Clare Hawkins Holbrooks Childminder

💂‍♀️ Making use of my Royal day off 🇬🇧

You know your a childminder…..
When your adult daughter messages from work to ask why her orange squash in her flask turned green! Any guesses?
Little hint: 🧊 😂

You know you’re a childminder….. when you go out in the evening, reach for your purse and realise you’re still carrying around today’s collection ❤️😂

Our Fun-packed February has been full of activities inspired by 🐯 Chinese New Year,
❤️ Valentine’s Day, the weather 🌧 and the RSPB’s Big Bird Watch 🦅
🌈The children have enjoyed lots of water, ice and sensory play, and Rain and Rainbows have been a strong theme of the month ☔️
🌳We have had lots of fun exploring the garden and sheltering in the greenhouse from the rain. Watching the birds and searching for wildlife 🐞 🐌

👋 So one of my New Year goals was to find more time to post to the page little and often rather than in big chunks 😁
I’m going to start that goal tomorrow 😂 Here’s a big chunky post of what we’ve been up to this year so far …..

🧊❄️ 🍁
We’ve been doing a lot of sensory play over the past couple of weeks and have used the weather for inspiration. We’ve done some great ice play and the children have enjoyed collecting leaves, twigs and other wintery finds from the garden. 🐻‍❄️🐧 The children have explored the cold and animals that live in the cold and we’ve read some great stories.
⛄️ They had great fun in their igloo and really enjoyed our snowy play scenes. The basket of snowballs are still a strong favourite with spontaneous snow ball fights happening every half hour 😂
We’ve recycled a lot of bits and pieces leftover from Christmas in our play and activities, done a lot of counting, turn-taking and sharing activities, made musical instruments, and also explored the colours blue and white.
🥶 A chilly but really fun start to the year! 👍

🎄A few pics from our Christmas adventures…

🎁 A massive thank you to all my wonderful children and parents, past and present, for all the beautiful cards and gifts! I have been truly spoilt ❤️
🏡 From our home to yours I wish you all a fantastic fun-packed Christmas and a peaceful start to the new year!

(also, if anyone has any activity ideas for January for 24 rubber duckies I’d be grateful for them 🤣)

🎄Merry Christmas Everyone 🎄🥂

🎄 Just in case anyone was wondering 😂🎄
Ducky Day 2

🎄 Our Ducky countdown to Christmas 😁

Day 1 ~ Doctor Duck

Photos from Clare Hawkins Holbrooks Childminder's post

🍁 🍂 We have had a busy Autumn 🎃 🌻

A few Autumn teas

A few Autumn lunches

A few Autumn breakfasts

🍿 Popcorn 🍿
We grew popcorn this year for the first time and will definitely do it again next year! From sowing to watering, to planting out and measuring (a lot 😂), picking, drying, popping, eating it and then (not to let anything go to waste) painting 👍 So much fun from a small pack of tiny seeds 😁

🥕🍎 We still have the pumpkin picking to come 🎃 👍 and a few winter veggies to harvest in the coming weeks but the harvest is pretty much in 🎉 It has been so much fun watching the children sow, water and see their seeds grow into all the varieties of fruit and veg’ that they enjoy eating at mealtimes (🌶*obviously not the chillies! They are to challenge the brave man in my life 😂)
We will continue to donate any surplus to the local food bank so nothing goes to waste (although I think they’ll be sick of marrows very very soon 😊)
Next stop pumpkins 🎃 😁

💦☀️ A catch-up on some of our summer activities ⚽️🧸

Photos from Clare Hawkins Holbrooks Childminder's post