Mother's Day 2018

Children love the opportunity to make gifts and cards for their mums and mums always deserve a little treat so we make the most of our mother's day opportunity each year. 

This year the children engage in some finger painting to make flower cards. I loved the fact that using the same simple idea all of the cards were so different as children took the idea and developed it in their own way. Some of the children did very small delicate dots with their fingers whilst others swept the colours across the paper. 

We have tried masking tape templates on paper before but never on glass. This was a concept given to us by a fellow childminder. I placed heart templates on the jars and let the children paint their jars with their own style and choice of colours. After peeling back the tape and inserting battery operated tea lights the children were so pleased with the glowing end results. Hopefully all of our mummies were too!

Making Christmas Gifts 2017

The children take great pride in taking things home that they have made themselves as well as enjoying giving gifts to their parents. For that reason we focussed on a variety of different things that the children could take home from art and craft projects through to baked goods. 

For cards and decorations the children used their increasing dexterity to stick tissue paper to objects, spread glue and pick up small gems to decorate their items with. They used their language and understanding of the world to ask for different coloured paper and gems. We had some interesting reactions to glue on fingers with some definitely less bothered than others.   

The children were so excited to be making gingerbread shapes and all washed their hands in preparation. They took it in turns to weigh, pour, mix and roll as well as selecting cutters to finally cut out their shapes. They waited eagerly while the gingerbread cooked and were keen to tell their parents about the presents that they had made them for Christmas. 

Christmas Crafts 2016

We have been extremely busy and having great fun over the last few weeks making some festive items to share with our families.  

Younger children have enjoyed the sensory experiences of moving pain around with both their hands and their feet as well as learning to hold brushes for mark making. Older children have used their developing dexterity to use finer brushes for painting, pick up and stick buttons as well as using their imaginations to create snowmen and Christmas trees. 

We produced several of our Christmas craft in a session with several other childminders and their minded their children all followed by a Christmas party so the children also had a lovely social time in their preparation for Christmas.