Monday 28 September 2014 -'P' as in 'p'utting, 'p'lay dough, 'p'ears and 'p'ineapples

After a super busy week of child minding, someone at mini rangers had suggested I put some information about price and location on the website,  I thought that a nice poster for Mini Rangers explaining price, location and a bit about us would be even better.  I then posted it on Facebook and was very pleased with the results.  We have had quite a few shares so thank you to all who have helped with this.

Back to this week, I have been exploring different play dough recipes to bring down to our little area tomorrow and am hoping that the mini-rangers will be able to make pizza discs and then forage in the nearby woodland for the toppings (non-edible I am thinking pine cones, pebbles etc, Ivy leaves, ferns etc).  If your child does pick up anything they shouldn't or touches anything you are a bit worried about we will have a ready stock of baby wipes and hand santisers back at base.

Talking of base we will be assisted this week by the lovely Marina and Sam as well as my husband Neil.  Ranger Steve is taking a little break to assist a school group in there own nature session somewhere else in the park.  So we will have our usual mud kitchen, along with some homeless piggies who can either be baked in a pie or perhaps you'll be able to build them a little pigsty.  We will also have a putting green set up in our grassy area for the keen golfers.  My soft toy puppies are having a pic nic and there is a baby that may need to be taken for a walk in it's pram.

I am confident to say that we have some lovely books this week, I have already tucked them into the shed!  We have the 'Jolly Postman',' I don't want to be a pea' and one of Piglets adventures.  I am never sure how much time we will have for our story time, but I am really pleased with how the children are sitting patiently and listening to the story (probably helps that they know the snack is coming!).

See you tomorrow

Melanie Commins
EYTS

for play dough recipes
Just like the Real Play dough
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup salt
food colouring
cinnamon

Cloud play dough
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups vegtable oil
6 cups of flour
few drops of food colouring
Combine water, oil and flour in  a large bowl.  Knead well.
Add more water if necessary in small amounts until thedough is soft and stretch.  Cloud dough should be use on a washable surface for it is very greasy

This is where I got these recipes, he has more!  abcdoes.com

Phonics sound 't' as in 't'ennis and 't'ea pot

This week I have been really busy trying to work out the best ways to tell people about our woodland learning sessions and also to keep you in the loop of what we are doing.

We are going to continue meeting at the learning area at 10 am as everyone has their own walking pace and besides the walk over provides the children with so many exciting experiences.

The agenda for this week

Arrive at learning area at 10 am 

Start by searching the area for objects beginning with 't' 

Once everyone has arrived we will gather around the benches sharing the objects and asking what objects will be in the sound box this week?

Bring a teddy - I have some spares but we will set up a teddy bears pic nic this week

snack time: tomatoes and toast

and of course juice coffee and Tea

We will then be singing these songs 

I'm a little tea pot

and the train song

Our book will be Charlie and Lola favourite I will never eat a Tomato.

The mud kitchen will be set up to make mud pies for the teddy bears pic nic!!  Please feel free to get your hands dirty I will bring some water to clean off afterwards.

I am hoping Ranger Steve is back tomorrow, but if not I may need some volunteers to get stuck in at the mud kitchen and get stuck in with the play sometimes it takes a little encouragement and a nod from a grown up to really explore the different textures mud can bring.  Some times all it takes is a saying 'have you tried making a magic potion the ingredients are a raggedy leaf, a crunchy piece of bark, a twig and lots of dirt a pinch of water and then lets mix the pot.' Or what happens to the soil when its wet can you make a face with it? Can you make a Tiger with it?  Does it stick on trees?  Sometimes a question can spark off deep learning and lots of fun.

I will be setting up the pallet to put our objects on, please explore them and feel free to make towers out of them or arrange them in size order or count them, whatever your child thinks is a good idea this activity should be completely child led.

We have reached the middle part of the term this Monday and I am really pleased with how our sound exploration has gone so far.  We have explored the sounds 'S' and 'a' so far and I know the children I childmind have really enjoyed this so far and are constantly listening for the sounds that we have already mentioned.  We hear them in the books that we read and the signs that we see outside, I hope you found many arrows in the environment last week.  I would like to take time out to hear about any activities that you did and would really appreciate it if you could write it on our face book page?  www.facebook.co.uk/etherowparkminirangers 

Warmest regards

Melanie Commins

Early Years Teacher

Stay and Play with the Mini Rangers

After being asked to set up a stay and play group by the Etherow Country Park visitors centre I wondered what would parents find the most useful.  There are many groups that provide wonderful activities for young children, but what could I offer that would benefit the children around me. So we started off with a meeting place and a walk around the park.  This was lovely, but for some children the undertaking was enormous and could have been done with just their carers and probably was being done often enough.  I thought that if we were going to offer something it had to be something tangible to do with unveiling the mysteries of introducing phonics.

For the first terms sessions I didn't touch Phonics as there is sometimes a fear of teaching young children and I really didn't want to alienate the wonderful parents, what I really wanted to put into place was experiences.  So to start with I used activities like feeding the ducks, following duck prints, planting seeds, grass heads, clay sculptures using sticks, flowers and leaves, blackberry painting to introduce children to the outdoor experiences that leave children with a token of their time to reflect on when they return home. These activities were lovely and watching the children I could see that they needed more than this I needed to put something purposeful learning behind it.  This led me to develop my sound box!

It also meant that we took ownership of the Etherow Country Park's learning area, I roped in a few helpers an ex ranger Steve who worked at Etherow Country Park until his retirement and my loyal and creative husband and together we created a central meeting point:

This means that we have somewhere sheltered to meet up and discuss keeping safe, it is where we talk, read our stories and show our objects that correlate to our sounds. We have also created a bug hotel:

A Den making area hidden under a bush, to give children somewhere to squirrel away safely in, but also so it is out of the way of passers by:

We have also introduced a mud kitchen and we have started to provide a drink and a snack to all our participants.

The group is well attended by a lovely mix of childminders, parents, grandparents and nannies and everyone is welcome.  Last week we had two lovely volunteers who assisted in mud pie making and drink and snack serving.  

The hope is that we introduce all these lovely people to the joys of early phonics which includes listening to the noises in the environment, attaching a sound to a picture in the same way we attach a sound to a picture of an animal.  Add Jolly phonic actions to each sound and tie the whole thing up with a fun relaxed morning.