Donna McLachlan Registered Childcare Provider

😄😄Do you know that ALL children aged 3-5years and some eligible 2yrs are entitled to 1140hrs per year FREE childcare? That means either 30hrs per week(term time) or 22.8hrs per week (50weeks) /24.5hrs (46weeks ) before paying for childcare!! And YES CHILDMINDERS WORK IN PARTNERSHIP with Glasgow City Council to and YES you can use these hours of free childcare with a REGISTERED CHILDMINDER 🎉 We also offer BLENDED CARE TOO !!😄😄😄.
We have to go through the same inspections as a nursery , the same training . Work within the same curriculum you get a fantastic nurturing environment as its home from home and you have 1 main person caring for your child .We also prepare your child for the transition of Starting Primary School too . We are also very high graded by The Care Inspectorate .

https://www.facebook.com/donna.childminder.1111

We had a wonderful time on our holiday ⛴️🏝️. I am back to work on Tuesday and looking forward to seeing my wee mindees ❤️❤️
I will reply to all my messages on Monday 🥰🥰

What a fun week for end of term . The children had a fun day with the hose , making puddles to jump and splash in . Then they wanted to get soaked running under the water 💦. Then we got all dried off for our pyjama party 🥰❤️
❤️ Also I just want to thank my lovely parents for my lovely gifts this week and the beautiful card’s reading them I was finding it hard to hold back the tears 😭 thank you so very much your kind words really mean a lot ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

When I am asked about biting, I love to refer them to this book. In fact, I love this series, as I have shared before.

(REF) link: http://amzn.to/1HFAtSR

We have now moved up a stage with some of the children from trikes to balance bikes 🚲.
And the after school care children enjoying using their imagination and creative sides using the straws x

My little mud kitchen area is looking fab ❤️ I got number bunting made to go above the kitchen and now added 2 lovely lavender trees at either side for sensory which is also added to our homemade playdough too xx

Well what a fab week we all had 🌸❤️ Sun shining so plenty of outdoor fun 🤩. Suncreams on , plenty of fluids . If it got to warm thou children would come in for periods of the day to cool down and rest . ❤️
We had fun with the playdough , we helped our friend walk over the creates , we spent some time at the park , we built towers using our foam bricks and playing house with our buggies and babies … and always finished with a yummy ice lolly 🌸❤️☀️

So very true ❤️❤️

🌸 It’s a park kind of day 🌸

How wonderful to watch ❤️ friends helping eachother ❤️❤️

☀️ Suncream on , plenty of cool drinks available for some garden fun 🤩
The children having fun with the playdough , rolling , pressing , moulding , plenty of communication and lots of fresh air .
Then of course some nails 💅 getting painted 😃

Absolutely delighted of how my wee mud kitchens make over is coming along . Still got loads of add ons to attach to it and also a colourful number bunting that I got made .. all for my wee kiddies ❤️❤️
This mud kitchen became quite famous during Covid times . It made it to all the Scottish tabloids as I still was able to work during lockdown so I wanted to give the kids the chance to still play the best they could working with certain restrictions so I turned it into a wash station so the children were able to continually wash their hands whilst playing outside 🌸❤️🌸

"When children spend time in the great outdoors, getting muddy, getting wet, getting stung by nettles, they learn important lessons - what hurts, what is slippery, what you can trip over or fall from?" -
🌸 ⛄️ 🌲 🧗‍♀️

I received a lovely picture today from one of my parents . one of mindees seeds that she planted whilst taking part in an activity here , it’s now beginning to shoot 🌱 🎉

Making fantastic friendships ’s House 🏡 ❤️

Love this ❤️

🎉Cheer for Childminding Week 🎉

Every childminding setting is unique!

Childminders always strive to provide nurturing childcare that is tailored to the needs of each individual child, supporting learning and development, and importantly their wellbeing.

In a childminding setting children can also learn and play with other ages – providing opportunities to enhance early learning, confidence, and social development.

A big WELL DONE to my team 🎉 For months they have collected sticks after school and today the worked great together as a team , helping eachother, guiding each other , asking questions , figuring out how to build their own den …. The benefits of different age groups being cared for together ❤️❤️

🎉Cheer For Childminding Week🎉

Childminding is consistently the highest rated form of childcare in Scotland through independent inspection by the Care Inspectorate – with 93% of childminders achieving ‘good’ or above across all quality ratings.

🎉Cheer for Childminding Week 🎉

Childminding is a vital community asset, providing extremely high-quality, flexible childcare and support for families.

It's vitally important that childminders are recognised and celebrated as an invaluable part of the professional childcare workforce in Scotland.

What childminders do every day really matters, and the positive impact they have on children and families must be recognised – so this week we want everyone to CheerforChildminding!

It is “ Cheer for Childminding Week “ 🤩 🎉🎉🎉

A day in the life House 🏡
Building relationships , making great friends ,benefiting from different age groups , being part of a nurturing and caring environment…. This is what I love about my job , these kids ❤️❤️❤️(and building Dens in the back garden ) x

An area of great interest to me is child development and the importance of child led, developmentally appropriate practice in the early years. True free play and it’s uses to everyone encouraging problem solving and creativity isn’t well understood and to many it is purposeless bringing joy but no skills. We as Early year’s professionals know differently but the push for more formalised learning still happens at home and in many nurseries. This article from Nathan Wells is a good one to read and helps you to understand what we do & why we encourage and facilitate learning through free play

I hope the link to the article opens for you https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0270/5958/5121/files/FT_Winter_2019_Let_Children_Playcompressed.pdf?569

The girls had fun planting . We firstly looked and talked about what items we needed . We chatted about the seeds and counted out how many we had to plant 🌱 . After planting the girls watered 💦.lastly we learned that the seeds need water and sun to grow and also about being patient 🌼

Good luck to my wee mindees and their families doing the Kilt Walk today 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 # # #

Wishing very hard ❤️❤️

🚗 We had a great couple of days being a part of “Beep Beep Day “
The younger children learned firstly” Start and Stop “ through dance and using the red and green coloured Cards .( they new red man means stop and green man means go ) and also using the bikes.We also talked about holding hands whilst crossing and the safe ways to stand before crossing .We are practicing every day “Stop , Look ,Listen ,think “ . Also we set the tyres up like a car and the children pretended to drive a car getting into their seat and putting on their seatbelts ( clunk click ) ❤️
The older children whilst on way. back from school are asked questions , where is the safest place to cross ( not between two vehicles) again where to stand and what we do before crossing .
The children all did great and received a big beep beep sticker for taking part 🚗🚗🚗

🚗 New analysis of road casualty data by Brake reveals that every 19 days the equivalent of a whole class of young children is killed or seriously injured on roads in Britain. Today (Wednesday 26 April 2023) 100,000 children are getting ready to learn about road safety by taking part in Brake's biggest ever Beep Beep! Day.
10 young children (aged seven or under) are killed or seriously injured on British roads every week
Meaning by 15 May 2023 the equivalent of a class [1] of young children will have been killed or seriously injured on our roads
Nearly 2,000 educators across the UK are today (26 April) taking part in Brake’s Beep Beep! Day – the highest number on record
That’s more than 100,000 young children in one day learning how to be safe around the roads with help from the popular animation ‘Timmy Time’
Figures show that in 2021, 512 children aged seven or younger were killed or seriously injured on British roads [2]. That’s one young child every 17 hours. That is the equivalent of a whole class of young children (27) being killed or seriously injured every 19 days. This must stop.

That’s why today, more than 100,000 young children (aged 2-7) are taking part in Brake’s Beep Beep! Day – a special event run by nearly 2,000 schools, nurseries and childminders, to teach road safety basics through fun activities. They will also raise awareness among parents, carers and the wider community about keeping young children safe near roads.

Beep Beep! Days highlight the importance of young children holding hands with an adult while walking near or crossing roads at safe places. They also help children and their parents and carers understand why it’s vital that young children are always sat in suitable child seats while travelling in a car – even on very short journeys.

Brake has also published the results of a survey it carried out with 2,030 parents and carers of children aged 2–11 to understand behaviours and concerns they may have about their children’s journeys.

In 2021, 6 children aged seven or under were killed and 159 seriously injured while travelling in cars [3]. Now, even though the law requires the use of approved child seats, about one in seven (14%) parents and carers surveyed told us that their child rarely or never sits in a child seat when travelling by car.
Our children watch us, copy us every day. So when we cross between parked cars, don’t use a child seat or park on the zig zags outside school, we have to think about the message that sends to our children.
Lucy Straker, campaigns manager, Brake
Similarly, the safest places to cross the road are on designated crossings, which are designed to slow or stop traffic for pedestrians. It’s also widely accepted that crossing roads between parked vehicles can be hazardous, obstructing the view of both those crossing and those driving. Despite this, more than 35% of parents and carers admit to crossing roads between parked cars sometimes, and 14% told us they do so often. Almost two-fifths (37%) of people told us they sometimes or often park on the pavement, even though 70% of respondents agree that it’s dangerous to do so!
Nearly a third (31%) said it was ok for drivers to stop on double yellow lines, or zig zag lines outside school.
Lucy Straker, campaigns manager at Brake, said: “Our children watch us, copy us every day. So when we cross between parked cars, don’t use a child seat or park on the zig zags outside school, we have to think about the message that sends to our children.
"We, as parents and carers, know these choices aren’t right, we know we are doing them because we are pushed for time or there seems like no other option, but our children don’t know that – they will think that it is ok.”
When asked who should take the most responsibility for teaching children about road safety, parents and carers were overwhelmingly the top choice for most respondents, with more than four-fifths (83%) of respondents ranking them first (76%) or second (7%).
Educators were also a very popular choice, ranked first or second by more than two-thirds (68%) of respondents.
Straker continued: “Beep Beep! Day is a great opportunity to start a conversation with our children about how to be safe around the road and why it is so important. I would like to thank everyone who is taking part – and especially the kids – for making this the biggest Beep Beep! Day yet.”
More than three-quarters (77%) of people told us they would like to walk or cycle more often with their children. When asked what factors would encourage them to walk or cycle more, the most popular reasons given were if they had more time (37%) or the journey was shorter (36%). Safety factors were next highest ranked by respondents, who told us they needed safe cycle paths (34%), pavements and footpaths (33%) to enable them to walk or cycle more often.🚗

It’s “ BEEP BEEP WEEK “ at Donnas House this week . Where the children will be learning all about Road Safety. We learn this everyday anyway as we are always out and about 🚗❤️🚗❤️🚗

Have lots of fun and fresh air out in the garden today . Gross and fine motor skills , hand to eye co-ordination and their senses all being used today xx

Lots of outdoor fun and plenty of fresh air today . Morning was spent at the park and afternoon the older children had fun on the tree swing then games in the garden 🪴

A wee trip down to the skate park 🛹 before lunch xx

A nice visit to our library 📚 today and was a lovely surprise to see nice new colourful rugs and little sofas in the children’s section.
We chose our own books and chatted with eachother about our books . Then we were being responsible by taking them up to get stamped xx

Made a batch of fruit scones for the children’s snack

Beautiful ❤️

💯 true that’s why we introduced THE GIRFEC ( getting it right for every child )