Planning for Ofsted

Today Ofsted came to visit me to check my suitability to be a childminder. I was successful. Mega!

One of the questions that she asked me to do was to think of an activity (or activities) that I could with a one year old and a four year old which would support all seven areas of learning.

I have copied what I said below. She was impressed. She told me that she agreed that many early years professionals have far too many toys which can overwhelm children. She said that children should not be inside all day and liked my ethos of using natural resources. Such a relief!

Anyway, here’s my response to her question.

I planned an outing to our local green to investigate the trees.

One Year Old

Before we went on the walk, I would talk about trees and that we were going out to look for trees. I would teach the children the song I had a Little Nut Tree. During the walk, I would point out all of the things that we saw, talking about colours and using positional language such as up, over there and in front. This would help to support the child’s communication and language development. By talking about the world around them, this also helps them to develop their understanding of the world.

Once we arrived, I would set up a blanket area but allow the children to explore the trees in the area, coming back to me for reassurance or to show me things that they have found. This would promote the children’s personal, social and emotional development and their physical development. When looking at the trees, I would use language such as bigger, biggest, smaller, smallest and count the trees aloud to promote early numeracy development. I would point to the branches of the tree and say they are like arms – can you point to your arms, promoting their self-awareness.

We would read stories about trees (see below for the list of books I have about trees) which would primarily promote literacy skills and by sitting together to share the stories, this would again support their personal, social and emotional development and their communication and language skills.

Finally, we would collect some leaves to create land art and leaf rubbings appealing to their creativity.

Four year old

Older children also respond to singing and learning new songs to develop their language and communication skills. To further develop their understanding, we might discuss some of the words in I had a Little Nut Tree and talk about what the song means. Whilst exploring the trees, we would make bark rubbings and I would introduce adjectives such as rough and smooth to describe the textures of the bark. I would explain that things that are made of wood are made from trees to develop their understanding of the world. This could be extended once we arrived back to the setting asking the child to decide which furniture is made of wood. We would also identify the parts of the tree comparing them to our own bodies to create self-awareness and promote personal, social and emotional development.

The children would then be able to explore the area, picking up interesting branches and leaves and studying them carefully using magnifying glasses to aid their physical development.

We would read stories together but I would also model how I use a non-fiction text by using a tree identification guide to identify the local trees, promoting literacy skills. To support mathematic development, we would collect leaves, looking for shapes and arranging them into size order. We would then use the leaves for some land art or leaf rubbings to develop their creativity.

Books about Trees:

-          The Lorax by Dr Seuss

-          A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry

-          The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

-          The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers

-          Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

-          Percy the Park Keeper: After the Storm by Nick Butterworth

-          Tess's Tree by Jess M. Brallier

  Stick Man by Julia Donaldson 

Natural Art

What do you do when you’re staying at the Grandparents’ house and messy things like paint and play dough are off limits? Some land art, of course!

(AED: Using media and materials, PD: Moving and handling)

 

 

 

 

 

We used stones to create faces and talked about the different emotions. We created stories for the faces and what might have happened to make them feel that way.

(PSED: Managing feelings and behaviour, EAD: Being Imaginative)

 

We did some sequencing. I made a pattern using leaves and stones and asked Betty to continue it. Then Betty used leaves and stones to create patterns of her own which I then continued. We counted up the leaves and stones to practise counting. We put the leaves and stones in order of size, talking about which was the biggest, bigger, smaller and smallest.

(Mathematics: Shape, Space and Measure and Numbers)

Painted Plant Pots

To celebrate birthdays and other events, I like to give a gift that the children have had a hand in making so we paint and decorate plant pots to give. We usually do these for birthdays, but they could be given for all occasions – Christmas, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, etc.

We get some terracotta plant pots with small trays which are usually about £2. Using normal child-friendly paints, the children paint them using brushes, cotton buds and their hands. Once the paint has dried, I use a clear weather proof varnish to waterproof the pots.

 

 

Then, we head off to the garden centre. Depending on your garden centre, this can be a day out in itself. We have a wander around and the children pick out the plants that they like best or that they think the recipient will like best. We also talk about the size of the plant and whether it will fit in the pot, and whether it should be kept outside or inside to make sure that we find something appropriate. We pop the plant in the painted pot. Voila! A fairly inexpensive (depending on the cost of the plant chosen), personalised gift that will last and be loved for years.

EYFS Links:

PD: Moving & Handling

PSED: Making Relationships

UW: People & Communities

EAD: Exploring and Using Media and Materials

Visiting a Nature Reserve

 

 

 

Visiting a Nature Reserve

As we are members of the RSPB, it is free for us to visit the reserves. We regularly go to our local reserve, Coombes Valley for a day out. They often have events and child-friendly activities happening too.

We packed a picnic and went along last week. It rained (as usual). Actually it thundered which was very exciting and it rained so much that my waterproof coat started to become not-waterproof! Luckily, we had our wellies and waterproof coats so we could embrace the weather.

 

We love going to the nature reserve as there is lots of open space to run around in and plenty of things to climb over (or up!) so that children can move around freely, developing their gross motor skills. Coombes Valley has a tunnel that the children can crawl through and climb over.

We enjoy wandering through the trees listening to the sounds of the birds and the rain dripping on the leaves. In Japan, they call this practice ‘shinrin-yoku’ which means forest bathing. Some studies have shown that people that ‘forest bathe’ have lower levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) and lower blood pressure. I know that I always feel much calmer when I have been walking in the woods and I always find that my children sleep better after a day at a nature reserve.

There is so much to do at Coombes Valley – it will probably be mentioned regularly in my blog. Last week, they had an activity day, ‘Wild Tuesday.’ The theme was amphibians but there were lots of other things too. We saw dragon fly nymphs and diving beetle nymphs. The children did some pond dipping and caught a newt. There was a very knowledgeable guide who showed us tadpoles at different stages of development. We also saw some moths and a sexton beetle which was very smelly. There was a craft activity and a scavenger hunt.

On days when there are no activities on, the scavenger hunt is something that you could easily replicate yourself using things that you may have recently learned about in order to embed learning. Or just go and let the children explore!

I took a few photos of Betty and Louie splashing in puddles. When we got home, I showed the pictures to both of them. I asked Louie to point to himself and Betty on the pictures and I asked Betty to choose her favourite picture. Once she had picked the one that she liked best, we printed it off on card, making it into a post card. After Betty had decided who she would like to send the postcard to, she told me what to write and then signed her name at the bottom. We walked to the post office, got a stamp and sent it. She actually decided to send it to herself and is excited at the prospect of receiving her postcard back through the post, although the man in the post office thought that we were a little odd!

Key Vocabulary: outside, nature, trees, wet, dry, rain, thunder.

Opportunities for Assessment:

PSED: Making Relationships

PSED: Self-Confidence and Self-Awareness

C&L: Listening and Attention

C&L: Speaking

PD: Moving & Handling

PD: Health & Self-Care

UW: The World

L: Writing

Nursery Rhymes

Singing with children helps them to develop their language and communication skills. It is also fun, uplifting and can help to strengthen the bond between you. Check out www.wordsforlife.org.uk to find out more benefits about singing with babies and toddlers.

As it’s been raining so much, we have been singing nursery rhymes about rain.

I Hear Thunder  (Sing to the tune of Frere Jacques)

I hear thunder, I hear thunder
Hark don't you, hark don't you
Pitter patter raindrops, pitter patter raindrops
I'm wet through, so are you!

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

It's raining; it's pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed and bumped his head,
And he couldn't get up in the morning

Incy Wincy Spider

Incy Wincy spider climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sunshine and dried up all the rain

So Incy Wincy spider climbed up the spout again

Rain Rain Go Away

Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
Little (name) wants to play so

Rain, rain go away!

 

PSED: Making Relationships

C&L: Listening and Attention

C&L: Understanding

C&L: Speaking

A Visit to The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery

Today, nature led us to think of something to do inside. It rained… again!

We went to our local museum, The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, and spent a couple of hours exploring the exhibits. It is free to visit the museum and the exhibits are modern, interactive and appealing. We had lots of fun.

The first exhibition was all about the Anglo-Saxons. My nephew and I took the opportunity to dress up like Anglo-Saxons and sit on thrones. There were some fascinating displays including one about death which features a skeleton. They also had some pieces from The Staffordshire Hoard. Some of them are tiny and so detailed; there were magnifying glasses to examine them. Despite all of this amazing information, my little ones preferred to run up down the ramp. (EYFS: Physical Development!)

The children all enjoyed the next section – the Natural History exhibition. There is so much for little ones to do and explore in here, including more dressing up, jigsaws, puzzles and games, lots of animals and a den inside a tree to play in. There is a fox’s burrow and next to it, you can lift a flap to smell what a fox smells like. Louie loved this and kept returning to it. There is a great display of different rocks that the children can touch and feel the differences. It is not behind glass and is very accessible so that children can examine the rock types carefully. We spent ages in here exploring, looking and learning.

The next thing that the children enjoyed was the Spitfire. It’s amazing to be able to get so close to it and helped the children to appreciate the size of the aeroplane. Because we were able to get so close, it really caught their interest and generated lots of questions and discussion.

There is an area which shows what domestic life in Stoke on Trent would have been like. We were particularly intrigued by the kitchen and talked about the old cot and how clothes would be dried above the fire as there were no tumble dryers.

Downstairs is a totally child friendly area which is brilliant. There is dressing up, little dolls which can be used for a puppet show, colouring in, design a plate, a huge wall mosaic using little magnets, a little bridge to walk over… it’s like all of the areas of the Early Years Curriculum all in one place. I won’t worry about buying any resources when we can just visit here again! 

Opportunities for assessment:

PSED: Making Relationships

C&L: Speaking

C&L: Understanding

PD: Moving and Handling

PD: Health & Self-Care

L: Reading & Writing

UW: People & Communities

UW: The World

UW: Technology

EAD: Being Imaginative 

EAD: Exploring and Using Media and Materials 

Using all of our senses

This week, we have been exploring nature using all of our senses. First, we talked about what we can see, hear, smell, taste and feel. I asked Betty what we use to see, hear and smell, etc. so that the children could think about the body parts that are used to ‘sense’ the world around them. This led into a song of ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.’ Obviously.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Self-Awareness

Sight

First, we explored the garden using magnifying glasses so that we could look in detail at the things that interested them. Betty took some pictures on my phone of things that she liked the look of and we used our little book of plants to identify some of the plants in the garden. We looked carefully at patterns on leaves and petals and we collected up lots of interesting things, including stones, flowers and a snail shell.

We played ‘I Spy’ using colours – ‘I spy, with my little eye, something green!’  Then we sorted all of the interesting things that we’d found into colours. I labelled some empty plastic containers so that the children could sort them (Literacy - Boom!). They tried to find more things to put in their containers. Finally, we counted the items in each container and discovered that there were more green things in our garden than any other colours.

Physical Development: Moving and Handling

 Mathematics: Numbers

Mathematics: Shape, Space and Measure

Understanding the World: The World

Literacy: Reading

Be warned - Don't leave your favourite pens out after making the labels or the children might use them to do some art and design work! 

Sound

We went into the garden to listen and discuss what we could hear. We could hear an aeroplane so we decided to do some more counting and counted how many aeroplanes we could hear in five minutes. We must live under a flight path because we counted eight.

Next we created our own musical instruments using things we could find in the garden. We formed a band. It sounded terrible.

Here’s some of the ‘musical instruments’ that we made:

• -          tapping stones together,
• -          We put different things into plastic bottles, such as stones, mud and grass to create shakers,
• -          banging sticks together and banging plastic bottles with sticks

Mathematics: Numbers

Communication & Language: Listening and Attention

Expressive Arts & Design: Exploring and Using Media and Materials

Smell

We walked around the garden trying to find things that we liked the smell of. Then, we made some ‘Eau du Jardin’ in the mud kitchen using flowers and herbs from the garden.

Expressive Arts & Design: Exploring and Using Media and Materials

Expressive Arts and Design: Being Imaginative

Mathematics: Shape, Space and Measure

 Taste

We have been fruit picking. I advised the children to ensure that the fruit had been checked and washed before they ate it – advice which they immediately ignored. Aside from copious amounts of strawberries and raspberries, the children tasted tayberries (a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry), gooseberries, red currants, blackcurrants and peas.

We also had a nibble of the herbs in my kitchen which didn’t go down quite as well as the fruit! But, Betty helped me to make a delicious herby soup which we all enjoyed eating. I simply fried some spring onions and peeled, chopped potatoes. Then we added some stock and boiled until the potatoes were soft. We blended up the mixture with a handful of mixed herbs - we used mint, basil, coriander and parsley - and bit of cream.

Physical Development: Moving & Handling

Physical Development: Health & Self-care

Touch

First of all, we talked about different textures that we can find outside. I set a little scavenger hunt asking the children to find something smooth, something prickly, something rough and something soft.

We are really lucky to live near to somewhere that has a barefoot walk but we decided to make our own in the garden! We used empty trays and washing up bowls and filled them with different materials. We used mud, stones and grass. Then we walked on each one barefoot, spending a lot of time talking about and describing how each one felt on our feet.

Language & Communication: Speaking

Language & Communication: Understanding

Expressive Arts & Design: Exploring and Using Media and Materials