Happy Hearts Childminding

This morning we went litter picking in Forge wood with Sweet pea childminding. The children LOVED looking for and picking up the rubbish using their litter pickers. We collected 2 black bags of rubbish.

I love teaching the children about respecting our world. They are our future warriors

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As educators and mothers we agree with 🩵 And yes we also believe that this goes for BOYS and GIRLS 💕 Boy moms lets hear your opinions 📣👇🏻 #natureschool #preschool #forestschool #outdooreducation #lexingtonky #homeschoolmom #kentuckymom #freeplay #alternativeeducation #homeschool #unstructuredplay #unschoolers #montessori #waldorfeducation #evergreennatureschool #lexingtonkynews

We have been immersing ourselves in Chinese New Year themed activities:

🇨🇳visiting an Asian supermarket by catching a bus into town
🇨🇳looking at strange exotic fruit and other foods
🇨🇳Trying on oriental clothing and hats
🇨🇳Chopping mushrooms to make Chinese veggie stir-fried noodles
🇨🇳playing with rice and chopsticks
🇨🇳Learning about Chinese new year whilst watching some videos on Cbeebies.
🇨🇳Eating fortune cookies and reading our fortunes
🇨🇳Tasting a pomelo citrus fruit, it looks like a gigantic lemon but has a very strange after taste. The children ALL said "I don't like it"🤣

❄️🧊Snow and ice🧊 ❄️

❄️We have been weather watching and discussing what we notice in the changing environment when out and about.
❄️We have been using all our senses to explore our topic: listening to and feeling crunching leaves under our feet, throwing sticks on frozen ponds and talking about how they don't sink, tasting and sucking ice, playing with and touching snow.
❄️We have also listened to 'Arctic' themed music and danced with scarves to 'Let it go'.
❄️We have been learning about the names of some Arctic animals and where they live and eat.
❄️ Today we helped build a igloo to play in and watched videos about how igloos are made. We then tried to build an igloo with ice blocks and realised it was not easy at all. 🤣

Goodbyes are truly the hardest part of this job. No one can truly understand the close relationship we feel with the families like us childminders.

Yesterday I said goodbye to a family that I had the honour of working with for 5 years!!

The Poole family have always had a extremely special place in my family's heart. 'Rhino' Kai was my son and husband's favourite! SHHHH...It was no secret. 🤫 Noah even gifted Kai his shark tooth necklace as a goodbye gift. 🥺 Kai looks up to Noah like a big brother and the 2 of them continue to this day to get up to nonsense. 🤣

When Kai left my care to start school it was bittersweet because even though I would not continue seeing him all the time, and literally have belly aches laughing at what he would do, I knew that when his little sister started with me I could continue the relationship with the family especially their Mum, Sam.

When Millie started with me I loved her already, because of my close relationship I have with the family. Even though Millie was with me for a shorter time than her brother she was still a well-loved little girl. Her determined, friendly, head-strong and lovable personality will stand her in good stead as she grows up. I'm sad I have not been able to continue being Millies's childminder but sadly due to the family moving away my childminding journey with them has ended.💔

Sam, as a parent, and the close type of relationship her and I developed over the 5 years is the reason I chose to become a childminder. I love the close and long-standing relationships with all my childminding families. Being such an important part of a little child's early life is an honour. I know how I am literally shaping them as a person.🥰

Sam has always made me feel valued, she has trusted my advice and guidance with the care of both her children and always complimented my childminding setting. Her and I have laughed, shaken our heads at our own children's antics and watched the close bond develop between our children. 😍I truly have loved every moment.

It's not goodbye...Its see you soon!

🎄Christmas 2024🎄

🎄Busyness overload with:
🎄craft
🎄outings
🎄baking
🎄parties
🎄reindeer spotting
🎄 Santa

🍂 Autumn 🍂

Although it means Winter will be upon us soon 😟, it's still such a beautiful and exciting time of the year for Happy Hearts to explore....

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We hope the Easter bunny delivers you all lots of tasty treats this weekend. If mini eggs (of any brand) are among your haul please remember that these pose a serious choking hazard to small children. They are the perfect size to block a child’s airway. So, what can you do? 1. Hide them from the children and eat them yourself – good luck with that! 2. Smash the mini eggs into small pieces with a rolling pin. 3. Opt for a different treat. Larger, hollow eggs are much safer for little ones. Visit our choking hub to learn more about common choking hazards and what you should do in an emergency: https://capt.org.uk/choking-prevention/ #ChildSafety #ChildHealth #Easter2023

🙏Early Year childcare is at crisis point:🙏

In the last year more Early Year's settings have closed than ever before. This is mainly because of the shortfall in funding between what the government pays settings and the cost of the actual place to run. By charging a top-up fee to parents, settings are able to then able remain open and continue to provide high quality care to young children.

However in the last week the UK government is promising 'free childcare' for ages 9 months up! AND West Sussex is telling providers we can't charge a top-up fee to parents.⁉️⁉️⁉️

Using the term FREE is utterly disrespectful to all the extremely hardworking childcare settings. What they are expecting is for all nurseries, preschools and childminders to continue working as hard as they do (with people's most precious possessions) and do it happily earning about 1/5 less. More settings will be forced to close faster than we have seen in the last year!

If this goes ahead and we are not allowed to charge a "top up" fee then the already crumbling childcare disaster will actually explode. There will be nothing left to selvage!

Please take the time to sign this petition so that childcare settings voices are heard.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Sign the Petition Allow Early Years settings to charge top up fees for funded childcare spaces.

❄️Snow day in Spring❄️

❄️After the school run the children played outside. Some were more keen to start than others.
❄️We dug snow with various size spades. We also experimented with warm water and poured it on the snow to see what happens. ❄️Two little happy hearts especially got in involved in the water pouring.
❄️We then warmed up inside with hot chocolate AND a hobnob biscuit treat.

👣 I was born in South Africa 🇿🇦 👣
In SA children pretty much spend their lives barefoot, in the UK I have ALWAYS encouraged the children to play outside without shoes. I have had loads of children who have found it strange in the beginning and even needing coaching to keep shoes off!!🤣

👣I cant wait for warmer weather and then shoes will be kept in the cupboard 👣

⁉️Do you know that you get positive ions from the Earth when you walk barefoot in nature⁉️

😊What have we been doing the last 2 days?😊

Busy, busy, busy. Never a dull moment here!