Mummy&Roo

Today we joined our childminder and the gang at Forest School. Forest school is an opportunity for the children to play and learn in an outdoor, messy, fun setting. There's a mud kitchen, bug viewers, a den, mud art. They make natural crafts and then have hot chocolate and biscuits around a fire. While I was there they were planning future visits (they go weekly) and how they would fit them in with their topics. I now know this is going to involve making bird feeder and some food adventures with the fire. I can hear some of you already "there's a fire, and children?!" yes there is a fire but the children go no where near it, there is a visual barrier of sticks, lots of supervision and most importantly they are taught. How can children ever learn about fire safety if they're never exposed to fire? I agree that it's better they are exposed to and experience risk at an early age so they can learn to handle that risk rather than just developing a fear. This go...

Yesterday I decided to make Roo a phonics game, it didn't go quite to plan.  My thought process was to create a game which teaches something important, something battery free and something we could play together. Great I thought, serious Mum points for me! I followed the early years guidance of teaching sounds in special sets, the first of which is s, a, t, i, p, n. I created letter cards and 9 images which match the sounds. I went for a simple first draft with the plan of creating a neater laminated one afterwards.  The game is simple, match the word sounds to the letter. Teaching letter recognition and sounds. At this point I was still basking in my amazing plan and the flurry of Mum points due to me. The first maybe 3 minutes of playing went really well, she was interested and liked the pictures. Then is went horribly downhill! Roo likes to be able to do things, she likes to feel smart and get applause. As soon as she realised she wasn't very ...