Themes

[CarolineRussen]

Hi, I had my registration visit yesterday and all went well. ..exciting times

[Glitter]

I found it best not to buy too many resources until I knew what age of children I would be looking after. I just found a few basic items (toy animals, tea set, wooden bricks) and added lots of natural resources we collected on walks (pine cones, small logs, smooth stones). This was enough to make my setting look nice until I started to earn some money to buy more.

As for themes I wrote down all the seasons and added in anything special happening in them (like bonfire night being in autumn). I then added in a weekly theme based on what the children were interested in that week. So one week it was ants, the next motorbikes, then horses. I found that was an easy way to show planning around the child's interests.

Good luck with starting up.:)

[Maza]

Excellent advice from Glitter.

Look in charity shops for good quality toys. You could get some paint (ELC do good ones) as all age groups like painting. You could start saving scrap paper for drawings and yogurt pots/cardboard tubes/egg boxes etc for model making.

Our Sure start centre has an arts and craft sale once a week and I go there and buy tissue paper, card, glue, glitter etc at a very low cost.

[sarah707]

Start slowly... a month in advance - use the internet and professional magazines for guidance.

Remember though that the most important type of planning you can do is individual - based on the child's likes, dislikes and current interests.

And most of all enjoy! Plan things that you all love doing every day - music, reading, playing, chatting, drawing and time to just sit and do nothing if that's what the children want to do :D

[CarolineRussen]

Thanks for your advice x I put it out on social networking to see if anyone wanted to donate any good quality used toys to my new venture and had a massive response which was brilliant.

Now time to get going xxx

[Maza]

What an amazing idea! Lucky you. x