Childminder take home borrow log

[serin]

A parent was impressed with the laminated letter tracing acrtivity we did so I said she could borrow some. I would like to log it as evidence working in partnership with parents. Does anyone have a form of some kind? I thought it would be a good opportunity to prove my working in partnership with parents.

[loocyloo]

I would just write it down, date & sign it, and put it in the childs LJ. that is where I put any communication from parents - copies of emails/texts/photos, things they say/tell me.

[bunyip]

I do a feedback sheet for parents to use with any 'home-activitiy', including use of loan resources. It includes the following questions:-

Tell us how it went.
What did you and your child enjoy about this activity?
What did you and your child learn from this activity?
Was there anything that you and your child disliked about activity?
How could it be improved?
What would you like us to look at in the future?

[Mouse]

I put activities like that in those clear hanging bags.

Each bag has got a typed list of suggested activities and a feedback sheet that I ask parents to complete when they've had the bag at home.

[FloraDora]

My parents would be affronted if I started asking them to analyse their children's enjoyment and learning when a child takes a game or an activity or book home. They are all teachers and have a wealth of activities bought specially to encourage fun and development at home anyway. My working in partnership is often like today, a parent saw in my planning that we were having a football focus week and the child brought a football game and some edible footballs for the top of our carrot cake making today. My diary and photos acknowledge this, I don't keep a seperate file.
When I was inspected the parents commented and gave examples of how we work together in notes to the inspector which is really what she looked at, plus chatting to me and me showing her some examples in the diary where working together has impacted on the child.
That is the point of working together, that is what they will be looking for...the impact on your collaboration on the child not a list of things you do....it has to have made an impact.

On this subject though I appreciate we are in a difficult situation. Last year I had a child with 2 year old funding...it wasn't so easy to show the impact in their child's learning, but lots of evidence of things I had sent home that were never completed or played with as as it got left at one or another's parents house. When I talked bout the parents also contributing to the child's online learning journey all sorts of reasons including bare faced lies of having done it but the system doesn't work....just for them obviously, fine for the other six families who access it. Advice given when asked for that wasn't followed through...but yet asked for again two weeks later. The only impact I could find was her ability to access all the outdoor activities by Granny buying her wellingtons after she had grown out of the three I had bought. I mentioned the need for new wellies lots, but on a rare night granny picked up I took advantage and the wellies came in the next day!

So I can see that it really depends on the child/ parents as to how you record and show evidence of impact of working together with parents.

[BallyH]

I recorded several examples of working in partnership with parents, including the child's input, in my sef. I went into detail of how the idea came about, through my observations or me following a child's interest and taking the opportunity to extend their learning and then ending up with me explaining how the parents followed it up at home and the outcomes for the child.

I felt for me I just needed to show a couple of examples of how I go about it.

[mumofone]

Personal rant here (sorry in advance!) I still have such a problem with this whole thing. My parents are all busy, intelligent, working professionals and I know for a fact they would be well and truly put out if I suggested learning for their child at home or me sending stuff home with their kids. The children have well rounded upbringings and they need someone to care for their child but not overstep in to a preaching teacher, it's such a fine line. Kudos to all of you who manage it though.

[loocyloo]

I have bags of things that go home ... either something the child enjoys here, or linked to an interest at home or sometimes something I want to encourage!
Each bag has a notebook with ideas in and space for comments. When bag returns I ask what was enjoyed and then ( usually ) I write that down in the notebook!
I don't presume to tell my parents what to do or how to do it. They are all intelligent, interested adults who already do alot with their children but enjoy sharing new activities together.
The children love taking a bag home and sharing it with their families. I have one big sister who always asks what is coming home!

[Mouse]

Personal rant here (sorry in advance!) I still have such a problem with this whole thing. My parents are all busy, intelligent, working professionals and I know for a fact they would be well and truly put out if I suggested learning for their child at home or me sending stuff home with their kids. The children have well rounded upbringings and they need someone to care for their child but not overstep in to a preaching teacher, it's such a fine line. Kudos to all of you who manage it though.

I think this is something that comes with experience and knowing your families well.

I have some families who I wouldn't dream of sending work home with - there's just no need. It doesn't mean they don't take on board things I say. I know they've bought birthday and Christmas presents based on comments I've made about what their child has been doing and enjoying, so although I am not sending anything home for them to do, I am sharing information with them and they are getting ideas for extending their child's learning. They'll also buy books that I tell them the children have enjoyed or look at words I say the children have been reading. It's certainly not done in a preachy way and I've never had a parent offended by it. It's the opposite really - They're always pleased that we're working together on their child's learning and it shows them that I'm as committed to it as they are. It's a 2-way thing. I'll often take ideas from things they have been doing at home.

Other parents ask for ideas for things they can do at home. One mum was concerned about her child's pencil control so I gave her lots of ideas and some activity sheets I'd made. She was very grateful and carried on the ideas at home. Another wanted help with teaching her son his colours, so I sent my colour activity pack home with him.

Another parent was a very young mum and she loved having 'homework' to do with her child. I did cringe when she called it homework and I told her she was never to push her son if he wasn't interested, but both of them really enjoyed sitting together and playing games or doing activities I'd sent home. It was good for both of them and it helped her son a huge amount.

All parents know I have activity packs available for them to borrow. Some ask for them regularly, some ask now and again for a specific reason and some never ask at all.

[loocyloo]

I think this is something that comes with experience and knowing your families well.

I have some families who I wouldn't dream of sending work home with - there's just no need. It doesn't mean they don't take on board things I say. I know they've bought birthday and Christmas presents based on comments I've made about what their child has been doing and enjoying, so although I am not sending anything home for them to do, I am sharing information with them and they are getting ideas for extending their child's learning. They'll also buy books that I tell them the children have enjoyed or look at words I say the children have been reading. It's certainly not done in a preachy way and I've never had a parent offended by it. It's the opposite really - They're always pleased that we're working together on their child's learning and it shows them that I'm as committed to it as they are. It's a 2-way thing. I'll often take ideas from things they have been doing at home.

Other parents ask for ideas for things they can do at home. One mum was concerned about her child's pencil control so I gave her lots of ideas and some activity sheets I'd made. She was very grateful and carried on the ideas at home. Another wanted help with teaching her son his colours, so I sent my colour activity pack home with him.

Another parent was a very young mum and she loved having 'homework' to do with her child. I did cringe when she called it homework and I told her she was never to push her son if he wasn't interested, but both of them really enjoyed sitting together and playing games or doing activities I'd sent home. It was good for both of them and it helped her son a huge amount.

All parents know I have activity packs available for them to borrow. Some ask for them regularly, some ask now and again for a specific reason and some never ask at all.

I quite agree and lol ... I've got a mum who loves 'homework' and likes to show me any finished article/photos of activities etc.

[bunyip]

Personal rant here (sorry in advance!) I still have such a problem with this whole thing. My parents are all busy, intelligent, working professionals and I know for a fact they would be well and truly put out if I suggested learning for their child at home or me sending stuff home with their kids. The children have well rounded upbringings and they need someone to care for their child but not overstep in to a preaching teacher, it's such a fine line. Kudos to all of you who manage it though.

I rather agree.

This is a prime example of Ofsted, DofE and various up-themselves childcare 'professionals' taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut under the guise that old chestnut, "best practice".

The problem that needed fixing was that a small number of families did/do not do much to help their children develop. Coupled with this, a very small number of childcare settings didn't do enough to support said families.

The answer, from the ranks of above-named 'experts' who know so much, was to decree that every setting must henceforth railroad every family into some interfering form of 'homework for toddlers' (and, naturally, provide suitable evidence for Ofsted.)

Personally, I think a softly-softly approach, catered to each individual family/child works best. But I'm not sure that suits the politicians in their quest for us to churn out little school-ready, producer-consumers-in-waiting. ANd it doesn't fill many column inches in Childcare Professional magazine, let alone all those self-important childcare books. :(

[hulahoops]

A parent was impressed with the laminated letter tracing acrtivity we did so I said she could borrow some. I would like to log it as evidence working in partnership with parents. Does anyone have a form of some kind? I thought it would be a good opportunity to prove my working in partnership with parents.

Funnily enough someone showed me a home resources (or something like that ) log book today.
Personally I wouldn't want to use something as 'professional ' as that. We're not a school nor a nursery in my opinion, all that official ness can wait.

How I would record it in your situation is ask the parents to either send you a picture of the child doing it at home or to bring in what they've done. That can go in your learning journal and you can just write what's what next to it.

[hulahoops]

Personal rant here (sorry in advance!) I still have such a problem with this whole thing. My parents are all busy, intelligent, working professionals and I know for a fact they would be well and truly put out if I suggested learning for their child at home or me sending stuff home with their kids. The children have well rounded upbringings and they need someone to care for their child but not overstep in to a preaching teacher, it's such a fine line. Kudos to all of you who manage it though.


I agree with you. I think people take the whole working in partnerships malarkey a step too far. The op didn't send it home as homework though, it was just something the child enjoyed so the childminder was nice and let her take them home.
I do things like that too. I've send playdough sheets and playdough, books, certain toys so that mummy and daddy can see what we do at my house for themselves. The children love it, especially books. The parents have brought books back saying how the children have done certain things while reading them such as hand gestures or hiding at certain parts of the book, which is how we have read them here.
We made a father xmas advent calender where a piece of the beard gets cut off every day as a countdown, this was showing how we were practising scissor skills at home. One of the parents said they wouldn't have thought to let lo use scissors.
The best one is when I go on holiday, all the children get to take a doll home to look after (sometimes at weekends too), the parents send me all sorts of pictures of what they've been up to with the dolls. I love it.
I'm not so much sending learning activities home - I'm extending the fun!!!!!