Mothers Day 2015

To wish the children's mummies a happy mothers day we decided to make them a nice colourful gift. We started with some basic plant pots, some tissue paper and glue and, of course some primroses to brighten our pots when they were finished. 

 Using our Mod-Podge glue the children covered their pots and began to stick pieces of tissue paper on. They are still a little unsure about mod-lodge as it dries on their fingers and then they have to peel it off! They did a great job of making a colourful collage on their pots and I placed a layer of varnish over the top to help to protect the pots for the next stage!

We took our pots into the garden and the children used small spades to fill their pots with soil. We talked about why plants needed soil to grow as well as the importance of watering plants. The children chose the coloured flowers that they wanted and the older ones helped take them out of the containers. They moved the soil with their hands and patted it down around their plants. The results were beautiful and the children were so proud to take their gifts for their mummies. 

World Book Day 2015

Reading is a big part of our daily routine and it has so many benefits for young children from enhancing their concentration and understanding through to developing their language and communication as well as understanding of the community and relationships. With this in mind I thought it important that we mark world book day with some fun activities. 

The children dressed up as some of their favourite characters that they have seen in films or books, using the experience to talk to each other about these stories. Following this they used our puppets to make up their own stories. 

We also chose characters from two of our favourite books, 'the tiger who came to tea' and 'the hungry caterpillar' to do some face painting. This was a big success and led to the children really getting into their story characters!

Magformers

Magformers, magnetic colourful shapes, are one of our newer resources in my setting, purchased after seeing them used at a toddler group. They seem to instantly engage all the children who ranged from two to eight years in age. 

 The children initially made patterns through sticking the shapes onto a magnetic whiteboard, making two-dimensional patterns. Their curiosity soon began to shine when they all started building far more creative structures. The shapes click together very easily and are so colourful that they maintained the children's interest. 

There are so many benefits to be gained from this toy from developing both imagination and co-ordination through to learning about shapes and colours. We also talked about the magnetic properties, introducing our big magnet for interest. I was so impressed with these, they shall definitely be used a lot!

Winter Beach Play

We like to take advantage of living so close to the beach and all the learning opportunities that this provides. We wrapped up warm and braved the beach.

The children are always fascinated by the stream and after experimenting their throwing abilities they instigated a game of jumping into the water to see who could make the biggest splash. 

The children worked together trying to make sandcastles, even ensuring they did the magic tap on the bucket before turning it over. They also lay together talking while exploring the sand with their hands. 

Finally, to burn off any energy that was left, they all wanted to take turns throwing the ball for the dog who belonged to a fellow childminder. Finally we dried off and very much appreciated the nice warm blankets waiting for us back at the house. 

Shakers

In order to enhance listening for specific sounds this week we began by making shakers. Through providing rice, beans and pasta the children practised controlling their movements by using spoons to transfer these into their choice of container. When they had done this we sealed them up and painted them.  

We listened to the sound that the shakers made and tried to imitate these with our mouths. 

Finally we added in some music and coloured scarves and the children used their shakers to add to the music and then dance with their scarves, practising swinging them around in circles as well as high and low and slow and fast.