Tiny Wildlings

30/03/2026

Tiny Wildlings is on the move 📦

Last year we closed our doors to full time childminding whilst I embarked on my journey to become a fully qualified teacher. 👩‍🎓

Now we say goodbye to the place where it all began. The room that saw so much love, laughter, plenty of tears, babies turning to toddlers, crawling to walking, potty training, so many cuddles, learning and most importantly, LOTS of play.

I will miss these green walls immensely, they were painted by my late dad knowing the dream I had. I only wish he could still be around to see how this dream has evolved.

It’s going to be incredibly bittersweet to say goodbye to this home, but as one chapter ends a new one begins and Tiny Wildlings will still very much continue to exist offering some school holiday care. I’m already nearly full for the summer holidays so do be quick if you need a space. ☀️

Goodbye original Tiny Wildlings HQ, onto the next. 🧡

27/10/2025

First day of the half term holidays saw the return of one of our much loved wildlings so we did what we do best and had a fun afternoon in the woods. We enjoyed some yummy muffins we made earlier accompanied by a hot chocolate too!🌳

I absolutely love my new job, but giving up full time childminding was not a decision taken lightly and we are all missing our lovely wildlings so so much. What a lovely day it was being briefly reunited!

Den building, climbing, balancing, developing gross motor skills, identifying trees & birds. The woods is such a diverse ‘classroom’!

Funnily enough my next degree assignment is on the benefits of outdoor learning. Recon I’ll be able to stick to the word limit? 😂

25/10/2025

Been very fortunate in my new job to be able to embark on Forest School leader training!🌳

It’ll be a while before I’m qualified (on top of doing a degree 😆) but can’t wait to practice some of these new skills with our wildlings too when they come to join us in the holidays!

31/08/2025

The end of an era 🧡🥹

Friday signified the end for the current cohort of our Tiny Wildlings and tomorrow begins a new journey for me.

After many years of deliberating, doubting myself and thinking it could never be possible, I am finally embarking on my journey to eventually become a fully qualified teacher! Eeek 😬

It was such a hard decision to make, but it feels like everything aligned to make it possible. A new job working in a school and back to university is going to be quite a change here! As much as I’m incredibly excited it’s of course bittersweet.

Childminding is the weirdest job in the sense that you never truly have that work/life separation. These children have been in my home, loved and cared for as if they were my own. Saying goodbye is incredibly hard and I will miss them all so dearly!

Tiny Wildlings will still be here but in a new form, offering some wrap around & holiday care instead.

But sadly, my days of childminding full time is for now, over!

Thank you to all my wonderful families who have been so supportive!

Good luck to all my little ones starting school or new settings! I can’t wait to see how they all do! 🧡🧡🧡🧡

11/07/2025

Could not agree more!

Just leaving this image here in response to The Writing Framework released this week.

These X-rays show how a child’s hand physically develops over time; tiny bones still forming, joints still growing strong.

The Writing Framework pushes for formal handwriting from the moment children start school, chasing a target of 75% GLD by 2028. But at what cost?

Writing before children are physically ready risks frustration, poor posture and even long-term aversion to learning.

Children deserve time to build strength, coordination and fine motor skills in a fun and practical way before the pressure to put pencil to paper and cramming EY classrooms with tables and chairs.

Let’s protect the magic of play. That’s where the foundations of real writing are laid—not in data targets and accountability measures which further fill the pockets of those that have a vested interest in pushing this agenda! (a.k.a Dame RWI and Mrs Write Stuff)

Image: bonexray.com

25/06/2025

Oh hello!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here and shared any of our adventures. Safe to say it’s been a BUSY few weeks.

I ran London Marathon 🏃‍♀️‍➡️ celebrated birthdays and even last week had the big O come visit and do my inspection 😳

Can’t share results from that yet until report is out but more on that soon!

Despite all the craziness we’ve had some amazing adventures and activities, lots of new skills developed, a new found love for frogs during our frog lifecycle project!

It’s been great fun and now I feel like things are finally starting to calm down a little I can start sharing more of our adventures on here again!

Roll on the summer at Tiny Wildlings HQ! ☀️

03/04/2025

Could not reiterate this enough. I try to stay positive on socials and demonstrate all the lovely things we do, but these new funding changes are having an impact and childminders are being left behind, forced to run their businesses at a loss and being penalised for implementing solutions to stay afloat.

Grateful to all my amazing families I have so far who are nothing but supportive. But it is a worrying time for the sector.

Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillipson have promised thousands of new nursery places from September 2025 as part of the first wave of 300 school-based nurseries.

01/04/2025

Mothers Day 2025 🧡

Now they have been gifted I can officially share what this years Mother’s Day gift was from our wildlings.

Every year I endeavour to think of something new that the children can gift to their amazing mummies.

I always opt for something child led, no handprints in sight I’m afraid. (If you know me you know my feeling on those 🤣)

Each child took SUCH care in designing and painting a tote bag for their mums, taking such pride in their colour choices, design & outcomes.

I strongly believe that sense of accomplishment, achievement, belief in oneself and pride needs to be intrinsic. To create an item, completely self led that they can then witness their grown ups using and has a distinct purpose is so exciting for a little one.

So to us, these may look like some very crazy looking colourful bags. But to them they are so much more. And that’s why child led arts & crafts are SO much more valuable than adult led. 🧡

07/03/2025

At our happiest, in the woods, sun shining, listening to birds, stroking a cat, eating and meeting with new friends!

Bring on the better weather please 🙌🏻😍🌞

01/03/2025

February round up 🧡

It’s been a busy month, our bird theme is still going strong. The children have shown such a huge interest and are building on their knowledge of different species of birds, the habitats they live in, what they need to eat and what they look like.

Our resident Robin has been visiting us every day which always excites everyone!

We are now slowly moving our topic to the changing seasons, how that might impact birds, what food we can start planting & growing!

It’s so important to ensure everything we do in Early Years has purpose. There is zero benefit to planning a curriculum & activities without the children’s current interests being considered. We are building the blocks of learning, interconnecting topics and supporting children developing that deeper conceptual understanding of the world around them.

We’ve also been enjoying our time outside a lot more now the sun has made a few appearances!

Bring on Spring 🐣🐰

29/01/2025

January round up! 🪶

Wow! What a month! All our wildlings returned from their Christmas holidays and have settled right back in, it’s as if they never left!

We’ve got stuck right in with our bird topic this term in preparation for

We’ve added some new bird themed resources into the setting which have gone down a hit! We have learnt about the various different birds we might find in our gardens, what they look like, the songs they sing and what they like to eat!

I love a bit of project based learning and it’s been wonderful seeing the building blocks form to turn this crew into little Ornithologists!

We have gone out on many outdoor adventures to do some bird spotting, made some feeders to take home and try to attract birds in our own gardens, built our own den inspired by a bird nest and we even took a little trip to a local zoo to see some different variations of birds we might not find in our gardens!

Our favourite bird themed books have been Peck & The Tree Keepers!

So proud of how well these little ones have taken to this topic. I never force learning and always go for a child led approach however, they have all shown such a passion for this new topic!

So although, the Big Garden Bird watch may be over…we are certainly still all about birds here!

04/12/2024

The children have been showing a huge interest in modes of transportation recently especially trains!

So I braved it and took the children on their first train trip as a setting and safe to say it was a huge success!

They were so well behaved, I was very proud. 🥹

We visited a museum and art gallery which the children loved, it was such an enriching and invaluable experience. Sometimes these places are not necessarily geared for ‘young’ children. But I truly believe you are never too young to immerse yourself in art and history (two of my favourite things!)

Weve had a slower start to the week this week with illnesses striking the whole setting 😷 but now we begin the Christmas festivities properly! 🎄