woodwork, modelling and making.
• Sewing.
• Small world play.
• Treasure baskets and heuristic play.
• Trips and educational visits.

Friday's Favourites!

Well it's been a rough old week..... my beloved Granddad died early on Wednesday morning before I could get to see him and it hurts.... a lot.  But I have great family and friends and my life has pottered on gently through the last few days.

Friday's Favourite's this week takes a slightly different format as I've just realised that I put incorrect links to nearly all of the books that I have mentioned (a sign of an amateur blogger indeed!).  To save you slogging back through the posts if you fancied a look at the book and were annoyed with me because it didn't come up I have slogged through on your behalf and here they are:

• Montessori From the Start from Montessori in a Minute; Independence.
• Supporting Children's Creativity Through Music, Dance, Drama and Art.
• Making Things Float and Sink (fun science projects)
• Float and Sink.

As for my favourites this week...... this little boat which will be installed in my garden in the next week or so for the children to play with!! I can't wait to see the games and stories they come up with for it!

And a quote from an e-mail from Bea, a new friend that I have made; we had been chatting about what makes an outstanding childminder in the eyes of Ofsted and I just think she puts this so well.....

"I agree it is definately attitude with an extra dose of understanding (development, meeting children's needs, clear philosophy) that informs provision, without that all the self reflection in the world ain't gonna improve your practice. I think regarding the resources it's not how much you have it's whether you provide the children with the correct resources to support their needs and whether that is evident by their engagement"

Check out her amazing site here, and have a great weekend!!

Montessori in a Minute: Independence

http:

From the moment a child is born s/he strives to become independent; to crawl, to feed her/himself, to walk. to talk and so on.  If nothing gets in the way, a child can be very independent but many things do get in the way....... tables and chairs too high to get up to and sit at, taps too far to reach, clothes too difficult to put on, utensils and equipment too big for her/his little hands.  It is not only the child's goal to become independent, but the adults task to enable independence.

So how can we support the child the become independent? Well, I see three main ways:

1. Attitude (including the way you see the child and your patience!)
2. Environment- does it allow the child to do things for her/himself?
3. Toolkit - you need to demonstrate and give the child 'tools' to be able to take a task on and become skilled at completing it.

As regards attitude, you really have to believe that the child is strong and capable.  You have to be prepared to slow things down and go at the child's pace and you have to be willing to put in the effort and thought required to make it happen!  Toddlers want to walk, but very often find themselves strapped into buggies or car seats.  It takes longer to walk, holding a hand, yes, but planning for them to have at least some time a day walking on the school run or the shopping trip is invaluable as they see such a different perspective on their own two feet!!  I hope that the days of plonking toddlers in a playpen with a handful of toys are long-gone, but if you still do that, consider how much you are restricting that child's movement, and development of walking, muscles, balance and co-ordination!

Some of the effort and thought goes into the environment. Think about how easy it is for the child to be able to do the things that s/he needs to do every day.  Consider:

• Child-sized coat pegs.
• Small tables and chairs rather than highchairs for toddlers.
• Small jugs and cups for them to pour their own drinks.
• Step for the toilet.
• Press on wall lights where the switch is too high to reach.
• A sink at child height or a hand-washing station.
• Child-sized gardening tools; watering can, hoe, spade, wheelbarrow.
• Child-sized cleaning equipment; broom, dustpan and brush, spray bottle filled with water and cloths/sponges.
• Toys stored in way that helps children to find what they want and return it after use.

Making as many changes to the environment as possible and finding ways around things that cannot be changed helps to make daily tasks achievable for young children - a vital ingredient for them to become self-motivated learners and contributors to the community (community can be the childminding setting, toddler group, home or the wider world eventually!).

Once these changes are in place, you model how to do things to the child and then allow her/him to try it her/himself, providing a 'toolkit'.  The child will make the actions their own and that is great, you are simply introducing them to a way of doing things!  S/he will need lots of practice to master each skill and will delight in repeating the actions over and over, refining and perfecting the skill; once achieved it is really important that the child has opportunity to use that skill in everyday life:

• Put out small jug and cups for the children to pour their own drink.
• Put bread, butter and filling son the table and allow the children to make their own sandwich.
• Encourage them to brush teeth and hair, wash faces and hands after meals.
• Keep cleaning equipment in the same place and children can clean up their own spills and messes (within reason!!).
• Chat with parents to make sure that children come in clothes that they can manage themselves, such as trousers that aren't too tight to pull up after using the toilet!!

Allowing children to take responsibility for themselves in this way builds their self-esteem and confidence which will spill over into building relationships with other children and trying new activities.

If you want to read more about Montessori, try Montessori From the Start by Paula Polk-Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen.  It isn't rated by all Montessorians but I personally have found it clear and understandable and very readable which is worth a lot if you have ever ploughed through Montessori's original writing translated from Italian!

Creative conversations in the Early Years

I have recently read a book entitled 'Supporting Children's Creativity Through Music, Dance, Drama and Art' edited by Fleur Griffiths and I want to tell you about it!

Before I start I should tell you about me and books; everyone has to have a treat or something they look forwards to and my treat is a book.  I love a crisp new book and the possibilities of the ideas inside!  I especially love the journeys they take me on from one book to another! I know within the first few pages, or just by flicking through whether I am going to like it or not, and pictures are important to me!  I often pick books that are on a topic I know a little of and want to learn more about, but sometimes I make a leap in the dark based on a reccommendation or a hunch and I am rarely disaapointed when I do!!  I thought it would be nice to review the books that I read to help you decide whether you are interested in reading them too!

I am sometimes wary of books that are by a number of contributors and edited to make one volume but this book really works becuase it reads in a very conversational way.  So much of what we do and learn is based upon discussion and it is a refreshing way to read about the contributors ideas.  the anecdotes and interviews convey the enthusiasm and passion of the practitioners involved.

I found it a book to dip in and out of, pencil at the ready to mark passages and topics that I wanted to come back to!  There is so much to gain from this book; just one interview offered inspiration whether you were\looking for ideas for including children in planning, pondering on the nature of wall displays to put up or considering how you use the space that you have.

The practitioners are clearly very knowledgeable and experienced but they openly state that it takes time to build that up; the whole tone of the book makes you feel like a colleague rather than an underling!!  For me, that boosted my confidence to follow the children more closely than I do now, rather than trying to tick all the EYFS boxes at once!

It challenged my current practice on a couple of areas in particular, such as making the room look 'pretty' at the expense of what the children actually WANT in there, and my reliance on books and resources for 'activity ideas' (ahem, guilty as charged!!) and I'm sure that next time I dip into it, it will spark off some more reflection in other areas too!

All in all, a thoroughly worthwhile read and one I will come back to regularly!

Writing to Penpals

This is my daughter concentrating on writing a letter to respond to our penpals at 'The Playhouse', set up through the childmindinghelp forum.  We are really enjoying corresponding with them and it is great on so many levels because letter writing is dying out somewhat these days, yet it remains so special to receive a handwritten letter.  If you don't want to write to penpals, you could encourage children to wriet to their parents, or grandparents (especially lovely if they live far away and don't see their grandchild often!)

• PSED - dispositions and attitudes as the children get excited about receiving mail and then replying; making relationships as they work on a reply together and working at making a relationship through writing to new friends; sense of community as they learn about others and how others live and what they like to do.
• CLL - language for communication, linking sounds and letters, reading and writing.
• PSRN - handling money to buy the stamp we need
• KUW - Time as they wait for a reply and think about what others are doing in other places; communities as they become more interested in what people in different palces are doing; talking about how the post works (a bit of history about how post used to work)
• PD - fine motor control drawing pictures and writing words to their friends; using equipment and materials by folding the paper to go in the envelope.
• CD - make a postbox together to add in to role play.

Some other ideas I have tried are to find writing paper that ties in with anything that the children are interested in.... these are quite simple to find through searching google.  We have started a scrap book to keep the letters in and have decorated the front with these realistic stamps.

if there are any readers who would like to team up with other settings to exchange letters, please e-mail me at littleblossomschildminding@googlemail.com and I will try to pair you up!

Science in the Early Years - Sink or Float?

I have been planning to extend some of the Montessori cultural ideas into my setting for a while now and organised myself to do it last night!  The Montessori cultural curriculum has some lovely suggestions for science activities that early years children can learn from in a hands-on, child-led way, supporting their knowledge and understanding of the world, amongst other things.

To set up an activity for exploring objects that sink or float,  you need:

• A tray that will hold a glass bowl/vase (glass because you can see through it and observe the objects that have sunk); fill the bowl three quarters full of water. 
• Next to it you need a plastic tray, box or basket that holds eight small objects that vary in size and material. 
• Objects made from different materials; on the tray above I have a light plastic ball, a plastic dinosaur, a small pebble and a marble (inside the small copper pot on this picture), a cork, a piece of bark, a shell and a small copper pot.
• A cloth to dry the objects and their tray with afterwards.

You can also have a laminated piece of card or paper that has the words 'float' and 'sink' on it including a simple diagram of an object below the water line and on the waterline for non-readers.

I like to get the child to make a hypothesis about what will happen such as "Do you think the shell will float or sink?" - you could also ask why they think that, giving you an amazing insight into their reasoning and knowledge (see sustained shared thinking for more tips on asking questions open-ended questions!)

Some of the thinking that came out using this activity was:

• That the dinosaur looked bigger at the bottom of the water because the water reflects it.
• That the shell was nice and thin like the pot so it would float (it sank of course).
• If you drop the pot from a low height it would float but when you drop it from a high height it sinks because it fills with water and goes heavier then.

Not all of the thinking is scientifically accurate but the children are making close observations of the materials and what is happeneing and using creative thinking to apply that knowledge to the other objects.  By exploring this themselves and actually experiencing it, it has more value than being told or reading about it in a book.

Here there is an attempt to balance the dinosaur on the bark to make it float instead of sink. Good Thinking!!

To make this suitable for toddler/baby exploration, put the objects into a wide necked plastic bottle or tub and fill half full with water and screw the lid on tight.  Every way they turn this up, the floating objects wil float and the sinkers will sink!  Differentiation in a nutshell!!