Wizzing through planned activities.........

[button68]

Yesterday was my first day of proper planned stuff for New Year. (I only have mindees Tues and Wed)

Once I have everyone together after lunch I got out what I thought was a wealth of activites: Doing Chinese firework pictures with glue and glitter, making red Luck purses and then picture to colour Chinese Rats, Chinese children, bears flipping pancakes!! :rolleyes: they usual stuff ;) I stopped myself from preparing chinese drangons because I thought this is just ridiculous they get collected at 4pm.

Well all that stuff bearly lasted half an hour :eek: then they kinda looked at me as if to say "what now!??" Why!! Where did I go wrong?

[bubbly]

I have a 3 year old with the attention span of a flea. I decided to stop planning activities because she wont do anything for more than 10 secs at a time! I took advice from another childminder and she advised me to let the child take the lead and then I join in when she needs me. I'm finding this works much better.

Don't know if this is right but life is less stressful which means we're all happier.

[Banana]

I find this too lol.

when you do have stuff planned you think the kids will be occupied all day - the activities are very short lived , usuually about 30 mins if im lucky per activity

x

[deeb66]

Pretty much the same happens in my house.

I have found the mixed approach works well - by that I mean planning activities and stuff for the children to do and once they have finished I just let them do what they want....

so I will then get out the painting or the playdough and find that this entertains them for a little while and you haven't had to get loads and loads of things ready.

[Spangles]

Good, it's not just me then!

We made number snakes this morning which I thought was fab! The little boy this morning is obsessed with numbers and loves colouring so I thought this would last for yonks but ..... no, ten mins if that! Took me ages to get the snake sections printed and cut out etc!

[custardcream]

This is the reason that I only have very basic pre- prepared planning.
I just have 2 activities planned for each day based around a topic, if the children arent really interested I then let them decide what they want to do ,within reason (child led activities etc).I dont know if this is right or not but it works for me and i couldnt stand it if i had spent hours preparing planning that no one other than ofsted were interested in.
I hate paper work, had you noticed?

[sarah707]

I plan a morning and afternoon activity as well and the rest of the time I take the lead from the children and plan as we go along...

It's like cooking your best ever meal, putting it down on the table and the kids going... eurgh, what's that!? :D

[Hopscotch]

I plan loads of bits to do and the kids say i dont want to do it. so i ask them what would you like to do and they always say the same thing "stickle bricks" so i get the stickle bricks out they chuck them round the room and i spend the next half hour trying to find all the pieces.

Then one of them will come and tell me that they have done a poo!.

I change nappies we have snack ....

Stickle bricks... snack ... poo all day long

Bev X

[Monkey1]

Sounds like my house Bev! I like to plan one for the morning, one for the afternoon. The kids always like to improve on my ideas, as they never turn out how i imagined!

[angeldelight]

Yeah I know what you mean it can be so annoying somethimes

But like Dee if that happens I let them do their own thing for a while

My whole day is not planned anyhow - we like to go with the flow

Angel xx

[oakie dokie]

thats me a little foward thinking (planning) :idea: i go with the flow and my iideas for activities come from the kids or on here!

hazelx

[miffy]

Sometimes the more you plan for kids the more they look to you to entertain them all day so I do like the others and have a mix of activities that I've prepared and then letting the children decide.

You can spend hours of your free time preparing things if you're not careful so as long as the children get your attention and are happy what does it matter?

Miffy xx

[lindylou]

Totally agree with what you have all said if you plan one activity there is always one child who does not want to participate, and then you have to occupy him/her so sometimes going with the flow works better
Linxx