31/01/18

I was quite upset that today was my last day working here but had also found out that the manager wanted to keep me on and invited me in for days when she needed extra help. The children had carried out normal activities and painted a goodbye letter for me and had their hands painted in the inside. We had made the children and the toddlers had all sat down and eaten their food together on a table, the babies were then put to sleep in their cots whilst the other children who weren’t fed before now had their turn to eat their food, I fed one of the babies their broccoli and had learnt that babies need their food to be mashed quite a lot even if they have teeth coming through.

24/01/18

When I went into work today a lot of the children were getting their day started by eating their cereal and toast, this was good to see as some of the children usually get upset about having to eat and are usually very eager to wanting to play. The children were able to play in the outdoor area as well as the indoors, there were mats lined up in the floor for the children to jump on and they enjoyed this very much. A baby was crying quite a lot and it was hard for a lot of the practitioners to make him stop crying. He was getting easily agitated and then we found out that he had a very high temperature after checking it with a forehead thermometer.

17/01/18

When I came into my placement today, I noticed that some children were doing activities on decorating cupcakes and some of the older children were writing stories and doing some maths activities. This was interesting to see as some of the children were much more drawn to doing maths and learning rather than decorating their cupcakes, the children that were doing maths then went on to drawing onto colourful pieces of paper and were overserving those who were making cupcakes and decided to draw them, they were picking out all the specific colours that they were seeing. The children were then given the opportunity to watch the t.v for 15 minutes.

10/01/18

Today was a very quiet day as I had decided that I would give my time to the toddlers who usually decide to stay indoors and I am usually outdoors. The toddlers and babies today were given blocks to stack up and were able to build buildings. The toddlers really enjoyed building something up and then knocking the blocks back down. This was really good for the children as it helped them to learn about how things can be fixed after they have been broken. I was then able to read books to the children and also give them their lunch and snacks.

03/01/18

A lot of the children had not come into the childcare home today as a lot of them were on holiday or some were ill due to the cold weather. Due to this the children didn’t go outdoors today and rather we had circle time and the children were able to express what they had done for the new years and also what they had done for Christmas. I had fed some of the babies their milk and also had washed up many of the plates for the children and also their drinking cups. As there were not a lot of children I was able to sit everyone down and we read a book out loud. I was pointing to all the pictures they had pointed out and we went through the different colours and shapes in the book. The children were then given a biscuit as a snack and I was able to help put some of the babies to sleep by rocking them in my arms and placing them in a cot and giving them their blankets and dummies.

27/12/17

By today I was sure that I wanted to do my presentation on the importance of outdoor play, so today I decided that I would be good to do an observation on how the younger children reacting to playing outdoors without the influence of observing what the school children were doing. I was noticing that the toddlers were happy to just walk around and follow on another, whilst others were happy to run after a ball that was being thrown around. The toddlers had learnt to climb upon the banisters as they had learnt this from the school children. The toddlers were being supported by practitioners and were being held on the banisters to allow them to play and sing on the bannisters. The children enjoyed this very much and liked the idea of swinging and playing with what they had. Some of the toddlers were also walking over to the side of the garden where there was a lot of mud and grass for them to play with. The children had collected some sticks and were sticking them into the mud to allow them to stand up, they found this very entertaining and had allowed themselves to collect as many tree branches as possible to decorate the mud.

20/12/17

Today, my sister and I brought in an activity for the children to do which was Christmas themed. We both decided the children will be decorating a felt tree and will be able to glue and stick things onto it as they please. The ages of the children who took part in the activity were from the ages of 2 to about 8 years old. It was a very cold day today and most of the children were not wanting to play outdoors. Some of the children who did were climbing up on the trampoline and jumping around. Some of the other children had decided to do the hokey pokey nursery rhyme. They all held hand and ran in a circle afterwards. The children were enjoying the activity very much and were excited that they had total freedom over what they could stick onto their own Christmas tree.

13/12/17

I was very excited to start my first day at the placement today. The thought of learning new ideas and gaining new skills was very exciting. Also meeting new children was exciting as I have a passion for working with young children. I was greeted by the manager of the childcare and was introduced to the babies that were at the placement. The babies were playing with a puzzle activity and were babbling along to nursery rhymes that the practitioner was singing alongside them. Some children were allowed to go outdoors and play with on the bikes and trampoline. The children were playing tag games and running around trying to chase each other. I also joined with the children and helped them stay engaged in their play. Some children enjoyed climbing on the bannisters and swinging on them whilst trying to hold on. I was able to prepare food for the children and create vegetable plates for the children who were being up from school as this was a childcare placement. The toddlers were given some activities to do with a counting board and I observed them counting to colours and familiarising themselves with the colours.