It's the start of another week...another week closer to the school holidays! When do your schools break up? Our last day of term is 22nd July, although some of the schools are having the last day as an inset day and closing on 21st. I'm usually quieter during the holidays but one of my ex-parents has asked if I can have her child a couple of days a week and I've said I will. I'll also have my grandson here so it'll be different to having just my usual littlies.

After this summer I'm thinking of changing when I have my holidays. Ever since I started childminding I've always taken my holidays during the school holidays. At first it was to fit in with my children being at school, then to fit in with the minded children who had teacher parents (I always seemed to have at least 2). Of course it's always meant we're going on holiday at the most expensive times. At the moment I close for 2 weeks at Christmas, a week at Easter, a week in August and May or October half term. After September I'll keep my 2 weeks off at Christmas, but change the others to holidays during the term. It's quite liberating to think that after 25 years we're not going to be restricted to school holiday holidays!

What's everyone got planned for this week? We're going to have a football day on Wednesday. The children can come in footy clothes, or red & white clothes, or the colours of their home country. We made England flags last week, so this week we're going to look at the flags of different countries. I also need to hunt out some football related books. Other than that we're going to go with the flow and dodge the showers and thunderstorms!

Have good days everyone