Are the holidays going well?

Are you busier in the holidays or do you have term time only children, so less busy?

Are you managing to have fun or are you being run ragged? Have you tried any new activities?

I'm loving the holidays so far. Obviously I'm not minding at the moment. You may remember that I had a visit from a family with a lovely little girl and I was considering taking her on in order to keep my registration open. Sadly we couldn't match up their needs with the days I was able to offer, so that didn't happen. I've had another enquiry from a mum who wants two days - she's freelance and so flexible on which days. I haven't responded yet - I would have been seriously tempted but in September my role at school has changed and I have to be a class teacher again, rather than providing regular cover for other teachers, so basically it will be a lot more work. I haven't been in charge of a class (albeit only three days a week this time round) for over ten years, and so I am quite nervous. So, I am hesitant about doing child minding for the two days when I am not at school. I'll think about it over night. If my registration is cancelled then so be it. I will just renew it once I move house, as inconvenient/costly as that will be.

Anyway, because I am class based next year I have been in school for three days this holiday. I took DD, and she honestly had the best three days! She stapled my borders to the walls, laminated lots of resources and used the paper cutter lots, stuck name labels on books etc. She felt so grown up! Three free days out, and she was actually old enough to be a help. Win win!

Hector's house have you stopped minding yet?

ooo Maza, that sounds exciting, and daunting all at the same time. Will your job share be able to share planning etc with you? my friend jobshares a reception class in a school, and they get together every few weeks to plan. mind you, they have been working together as a job share for 8 yrs now, and say they can telepathically read each others minds!
Great you could take DD in to help ( and she was helpful! )

maybe you could just do some ad hoc/flexible childminding? I think you might find teaching 3 days and minding 2 days too much, especially to start with. I only work 4 days, and can't see how i could go back to 5 now! ( some weeks i seriously think about cutting back to 3! )

Holidays going well .... I worked a week, had 2 weeks off on holiday, and then today was first day back for 3 more weeks of holiday! I generally only have my EY children, and a 'going into yr 1' child, that i've had since he was a baby anyway! but i came back from my holidays to 7 or 8 requests for childcare! ( those that came by email/text whilst i was away, I replied saying I was away and to please contact me again on my return ) ... 2 families I sadly can't help, 1 is coming over tomorrow to arrange after school care and another wants exactly what I can offer and even better, term time only! ( also coming tomorrow to meet me/decide/arrange ) THEN! typically one of my current mums asked this evening if I can do an extra day! I could, IF i don't take this other child, but 3 days term time only is better than 1 day all year round! I've said i need to see mum as arranged first, and IF she doesn't want space then i can. I feel torn both ways, but when i offered 'new' mum the space, i didn't know anyone else wanted it! ( and i know i could do 'continuity of care', but i'm not sure it would work with the ages of the children - all quite little ( and 2 current are stroppy girls! )

Sounds like business is booming loocyloo! Great news.

Yes, my job share will share the planning and the reports. I have known her for years - we used to both teach year 2 in parallel classes when we were both full time. I respect her professionally so that's a good start. She's retiring in a couple of years which is why she has gone part time.

The weather at least seems to have reached a happy enough medium. The start of the holidays was too hot to want to do anything or be outside for very long, and then we had days of constant heavy rain. We spent hours in the woods today (with DD's friend) and had picnic tea there - no clean up. We spent ages playing rocket balloons (string tide between two trees with a straw threaded onto the string, untied but inflated balloon attached to the straw with tape) and they had a blast. Can highly recommend it if you haven't already tried it.

I had the first week of the holidays off then last week was a little crazy with a new starter plus the older ones I have during the holidays, they are all children I have had since they were babies and have continued coming during the holidays so its a bit tricky keeping everyone happy especially the older ones who just want to spent all day on their computer games (I have a no computer games policy here plus we very rarely have the tv on) this week its a bit quieter with just 2 or 3 children each day. We try and go out even if its just over to the local park. The older are enjoying 'rock finding' if we find anyway we take them and then hide them in a different place. We have a few more weeks of holidays here as the children don't go back until 6th Sept.

Strangely, since I no longer work, I still have the ‘it’s the holidays’ feeling when the 6 weeks come! Must be 40 years of engrained routine.
I have had two of my exmindees visit recently for weekend stays with their parents. This has meant that I have been continuing to look for ideas and explored our new local area with a childminders hat on for things to do with them. The balloon / straw idea would have been a great one Maza...perhaps next time.
I loved their company and it made me realise how much I missed the company of young children, if only as an excuse to play, which I miss. I genuinely love setting up smallworld scenes....thinking about a fairy corner in the garden just for me now! It was lovely to see them in this country setting, making me think that I should have moved out of the urban environment years ago, when my lads were small....they have so much more freedoms here.
It was interesting to see how they had changed in 6 months since I last saw them too, changes in interests particularly. It made me wonder that I was keeping interests going by my choice of activities, rather than their choices being taken more into consideration...we did have times of their free choices, but it was food for thought. How much freedom of choice of toys, activities, places to go etc...do you all offer?

Ooooh, Floradora, I love 'food for thought'!

I think little ones, even babies, would let you know if we weren't providing enough activities/outings/toys of their interest. Most of them would be pretty blunt in letting you know, but with the more reserved children it takes quality observational skills to determine whether or not the activities match their interests, and then skill in knowing what to offer instead. Too many times we hear of children being written off rather than the misjudged activity being written off. I know I've been guilty of it myself. I went through a phase of wondering why DD as a 1 year old couldn't play for very long on her own. That was when I was offering her lots of commercial plastic toys which all did basically the same thing. Then I discovered heuristic play and realised that she had an amazing concentration span after all.

Gosh I could waffle on for hours about bad examples I have seen in all sorts of settings, sometimes through ignorance - like my own example, but then I believe that as a professional we have a responsibility to dig deeper into why something is not working. For me, offering children's choice of activities (within boundaries) is about British values in the early years - respect, tolerance, democracy, liberty.

On the other hand, they do have relatively little life experience, and so it is important for us to open up the world for them and offer experiences outside of their interests and even their comfort zone.

Sometimes the children are my little guinnea pigs and they do activities purely because I have seen something cute that I want to make with them. Indulgence on my part! We have to keep ourselves happy and motivated too. :)

Flora ... living rurally with children, does indeed give them more freedom to explore and be outside, but it equally means that as a parent you do more ferrying around... as buses or trains are infrequent or difficult ( read impossible) to access ( not to mention very expensive ). As you know, we moved to a rural area, and now, my children's friends where we lived in the south ( at 13 and 16 ) are getting public transport and travelling all over the place on their own or with friends. Whereas if my 2 want to go anywhere/meet friends we have to organise lifts! It works and everyone is in the same situation, but I do feel that it isn't always in their best interests (or mine!) to always be ferried around.


It is indeed food for thought about making sure we are following children's interests and not following just our own plans ... but sometimes I think children follow/are interested in something because we are enabling and extending it, rather than them flitting from thing to thing. ( Maza .. sometimes we do something just because I want to do/try it! )
I follow the children's lead and in the holidays the children pretty much have suggested all the activities we are doing; visiting local castles, woods and the beach, junk modelling and baking! X

I certainly agree loocyloo. When ds was small all his friends were in the local village and he had such a brilliant environment being a short walk into Sherwood Forest . Now he is in year 7 ( almost yr8) his friends at his school are widespread and many of his friends live in the local town where they all get together. Although I don’t like the idea of them hanging around in town anyway I do feel for him as I’m not always in a position to ferry him around and I think 11 is a little young to let him go off on (limited) public transport alone. He has invited them here over the summer and they absolutely love it but again , their parents can’t often get them here. So rural has massive advantages but it’s downsides too.

Following the child’s interests , hand in hand with in the moment planning is great , but again the downside is limited opportunity to introduce something completely new...maybe the older fashioned ideas like themes had their place after all!

I'm only working 1 and half days for a 5yo. Boy it's hard work. He doesn't like being out, playing sport, walking. He would be quite happy if he was allowed to sit and watch tv or play on the switch. Though according to his dad he shouldn't know what one is but is able to tell me every game that's out for it.

So it's very little child led here at the minute. Tuesday we collected rocks and painted them. So tomorrow we will walk down the canal to the local nature reserve to hide them.

Then I have the last two weeks booked off so would like the hot weather back please.