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maisiemog
04-12-2010, 09:09 PM
How many do you look at with mindees? I'm aiming to try and do at least one a month. Do you do more than that? ANd what sorta things do you cover?

Trying to be organised and get some festival planning done tonight whilst DH is hogging the tv....yes I really dont have anything better to be doing on a Saturday night...lol!!!

christine e
05-12-2010, 12:57 AM
Hi

One festival a month is fine. The things I wuld cover are Nov bonfire night, diwali, St Andrew's Day. Dec - Christmas, Hanukkah, Jan - Burns Night, Feb - Chinese New Year (year of the rabbit)

I try and do a simple craft activity, so for example for St Andrew's Day we could make a scotish flag, we could listen to some bagpipe music (flower of scotland) and perhaps have porridge or oat cakes to eat and look into how Andrew became a saint. It all really depends on the age of the children.

Christine

Penny1959
05-12-2010, 01:24 AM
I just do them as and when - some months - lots, other months not many at all.

I try to include some of the lesser known ones and not just the popular ones.

If a festival celebrated by any of the families of the mindees I go into more detail - if not celebrated by any of the families just an over view.

So for Diwali - we made cards, coloured Rangoli patterns, read the story, watched the clips on Cbeebies, made some diwali sweets (over several days) as one of my families celebrates at hom,

For Hanakkah we made cards and read the story, made a driedal (sp) game (no one celebrating at home)

Penny :)

samb
05-12-2010, 09:59 AM
I showed my long term planning which had a log of the festivals I was planning on covering between when I registered in July to the end of the year to someone on my early years team. She told me I was being too "christian" and had to cover more. I actually am a Christian and had made an effort to cover other religions etc but obviously not enough! The things I had added that were "other" were Halloween, bonfire night, rememberance and diwali. The "Christian" festivals were harvest and Christmas. I then added world hello day and Hanukkah. I feel like I have been doing "festivals" more than anything else. The longest I have any children is 2 full days and they are 9 months, 24 months and 51 months. For each festival I have made an effort to get out books from the library with the children to make an appropriate craft and listen to suitable music. Somtimes did extra activity such as pretending we were fireworks and when I tapped them on the head they had to "explode" like a firework or singing spider songs for halloween or cooking potato pancakes for Hanukkah. I do enjoy these but just find it a little over the top especially as none of the families celebrate any of them at home. :rolleyes:

teacake2
05-12-2010, 03:09 PM
This is something I find very difficult to cover at the moment, my three little ones are all just over 2 and so things do not really mean anything to them, every day life is sometimes difficult for them to understand let alone anything else. If we do any pictures or look at books it is just an activity they sometimes do, more often than not they just go away and play with something that they are interested in. They are a bit better looking at the books, still I suppose I can show OFSTED that I am giving the children the opportunity to look at other things.:( :(
Teacake2

jellybean cc
05-12-2010, 05:11 PM
I have just been looking at what i can do in the new year in the hope i get more children.

i am planning activities we could do for Chinese New Year, pancake day etc. i am doing the plans to show ofsted what i could do rather than what i will do.

After i thought i would do a conclusion of what we actually did, if it worked, how it could be improved etc. And why we did not do some of the activities planned. ie age of children

This will give me a record to build on in future years as well as give something to show ofsted.

Does this sound ok, its so hard to know what to do when i dont have any children, but i want to do something positive as im not working whilst i wait.

Penny1959
05-12-2010, 05:20 PM
I have just been looking at what i can do in the new year in the hope i get more children.

i am planning activities we could do for Chinese New Year, pancake day etc. i am doing the plans to show ofsted what i could do rather than what i will do.

After i thought i would do a conclusion of what we actually did, if it worked, how it could be improved etc. And why we did not do some of the activities planned. ie age of children

This will give me a record to build on in future years as well as give something to show ofsted.

Does this sound ok, its so hard to know what to do when i dont have any children, but i want to do something positive as im not working whilst i wait.

I have some folders with ideas that I keep out so parents can look if they want to (tbh none have) but Mrs O looked and was impressed that I have a bank of ideas to hand and that I share with parents.

Penny :)

samb
06-12-2010, 08:34 PM
Hi Jellybean I think that's a great idea as it will be useful to you in the future too and as you say you have time to do it at the moment and you won't have as much when you have mindees - hope you get some soon!