How much planning should I do?

This is a question that I often asked myself!

Lets go back in time to when I first started teaching...

Each half term we would have a different topic to focus our learning on (Transport, fairy tales or as these photos showed-Celebrations). Every week within the half term the main topic would be broken down into a weeks mini topic (e.g Chinese New Year).

Every Friday I would stay at school till 6:30pm setting up my provision so that it was ready for the following week. This would involve dressing up each area of learning around that theme. Prior to that my week day evenings had been taken up preparing for this Friday dressing by printing, laminating, double backing images and sourcing resources to support each area. Gosh it was exhausting!

On Mondays when the children went into the provision I would always feel disappointed that they weren't using it in the way I had planned for. At times levels of engagement were low or children would ask me where the lego was (We had it out the week before but not this week as it didn't match the theme!). I wouldn't have chance to interact in the provision as I had a rota of group work to get through before morning break. 

As a young and newly qualified teacher I didn't have the confidence to change this. Even though I knew in my heart that this wasn't the best way to learn. My experienced team around me would often said that 'this is the way we always do it.' 

Now luckily for me (and the children) that didn't have to last too long. I soon found my self working with a wonderfully inspiring mentor who gave me the confidence to do what was right. She inspired me with her daily practice too and left me feeling so empowered to make some positive changes! 

If this is you and you're feeling like you would like to make some positive changes to your practice then watch out for the yearly launch of my Members Hub! Inside the training I'm going to be giving you all the hints, tips and strategies you need to feel full of confidence with your every day practice!

www.hyggeintheearlyyears.co.uk