I have worked in childcare for over thirty years. I have been a Foster Care Parent, a Childminding Network Co-Ordinator and now I work as a Registered Childminder and Childminder Mentor for the Department for Education.
Today we made some lovely Hooting Valentine’s Day Owls for our loved ones. While we were making the owls we talked about who we love, Georgia shouted “I love you, Tracie” and Tracie explained it made her feel happy knowing that. We talked about how we all love each other, because we are a childminding family.
Fearne
Theo
Pink Heart
Shapes and Sizes
Chatting Away
Martie
Fearne said “I love my mummy because I do”, then Georgia said “my daddy is my best friend.” When we asked Theo who he loved he didn’t make a peep. So Emma asked “do you love Mummy? Daddy? Pearl?” When Emma got to Thomas, Theo giggled out loud! We revisited the emotions we covered in an activity last week to explain how we express ourselves. Here are some of the finished Hooting Owls!
We are three generations of gardeners starting a gardening challenge to see the difference in the ways we garden and grow!
Phyllis (Grandma)
Tracie (Mum)
Gemma (Daughter)
We will all have the same seeds and grow them in our own ways. We will give regular updates and are looking forward to sharing the results. Follow the Garden Challenge with our hashtag GardenChallenge2021!
In July 2013, tennis tables were installed in Stanley Park by Liverpool City Council to celebrate the success of the 2012 Olympics! This picture was taken of Poppy and Chloe when they were just two and three!
Poppy and Chloe 2013
Chloe and Poppy 2020
So in 2020 we returned to take this flashback picture, taken six years later! They still cant play it! Maybe we should have tennis lessons?
As we’ve been on isolation this week, Poppy and Chelsea decided to watch the YouTube video of Simple Politic’s second session on ‘What Matters Most?’ from the comfort of Chelsea’s bed! The session started with some fun questions about ‘What Matters Most?’ to us: Reading, Playing Games or Making Videos. We put our favourites in a ranking order and discussed why they were ranked in that order.
Tatton’s First Question!
Charlotte From Simple Politics
Tatton then told us, if we had 45 minutes to split between the three activities, how much time would we spend on each activity? Chelsea split hers 25 mins on Reading and 20 mins on games because she doesn’t really make videos that often and she loves reading!
Our next question was which is better: Playing Games or Doing Chores? The participants in the interactive session were almost unanimous on Playing Games. However, Tatton pointed out that sometimes Doing Chores comes with rewards! Poppy chose Chores because she loves tidying and organising her room and toys!
The penultimate part of the session was a role playing moment. We were asked if we were the Prime Minister and had £5 million to spend on our services, how would we split the money? Out of Education, Hospitals and the Environment – but knowing that it takes at least £2 million to really make a difference.
Tatton Explaining Our Options
This was one of our hardest questions so far from the series of sessions. Chelsea felt that Education could improve the hospitals and medicine sector in the future and also build on the sciences and awareness of looking after the environment at the current moment. Chelsea chose to give £2 million to Education, £2 million to Medicine and £1 million to the Environment, with hopes that a boost in Education could later garner awareness and knowledge of what we can do to help the Environment.
Whereas Poppy felt the Hospitals were in dire need of help at the moment and schools had enough at the moment (because they’re closed). She originally wrote £3 million to ‘Hospitals / Vaccine / Medicine / Cancer’ and £2 million to help the Environment. But later changed her decision to split the money more evenly: £2 million to Medicine, £2 million to helping the Environment and £1 million to schools. Even though she knew it wouldn’t make as much of a difference, she felt the Medicine sector and Environment were more important than schools at this present time.
Our Answers!
Our last decision was a tough one. What is most important to us? Family, Community or the Country. We thought about why our chosen options mean more to us than the other options. Poppy’s choice ‘Family’ was based on her closest environment, whereas Chelsea chose the broader option of ‘Country’ as she believes in nationwide equality. That’s not to say she doesn’t love and care for her family and local community but when big decisions are made, these decisions trickle down into the local community and then into our family’s lives.
It was super interesting to see the views a of 9 year old, compared to the beliefs of her older sister of 26 years! We really enjoyed working together and pausing Tatton to have in-depth chats about why we make the decisions we make! Again, we talked about how there are no right or wrong answers in politics just your own!
You can watch the full video here! Get your children involved, ask questions, listen to different thoughts and opinions we all have!
This is Georgia and Fearne working very hard on their number work. They are concentrating and communicating well to support each others learning.
Working Hard Together
Emma has handmade the girls activity sheets to go alongside their personal next steps. Alfie thought he was missing out so Emma involved him in the activity.
This year the theme in our ever-changing garden will be a rainbow explosion of colours to represent our hard-working Key Workers. So far we have looked through gardening magazines to find various plants we could use. All the children have chosen their favourite colours and plants, which we will incorporate within the two gardens.
Our BIG project will be to extend our pond area for all our wildlife. Our main pond is in a raised bed but the wildlife need more space so we’re looking to extend it across the bed. The children have asked for a water feature so this might make an appearance.
Over the last couple of years we have had so much success with our raised beds, however we need to make these changes. We are always finding new and exciting ways to garden. We’ll also be putting up the new greenhouse and VegTrugs.
We will keep you posted on the projects, so keep returning to our website to find out how its all gone throughout the seasons.
This morning, Chelsea, Chloe and Poppy sat down for the first session of SP Politics Half Hour ran by Tatton from Simple Politics. It was the first trial run for a weekly politics session aimed at Key Stage 2 children and our topic this week was ‘What is Politics?’ We hooked Chelsea’s laptop up to the TV in our snug and sat comfortably as Tatton began a 15 minute structured session. Over 200 people were also tuned in and we could comment in the chat box if we had any opinions or questions.
Chloe and Poppy Ready to Learn!
Chloe Holding the Notebook
On his presentation, Tatton asked us three questions, which we had to answer and use our one vote on the poll on the screen. The first question was ‘Which is better: Cats or Dogs?’ Chloe said Cats, Poppy said Dogs and because Chelsea also said Dogs, the majority vote meant we entered Dogs on the poll. Dogs was the winner! Tatton then asked the ‘Dogs’ voters why they chose dogs. Poppy said ‘because they’re protective’ so Chelsea entered this comment into the chat box. A lot of people also said comments like ‘they’re cute’ and ‘you can walk them’. Tatton then asked the ‘Cats’ voters why they chose cats. Chloe said she chose cats ‘for the kitten at Grandma Phyllis”. Some of the other people in the chat said because ‘they’re cute’ and ‘you don’t have to walk them’. Tatton pointed out that this opinion is completely valid and depends on the circumstance of the person, for example some of the people in the chat were in colder areas and it was snowing! Who wants to walk a dog in snow, right?
The next question was ‘Which is better: Pizza or Pasta?’ Chloe said Pizza, Poppy said Pasta and again, because Chelsea also said Pasta, the majority vote meant we entered Pasta on the poll. Pizza was the winner! Chloe was a little grumpy because the winner was the option she wanted to pick, but we talked about opinions and how having a different opinion that wins or loses does not mean you are right or wrong. Chelsea explained that because we only had one vote (one laptop) we had to give the majority vote on the poll. When Tatton asked the ‘Pasta’ voters why they chose Pasta, we typed in the chat box ‘because there are lots of shapes and options.’ Tatton then asked the ‘Pizza’ voters why they chose Pizza and a lot of people in the chat said ‘because there are lots of toppings to choose from’. So it turns out, majority of people chose their vote based on the variety, but we still all chose differently.
Cats or Dogs?
Flying or Invisibility?
The last question was trickier! It was, ‘Would You Rather: Be Able to Fly or Be Invisible?’ Chloe, Poppy and Chelsea all agreed on Flying. So the majority vote was put into the poll and flying was the winner! When Tatton asked the ‘Fly’ voters why they chose to Fly, the group had lots of ideas! Chloe said ‘to go up into the sky, and you can still be invisible in the clouds’ and Poppy said ‘because if you were invisible your parents wouldn’t be able to see you, but if you fly down to the ground they can still see you.’ Other people put in the chat that you could ‘go on holidays’ and ‘flying would be quicker’. When Tatton asked the ‘Invisible’ voters why they chose to be Invisible one person put in the chat ‘you wouldn’t need money’ which is an interesting thought!
Chelsea Asking Our Question ‘What is next weeks session Topic?’
The second half of the session was Questions Time. This was where the chat box got very busy! Tatton answered a number of questions like ‘when can I vote?’ for the UK the answer is 18 years old; and what’s the difference between a Prime Minister and a President, which was ‘countries that have a monarchy (which is a king or a queen) have a Prime Minister to make political decisions, and countries without a king or a queen have a President as the leader.’ This sparked a question from Chloe, ‘do we have a king or a queen?’ and Chelsea explained that we do have a queen and that monarchies are a lineage, meaning the sons or daughters become the next king or queen and that they aren’t chosen by the people.
During the last few questions, we managed to ask ‘What is next session’s topic?’ which Tatton replied would be about ‘Prioritising’, he said ‘there won’t just be two options, there will be some bunnies thrown in there’. We’re super excited to learn more about how to prioritise situations next week and will report back on what we find out!
You can watch the playback of this morning’s session on YouTube here and the link to join next week’s free online session is available here.
Tracie's Treasures 