Mindees and EYFS

[Jemima77]

Hello,
I currently am looking after my son who is 2, a LO 21 months (part time) and I am starting next week with a 1 year old (part time) and his brother who is 3and a half (2 days per week) the older one I am going to pick up from nursery at 11.30 till 2pm.
I am really worried (as I havent yet had my EYFS training) about what to do to cover all that I should be doing. By the time we get home and had lunch we will only have approx 1 hour before they go home. So what activities can we do in that short time?
I am currently doing a daily diary for the 21 month olds parents and also doing one weekly in depth observation and I am using those clouds (on the Bromley website) to log a daily observation.
How can I do this though with the 3 year old? and do I need to be setting a monthly theme? I did start off by doing this but they just wern't interested in the planned activities and just wanted to play and choose their own activity.......I am so confused
Thanks alot for any help xx

[sarah707]

You should be offering a balance of child and adult play... so if they want to go off and do something, that's fine, just work to what they are enjoying and add more activity ideas to their play (that's the adult led bit)...

The 3 year old will need a little more structured approach so think about planning activiites to keep him involved and help him to learn ... but always base them round play and fun.

You need to think about how you are going to plan from observations of what you see the children enjoying doing... or for activities you know children will enjoy.

Hth

[Pauline]

You don't really need to be doing a weekly indepth observation. Every 4 - 6 weeks is what we are being told in training. Unless you have concerns for a child, then you need to do them more often.