Mini Badgers Childminding

Mini Badgers Childminding I have worked within nurseries for over 10+ years- both as a hands-on practitioner, and a manager.

I live with my husband, Simon, & our dogs, Duke, Riley and Bonnie. Mini Badgers is now Ofsted registered and ready to go & accepting visits now!

🍂🦡 All set and ready to goooo! 🦡🍂I honestly cannot wait to see the children’s little faces in the morning! 🥰 We’ve been ...
04/10/2026

🍂🦡 All set and ready to goooo! 🦡🍂

I honestly cannot wait to see the children’s little faces in the morning! 🥰 We’ve been busy creating lots of autumnal and spooky invitations to play, with plenty of opportunities for the children to explore, investigate, build and get hands-on.

This week we’ve had a little change to our usual displays as National Badger Day is coming up, so of course we had to create a special little shelf for our favourite woodland friend 🦡🤎

We’ve also added our dinosaurs and magnetic tiles, which have been such a hit lately! The children have loved using the tiles to build different homes, enclosures and creations for our animals — encouraging imagination, problem-solving, early engineering skills and fine motor development. 🦕🧱

Our hedgehog sensory basket is ready to encourage little hands to explore different textures, while our little house has become a pumpkin hunt! 🎃🔎 And on the craft table, we’ll be getting hands-on with a real pumpkin, scooping out the insides and exploring all those wonderful textures. This is fantastic for sensory exploration, vocabulary, coordination and independence.

At our little table, we’re exploring spiders and number matching 🕷️🔢. We’ve been spotting lots of spiders on our walks recently and the children have loved stopping to watch them, so we’re bringing that interest into our play. This supports counting, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence and noticing the natural world around us.

And finally, our sensory tray is ready! 🍂🐛 We have a Very Hungry Caterpillar Halloween-themed tray, complete with scoops, alongside our pumpkin tray for lots of filling, emptying, scooping and transferring. These simple activities are brilliant for developing fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, concentration and early mathematical concepts.

So many little invitations to explore, and I’m sure the children will add their own ideas and imagination to everything we’ve prepared. ❤️

Now… roll on tomorrow! 🎃🦔🕷️🦡🍂

Today, I’m celebrating 6 wonderful years of being a childminder, and I couldn’t be prouder. 💚🌿Six years ago today, I too...
28/09/2026

Today, I’m celebrating 6 wonderful years of being a childminder, and I couldn’t be prouder. 💚🌿

Six years ago today, I took the leap and opened my door to my very first mindee, and not long after, another little one joined us. Little did I know just how much joy, love and fulfilment this journey would bring me.

Choosing to become a childminder has allowed me to put the children at the very centre of everything I do, creating a happy, nurturing place where they can feel safe, valued and free to be themselves.

I genuinely cannot express how much happier I am doing this job. Being part of a little one’s journey, watching them grow, learn and develop, and exploring the world around us together is such a privilege. 🥰

I truly love my job, and being able to share this journey with my wonderful team adds another special level of enjoyment to every single day. Together, we get to create memories, celebrate milestones and make a difference in the lives of the little ones in our care.

Here’s to 6 years of adventures, muddy boots, messy play, laughter, learning, cuddles and so many precious memories — and to all the little people who have made this journey so incredibly special. 🦡🌳❤️

6 years — and I’m still loving every minute! 🎉

We are all set and ready to goooo, and we cannot wait to see the children’s faces in the morning! 🥰🎃🍂We’ve kept our shel...
27/09/2026

We are all set and ready to goooo, and we cannot wait to see the children’s faces in the morning! 🥰🎃🍂

We’ve kept our shelves, kitchen and little table the same as the children have been loving them, giving them the opportunity to extend their play, ideas and understanding. ❤️

🎃 We’re going on a pumpkin hunt — and yes, I got far too excited when I saw the pumpkins in Tesco and had to grab a couple! 😂

🔨 On our craft table, we’ll be hammering golf tees into pumpkins, supporting fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, concentration and problem-solving.

🍁 Our sensory tray is filled with autumn playdough and treasures from our walks, encouraging sensory exploration, creativity and strengthening those little hands.

🌰 You may notice there are no conkers or acorns in our setting. They can be highly toxic to dogs, and with our young pup still learning, we’ve decided to keep them safely out of reach. We still enjoy spotting them on our walks though!

🌳 And, of course, we’ll be heading out every day to our local woods and nature reserves for lots of outdoor learning, exploring and autumn adventures.

Bring on the pumpkins, muddy boots and autumn fun! 🧡🍂

🍂🐛 Conker Caterpillars at Poole Park! 🐛🍂This morning we made the most of being outdoors at Poole Park, collecting lots o...
24/09/2026

🍂🐛 Conker Caterpillars at Poole Park! 🐛🍂

This morning we made the most of being outdoors at Poole Park, collecting lots of conkers before finding the perfect spot to get creative! 🌳🍁

We used a big boulder as our very own natural table and got busy making our conker caterpillars. The children learnt how to use a palm drill to carefully make holes in their conkers, then threaded them together with string. 🪵🧵

Once they were all joined together, the children used Sharpie pens to add their own special designs and bring their caterpillars to life! 🎨🐛

It was wonderful to see the children developing their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, concentration, creativity and independence — all while learning outdoors and using what nature had provided. 🌿✨

They were all so proud of their creations, and we loved seeing every unique little caterpillar! ❤️

🍂 Autumn Leaf Collages 🍂Today on our walk, we had lots of fun collecting some beautiful leaves that had fallen to the gr...
23/09/2026

🍂 Autumn Leaf Collages 🍂

Today on our walk, we had lots of fun collecting some beautiful leaves that had fallen to the ground. 🍁 We found a lovely, cosy spot and settled down on our mat, ready for some autumn creativity.

The children squeezed glue all over their paper before carefully choosing their favourite leaves to create their very own autumn collages. They enjoyed deciding where to place each leaf and watching their ideas come to life. 🎨🍂

There were lots of proud little faces when the children had finished, and they were so excited to show us their beautiful creations! ❤️

Learning through play: This activity supported the children’s fine motor skills through squeezing and spreading the glue, while also encouraging creativity, decision-making and independence. Collecting and exploring the leaves also gave us opportunities to talk about nature, colours, textures and the changing seasons. 🍁🌿

🍂🌲 Autumn Sensory Exploration 🌲🍂Over the past week, we’ve been busy collecting lots of beautiful pinecones and autumn le...
22/09/2026

🍂🌲 Autumn Sensory Exploration 🌲🍂

Over the past week, we’ve been busy collecting lots of beautiful pinecones and autumn leaves during our walks. I’ve used our nature treasures to create a lovely autumn sensory tray, all set up and ready for the children to discover tomorrow morning. 🍁

The children will be able to use scoops to fill and empty and tongs to pick up and move the pinecones, supporting their hand-eye coordination, developing fine motor skills and strengthening the small muscles in their hands and fingers. 🤲

To extend their exploration, I’ve also added our Yellow Door Education leaf stones and Lanka Kade wooden woodland animals. These will encourage the children to talk about the natural world, explore different leaves and woodland animals, and use their imaginations through small-world play. 🦔🦉🐿️

I love creating simple invitations to play using things we’ve collected from nature. 🍂 A little tray like this can provide so many opportunities for sensory exploration, physical development, language, imaginative play and learning about the world around us.

I can’t wait to see what they discover tomorrow! ❤️

There’s something so special about the moment a child finds something on a walk and decides it’s just for you. 💜Today, t...
22/09/2026

There’s something so special about the moment a child finds something on a walk and decides it’s just for you. 💜

Today, two children found some beautiful purple flowers while we were out walking. They came running over to me, excitedly saying, “These are for you!” before giving me a big cuddle. 🥰

One of the children then said, “They’re purple, it’s your favourite!” — and he was absolutely right. Purple is my favourite colour! 💜

It was such a precious moment, and one I feel incredibly lucky to experience every single day.

In the Early Years, positive and nurturing relationships are at the heart of everything we do. Moments like this help children to develop a strong sense of belonging, emotional security and confidence. They are also learning about kindness, empathy, relationships, communication and expressing their thoughts and feelings — all through meaningful, everyday experiences.

These little moments may seem simple, but they are so significant. When children feel valued, listened to and cared for, they build the secure relationships that support them to learn, explore and thrive. 🌱

And for me, these are the moments that make childminding so incredibly special. 💜

All set and ready to goooo! 🎃🍂 And I honestly cannot wait to see the children’s little faces in the morning! 🥰We’ve kept...
20/09/2026

All set and ready to goooo! 🎃🍂 And I honestly cannot wait to see the children’s little faces in the morning! 🥰

We’ve kept our top shelf and little shelves pretty much the same, but we’ve swapped our spiders for some lovely little owls. 🦉🍁

We’ve also left our Gruffalo-themed kitchen out, as the children have been having so much fun making all sorts of things for the Gruffalo and his friends to enjoy. 🐭🦊🐍 I love seeing where their imaginations take them!

We’ve also got our PAW Patrol tower back out, along with all their much-loved characters! 🐾🚨 The children have been enjoying singing and dancing to PAW Patrol recently, and it’s been such a hot topic in our play, so of course we had to make sure it was ready for them to explore in the morning! ❤️

On our little table, we’ve added some pumpkins and numbers. We absolutely loved Ten Little Pumpkins last week, so it will be really interesting to see what the children choose to do with the pumpkins and numbers this time. 🎃🔢

Our craft table is ready for us to create our very own pumpkins! 🎨🎃 I’m looking forward to seeing all the different designs and ideas the children come up with.

There’s lots of lovely learning tucked into our play this week too — counting and number recognition, matching, mark-making, colour recognition, fine-motor development, creativity, imagination, language and communication, as well as lots of opportunities for the children to lead their own play and explore their interests. ❤️

I love being able to follow the children’s current interests and bring them into our environment. It makes the play so much more meaningful when they see the things they love reflected around them. 🥰

Now everything is ready… just waiting for my little pumpkins to arrive! 🎃✨

Today we had the most EPIC fail! 😂We asked the children where they wanted to go, and of course they chose the beach! So ...
15/09/2026

Today we had the most EPIC fail! 😂

We asked the children where they wanted to go, and of course they chose the beach! So we packed our beach resources, wellies, backpacks with drinks, nappies and changes of clothes and off we went. 🌊

We arrived, got out the car and started sorting everything… then it hit us…

WE FORGOT THE CHILDREN’S COATS, WETSUITS AND JUMPERS! 😅🙈

Luckily, we hadn’t got the children out yet and it wasn’t raining at the beach. Myself and Danniella jumped back in the car and told the children we were “big bananas” because we’d forgotten everyone’s coats! 🍌😂

As we drove away, the rain started… and it absolutely poured! 🌧️ So, maybe forgetting the coats was actually a lucky escape!

We headed home, grabbed our bag of coats and decided to enjoy a walk at the park instead. 🍂

We had such a lovely time exploring autumn treasures, especially conkers! We used stones to carefully open their shells, rolled them around the picnic table and then made predictions about whether they would sink or float before throwing them into the pond. 🪨🌰💦

We also used our magnifying glasses to observe the tiny leaf beetles we found hiding amongst the leaves. 🪲🔍

So much learning through play today — problem-solving, predicting, exploring nature, developing curiosity and using our senses to investigate the world around us. ❤️

And thankfully… we remembered the coats in the end! 😂🍂

All set and ready to goooo! 🍂🐾 I honestly cannot wait to see the children in the morning! ❤️We’ve gone fully Gruffalo in...
13/09/2026

All set and ready to goooo! 🍂🐾 I honestly cannot wait to see the children in the morning! ❤️

We’ve gone fully Gruffalo in our kitchen and created our table ready for Gruffalo Granny! We absolutely loved the story when it arrived on Thursday, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a firm favourite this week! 🐾📖

🎨 Craft table: Creating our own autumn trees using beautiful autumn colours and cotton buds — exploring colour, creativity and fine motor skills.

🥣 Sensory table: Our pumpkin soup invitation is ready for lots of stirring, scooping and pouring, encouraging sensory exploration, coordination and imaginative play.

🏡 Little house: A nursery rhyme station with musical instruments, perfect for singing, dancing, rhythm and language development.

🍁 Top shelf: Our woodland theme continues with some lovely autumn treasures for the children to explore.

And our little shelf has LOTS happening…

🐿️ The Leaf Thief — with our bird and squirrel friends.
🚒 Firefighters — following the children’s interest after we talked about the recent woodland fires nearby. They’ve been rescuing the animals with the fire engines, so we’ve added more resources to extend their play and help them process what they’ve been thinking about. ❤️
🚜 Trucks, diggers & blocks — because building is a BIG favourite at the moment!
🕷️ Incy Wincy Spider — staying because the children are still loving this little shelf!

So much to explore, imagine, create and learn through play this week. I think we’re going to have a Gruffalo-tastic time! 🐾🍂✨

Address

Bournemouth

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Tuesday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Wednesday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Thursday 7:30am - 5:30pm
Friday 7:30am - 5:30pm

Telephone

+447729027787

Website

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