Blog

Budgets are always tight. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you work in a private nursery, school or children’s centre, there just never seems to be enough money to go around, so practitioners have learnt to be a pretty thrifty and hoarding bunch. Here are a few of my favourite sources for free goodies:

Recycling – This is where I always start. Your own recycling bin can be such a treasure trove of items, from turning plastic packaging into plant pots to boxes for junk modelling. I also think teaching children to re-use and reimagine single use packaging items helps them learn to give value to things in today’s throwaway society. One of my favourite things to keep is corks. They can be used for so many things and to enhance so many areas, from loose parts, to playdough or water stations (they float so are often re-imagined as boats). This week I’ve even been making them into small world figures! They’re a good size too and are warm and soft...

Growing plants and veggies with the children

As you all know we love being outdoors so this week we chose to share with you our growing and planting adventures.

We feel that children should be aware of where their food comes from and this way they can learn and experience this first hand as well as taking ownership in caring for their plants each day. We feel there are many benefits in doing this including educational as well as opening more time outdoors.

The children are always keen to help in the garden . We plant many veggies and also keep chickens. They like to feed the chickens snacks and collect the eggs which they enjoy for their lunch. We also use these for our baking sessions too.

We visit the garden centre often to buy our supplies such as compost, seed potatoes and seeds which encourages independence choosing and paying for the items. One little girl has a toy bunny which she takes every where - during our last visit to the garden centre she picked up a packet of...

I’m happy to admit that watching children go down a slide makes me anxious. I don’t like tunnels because I imagine collisions happening inside them. When children run wildly through puddles in the playground, I want them to slow down. Sandpits are where children go to get sand in their eyes, footballs are designed to knock people over, and absolutely everything can and will be a trip hazard. From my innate hatred of risky physical play, you might assume I was a timid and careful child myself. I was, however, quite the opposite. I spent more time up trees than on solid ground. I liked hanging from the branches and watching my feet swing, disembodied and heavy in the abyss below. In my childhood home, we had a shed under the house full of electric and manual tools, broken furniture, all manner of nails, screws, shards of glass and plugs. And I was allowed to use them all, and I did, all the time! I had scabby knees, splinters in not just my fingers, but my elbows, too. I...

Reflective Practice and Reciprocal Learning – My Journey into ‘The Wingate Way’

For the past two years it has been my privilege to work at Wingate Nursery School in County Durham.  I came to this nursery because I felt that I understood this way of working, I knew (or so I thought) the meaning of ‘following children’s interests’ and I believed in trusting children to take reasonable risks.  However, it was only through working in Wingate’s quite extraordinary (and yet very simple) way that I truly began to understand the meaning and power of these things.

Let me cast my mind back to my earliest days at Wingate and tell you about just a few of the many things that impressed, surprised and downright shocked me! –

• We have only the loosest medium-term plans and no structured ‘teaching’ in phonics, numbers or anything else.
• The children use real tools and equipment (from hammers to step ladders). They are taught how...

Two years ago, I spent twelve weekends with other people who worked with young children, completing a certificate in Therapeutic Play. Amongst us there were teaching assistants, teachers, child psychologists, a woman who worked with newly fostered children, and pastoral care workers from all settings. The course ran alongside term time at school, which meant I was able to use a lot of what I learned on those weekends immediately with children on Mondays. Whilst I could harp on and on about all manner of things I picked up in that course, the one I kept and use regularly is WAIT; Why Am I Talking?

As adults, we find it odd when a space forms between us that isn’t filled with chat. That space can really feel unbearable to some, and can lead to over-thinking, gross discomfort, and even an unsettled doubt of ones own grasp of social skills. In reality, however, our more rational brain probably knows that a peaceful silence is often better than whatever light...

Story telling/ small world play and nature

As a setting we are always outside exploring the outdoors whether it be the beach, woods, National Trust places or simply our garden. We feel being outdoors is as important as introducing books and rhymes into the children’s every day life so why not combine the two. We do this regularly and will pack props and story books based on the themes and childrens interests into our daily bag and take them out with us.

 We find that by using props out and about grasps the children’s attention a lot more than sitting and listening on a rug. The children want to be involved, they want to take turns to hold the props - they will also use the props to retell and re enact the story later on in their play. Recently we visited a local National Trust place and explored the mud kitchen - we took Tiger who came to Tea story with us as it is a favourite and we felt that this would link in beautifully with the physical play around the mud...

By Jennifer Wooldridge

@mamasden

How has your week been? I hope you have managed to have a think about what your top resources are in your homes? Finding fun ways to engage the children at home is really important at the moment and I for one am finding that keeping things simple is really working.

With us all restricted on our movements during lockdown we need to make the most of our daily exercise, enjoy the world around us and focus on fun times with our families. We have just celebrated Earth day 2020 which seems even more poignant this year with the focus worldwide being on the current pandemic.

I touched upon our love of natural play last week in my blog all about my top 5 resources so I thought this week I would elaborate on some ways we use nature, and share ideas for natural crafts. DIY crafting has been extremely popular on my social media channels this week so here is the method behind what we have created.

To evoke a sense of joy we have tried to capture a little bit of...

Story telling/ small world play and nature

As a setting we are always outside exploring the outdoors whether it be the beach, woods, National Trust places or simply our garden. We feel being outdoors is as important as introducing books and rhymes into the children’s every day life so why not combine the two. We do this regularly and will pack props and story books based on the themes and childrens interests into our daily bag and take them out with us.

We find that by using props out and about grasps the children’s attention a lot more than sitting and listening on a rug. The children want to be involved, they want to take turns to hold the props - they will also use the props to retell and re enact the story later on in their play. Recently we visited a local National Trust place and explored the mud kitchen - we took Tiger who came to Tea story with us as it is a favourite and we felt that this would link in beautifully with the physical...

What happens next?

I was delighted to be part of a zoom conference on Sunday entitled ‘Which Way Now? Creating a Better Education System after Lockdown’. The panel consisted of speakers including EYFS, Primary, Secondary and Union Leaders; although they apologised for the lack of diversity within the panel and promised to be back with representatives from SEND and Post 16 amongst others. I listened with great interest to Elaine Bennett’s truly impassioned speech about the value and importance of the Early Years in education, and how we can use this horrendous experience to prompt big changes to our current system.

Elaine spoke at length about how the Early Years is at the forefront of education, but why? What is it we do so well? Well I think the Lockdown has highlighted a few key factors:

• We already value parents as playing a key role in children’s learning and have effective working partnerships with them. We understand that parents...

By Jennifer Wooldridge @mamasden

Today marks the start of our next 3 weeks of lockdown but i’m hoping that the next 3 weeks are going to be easier than the first 3 weeks now that we have adjusted to our new normal, adopting a new rhythm and discovered our new routine. I am somehow managing to find time to engage the children including my son by including lots of nature play and science. I’m focusing our activities by playing to their strengths and following their interests.

I think that the main thing I will take from all of this is that my children can lead their own learning if I listen to their play and conversations and then throw in a little bit of sit down learning in line with this. But we are largely spending our time playing and learning in the moment and I really want this period of time to be reflected on as a fun family period rather than a scary, uncertain time.

So instead of focusing on one particular topic this week I thought I would share with you my top...