CHILDMINDERS - talk to me for a moment, if you please!

cool you were having hassle with his school last time i spoke to you hope thats all sorted now x

so did i candifloss! i only have teens!

i ment your teen

candifloss, my ds is just fine and dandy!
plods along without a care in the world other than how big he can stretch his ear lobe...ewwwwwww!

Mindees been and gone today, off to college in an hour or so

I could be on here all day every day this week as I am on half term, in fact as I work term time only I could be on here 14 weeks of the year non stop!

me too smee actually two of my kids have sick bug. I chose to be a cm to not have to answer to anyone ha irony. nanny nick you live very near me wonder if i have seen you about smee hows your boy now x

just logging in to let you all know i HAVE A DAY OFF so may possibly be surfing the net all day......just in case anyones checking!

Thanks Littlefish

They are all ideas I have already agreed to (apart from the mixing ages - as I do that already - the room will be 2-5)

How would you feel about the children sitting at normal sized tables - I wonder at the artificialness of small tables

wow nick i am loving that placemat idea - that is sooooooo cool - we could do that at c/m group as they have a laminater !!!

Nannynick , you have the most wonderful ideas, I am going to get them to write over their name if they are old enough, maybe get them to draw where their spoon etc should go and put allergy list on before laminating it for them.

I do have the bakerross handprint placemats but I think this would be better for us to identfy which child is/not allowed to have which foods at a glance. You can't always look at contracts when preparing meals can you?

Great, activity planned for tuesday! Making placemats before lunch! Dunno in mindee will enjoy it, he's not really into writing and he is 4 and in reception class. Will let you know how it goes....

Hey, maybe stick a 3 piece suite in, a PC in the corner to use for IT, the usual junk you get in your living room -toys, fireguard, video/dvd with lock, socket covers everywhere and stairgates on doors - and bingo you are childminder-like!

Thats what my house looks like from Mon - fri - something resembling a nursery. At weekends its a 'normal' family room.

I have to laugh about OFSTED too, maybe they could learn from you Littlefish, its time they did anyway my house is not a nursery (yet).

Siblings need not be next to each other... just on the same table. In fact siblings next to each other may cause the same sort of issues you get at home... poking each other etc.

Allergy info should be as clear as possible at all times, so placemats certainly help. Also it helps agency staff to know children's name - as the placemat has picture of child on (in middle) plus their name printed on. Educationally wise, they teach Children to recognise their name and also to know where knife, fork, spoon go. Picture the placemat if you can, as having shapes for where each item is put - hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the ideas NannyNick. I'm hoping that with the new shared age area, they will see the sense in having mixed age tables for meals too. It helps on a purely practical level with staff going off on lunches because the ratios are easier to sort out (I hope). (love the idea of siblings sitting together too )

Really like the idea of the placemats too - particlarly as we seem to have quite a lot of agency staff at the moment, so as you say, it would really help re. allergies/vegetarian etc.

Family style eating I really like the sound of. Even better to have that as multi-age group, so there are a variety of ages at each table. Also siblings could sit together.
Perhaps there could be some rotation of children as well - so they all get to know each other. For example, each child could have their own placemat, which is put somewhere different each time. Tip: Placemat can be handy for including details of foods a child is not permitted to have / allergies. Placemat could be a laminated A3 or A4 sheet (depending on size of plates used).

I've been in small nurseries where everyone sat around a big table - one adult at each end, children on both sides. Cold food, on plates in middle. Hot food at side of room, with ladles. Children line up to get their hot food in small groups (so 3 or 4 children at a time) - the older children could help themselves (younger children assisted) - when they return to the table, more children are sent to get their hot food. Once all children had got their food, staff going on their own lunch break could go... leaving others with the children, sat at the table (if they were the designated ones), or on a separate staff table. I think this was how it worked - been a few years since I temped at the nursery.

Well Katymac - that's my challenge isn't it!. The difficulty is that I'm only in the nursery 1 day a week, and not everyone working in the nursery shares my ideas .

However, the sort of things we currently do are:

• have proper sofas where children can relax/read books/listen to stories

• provide feedback for parents through books of photographs of their child with comments about the learning that's taking place

• providing snacks on a "snack bar" type basis so that children can help themselves when they are hungry, rather than be dictated to

• plant vegetables (in troughs) in our very small garden so that the children can make the connection between growing, cooking and eating

• children wear slippers or socks in the nursery (depends whether you think this is a feature of home life or not!)

-times every day when the older children (3-5s) can play with the younger children (2-3s)

• hopefully after half term, we will have a permanent shared area for the two different age groups where they will eat, have open ended creative and exploratory opportunities, and socialise

• also after half term, we're moving to a "family style" of eating where the children will sit round a table with an adult and all serve themselves, rather than have their food served to them from a central point

Any more ideas would be greatly appreciated! What do you do in your homes that you think would work well in nurseries? e.g. MaureenMLove's mindees e-mail their parents at work which I think is a fabulous idea and brings a real purpose to IT for children.

Littlefish - as you know I'm opening a nursery - I would be very interested in the stuff you do to make the nursery more childminder like as that is what I intend for my nursery

just made mw laugh little fish while your busy trying to make yout nursery more homelike Oftead on hot on their heels trying to make childminders more like nurserys

I'm a teacher (usually Reception), but I moved out of school partly because I felt that many children in Early Years were having unrealistic expectations placed on them at too young an age.

I now work in a 0-5 centre, some of my time is as a nursery teacher. I've seen some good practice there, but I still don't think that a nursery setting compares (for younger children) with being in a home environment.

As I can understand the reasons why nurseries suit some parents (almost no chance of nursery being closed due to staff ill health, open 52 weeks a year etc. etc.), I want to do my best to make the environment within the nursery as close to a home environment as possible ie. like that of a childminder.

I said on a previous thread that I feel that the EYFS is absolutely in line with the seamless approach that childminders have always offered to children in their care - looking at each child as an individual, regardless of age, moving from one stage of development to another in a child centred, practical, caring and intuitive way.

Working in a nursery, but having my child with a childminder has caused me to be asked some awkward questions in the past. However, I still firmly believe that for my child, a childminder is absolutely the right choice. Unlike some of the parents I work with, I positively wanted my child to have the opportunity to develop a close bond with one special person. In no way did I feel that it threatened my relationship with dd, it just strengthened her ability to forge strong relationships with trusted adults.

I applaud you all for the excellent work you do.

Not really a very exciting reason KaySamuels, but it's a really important issue for me.

Hi littlefish your posts on the thread were lovely - so what do you do and why??

I read that thread and couldn't even be bothered to be post. Most parents on the thread said they didn't want or expect constant one on one stimulation for their kids - common sense seemed to come through thankfully.

OP clearly has no idea how busy cmers are, it's rare I get on here during a working day, unless I have a gap between part timers coming and going.

Since I started cm'ing lunch is usually a sandwhich standing up, hot drinks are a thing of the past and I seem to spend every evening on paperwork /diaries /coursework /training /planning, good for fgure bad for energy levels. I think OP will have great trouble finding childcare to match her high expectations.

Actually, just a very grateful parent!

Honorary childminder here (as invited by MaureenMLove).

I will try if I remember!

The poster must want us from the moment the first mindee arrives to the last one leaving we must not leave their sides, play with them etc. So no toilet time, no coffee, no lunch.
Can smile about this one she can write to ofsted and tell them that we cannot do observations on mindees as we need to play with them, no time for writing!!
We would not even be able to sit and write out mindees diary. She needs to see how much work we do when mindees are not with us, it's nearly 24/7, as I always go to bed thinking about activities to do etc.