Weekend staff room

[mumlove]

Morning everyone.

Up and ready to go on my story telling course, I will need coffee to stay awake.

Have sent DH and DD off to watch the steam train as we missed it last week because it left an hour early! Went with them at 7.30pm to the sidings behind our house for a quick look though.

Have got my notepad and pen, see you when I get back. Have a great day.

Story telling course sounds like fun... do let us know what tips you get.

When telling stories to groups of children, such as at nursery, I find that group participation is vital - rhyming books are good for that, as the children can learn repetitive sections "a Gruffalo! What's a Gruffalo?" Younger children will respond to you saying "there's no such thing as a"... pause... and they will respond "Gruffalo".

Sounds good, let us know how it goes

Well I'm not going to get a great deal of work done this weekend as I'm on a Hen Night in Reading tonight and god knows what state I'll be in tomorrow. Couple of friends staying over so no lay in to help hangover! lol. I'm looking forward to a girly night out after what has been a tough couple of weeks. I've had a nightmare with new mindee but all good now as she's now at after school club instead and only comes to me in the morning (phew - you should have seen the tantrum she had here at pickup time on Thursday when her mum said it was the toddler's turn for some attention as hadn't seen her all day!! - the older child is nearly 5!). I've also been having doubts about childminding, my relationship etc. (I may as well say now as I stupidly outed myself anyway by forgetting to change back to my normal name in Friday's staff room ) so my head has been all over the place. Tonight I'm just going to let my hair down and forget about everything

What's everyone else up to this weekend? Not looking nice out there after a lovely week or so!!

Nick - I'm going to try and organise another get together in the summer hols, you up for that? Just trying to decide where the best place would be? California Country Park again or somewhere else? (Dinton Pastures, Lookout???)

Right, off to play the Wii with ds1 who has been nagging me!!

Have a good one

Morning (but only just)

I have a parent coming in half an hour on a Saturday

Meetup sounds good. I would prefer something like going for a buggy walk to a cafe and back again. Could do that in Windsor Great Park (Bishopsgate to Village Postoffice/Cafe is about 4 miles there and back). But I realise not everyone is up for doing that kind of thing. Dinton Pastures is a possible one (can you check parking cost, was £1 when I last went there).

Making lunch now... then watching Yes Man on DVD. Then I think I will go swimming (I'm at CenterParcs yet again).

Ok well I'll set up a thread on here and get feedback from people. I'm ok with that on certain days, the only reason I can't do BIG walks on other days is I have a lot of littlies (4 under 2's, oldest only being 2.3) and whoever can't fit in the triple buggy would get tired legs. Leave it with me though!

Enjoy CenterParcs, you're there a lot these days, do you have a special ticket or something??

Katy - good luck with meeting

p.s. parking at Dinton still around £1 (50p for up to an hour, £1 for more hours but can't remember how long)

I'm back

After the 1st hour I wondered when the man was going to start the story telling but then I managed to work out that he had already!!!!
He started by telling us about his life with books from his dad reading them to him then becoming a head teacher to designing the story sack. (maybe I should of had more coffee before going )

When telling stories you must use your whole body, the children, face expressions, props the list goes on....

Got a shock at the figures he showed us of how many parents don't read to their children.

Off out now to spend some time with DD.

Mixed feelings about this one

Any way - the local sports centre has asked me to run a creche n their premises

Nick what do you know about creches?

Not much alas Katy... with EYFS the rules on Creche's changed. Some types of creche may now be exempt from Ofsted registration.

Exemption From Registration Order 2008

Exempt temporary provision

5.?(1) The circumstances referred to in articles 2(2) and 2(4) are where the provision is made?
(a) for a particular child?
(i) for two hours or less per day, or
(ii) for four hours or less per day and the provision is offered?
(aa) on a day to day basis with no longer term commitment to clients, and
(bb) for the convenience of clients who intend to remain on the premises where the provision is made or within their immediate locality;

You would of course need to verify with Ofsted that the provision is considered by them to be exempt. I suspect it may be if children don't attend for more than 4 hours and the parents are still on the premises.

Hmm That's interesting

Actually I don't think I can run it for him - I have been doing 'back of the envelope' calculations & I can't afford to take the risk

look here

looney - I'm always up for a school holiday outing (on days when I can fit all the children in the car) (or tied to the buggy if we're walking somewhere).