Jo's Little Angels

It’s all change in the cabin again! As always it’s been a while since I posted - sorry! We’re always busy and out and about on playdates, softplay or at playgroups! We did have a lovely Christmas set up but it’s time to explore spring and the change of season!! Jo set up a valentines sensory table for the little ones with some red objects and some fidget toys. We had some red balloons 🎈 so the little ones loved chasing them and throwing them in the air! Pancake 🥞 day is coming up so we’ve set up the kitchen as a pancake making station for weighing, mixing and adding ‘toppings’! Lots of opportunities for mark making, puzzles 🧩 , number recognition, counting, practicing rolling/throwing balls ⚽️, a lovely set up in the new house on the wall with people from around the world, with disabilities, those to help us and more! Lots of lovely books to share and read and we’ve had the musical 🎶 instruments out which the children LOVED!! They did some lovely drawings this morning and they’ve been busy working on some crafts for a special day this week ❤️. We’ve also got a Chinese new year 🧧 display and will be getting the horses out as it’s the year of the horse 🐴 and doing some related craft activities. I’m slowly adding bits for Easter 🐣 still have bits to add to the topic table but didn’t want to overwhelm them with too much stuff! I kept the small table with the ‘snow’ ❄️ and animals that live in colder environments but will change that up as we head into March!

The children are very excited for Christmas! So is Jo! We’ve got lots of things planned and it’s an extremely busy month! We’ve our Christmas party, our annual xmas craft morning and there are lots of events happening at school for the schoolers. Come the end of term I suspect it’ll be pjs and chill!! Jo and Paul have taken up their new hobby of archery and are doing indoor shooting for the winter months. I see us recruiting some new archers one day! We did the lovely Penguin Trail and had a lovely treat at a coffee shop. There was some serious map reading going on and we got to see a steam train which was a real treat! The children were so well behaved and listened to us for safety. We had a busy morning with our friends for our craft morning and lots of paint involved 😂! More visits to soft play, playgroups, meet ups for play dates and our Christmas party! As of yesterday all the crafts have been completed and mostly sent home with the children. Now we’re looking forward to some days of just playing and no glue or paint in sight! Did I mention it’s nearly Christmas?! Jo had her annual family get together which was a blast and we’re off to see the flotilla on the Thames this weekend for more festivities. We also had the Abso pleasure of meeting an ex mindee family for dinner which was super super lovely and had another few families over for an afternoon lunch. We’ve a few more get togethers before Christmas as Xmas Eve is always at The Deacons with our friends and we have an open house and lots of fun games and hilarity. Xmas day will be in my pjs I think!!

The tree is up!! The presents are wrapped and under the tree and the garland was put together - the village is all lit up and the newest addition has been added. Jo and Paul got glammed up for a Christmas party event - we do scrub up well sometimes!

November 🎆 - we made stickmen and our traditional edible firework sparklers! We also made some banana muffins which were yummy! Lots of board games this month - learning rules of games, how to take turns and more. Lots of lovely playdates, visits to soft play, playgroups and park visits. Not so many tho as the weather is getting colder and wetter - November means that Christmas prep is underway and the tree is going up! Lots of decorations around the house and the cabin has been changed over to Christmas theme!! Jo LOVES Christmas and all the children were excited to see the tree completed and the village all lit up. Jo and her family did a visit to Windsor Illuminated which was magical and started the festivities off! We did some activities for armistice and shared lots of topic related books and watched the lovely CBeebies clip for children. Now to look forward to December!!!

October 🎃 - lots of park play dates, visits to playgroup, the season of coughs and colds (joy!) so Jo has been diffusing lots of lovely oils and plenty of tissues on standby! Reinforcing and promoting handwashing and healthy eating and getting lots of fresh air! Lots of Halloween activities (which I didn’t a lot of pictures of!) and reading lots of topic related books! We danced to Halloween songs and did lots of number counting activities and more! Christmas will soon be upon us so lots of planning going on for crafts and play dates and activities!

It really has been a ridiculous amount of time since I last posted. It’s been so busy especially with the festive season and our Christmas party and craft morning we hosted! All the gifts have been wrapped and mostly distributed along with cards and all the lovely crafts made. Looking forward to some quieter days with no paint or glue in sight!

The cabin is finally ready and what a treat for the little ones (hopefully!). We have spiders, rats, skulls, bones, pumpkins and more in the Halloween sensory table. We’ll be hammering tees into a pumpkin and making pumpkin soup to try. Jo is planning a baking session with cupcakes, skeletons and chocolate lollies. Lots of opportunities for counting this term and the autumn/winter display will generate lots of interest!! We’ve got some more crafts planned and an Apple sensory activity table as well. Jo found some lovely little wooden scoops for the autumn sensory table which were added today. Lots of books have been added to the mini library to share and the children can explore the bats, pumpkins and numbered leaves on the ceiling!

How cute are these?! Paul’s mum knitted them for our topic table (and she’s making some more pumpkins too and a stick man). We already have a lot of other knitted toys and she’s making us a bunting too. Took a delivery today of a cute tshirt with the Room on the Broom print and some Halloween/Autumn sweatshirts so I can dress for the occasion!

It’s all change in the cabin. Still more to finish but for now the children have loved exploring the ‘autumnal’ set up. The theme is Halloween, Autumn, harvest, armistice and fireworks this term. We’ve got several sensory bins one of which I’m waiting on a delivery to finish which is the apple pie making sensory table. We’ll be exploring colours, baking with apples and pumpkins and making our firework sparklers as we do every year! We’ll also look at making some Halloween themed cupcakes and skeleton cookies 🍪 😋 - the Halloween sensory bin was under wraps for now as I wanted to get a pumpkin and use the hammers and golf tees for a fun activity. We’ve got the market stall out (farm to table), the kitchen to cook up a storm with the foods we harvest and a farm set up with lots of activities. The children love ‘feeding’ the birds which is important as the weather gets colder. This is one of my favorite times of year as there’s so many things we can do to link to colors, maths, literacy and more. Lots of books in the mini library for them to enjoy and we listened to The Stick Man and enjoyed Room on a Broom. We’ve enjoyed some lovely autumnal walks on the Great Park, met up with our childminding friends and enjoyed playdates and did some lovely acorn handprint craft and some enthusiastic hedgehog toilet roll painting! We’ve walked everyday to wherever we’ve been which is the park, playgroup and to see our friends. Looking forward to building a ‘bonfire’ with the children and ‘toasting’ marshmallows! For now tho the children loved using the log mats as stepping stones! We’ve also been learning some makaton which the children have been doing independently which is so lovely to see! Can’t wait to get the cabin fully finished and we’ve got numbered autumn leaves on the ceiling, dangling spiders and pumpkins and our autumn/winter/halloween/firework display is work in progress!! Exciting times!

The start of a new term brought some new starters and forming new friendships! Some starting preschool and getting used to new routines. We did some harvesting in the garden, changed the cabin round for autumn topics and we’ll be doing lots of sensory activities and some autumn related crafts. We’ve set the cabin up with the farm, the train set, the market stall and the kitchen - so farm to table is the ‘theme’ and of course Jo had to get out her Halloween mug! And yes I have a mug for every occasion! We’ve got pine cones, conkers, lots of topic related books, puzzles, autumn activities and more! I got the opportunity to light a candle in the very lovely tea light holder that was gifted to me by one of our lovely mindees before the summer break and we’ve enjoyed more days out, play in the garden and making the most of the last days of summer weather and picnics in the garden. September has also brought changes to the EYFS around safer eating, safer recruitment, safeguarding changes and more. We had some more gifts which are very gratefully received and look forward to seeing some return for the school holidays! It was lovely to get photos and news from those that did well with starting new school years, pictures of them in their lovely new uniforms and updates as to how they got on and hearing some fabulous news about GCSE results!! It was so lovely to hear such positive news for those settling well into preschool and getting star of the week too!! Celebrating all these achievements and milestones is so lovely! October will mark 20 years of being a registered Childminder and my oldest mindee will be 26! I haven’t worked out how many children we have been privileged to look after but I would imagine it would be in excess of 60 children! It started with needing to find a job that fitted in around our own family and now that our children are adults themselves and I said I would end my childminding journey when they left school and I’m still doing it 8 years later 🙈😂. I do love my job and I’ve loved all the children we’ve looked after. However I’m now starting another venture and hope to finish what I started when my own children were very young and complete my accounting exams alongside working as a Childminder. Back to school for Jo too!