Wash our hands…again!
This morning like many of you I received a big envelope in the post from Safe food, the food safety promotion board here in Ireland. It contained two massive full colour laminate posters teaching a hand washing game similar to the one I posted here some months back in my ‘cut out and keep’ section http://www.mumandminder.com/2010/04/wash-your-hands/
While I think that its great that the government are thinking in terms of educating young children on the importance of hygiene and hand washing and trying to instill such healthy habits, I do think that there are more cost effective and environmentally friendly ways to disseminate such information.
If they made the information available online through the relevant websites for the different childcare sectors, teachers and childcare works could simply learn the game and teach it, along with actions. This would have a far better chance of hitting home with pre-school children who always enjoy a song with actions taught by an engaged teacher. They can’t read our lovely colorful signs anyway!
I received two of these envelopes, so my name must be duplicated on their lists some how but can you just imagine the cost of printing and distribution alone…when they could have just come to my blog 
My education
I spent the vast majority of my teenage summers camping in France with my family. I learned a lot those summers and it had a huge impact on certain aspects of my attitude to life. Aside from netting me an honour in French, I picked up a lot of my attitude to food from eating and drinking there with French families.
As they say, everything in moderation, even moderation. I had my first drink there, wine bien sûr, enjoyed at the table with my parents and our friends, as I hope one day to do with my almost teenage son (only 7 months to go argh!)
I also like to cook from scratch every day and try to avoid the frozen food option at the end of a long day by just not keeping it in the house. I also try to prepare the main meal before lunch when I am not so tired and sometimes get a few minutes during nap times.
Another thing I try not to stock is shop bought sweets and biscuits, as much for my own sake as anyone else’s, I used to be 6 stone heavier than I am now and I know its a slippery slope. I do make treats and I don’t mind giving the children chocolate – so long as its an ingredient in something I have prepared myself and of good quality, 70 or 80% cocoa. We had our four year old’s birthday party at the weekend and I’m sure some of the mums attending thought I must live on the stuff!
Sound like I know it all? Well don’t worry, I don’t. I have fussy kids and rejected vegetables and a mother looking over my shoulder telling me to give in and give them the chicken nuggets. Am I right to stick it out or am I just stubborn? I don’t know, I know they don’t starve and sometimes I get my way and the casserole gets eaten, even if it is the second time its been put on the table, I think its worth the wait.
My Autumn schedule
- art, nature & care
Schedule of classes and sessions for September 2010
- Morning nature kindergarten sessions – this is a session which will run daily Monday to Thursday, from 9am to 1pm. It is aimed at the 1 to 3 age group and will incorporate a rhythm of outdoor play, arts and crafts, baking, sharing a meal and a rest time. Children may attend for one or all mornings.
- Saturday sessions – From Saturday September 25th I will be offering Saturday sessions, from 10am to 12.30pm for 1 to 3’s and from 3pm to 5.30pm for school age children. This will be similar to the nature kindergarten or our very popular art camps, emphasising rhythms of activity and rest, with outdoor time and arts and crafts.
All sessions incorporate a shared meal so children should bring a small healthy snack.
Morning kindergarten is €20 per morning or €65 for a four day week.
All Saturday sessions are €15 per session.
Contact Deirdre:
086 2626525
061 374100
info@anfeirmbeag.com
www.anfeirmbeag.com
Deirdre has worked as a teacher and childminder for the past 12 years, she holds an honours degree in Fine art, Fetac level 6 in childcare as well as many other relevant qualifications. Deirdre has worked previously in national schools as an art teacher and in Raheenwood Steiner national school as the afternoon care leader.
What a busy summer!
I don’t know where the summer has gone! With a new baby settling in, a little pre-schooler art camp in July and another coming up next week, the months have flown.
I’m enjoying being so busy, each day is filled with so much action though, its hard to get time for ‘me’ things!
Every day we take a walk,either here in the hills near my home,
or we go to the beautiful lake beach and forest we are blessed to have only four miles away. We feed the ducks and swans and check out whats growing, my daughter is particularly interested in what is edible!
I have started to get up every morning between 5 and 6 to fit in a bit of writing time before the children wake, this seems the best way to fit it in and the silence at that time makes a nice change of pace!
The art camps are fun, I do felt bag making, collage, painting, gardening and baking, its wonderful to see their excitement as a project unfolds.
So this is how I end my days, exhausted but happy, loading the dishwasher before collapsing in the corner with a book, because it all begins again in a few hours!
my long post break and wild strawberry picking
I have taken quiet a long break from posting to this blog. This was partly because I have recently welcomed a baby to my home for full time care, and as I’m sure you know if you are a childminder who cares for babies, I’ve been busy! It’s not that I didn’t have a moment to myself, it is more accurate to say that my head was (and still is to a lesser extent) in a different place to that needed for reflective writing.
When a new child starts in my home, it is important to me how that relationship begins and how everyone involved, the baby, my children and myself experiences that transition. In this case, my youngest and the new child are only five months apart. Although in the future this will result in a close friendship for them, for now it creates confusing emotions for a child used to the undivided attention of the primary carer. But I think that we have begun to turn the corner on this and I have in recent days been able to enjoy moments of happy screeching as the babies begin to interact comfortably with each other.
I take the children outside daily and today was the first day in quite some time that we did so in rain. So all wrapped up in rain gear and plastic buggy covers, we set off down the road. We had the happy experience to find that a nearby crop of wild strawberries was ready for picking and small though they are, when we set off for home, we had a good handful for dessert. My daughter led the foraging, informing me that I should ask the grasshopper who was watching us, where the strawberries were hidden. Needless to say, we found the best ones…under some straw and also right down on the bottom of the bushes, near the ground. This was a learning opportunity for me, I needed to get to my daughters height to find the best of the fruit. A lesson in slowness and perspective!
When we came home the children supervised the baking of some meringues which were enjoyed with the fruit after dinner.
ideal environments for children
As I begin down the Siolta road, I find myself thinking a lot about the environments I provide for the children. In many ways I am blessed in this respect. I have a pretty big house in the countryside with a large garden which is so important to me as I really feel that children need to spend time outdoors every day.
The ‘back’ garden which is actually to the front of the house (which is ”L’ shaped and sort of wraps around the garden but has the road to the back of it, sorry if thats confusing!) is fenced on three sides and open to a courtyard on the fourth. We are in a lovely secluded area and there is usually nothing but the sounds of birds and children to be heard.
In the garden we have a wooden tree house which the older children use as a den. This provides their much needed privacy and the sense that they have a space which is ‘off limits’ to the adults. They have decorated it themselves and they spend many a happy hour there, playing games, listening to music, doing homework (ok, maybe not always so happy).
The ‘first storey’ of this building is a space for the toddlers which consists of some log benches, arranged in a semi-circle to provide for conversation, and a waterproof mat for those who wish to sit on the floor. And thats it. And this space gets tons of use too, the occupants usually consist of the three year old and the 16 month old, using it as an extension of the beloved play house, which is a little pokey when they want to play together.
Another popular environment in the garden is the sand pit. I wrote with amazement a few weeks back about the wide range of age groups that find a use for it here. In the past few months children aged from a few months to 12 years have found a way to play here. It really is amazing the calming affect it has on them, but if you try it for yourself, you begin to see the attraction, just drawing a rake through it is akin to meditation. For more on this topic see Janet Lansbury’s post
This post has been edited for use on a public blog.
Now offering…art and minding sessions!
In the past I always found it popular to offer flexible sessions which incorporated a little arts, crafts, gardening or baking just as part of the normal routine in my home so I am going to begin to offer these again. In fairness to the children who are here full-time (both my own and others) this is going to be at times that fit around the rhythm of our normal day of daily care, naps, and feeding.
The sessions are going to run from 9.30am to 11 am and from 3.30pm to 5pm. These sessions are ideal for parents who have an errand to run but do not need to avail of full time care. These are times when other children can take part in some of our activities in the company of the full time children, and part take in a snack.(10.30am and 4.30pm)
A session costs €8 and includes art materials and snack.
In line with other RIE services(and a family home!), as they say ‘the curriculum is what happens!’ so activities are not set and often child led, but always fun!
Contact me for further details.
My summer ‘camps’
As an art teacher I’m always being approached for art camps and classes for children. I ran art summer camps here at my home for a few years before baba no. 3 and they were quite popular. So this year I return to the madness and exciting chaos that is the world of summer camps.
This year I am starting a little camp specially for pre-school children. I am running it in conjunction with the local music school, ‘Music in the Glen’ which is run by Diane Daly, a musician from the Irish chamber orchestra.
(Click the image to see the flyer full screen.)
finding my feet
The sun was splitting the rocks this past weekend and judging by the radio, the enitre country was in their garden engaging in the great Irish tradition of attempting to turn a nice shade of beetroot as soon as the sun comes out!
Well, on Saturday I was not with them, but I was as happy as a clam to be just getting the odd glimpse of the lovely sunshine. Partly because us redheads are not really able for the heat, and partly because I was meeting up with fellow childminders to discuss our thoughts and ideas on childminding. I really enjoy the opportunity to meet with fellow childminders that I am afforded by being part of childminding Ireland, its great to meet up with others who are also racking their brains coming up with activities, menu’s and outings, makes me feel a little less crazy!
After hearing from the other childminders on their ideas and what they do in services, I always return home refreshed and full of ideas to try!
This evening the school age children here will be planting some herbs(donated by a friend in Dublin) and starting their nature diaries (idea came to me during Siolta training!)
And of course…I’ll keep you ‘posted!’
Kiddie Cocaine
I try to take a moderate approach in my parenting and childminding practice, but this is often difficult. For instance, like all other mums, I try to ensure the children have a pretty healthy diet. But rather than ban any food type, or force feed them brocolli (as was done to me by a childminder when I was a child) I just don’t buy certain foods, I leave the fruit in easy reach and cook vegetables into their meals. I guess you could say I’m just more sneaky about it !
The one that’s really foxing me at the moment though is that old chestnut, television. About 6 months ago I thought I had it sorted, but as we all know the golden rule with children is that once you think you have it sussed, things change.
Since I am still on maternity leave after having no.3,(just coming out of that now) the only little lady at home during the day is my own 3 year old. So it was quite a simple task to wean her off the little tv she was used to seeing through distraction, setting up other activities, walks etc and the tv was never turned on at all for months.
Now, just as we finally succeeded in having it switched off (they really don’t want you to go) my little lady is demanding her fix again. What changed? Well, I think that its down to an accumulation of moments when my resolve and that of other family members was weakened and we gave in.
For instance, it has happened twice in the last three weeks that we (hubby and I) have been doing a big clean up of the house say on a Saturday morning and have fallen into the trap of getting out of our swing pushing, doll carrying duties by turning the tv on. I can see from her reactions that when it comes to kiddie cocaine, moderation is not possible. You just can’t get away with turning on one program, maybe thirty minutes of it, as soon as she gets a taste, she wants more.
Part of this is of course down to how the children’s channels are set up. Most of the ones for pre-school children have no ad breaks. I’m sure if we asked them they would have us believe that this is so that our little ones are not exposed to advertising, but a nice little added bonus to this from their view point is that there is no break, no natural point at which the child will get bored and want to turn it off.
If you watch these channels for awhile, you will notice that everything about them is designed so that the children want to keep watching. there is no boring end part with a roll call of the people involved and the theme. Now, even the end of the program is interactive so they stay watching and no sooner do they get to this part of the program than some other ‘fun’ character pops up and tells them whas coming next!
More than once in the last few weeks I have found myself reminiscing about my childhood and the way that children’s programs only came on for an hour or two each evening and on Saturday morning. There was something in the fact that you knew that it was finite that broke the spell it holds now, it wasn’t possible turn on another channel and get 24 hours of your favourite program, you had to wait till next week and our lives had much more freedom for that.
So I think that these children’s channels may be their own worst enemies to some extent. The solution we have reached in this house is to turn off the satellite channel and so rid ourselves of these ‘always on’ children’s channels. On terestrial tv, children’s programming is still limited to a few hours in the afternoon.
Am I looking at my own childhood through rose tinted specs and trying to create a utopia for my children? Of course I am but it became clear to me that moderation would not work here. Like any recovering addict, she would not be able to have a few minutes of tv and walk away and where distraction worked 6 months ago, its having less impact now that her memory is better (she’s nearly 4).
So we went cold turkey on her and this is how it panned out:
day 1 – wailing, crying, nashing of teeth, refusal it do any other activites
day 2 – large breaks in wailing
day 3 – today – ahh, peace! no noise, blanket over the ‘you know what’ (as its referred to here) and the only request so far today was to un-cover the sand pit.
If you aren’t convinced of the impact of tv on children, read some wise (and funny) words from a wise man who really understood children, Roald Dahl: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/television/