HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023!

[loocyloo]

Hello!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a restful and wonderful Christmas and is spending today- just like me - getting tidied up and ready for the mayhem of the next half term! ( and finding all the bits of paperwork etc that i just filed in a box, rather than spend 15 minutes actually putting it away at the end of term !! )

Does anyone have any exciting plans?

I'm going to have a quiet week settling everyone back in ( and possibly a new starter! Parent rang earlier ... her childminder has given immediate notice ( giving up ) and she needs care until July! going to visit and see where we go! ) and then we'll have a little look at Epiphany on Friday and that finishes off Christmas. I'm planning on being outside more ... depending upon my babies! I'm hoping they both really got the hang of it in the last 2 weeks and come back ready to run! We'll also be looking vaguely at Winter.

stay warm and safe and dry!

[Mouse]

Happy New Year everyone!

We had a lovely Christmas. Busy as always, but lots of fun.

I'm not back at work until 9th Jan, so I've got another week to get prepared. The first week back, a few of the children are increasing their days so we'll be taking it easy to help them get settled in. They're going from either 1 to 3 days, or 2 to 4 days, so I think the first week will tire them out, especially after the Christmas holidays.

We'll also be doing a Winter theme, of sorts. What we do usually depends on the weather. If it's cold and icy it's much easier to get into it than if we're having sunny winter days

[Pixie dust]

Happy New Year ! We had a lovely family Christmas but it went by so fast.

First day back today, yesterday I did do a big tidy up of the playroom and garden Loocyloo. The garden was my priority as with all the wet weather we have been having everything needed a clean down. I am hoping to be outside a bit more too as the children behave so differently when they are outside plus I have seen a lot of childminders locally did the 1000 hours outdoors challenge last year. No exciting plans just following the children's lead as most of them were off for over two weeks due to various bugs. We will look at Winter at some point, we will make some bird feeders etc.


The children have come back today and two out of the three have now dropped their naps one of them was so tired by lunch time they have gone for a sleep anyway, the routine here is so different to when they are home as mum did say they have been sleeping in unlike this morning when they had to be up early to be dropped off.

Enjoy your week whatever you are doing!

[loocyloo]

my 2 'big' boys ( 3.5 & 6 ) asked to go to the beach !!!!

So we did! it wasn't too cold, or blowy, and it wasn't even raining !!!! We had a brilliant time digging a big river for the sea to use and then went out for Fish & Chips for lunch!
6 yr old said 'my teacher isn't going to believe me that we went to the beach today' I said 'possibly not, but Mrs X & Ms Y will, if you tell them I took you'

We're now sitting colouring and painting peacefully, and watching the rain splash on the patio! I had planned to get my slaves ( I mean 'big boys' ) to help me tidy up/sort the garden, but looks like I'll be doing it on my own another day!

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[Pixie dust]

Sounds like you had a great day! Our school went back today so we were straight back to school runs and of course it rained

[loocyloo]

Sounds like you had a great day! Our school went back today so we were straight back to school runs and of course it rained

Of course it did! It threw it down here at school run too!

[loocyloo]

Oh my!

It's Wednesday again! How has it come round so fast?!

I hope everyone has settled back to school and work! I feel as if I'm stuck in a whirlwind of chaos! I've had an unexpected 3 yr old new starter who is settling in well, but ruffling a few feathers!

DD is in panto so we're in the usual mayhem of rehearsals and that seems to be dictating what we do!

I'm not wishing January away, but life should be calmer in February

[Pixie dust]

Morning !

Just like that it's Friday morning. My working week has flown by we haven't done anything of major excitement but life is a bit challenging at the moment as I have one little one who has additional needs which is quite difficult at the moment and takes up most of my day.

Loocyloo hopefully things will calm down for you soon well next month anyway

As I don't work Fridays I have sat and enjoyed a quiet breakfast and written my 'to do' list ready for the day ahead, it mainly consists of lots of work related admin(2 year checks, funding etc) and housework. Lets see how distracted I get with more exciting things like looking at the new rescue catalogues that have popped through the letter box the last couple of days

Have a good weekend everyone .....where has everyone got as its quieter than ever

[loocyloo]

Afternoon!

I was thinking forum was even quieter than it was!
Hope you're managing to get your jobs done Pixie!

[Mouse]

How come the weekend is almost over? I'm sure I've lost a day somewhere

Last week was my first week back after the hols. The children were all excited to be back and the week flew by. We didn't really have anything planned, other than toddler group and library story time, but it gave us all chance to get settled back in.
The weather's looking like it'll be cold next week, so we'll have a winter theme going on. I'm hoping it's going to be cold enough for us to freeze water shapes outside.

Enjoy what's left of your weekend everyone.

[Pixie dust]

Afternoon!

I was thinking forum was even quieter than it was!
Hope you're managing to get your jobs done Pixie!

Didn't get everything done .....easily distracted

The weather's looking like it'll be cold next week, so we'll have a winter theme going on. I'm hoping it's going to be cold enough for us to freeze water shapes outside.

I have planned something similar for this week as I have seen the predicted weather.....

Have a good week and keep warm.

[loocyloo]

MY OH MY!

It's the last weekend of January !!! How did that happen?!

Hope everyone is keeping well, safe & warm.

DD & DH are entering last 4 panto performances ( DD dancing and DH in band ) I'm there all weekend too! Looking forward to having some time to think next week! Had a bit of a moment when one of my little ones gave notice for the summer unexpectedly, but, amazingly ... have filled the space already ! One won't take it up until the September, but thats fine ... i'll enjoy a couple of quieter days. It will be crazy though come sept with 2 new little babes starting! but i had the same sort of thing this year!

Has anyone done anything for Chinese New Year? I'm 'doing' it next week, as this past week has been Burns Night and Australia day which actually have more relevance to my children than Chinese New Year! I've been given the 'Maisy's Chinese New Year' book by Lucy Cousins and it's brilliant... tells you all about it in an interesting way! Highly recommend it. Not sure what we'll actually do, apart from some Rabbit & Dragon craft and watching the various CNY bits of CBeebies. I think we'll watch and see what sparks the children's imagination.

Have fun everyone xxx

[Pixie dust]

We were just saying today that we can't believe how quickly January has gone, must be because we are getting older! You won't know what to do when the pantomime is finished and you are not ferrying everyone about

I didn't do anything for Chinese New Year as mine are all quite young and would not have understood so we have been doing a lot around Winter as it's been so cold and frost here. In the past we have made a Chinese dragon out of boxes which they loved.

I am only losing one child to school this year and that's not a definite yet as they have additional needs and mum mentioned the other day about delaying starting school which I am not going to encourage as I am finding things quite challenging at times, if they decide against school I am going to have to say that I can not have them after September and it is now beginning to impact on the other children.

Have a good week!

[Mouse]

January usually drags by, but this year it seems to have flown by!

For Chinese new year I got out the books I'd had from last year. The children were really interested in them. I also put the chinese bowls and chopsticks in the play kitchen. It didn't seem very imaginative on my part, but the children all enjoyed it.

I hope the panto's gone well, Loocyloo. I know when DD was dancing it took over our lives for weeks at a time, then when competitions etc were over, I kind of missed all the dashing around!

Are any of your schools on strike next week? Will you have extra children? I don't know of any local schools that are closing, although I guess that could change. If they do I might have one extra child, but that'll be all.