Planning activities for toddlers

[Saz]

Ok, I already have a 15 month old lined up for when I am registered. I want to get ahead of the game (and practice some activities with my own 16 month old dd). I have a daily routine planned very roughly in terms of meals, snacks and school runs but I need to add some structured activities.

What kind of activities does everyone do with little ones?

My inspector asked about activities to encourage the child's development and how I would move the child onto the next stage of development through related activities.

[sarah707]

First spend plenty of time finding out about the child and the way he learns - ask parents and watch closely. See how he interacts, what his fave toys / games etc are and get a feel for how he learns.

Then think about how you can take his learning further - so if he likes playing with the cars, think about mark making with wheels, painting or drawing cars, watching cars when out on a walk, spotting size and colour differences etc...

At 15 months, you aren't going to be doing an awful lot of planned activities - they will come from rising 3... at this age it's about following what the child likes, with what you can plan to extend their learning.

Hope this helps

[Tatia]

I absolutely agree with Sarah. Until you spend at least a few days observing child at play, you can't plan for the next steps. What you can do to get yourself ready is provide a range of activities at the child's level so he can choose what he wants to play with (within reason). Think about the different areas of development and have an assortment of age-appropriate activities on hand. Heck, most of the time, all my lovely long term and even medium term planning goes right out the window and I concentrate on day to day or week to week at the most, led nicely by the child's current interests.

[Saz]

Thanks, I think, lol!

So basically just go with the flow. I have lots of age appropriate toys already for my own little one. But I was worried that I had to get into thinking about the areas of development from B23 or EYFS.

I still don't know which one to go with as I guess my first inspection will be around September. The inspector at my pre-reg was quite adamant that I need to be using B23 right now wheras I am attending a EYFS training course next month and had planned to use that from day one so that I have stuff ready and correct for my 6 month inspection.

[angeldelight]

You could look at the activitys that I did in the Birth to Three section on page 2 I think

Some good ideas there for toddlers so might give you an idea

Angel xx

[Saz]

Thanks, I am have just been looking at the EYFS section of the forum. But think I need to read my pack more thoroughly (only flicked through it really so far). Now off to investigate B23 section of forum for ideas.

I don't think I really understand how to do observations! Which I think is causing me the concern about planning activities to develop the child. However I have printed off a great thread I found where a trip to feed the ducks is detailed with each type of development.

[sarah707]

I don't think I really understand how to do observations! Which I think is causing me the concern about planning activities to develop the child. However I have printed off a great thread I found where a trip to feed the ducks is detailed with each type of development.

In short... play with and watch the child, see them doing something new, jot it down (not a long diatribe, just a jot) and ask yourself how you can plan to extend the activity... so if the child is enjoying listening to a bell, you could get out the musical instruments or do some singing sessions as she is obviously experimenting with hearing new sounds....

Then look at how that links to eyfs - like with the ducks planning you've found.

Hope that helps!

[deeb66]

As Sarah says the observation doesn't have to be long winded.

It was recommended on my EYFS training that we use a sticky label system to write the observations which can then be transferred to the childs individual file.

The main rule of observations is to make sure they are factual and with examples and not your interpretation.

E.g

Instead of writing -

Jack enjoys counting and can nearly count to 10



You should put -

Jack can count to 10 as he said 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.


It would also be good if you could add where Jack was, what sort of thing you were doing and what time of day.

E.G

Date:xx/xx/xxxx
Playing with magnetic numbers
Home - 10am

From this observation you know that the next step is to teach jack how to finish counting to 10 and perhaps add on 11,12 & 13

I hope this helps.

[angeldelight]

Yes I agree with Dee

Hows it going have you given it a bash with your son now ?

Angel xx