By The Brook Childminding

1 Space Available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays from September 2025.
Message for more information.

Recently the children have been observing the miraculous metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies 🦋 sparking curiosity and wonder in the natural world and providing lots of opportunity for language development as well as building personal skills like observation and patience. The older children also used their mathematical skills for sequencing, measuring and counting.

The importance of child led play.

Some very tasty home cooked food, using all fresh ingredients.
After a successful game of freezer Tetris it’s all stored ready for the children to enjoy when I return from Maternity leave next month.
The 7 veg sauce was blitzed down to a smooth sauce to hide all those nutritious vegetables. 🤫And the blueberry pancake bites have no added sugar at all, just bursting with berry goodness. 🫐

We had a fantastic time this week making potions. We expanded our language with words like foam, bubble, fizz, crackle, shimmer and sparkle. We also explored maths concepts like full, half full, empty and brought number into the activity by adding 1 sq**rt to the potion and giving it 2 stirs. The children enjoyed exploring what happened when adding the different powders to water and found it very exciting when they potion bubbles over the bowl 😆

Christmas colouring.
Little miss is understanding about staying in the lines when colouring in and her fine motor skills and pen control are really improving. She is consistently choosing marker pens over pencils now and has also applied Christmas theme stamps to some pictures.
She was free to colour as she wished and I love the extras she’s applied to the pictures.

Spaces are now available for January/February 2025. Please get in touch for more information and to arrange a viewing. 💫

This could have been me conveying this message. So true to my Danish parenting approach I communicate. Reframing is a practice I write about in all my books and is a helpful and easy way to focus on what is possible instead of what isn't. Finding the positive in the negative. Children (and all of us) benefit from being met with this approach as it promotes positive thinking, builds resilience, reduces negative emotions, and enhances problem-solving skills. Video credit and text ↓ @thelittledreameruk “In all these narrative shifts, the key elements are empathy, patience, and understanding our daughter’s developmental stage and needs. By approaching her behaviour with empathy, we acknowledge and validate her feelings and emotions, which is vital for her emotional well-being. Moreover, understanding our daughter’s developmental stage and needs is essential because it helps us tailor our responses to her specific requirements. Recognising that she’s going through different phases of development, we can offer age-appropriate challenges and support, promoting her growth in a balanced way. It emphasises the importance of giving her the opportunities to assert her independence within safe boundaries. This means that as parents, we aim to strike a balance between providing a secure environment and allowing her to explore and express her individuality. And by offering her choices and responsibilities that are suitable for her age, we encourage her to develop a sense of autonomy and self-confidence. Giving her confidence and emotional regulation skills over time is a fundamental aspect of our parenting approach. We understand that by recognising her emotions and encouraging her to express herself, we are helping her build emotional intelligence and regulation. This, in turn, equips her with valuable life skills, which will benefit her in various aspects of her life as she grows. Note: It’s of utmost importance to acknowledge that every child is a unique individual with their own distinct personality, needs, and responses. Children, even within the same family, can have vastly different reactions to the same situations or stimuli.”

It’s all about the process 🎨 💫

THIS is the PROCESS.

The objective when providing art materials to young children is for them to explore and discover. The LESS we do, the MORE they do.

We need to stop putting emphasize on how something looks, but rather, focus on their experience that interconnects and fuels all domains of development.

Even when children are older and more capable of creating recognizable pieces of art, we still need to step back and LET THEM FIGURE OUT how to create something.

Our need to over-instruct and direct removes opportunities for creative and critical thinking. We more-so need to step back and provide the conditions and opportunities for these experiences to exist.