Autumn Days

"Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the silk inside a chestnut shell, jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled, all the things I love so well.  So I mustn't forget, no I mustn't forget, To say a great big thank you, I mustn't forget!"

If you went to primary school in the 70s or 80s in the UK then you will be familiar with the above song from assembly.  This time of year always takes me back to being a child - conkers scattered at the bottom of a tree, leaf piles asking to be crunched and sunny days with a hint of a cold wind make this a lovely time of year.

One of our favourite things to do is make an autumn collage with materials we find whilst out walking.  Beautiful coloured leaves, bark, sticks, conkers, fir cones and acorns all make great materials for an autumn treasure hunt and gathering them is part of the fun.

Next take some card or a canvas, pva glue and let the children go wild.  We also decided to do some hand and food prints on our canvas this year before sticking the found items plus some autumn coloured items from the craft box on. 

Here's Ethan making his collage last year:

What a difference at year makes:

Autumn 2012 picture:

Autumn 2013 picture:

Myriad of Mini Beasts

One of the beautiful things about summer is the way life blooms outside.  As well as the trees bearing fruit and flowering plants, children also remind us there are lots of mini beasts that come out to play.  The bumblebees have been attracted to the flowering sage in our garden and both bees and butterflies have loved visiting the purple loosestrife.

I have also planted some hyssop, evening primrose, chives and maiden pink brilliancy in the hope of attracting wildlife in the garden in future years (and providing some edible flowers for my family and mindees!).  Children tend to sit and stare and get involved with the plants and dirt in the garden more than adults and thus every creature is spotted and asked about.

The other day we spotted a caterpillar and thanks to the power of Instagram Rachel at fizzpopbangblog identified it as a lime hawk moth.  We were able to find photos and pictures online documenting the life cycle of the lime hawk moth which was a lovely way to visually learn more about it.

A few months ago Ethan developed a slight fear of spiders but since we now let them crawl on us feeling the way they tickle and he names them (the last one was called Squeaky) he has grown to love them.  Most of the time when we encounter mini beasts we look at them and don't touch.  If a bee or wasp is close we stay still & observe them and I try not to panic the children.  In my experience those who get stung are usually the ones freaking out the most around bees or wasps.

The only mini beast that I really have trouble with irrational fear with is the slug.  But this video of them mating shows that even they are capable of amazing beauty and ingenuity.

I am planning on building a wildlife hotel as shown here with the children to extend their learning and love of mini beasts further and will update when I have!

Process Art

Often as adults we are so obsessed by goals that the process of doing things becomes unimportant.  This can especially be the case in early years settings in the UK where the government continues to make box ticking and goal setting a statutory requirement.  Children are much less concerned with where they end up and able to live completely in the moment much more easily.  It can be especially tempting in art and craft projects to take over and start directing children in order to get a more aesthetically pleasing end result but this stifles creativity and inhibits growth whilst not building confidence.  So today I attempted to create an environment for Ethan where he could enjoy the process of the art  (for more about process art read here ) he made as much as possible and with as little interference from myself as possible.  The fact we live in a rented house with beige carpets added extra challenges to this! First I covered the living carpet with a big dust sheet.  Then I brought in the tuff spot.  I had some wallpaper samples I covered the tuff spot with before taping them in place with gaffer tape.  Then I poured paints in the inside packaging of a biscuit tin (chocolate packaging, cardboard or paper plates etc would work just as well or if you have an artists pallete use that!).  I put some other items of interest out too - old megablocks, lids from jars and milk bottles, a dragon stamp and a toilet roll tube plus some paint brushes.   Ethan was excited to see the blank canvas before him and soon got stuck in using the megablocks to print squares and then the lids to print circles on the wallpaper. 

He also used the brushes and then started painting the megablocks and lids with the brushes and then his hands and arms.  Soon he asked to add water to the mix.  He also wanted to add more paint so I helped him do this when he got stuck.  The end result was not as conventionally pretty as if I'd sat down and given him rules and directed him but he seemed to thrive in the freedom he was given.  He was fascinated that by mixing red and blue on his hands that he could make purple or blue and white made light blue.  It can be hard when we get resources out for children and hope they will use them in a certain way to sit back and observe (only helping when asked) but the benefits of this are so much more enriching for children than trying to force our agenda on them.    

The Power of Play Dough

Play dough is one of Ethan's favourite things and I can see why.  There are endless possibilities to what it can be made into and how it can be manipulated.  There are also so many different recipes for home-made play dough available on the internet that Ethan has only used the bought stuff at playgroups we have visited.  I much prefer the home-made stuff, it keeps better, feels better to handle and doesn't combine together to make the murky grey colour that the commercial stuff does.  Below is our favourite play dough recipe.

Kool-Aid Play Dough  

2 Cups of Plain Flour
1/2 Cup of Salt
3 teaspoons of Cream of Tartar (available in the baking section of supermarket, next to baking soda)
2 tablespoons of Oil
1 Sachet of Kool-Aid
1.5 Cups of Boiling Water

Pour into the bowl in the order given.  Mix until combined with a spoon.  Leave to cool a bit and then knead.  If it is a bit sticky add a bit more flour.  Store in an airtight container.  This play dough smells really nice and keeps for ages.  I use some coloured kool-aid and some clear which I put liquid food colouring into until it took on the colour I wanted.  I ordered my Kool-aid off amazon but apparently you can get it from market stalls or some supermarkets in the UK now.   

Play dough is a great tool for imaginative play as it can become whatever we want it too.  It's also good for making into letters and numbers for introductions to literacy and maths.  Ethan likes adding his vehicles to it for small world play.  Adding different things gives a fresh element to the play too.  As well as specific play dough tools that shops sell, why not add sticks, pine cones, pebbles, shells and leaves?  As grown ups we all still like to have a go if play dough is in front of us.  There is something very satisfying about rolling up a piece into a ball, a sausage or a snail!  When I play with Ethan with the play dough we both relate to each other in a new way.  I become his play mate and I feel like a child again.  Ethan loves this and directs me and we think of ideas together.  Play dough is a good reminder in the importance of play which is child-led and spontaneous.  

 

Just Add Water

The gorgeous summer weather has been a great time to involve h2o in our outside play.  The paddling pool came out the shed and got cleaned up.  Part of it had sprung a leak so it didn't fully inflate but Ethan was just as happy with it as last year and his play has become much more precise with detailed storytelling going on involving boats, shells, cars and london buses.  Quite often a toy will end up in there that is not really made for water but Ethan just wants to involve all his toys in whatever game he is playing!  Ethan remembers back to the sinking/floating experiments we all did at Belsize Bears whenever he is in water now and loves to predict what will happen with new objects and test it out.  I do hope he gains a love of science which I found very uninspiring at school as it is actually interesting when presented in the right way!

 
When Marley came to play I filled the tuff spot with water and the plastic food and tea set for them to play with.  This soon became a big muddy puddle! They splashed around and got the watering can and measuring jug to pour muddy water on each other.  They also both lay down in it.  It was one of those occasions I am glad I am not friends with people who are overly precious about their children getting mucky as both boys were covered in water and mud by the end of the picnic.  My theory is clothes and children can always be washed so let them go wild! Children can sense our inhibition in situations and it can stifle their creativity.  The beauty of childhood is living in the moment so if we can allow them to just be, then we should.

At Belsize Bears we filled the tuff spot with water again but this time it was set up outside on a concrete path with no mud around so it was an entirely different experience.  The invitation to play we set up was drinking straws, beakers and an early learning centre pour and play run.  I also filled an old washing up bottle with coloured water.  The beauty of the tuff spot (or builders tray which can be purchased at builders merchants or ebay) is that children of all ages can access the play.  This meant the whole group was engaged in an activity at once and it was lovely to see.  They did pouring, squirting, splashing, paddling, imaginative play and were able to practice social skills negotiating a play space involving lots of other children.

Down on the Farm

Ethan used to love playing on the model farm I picked up for £3 from a summer fete last year (mainly putting on the vehicles on it, sometimes adding pebbles too) but lately he hasn't been interested at all.  So while he was at nursery today I thought I would jazz it up a bit with some compost and hay (shhh, don't tell the guinea pigs!). I also got all the farm animals out, a tractor and some small model cats.

I had placed the pig in a box containing compost as it's pen.  Ethan said "How can the pig get out of there? I know, he can jump out!" and then he spotted Jess the cat and told me he needed Postman Pat and his van too.  It was lovely to see him engaging in play with this again after many months of being disinterested in it.  Adding natural materials was a great way to make this play a more sensory experience and Ethan enjoyed smelling and touching it.

Coloured Salt

Given the success of yesterday's invitation to play, I have decided to try and do one each day for Ethan. I have been meaning to do something with coloured salt ever since I saw it on the Imagination Tree website.  I poured some table salt into a tub, added quite a few drops of blue food colouring and then stirred it until it became a powdery blue.  I liked how sparkly the salt made it look and Ethan commented on that when he came down and found it presented in a blue (unused!) cat litter tray with a tool in.

Ethan thought it was sugar at first and ran straight over to investigate further.  At first he used the tool to drag through the salt.  Then he asked if he could make a hand print. Then I showed him how I could write an e in it for Ethan using my finger and he copied.

After this Ethan ran to get the cookie cutters to make shapes in the salt.  He made a hexagon and diamond and asked me what the shape names were.  He also made a crocodile and pig.

Then Ethan added the cars.

He had so much fun with the existing resources by utilising them in a new way with the salt.

Time for Tea

My sister Jo gave us the tea set her girls have now outgrown so whilst Ethan was in bed last night I set up an invitation to play .  I used a muslin as a makeshift tablecloth on his small table and then set up the tea set.  I added coloured lolly sticks and pom poms from the craft supplies.  When I'd finished it looked so tempting I wanted to have a play myself!

When Ethan woke up and saw the table he was very excited. He ran straight over and began placing one pom pom in each teacup.  Then he took them out and filled the teapot with pom poms.  He used the lolly sticks to get the pom poms out from the bottom of the teapot when they got stuck.  Then he made me a cup of tea and some breakfast (filling a saucer with pom poms and giving me a lolly stick "spoon". Then Ethan made lots of dinners for me and gave me a lolly stick knife, spoon and fork to eat them with before placing the crockery and cutlery in the "washing up" on the sofa.  Ethan continued this game for two hours.  It was wonderful to see his imagination sparked and be included in his imaginative play.  

The Power of Pets

With the beautiful weather we have been having, we have spent two mornings outside in the garden this week so far.  We have recently acquired more guinea pigs (bringing our total to four) and it has been lovely for the children to feed and observe them.  I loved having pets as a child and I know Ethan and the other children get so much from our furry friends.  All the children love the cats but the cats take time to build up trust.  When the children have shown they can be calm, quiet and controlled they will be rewarded with Simba letting them stroke her.  The guinea pigs are much more nervous but when the children are quiet and still they can watch them nibble on some pepper, drink a bit of water, clean themselves and chase each other around their hutch.  I love how calming it can be to have pets around.  They teach children to be still and gentle sometimes before returning back to the crash bang wallop of childhood!

 

Living in the Moment

As adults we spend so much time planning or thinking over past events that we can often forget to ""stand and stare" as William Henry Davies encapsulated beautifully in his poem.  Living in the moment comes so naturally to children but as adults and especially as busy mothers we are constantly multitasking - writing shopping lists whilst arranging doctors appointments whist packing a bag for nursery and wondering what to make for dinner.  I spend so much time being busy that when I get some rare time off my work as a childminder and Ethan is at nursery I feel strange.  Perhaps I had better clear the cupboards out or go into town I think, make use of this time.

This afternoon I didn't do anything productive.  I went for a walk, bought a pot noodle and enjoyed consuming the powdery wrongness (I would blame pregnancy hormones but to be honest I just really like very wrong food!) before finally seeing what all the fuss was about and watching Black Mirror on catch up.  I didn't decide what we are having for dinner.  I didn't do next weeks planning.  I just enjoyed the passing of time.  I went to pick Ethan up from nursery feeling recharged and positive.  He stopped to pick a leaf up on the way home.  Why?  Because he saw it and he liked it at that moment, simple as.  When we got in I got the pebbles and a baking tray out for him to play with.  He loved playing with them, describing what they felt and looked like.  Then I asked him if he wanted them on the farm.  He did.  We got the construction vehicles out and he played happily with them using the tipper truck to pour pebbles out.  He added his die cast Chuggington trains and toilet roll tunnels to the game.  We shared a beautiful time together, living in the moment.  Sometimes the simplest materials to play with provide the most enriching experience for child and parent (or Grandma - the toilet roll tunnels game was one they started together and play every time she visits now).  Seeing the satisfaction my boy takes from heuristic play I wonder why we are seduced into buying fancy electronic plastic fantastic stuff for our children.  A child's imagination and way of being is something we could all learn a lot from.

        

Science Play - Bicarbonate of Soda & Vinegar

To show the children a chemical reaction I got out the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and vinegar.  I put a bit of bicarb in the messy play trays and then filled some plastic egg cups with malt vinegar.  The children added the vinegar to the bicarb and loved the fizzing sound and watching the bubbles and flow of the mixture.  I explained how the bubbles were carbon dioxide which is the same chemical we breathe out.  Here's the scientific explanation 

Food colouring could be added to the vinegar in the egg cups for dramatic effect and to show what happens when different colours are mixed.

 

Science Play - Float or Sink

This week I decided it would be nice to introduce some scientific concepts into play with the children.  I did not take my science GCSE and must admit it was something that I lost interest in at secondary school but by researching experiments I found I had a renewed interest in the subject and it was fantastic to see the children learning and making predictions as to what would happen next.

The first experiment we did was:

Float or Sink?

This experiment is to show displacement in action.  I put a bit of food colouring in a clear plastic mixing bowl and filled it with water.  What objects sink and what objects float?  Why is this?  I looked for objects that were similar so we could talk about why one sank and the other floated.  I looked for things made from the same material that were different shapes as well as lots of different materials.  I also encouraged the children to go and find objects to do the experiment with.  The children loved guessing sink or float and placing the items on the correct piece of laminated paper afterwards.

Here is the theory and some other ideas. 

The Outdoor Life

Ever since  Ethan Bear was very young he's loved being outside.  When he was a few months old we used to go for mammoth walks with him in the buggy taking in the world around him with eyes full of wonder and a happy smile on his face.  When Ethan was three months old we went to Cornwall on holiday.  Ethan put his toes in the sea for the first time and loved it.  He also had a good crawl on the grass outside the cottage we were staying in.

  

When he learned how to walk and could interact even more with the world he was firmly in love with the outdoor life.  It was hard when he went through the phase of being impulsive and having to learn boundaries and about keeping safe by not running into the road but soon he realised that to keep safe he must be aware of limits.  Ethan loves pushing himself physically and usually the best environment to do this is outside.  All of the children I look after become more vocal and light up when we do activities outside.  They love running around together chasing each other, sitting under slides talking and picking flowers on the grass for one another. 

During the summer months we are barely inside the house.  Why stay inside when there is the local paddling pool and sandpit to explore at Central Park? Or the wooden play park and ducks, geese and swans to feed at Ferry Meadows Country Park?  Or the Green Backyard where we can see chickens and rabbits, meet friends for a shared picnic and pick vegetables and fruit?  I am blessed to live in an area where there is a wealth of activities for the children to experience all within walking distance.  Sometimes people will say we haven't had a summer but my childminder tan and the fact I can count the number of days when we had to stop play because of rain on one hand tell a different story.  We often meet up with other families outside during summer and lunch is a bring and share picnic where the children are keen to try new foods and flavours due to the social aspect of eating together.  Children end the day tired and very happy.     

    
Even during the winter months we try to get out as much as possible.  The children all love playing in the snow and rain and gain a lot from observing what they see, smelling different things and watching animals and people.  The recent snow gave a great opportunity for us to build an igloo (or wiggly woo as they called it), make footprints and talk about who's were the biggest and who's were the smallest.  The children also loved making snow castles with their buckets and spades.  After all this snow play the children loved watching an inuit boy build his first igloo and some polar bears emerging from their snowy den on the computer.  Without the practical outdoors element of play I don't think the children would have enjoyed watching the videos so much.

I urge you to get outside whenever you can with your children.  Buy good waterproofs ( I picked up a great all in one for Ethan from Mothercare), wellies, snow boots, sturdy shoes they can climb easily in , warm coats, snow suits & hats and there is no reason why you can't get out most days.  Often we are the only ones at the play park in winter which is such a shame as (unless its very wet) there is no reason why the children can't have a play.  We love to come back and get stuck into warm toast and honey on a chilly day and appreciate it all the more having worked up an appetite first. 

Pancake Day

One of the children I look after is vegan so I decided to find a vegan pancake recipe we could all make and enjoy eating.  This recipe turned out to be perfect.  The children all loved spooning, pouring and mixing all the ingredients.  They also liked seeing the change when I cooked the pancakes and watching me toss them.  Next was the best bit...eating our creation! We squirted some lemon and sprinkled some sugar on and got stuck in.  They tasted delicious, who needs milk and eggs to make pancakes?

The Baby Led Life

I remember in the early weeks of Ethan Bear's life when I was getting my head around motherhood and feeling the overwhelming responsibility for this tiny person, I sometimes felt all at sea due to the wealth of advice from relatives and health professionals and just about anyone I met on the street.  Health visitors were the worst, full of judgement and extolling themselves as experts.  Maybe any person coming into the sanctuary of your home and telling you what to do is going to get your back up from the get go and I am sure their intention is just to do what they think is best but I found their advice made me question my instincts and try things that just weren't necessary.  My health visitor told me the fact my husband was feeding our newborn baby once at night with expressed milk in a bottle would lead to nipple confusion and mean Ethan could not breast feed.  I had just had a c-section and I think without that chance at a four hour sleep once a day I would have got much more run down.  Ethan did not get confused or ever favour the bottle if Mummy was around and I fed him until he was twenty months old.  I also committed the cardinal sin of co-sleeping.

The health visitor told me it was dangerous and I should put baby in a cot and do controlled crying.  If hearing my baby screaming upset me too much I should go down the end of the garden where I could not hear him rather than tend to him as my heart told me too.  I was making a rod for my own back apparently.   Me and my husband took on board the health visitors advice and put Ethan in a cot and let him cry for about ten minutes before both deciding we couldn't do that to our child.  It felt wrong to deny this tiny person anything.  We continued to cosleep together until Ethan was about two, maybe a little older and showed signs he didn't need to be in bed with us anymore.  Relatives told us what we were doing by cosleeping was unnatural and not right but it felt right for us and there was no painful period of adjustment when Ethan went into his own room as he was ready.  We seemed to sleep better than those with babies in separate rooms as if Ethan stirred he was met by a loving cuddle before he'd even had the chance to wake properly let alone scream the house down and get distressed.  We weaned Ethan from breastfeeding at twenty months as he was getting a bit rough with me and I found I was resenting him as a result.  For the sake of our relationship I felt it needed to end.  Daddy took over the role of night time pacifer and they bonded more as a result.  That first night I felt a twinge of sadness that our breastfeeding relationship was coming to an end but it was just the beginning of finding new ways to comfort and love my boy.  Ethan starting eating solids at six months old.

He ate lots of fruit and vegetables and whatever we were having for meals.  People scoffed as I gave him curry or strong cheeses but Ethan has always eaten well and had a healthy relationship with food by being able to feed himself and try the wealth of flavours on offer rather than bland purees.  I had a few tries with potty training Ethan when he was younger but it was obvious he wasn't ready.  Some ridiculed that my boy was not trained before he was three but I just sighed and thought "once again we will take our own path led by Ethan on this".  He turned three a few weeks ago and began showing signs of being ready.  He has done really well in the past week with only a few accidents.  He takes great delight in his new found independence and once again, the time is right.  Potty training is not the nightmare I pictured but I can guess it would have been if we had tried to make him do it before he was ready.  As a parent I have learnt to be very suspicious of self proclaimed childcare experts (who more often than not don't have children) or medical experts (who may be qualified in medical care but are not experts on my child)  and grown a thicker skin as competitive parents scoff at my relaxed approach to parenting ("He still sleeps in your bed?  He'll be there until he's eighteen at this rate! "  "He is still in nappies? Our girl was trained at two years old!" ).  I am not a childcare expert but I am the expert of my own child and will continue to trust my heart and my instincts about what is right for Ethan and Minnie.    

I have been told this post has a negative air to it which was never my intention.  My main point is that I just believe we should all trust our instincts more and act on love for our children not what others deem acceptable.  Do not feel guilty or ashamed because your baby cosleeps with you (or vice versa), don't stress if your baby is the last out of a group of peers to walk, talk or do anything.  Don't be goal orientated, live in the moment just like a child.   I love being a Mum more than anything and when I had the strength to follow what felt right for me both me, my husband and my child we were all happier.  Enjoy your children and let them be children, it won't be forever :)              

Valentines Day Ideas

Inspired by these fab felt counting valentines at Itty Bitty Love I decided to make some out of corrugated card I picked up from my favourite discount store Wilkos! Ethan Bear finds numbers a bit tricky so I hope using some physical objects to aid counting will help him understand the meaning and relevance of numbers more.  Sticking the gems and foam shapes on and the tactile feel of the card all contribute to this being a very sensory experience of learning numbers.  I will update further how all the children get on with this new resource when introduced to it.

This links in with the EYFS in the following ways:

Mathematics - Numbers: Knows that numbers identify how many objects are in a set.
Shows curiosity about numbers by offering comments or asking questions.

I also made some strawberry jelly play dough, a very slight variation on the valentines play dough at The Imagination Tree.  It was really simple to make and turned out much nicer than the shop bought stuff.  Ethan loved using the rolling pin and heart cutters to play with the dough.  He made a giant cake by filling all the cutters with dough and stacking them on top of each other and moulded the dough round the rolling pin to make a turtle with rolling pin head.  He chattered away whilst playing getting the big cutters to talk to the little ones and putting on different voices.  Ethan got so much from this resource playing with it for hours before going to play with his duplo and then returning asking for it to be brought out again.  

Today I made some chocolate play dough  (another great recipe from Imagination Tree) to add to our collection.  I gave it to Ethan with some birthday candles and he had a ball.  He recently turned three so loved me singing happy birthday and then pretended to blow the candles out.  He made a spider cake (pictured below), horse cake, chocolate chicken, eggs and sausages.  These play dough experiments have really taken Ethan's imaginative play into a whole new dimension and the versatility of the dough means it can become anything at any time.  Big success :)

All the children have loved the play dough today.  They have offered me a cake and a cup of tea and set to work rolling it out and poking candles in before taking the candles out and putting them back in the holes.

This activity links to the EYFS in the following ways:

Expressive Arts & Design - Being Imaginative - Engages in imaginative role-play based on own first-hand experiences, Notices what adults do, imitating what is observed and then doing it spontaneously when the adult is not there, Uses available resources to create props to support role-play, Plays alongside other children who are engaged in the same theme.

Expressive Arts & Design - Exploring & Using Media & Materials:  Explores and experiments with a range of media through sensory exploration, and using whole body.

Communication & Language - Listening & Attention: Maintains attention, concentrates and sits quietly during appropriate activity.   

Communication & Language - Speaking:  Learns new words very rapidly and is able to use them in communicating, Introduces a storyline or narrative into their play.

Today we made Valentine's Jam Heart Tarts.  I was feeling lazy so bought some ready rolled pastry for the children to make them with but I'm sure they would be even nicer if you made that from scratch too and the children would love mixing the dough.  The children loved cutting the heart shapes out and then putting them in the baking tin.  They counted how many hearts there were when the tins were full and then spooned the jam out and cut out the hearts for the top.  We had some pastry left over so the children played with it (just as I remember playing with left over pastry dough as a child and loving it).

  


What are you up to for Valentines day?