Small but Mighty- Childminder

We recently welcomed our newest little member "N" to our team.
The children welcomed her with open arms, lots of chatter, giggles, rhyme time & cuddles.
It's only a matter of hours but "N" has settled in extremely well so far 😍🤗💜
Since, we have remained busy with lots of child led & in the NOW play surrounded by love & nature 💚

Can you believe it's nearly the end of Summer 2026?
We will soon be starting a whole new term, so let's have a little look at what we've been up to since the end of June!

What a week! Our little heroes have been just that!
They've all done incredibly well to work through this extreme heat!

We enjoyed an exciting visit from the Police at toddler group & we loved time at home with 2 days in the woods that helped us to stay cool under the trees.

We've also enjoyed lots of water play, extra calm quite play & stories in the shade, frozen greek yogurt & berry lollies, crushed ice bowls & ice in our water bottles!

Some of our recent fun has included celebrating "A's" 3rd Birthday, playdates with friends, many open ended play invitations, weekly rhyme times & our wonderful Rowfant Trail days 🥳💚😍💜

Following our first Big Toddle on the 10th June, our other Mighty mindees completed a 2nd toddle at Rowfant Trail with lots of our friends on the 15th June.
We searched for Safari animals hidden all around the new play area & Bugton on Pea, the children then used the animals to create their own worlds using water & lose parts in the tuff trays, we made animal foot prints, painted masks & wooden animals.

We always enjoy a story & free play with our popular painting sheet & Hammocks.

We talked a lot about the colours of the animals, shapes, marks such as spots or stripes.
There were a lot of invitations using language, mathematics, fine & gross motor skills, imaginative play & of course mental wellbeing enjoying the great outdoors in this beautiful ancient woodland.

Thank you to all who donated to support us in raising vital funds for Barnardos Big Toddle 💚

Last week we joined some other Childminders & friends to complete the Big toddle for the Barnardos event, we were very lucky with the dry weather as we walked around & we also enjoyed a play in the park!

The children enjoyed making marks in the sand with our Safari animals & we continued with marking & role play with clay at home.

Monday we will join again with lots of other settings & friends at Rowfant for round 2 of our Big Toddle!

If you would like to donate to a great cause please use the QR code on the poster 💚

Today I enjoyed some very valuable learning from tiney's Inset day at the Royal College of Nursing.

I absolutely love Aaron's approach all about Pedagogy and how to let the child be, in the NOW.

1 thing I will take forward as a Self reflection is to plan less & the let Children guide me even more to their own way of learning.

We made new friends, enjoyed some yummy food and even acquired free books for our setting.

It was also lovely to match some faces to names today.