Fox Den Childcare

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We have had a blast during week one of our challenge.

Our prompt for the week was 'Helping Wildlife Where I Live'.
During our Monday morning circle time, we talked about what we can do to help the wildlife in our local area and gardens.
We came up with some fantastic ideas which we have put into practice this week.

🐦‍⬛We visited our local park where we topped up all of our usual bird and squirrel feeding spots.
Seeing the children independently make their way around the well known spots and watching them independently take turns in placing the food was such a heartwarming way to start the week.

🏡We made sure all of our garden feeders and water baths were cleaned and filled daily with peanuts, seeds, suet, nibbled nuts and mealworm soup (soaked mealworms).
(Clean feeders and water baths are very important at the moment due to the spread of disease among wild birds).
Our garden wildlife cost us a small fortune 😅 but we are very greatful to have such lovely animals visit us everyday.

🥜We observed a squirrel using our peanut feeder for the very first time. (The feeder has been in place for 9 months and is constantly being emptied but we have never managed to witness a squirrel using it until this week!!)

🐸We had a surprise visit from a frog (another first for our garden) who came right up to the cabin door while we were watching the torrential rain on Tuesday morning.
We talked about if the frog might like it in the rain.

🏠 We have a few very tame House Sparrow families who live in and around our roof and they have had incredible success with their chick's this spring. We have watched their numbers multiply over the last few weeks as the fledglings have been coming out into the garden to feed. We have noticed some of them looking for gaps in our house and outbuildings, presumably because their nests are becoming overcrowded quickly! So we have installed 2 sparrow terraced houses which we hope they find useful as we would love to keep our Sparrow friends close by!
We are hoping to encourage some of the Blue Tit and Great Tit fledglings to take up future residence in our garden too by offering a number of appropriate bird houses in different sheltered locations.

🦋Over the spring we have loaded our raised flower beds with plenty of pollinators friendly flowers and herbs including some sacrificial nasturtiums which we hope will attract hundreds of caterpillars like they did last year!
We have also scattered thousands of wildflower seeds in our borders but by the look of the very few seedlings we have spotted, we think the birds found the seeds first!! 🤣
We have also added a little butterfly buffet to help the butterflies out while the flowers are still in the very early stages of blooming.

🍢We have researched different types of foods which are safe and nutritious for the birds in our garden and were surprised at what we found out!
The children used this knowledge to build their very own bird treat kebabs which we have placed around the garden. The blackbirds and starlings seemed to thoroughly enjoy their special treats!
They looked so delicious that we also had to make some for ourselves too!

We look forward to next weeks prompt. 'Discover Wildlife With My Senses'

🌍 W I L D L I F E 🌍

How are you getting WILD this June?

is a month long nature challenge founded by the Wildlife Trusts to encourage us to step outside and connect with Nature.

We have had our pack delivered which will help us plan all of our activities for the month.

Sign up is completely free and you will get emails throughout June with inspiration of how you can connect with nature, and there are lots of download able resources on the website too.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild

To give you some early inspiration, these special national dates all fall in June!

🪸1st World Reef Day

🌍 5th World Environment Day

🦋 6th Butterfly Education and Awareness Day

🌊 8th World Ocean Day

💚 6th -14th Great Big Green Week

🐢 16th World Sea Turtle Day

🦒 21st World Giraffe Day

🌧️ 22nd World Rainforest Day

🐝 22 - 28th National Insect Week

This week we will be enjoying our Lincolnshire Wildlife trust and RSPB magazines while planning all of our wild activities for next month!

🌍 E A R T H D A Y 🌍

Sometimes it feels impossible to imagine that we can make a difference to the world. The problems feel so vast and it can feel like the little changes we make are too little too late.

But nature has a way, and the tiny steps we take now could be just enough to make huge impact in the future.

As a family and as a business we try to be mindful of the footprint we leave behind and do what we can to learn about our local wildlife and what we can do to help.
But we have a unique oppertunity to make an even bigger difference.

We have the next generation.

We have the chance to show every child who walks through our doors the magic of the great outdoors.
By simply spending time outdoors, the children notice the changes to the landscape throughout the year, and they notice the wildlife, from the huge deer quietly sneaking through the woodlands to the miniscule ants carrying dirt out of their tunnels.

We need to get our children outdoors.

In these precious early years, the world is full of wonder. The feel of grass under their feet, the sound of birds in the morning, the curiosity sparked by alien looking fungi growing from a fallen tree. These early experiences with nature are the foundation for a lifelong relationship with the environment.

The more the children see, the more questions they ask, and the more they learn.
They begin to understand that we are a part of nature, and the nature isn't just something you see out the window.

The first step to protect our planet in the future is to fall in love with it now. 🧡

🚯 L I T T E R 🚯

Yesterday, on our first trip to the park after our Easter break, the children (and us adults) were appalled by the amount of rubbish we saw all through the bushes and trees.
The children talked about how dangerous it is for other children, dogs and all of the animals.

So todays mission was to take Fox Dens very own litter picking kit out for its first outing of the year and clean up the park.

1 hour and 2 bin bags full of rubbish later and the area is looking much cleaner and safer for everyone to enjoy.

Although we only made a very small dent in the local littering problem, the activity supported the childrens development across a huge range of areas including, but not limited to,

🚮Developing gross motor skills, core strength and arm strength
🚮Develiping fine motor skills and hand strength
🚮Developing hand eye coordination
🚮Looking for and finding pieces of litter independently (you'll be surprised how difficult this can be for young children!)
🚮Working together towards a shared goal
🚮Communication between peers of different ages 2-5 (which is a whole different skill to communicating with an adult!)
🚮Turn taking
🚮Drawing upon previously learned kowledge of animals and insects that we saw
🚮Drawing upon previously learned kowledge of different types of plants so we could work out which ones are safe to touch
🚮Learning about hazardous materials and how to safely handle them and the consequences of handling them incorrectly
🚮Drawing upon previously learned kowledge of why litter is bad for our environment
🚮Showing great environmental and community responsibility and an empathy for wildlife
🚮Differentiating between different types of materials

For us adults, it was absolutely captivating to watch 3 wonderful little people achieve such big things 🧡

🌸 O U T D O O R S 🌸

The children have left their mark on the great outdoors this week.

Our week started with a trip to the woods to scatter some bird food that one of our children very kindly brought in to share with everyone. We noticed a lot more birds around than usual which has led us to investigate the birds around our local area.

Armed with our trusty bird spotting book and a fantastic app (Merlin Bird ID) we headed our to our local park and leisure center to see what birds we could fine.
Once we saw a bird, we talked about its distinguishing features and looked through our book to find out the name and more information on the bird.

When we could hear birds singing, we used our app to detect which birds we could hear, then isolated the different bird sounds and listened carefully so we could mimic the bird calls.
Screens are rarely used in our normal day-to-day but using an app like this can be incredibly beneficial to learning.

Towards the end of the week we looked at some different options for making bird feeders.
We chose 3 different types that we can make using some recycled materials, and made a start ready to finish them next week.
Drawing on previous knowledge from books, our trips outdoors and the childrens home life, we asked the children to choose which foods they thought would be most suitable for birds.
They chose bird seed mix, dried mealworms and were undecided about orange, so we are running a little experiment to see if any of our orange slices are eaten over the weekend.

In between all of the birds talk, we managed to squeeze in some time to plant out the first few bits in the garden. 🪴

🌸 S P R I N G 🌸

If you were out and about last week you might have heard a strange sound.
If you did, it was probably Early Years practitioners everywhere rejoicing as the snow suits and mittens were tossed to the side in favour of jackets and children's dexterity!

Okay okay, it was just a couple of days, we aren't getting too excited yet, but it sure gave us a kick-start to get our outdoor area spring ready.

The children thoroughly enjoyed getting their outdoor hours in as they explored the garden, had storytime and colouring out at the park and helped us with some very important jobs around the garden.

Winter left its mark on the garden and all of our outdoor equipment, so for the first waterplay of the, they used warm soapy water and some sponges to sponge down some of the toys and equipment.
After that we emptied one of our borders of stones (which was a dream come true for some of our older children who particularly enjoy transporting anything and everything) and filled it with compost ready to sow some much needed flower seeds!
Lastly the children chose some lovely new bird feeders and filled them with delicious treats in anticipation of seeing some more birds visiting our outdoor space.

As soon as we closed our doors ready for the weekend, the real work began.
We have built, painted, filled, lifted, jet washed, swept and organised all weekend to get our garden ready for the children to enjoy the spring.
Since moving, we have definitely missed our allotment garden, so we have introduced a small planter vegetable patch which we hope to expand on in the coming years.

We can't wait to show the children the first seeds, flowers and herbs that they will be adding to their new vegetable patch, and introduce them to their dedicated waterplay area!

📚 W O R L D B O O K D A Y 📚

This week we celebrated books with the rest of the world!

Books and reading are integrated into our daily and weekly routines, but why?

📖 They offer opportunities to enjoy familiar stories and themes, and discover and explore new ones.

📖 They bring us together as a small group daily and they bring us together with the wider community at our weekly library club. (Highly recommend trying one out at your local library!)

📖 They help us navigate more complex topics in a developmentally appropriate way give the children the chance to learn more about their favourite topics.

📖 Our littlest ones are able to learn how their little fingers and hands work as they flip through flaps, boards books and eventually paper pages.

📖 They introduce new vocabulary, emotions, rhyming and printed text, and of course beautiful illustrations to stimulate imagination.

✨️ C H I l D S I N T E R E S T ✨️

Sometimes following a child's interest isn't about knowing their newest obsession or their favourite toys. Sometimes it is about knowing the child uses the resources available to them.

One of our children loves to stack. Duplo, wooden blocks, magnets, soft play blocks, cars, anything that it stackable, gets stacked!

On this day, the child commented how his stack of Duplo blocks was tall like a giraffe!
We talked about the similarities and differences between his towers and a giraffe, and set about tweaking the tower to look more 'giraffe like'.

On completion of this wonderful Duplo giraffe, the child noted how it was the same size as the giraffe toy!
This led to a solid 15 minute activity where the child chose an animal, and built a tower that was the same size. They had to decide whether they would measure to the animals also head or back, and sometimes the tower was just too tall or just too small so they had to make the decision on which was closest.

Once they were happy with how many towers they had built, they put them in size order. We discussed how it was easier to put the towers in size order than the animals, and why some of the towers were the same size, but the corresponding animals were not.

🦁 S P O T T H E D I F F E R E N C E 🦁

The Lion Inside is a all time favourite read of ours!

This time the story sparked conversations about the differences we can see between the animals.
We talked about how the lion is so much bigger than the tiny mouse, and how the zebra has stripes and the rhino doesn't.

We pulled out all of our animals and looked at the ways they were different.
First we all sorted them by the size of the toy, big and small, and then the older children sorted them into 3 categories. Animals with spots, stripes and plain animals.

While the older children were busy categorising, our youngest ones helped rescue some of the animals which had got stuck in a sticky trap! They worked hard on their pincer grip to peel and pull the sticky tape!

We ended the day with some huge paintings of animals. The children used lots of different colours to decorate their animals with spots, stripes, squiggles and splashes!

A lot has changed in the last almost 3 years, so...

🦊 W H O A R E W E? 🦊

Fox Den Childcare is an Ofsted registered childcare opportunity located in Old Brumby.
We are a husband and wife pair with a special interest in child development and the outdoors.

🌱 W H A T T O E X P E C T 🌱

We have recently moved into a large, fully insulated cabin space, where we offer a cosy home from home style setting.
The new space belongs entirely to the children, and is filled with all of their favourite things and their artwork covers the walls, hung proudly for everyone to see.
The children are provided a comfortable and engaging environment to play, explore and learn.
Utilising an inviting indoor space and a safe and clean garden area alongside local parks and attractions, we are able to offer a wide variety of experiences and challenges for the children at Fox Den.

We offer an emergent curriculum which centers around the children’s immediate interests, questions and observations.
We respond to the childrens emerging interests to create meaningful and fun learning moments to further their knowledge and skills.
We prepare provocations around the setting to inspire the children to also think about themes outside of their interests.

At Fox Den, we are very lucky to have a safe and inviting outdoor area which is freely accessible via our indoor space, as well as being a 3 minute walk from a large outdoor park and woodland space.
We believe the outdoors is so important as it allows children to develop self-confidence, independence and self-esteem.
We are members of the Forest Childcare Association, encouraging play and learning outdoors.

Here at Fox Den Childcare, we use our outdoor spaces to plant, nurture and eat our own fruit and vegetables, (Having left our beautiful vegetable garden behind in the move, we have big plans to create a new food garden this spring!) feed and recognise various native wildlife and of course, run, climb and SHOUT!
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📩 We now have VERY limited spaces available for 1-4 year olds in September 2026 so drop us a message if you are looking for a uniquely tailored childcare option for your precious little one.

🧡 Follow our page for more information about what Fox Den Childcare can offer your child and sneak peeks of the types of things our cubs get up to on a daily basis!