Another garden question??

[SarahJellybean]

Hello, I have not started minding yet but have two children of m own, their favourite activity at the moment is digging in soil, filling buckets up and carrying it around, pretening to plant things, and digging up worms. Is there any reason why mindees cannot do this when I start? A nursery I worked in a while ago had a ban on children touching compost, I can't remember what their reason was though!

Also, I was looking at some "tree blocks" online at a lovely price of £34, I showed my Dad and he cut some up for me. Can I use these? They have been sanded so no splinters but obv they don't have any safety mark or whatever toys are supposed to have!

[SarahJellybean]

I'm thinking along the lines of a "mud pie kitchen" and providing pots, pans and spoons, would the Ofsted inspector freak out at this?

[sharonmanc]

Ofsted would love these ideas, I recently had my inspection and this was on my action plan to make an outside mud pie kitchen and also a water play area made with guttering, and it is what Ofsted wrote as my action, to create natural play spaces. Just risk assess everything

[blue bear]

The mud area is the most popular part of my garden, that and the hose pipe on my last ofsted report the inspector mention the rotting logs in my garden as a positive.

[SarahJellybean]

Thankyou, also my dad brought some guttering and some beer crates, not sure what to do with them yet maybe just leave them loose for their own ideas.

[brillminder]

cars, balls, teddies and water for the gutter and the children will balance it on the grates i bet , mine do have some different lenghts and buckets and bowls for catching any items slide down x

[bunyip]

Hello, I have not started minding yet but have two children of m own, their favourite activity at the moment is digging in soil, filling buckets up and carrying it around, pretening to plant things, and digging up worms. Is there any reason why mindees cannot do this when I start? A nursery I worked in a while ago had a ban on children touching compost, I can't remember what their reason was though!

Also, I was looking at some "tree blocks" online at a lovely price of £34, I showed my Dad and he cut some up for me. Can I use these? They have been sanded so no splinters but obv they don't have any safety mark or whatever toys are supposed to have!

Compost should be pretty safe so long as it isn't very old or have been contaminated with some thing else (eg. not been where animals can pee in it, etc.)

There have been a few very rare cases of gardeners contracting "farmers' lung" from dust/microbes/spores/funghi in compost. But that has invariably been down to very old compost that has been stored too long or improperly. Some concern has been raised recently in gardening circles cos the new "recipes" for commercial compost are obliged to reduce the use of peat, and increase the use of composted garden waste for "ecological" reasons. This is because, with the old peat-heavy mixtures, manufacturers had much more control over what went into the mix but far less control with the modren mixes. This doesn't mean there's anything intrinsically unhealthy about the new mixes, only perhaps that in some people's opinions it might be too early to judge. There's certainly no particular evidence of problems with new, fresh composts.