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.
This week the Chloe from Rangers wanted to make a window display in honour of all the soldiers who gave their life and courage to protect out country. She has been learning about Remembrance day in school and wears her Poppy with pride.
Chloe
First, Chloe helped to design a Poppy on the iPad, we then photocopied it for everyone to be able to decorate it. Sophie and Chloe made theirs first. Chloe wanted to colour hers in and paint the middle black. Sophie copied Chloe’s design.
SophieColouring In Sophie
Sophie loved her poppy so much she wanted to take it home for mummy. She also wanted to have it displayed on the window so she ended up painting one too! Isn’t it pretty!
IzzyElsieCharlie MartieAll The Seedlings Having a goGeorgeEdie
All the seedlings took it in turns to make their own Poppy. We used Paint, pens, pencils and lots and lots of red glitter!
Izzy celebrated her 1st birthday earlier this month and today her brother Charlie is celebrating his 2nd birthday.
Charlie’s CakeIzzy’s Cake
Izzy had a magical butterfly birthday cake which was made with vanilla cake and decorated with pink buttercream icing. Izzy loved trying to blow out her candle, everyone had to help her as it wouldn’t go out.
Izzys 1st BirthdayParty TimeParty FoodsBlowing Out The CandleSinging ’Happy Birthday’
The children’s dad is a local firefighter and Charlie loves everything to do with firemen and trucks. His cake was so amazing.
Charlie’s Birthday Cake
The cake was a surprise, inside was delicious chocolate cake with buttercream and lots of fire coloured icing. Tracie lit the candles and asked Firefighter Charlie to blow them out.
Party Of SevenHappy Birthday Charlie Yummy CakeBlowing Out The Candles
Everyone at Tracie’s Treasures wish you both a happy Birthday xx
Everyone had fun for Halloween this year, Emma and her family looked amazing. They were very scary and got up to lots of mischief.
EmmaLeoEmma’s Family
Poppy chose not to be scary but join in by wearing her favourite Anime costume. Her jacket stands out on a dark night, which keeps her safe when out and about trick or treating.
Poppy
Alfie from the seedlings was such a cute bat. He even tried to sleep upside down on the soft play!
AlfiePumpkin Carving Working togetherSpooky
The Rangers all helped each other to carve the pumpkins. They were very careful while using the vegetable knives. I am so glad they carved them outside, the mess was phenomenal!
Kinetic Sand Spider DipBonfire Night Role-play Hunt the spiders
The Rangers and Wanderers enjoyed the carving and apple bobbing the best. The Seedlings enjoyed the hunting for buried spiders, Tracie put a few treats in the sand for them to find for a surprise.
We have had ups and downs during this year with our gardens. Here is a round up of how Phyllis’ gardening went..
Growing in Pots Door Step PlantingFrank’s WellHomemade Planter
These pictures are from Phyllis’ front garden, it gets full sun most of the day. The lovely well planter was made by Frank, he has hung bird feeders and hidden bird boxes in the roof. He also made the wooden tiered planter where the vegetables are growing for their yummy, fresh Christmas dinner.
Front GardenChristmas Dinner
Phyllis had a bumper crop of fruit and vegetables this year, here are a few pictures to show how well she did!
What a CropCarrotsBeetrootPeppersTomatoes Potatoes Netting From Pests New Raised BedsGrowing SeedlingsBeautiful Baby Cucumber Butternut Squash Chillies
It’s been a hard year and being in the garden has given Phyllis a project which she has thoroughly enjoyed. Next year Phyllis is going to focus on flowers, including a wildflower patch to encourage wildlife.
Leaves Turning RedFuchsia Canopy of ClimbersGrowing Well
No better way to prove how amazing it is to grow your own, a delicious fresh Sunday lunch! Where’s mine?
Back in April the Seedlings sowed pumpkin seeds in the vegetable plot hoping they would grow big for Halloween.
We had bought large pumpkins from the local supermarket last year and kept the seeds, dried them out and stored them in a paper bag to grow for this year. We hoped they would grow big and strong.
Pumpkin FlowerBaby Pumpkin
Unfortunately, our pumpkins haven’t grown as much as we hoped for yet so the Seedlings went to the shop and bought one for our activity.
First the Seedlings looked at the ones growing in the garden, they were way too small, green and some still had the flower on.
Martie Alfie
Next we looked at the shop brought pumpkin and Tracie cut it in half for the Seedlings to investigate.
They touched the skin and thought it was cold and hard. When the Seedlings were asked to touch the centre, two of the children said ‘yucky don’t want too’ but Martie prodded it with her finger and smelled it, she wasn’t impressed.
Leaf PrintingCharlie Concentrating Happy With Picture
Earlier, while out in the garden the seedlings picked some pumpkin leaves, for the activity they used green paint to make prints of the leaves onto paper.
Tracie cut the pumpkin in half and put it into some orange paint, the seedings swished the pumpkin to make sure it was covered in paint then used it like a stamper onto the prints of the leaves.
The seedlings made lovely pictures of the growing pumpkins in the garden. Alfie squished his pumpkin and the orange paint, mixed with the green to make an abstract painting.
The Finished Prints
The Seedlings loved the activity and we have displayed them in the front play room.
Lincolnshire Wildlife Park is one of the UK’s largest animal sanctuaries. The residents are from all walks of life and from all over the world. They have an amazing array of animals which keep the keepers very busy daily, from Tigers to Parrots and lots in between!
Bengal Tiger
We had a fun packed day out walking around the park, we discovered some amazing facts and information about Parrots and learned why the Charity is so important. We listened to the wonderful sounds of the rainforest, spanning from Australia to Africa to the Americas and discovered why they are the only park that talks back!
Very Friendly Hello, Hello
The Lincolnshire Wildlife Park is a well established ‘National Parrot Sanctuary’ housing over 1000 re-homed Parrots & Parakeets, covering over 100 different species. They have a third of the UK’s Parrots here, and continue to re-home those that need help. These amazing creatures come in all sizes, colours and with some colourful language to accompany them! This parrot above kept saying hello to Poppy.
We found out some interesting facts about the Reindeer pictured above. Their hoof pads soften and widen in warmer weather to walk with ease on the soft ground, in colder weather their pads shrink, exposing their sharp hooves which are able to dig into the ice for extra grip. Their antlers are like a human’s fingerprints, no reindeer’s antlers are the same! How cool is that!
TapirLemurs
We loved the Tapir which are related to the rhinoceros and have special splayed toes to help them walk through soft muddy grounds. A group of Tapir in the wild is called a candle and baby Tapir are called calves. Calves have very different markings to adults, they are striped with white bands which helps to camouflage them in the wild.
They have a variety of Turtles at the sanctuary, including Yellow Bellied Sliders, Red Eared Sliders, Cumberland Sliders and Map turtles.
Otter Rehabilitating Parots
If you would like to visit you will find the details are:
Over the summer holidays Poppy went to Grandad Smith and Nanny Rosie’s to see how their wildlife garden and beekeeping were coming along.
Buddleia and a Butterfly Nanny Rose, Trixi and PoppyBird HousesGiant asunflower
Poppy’s sister Chelsea came along for the trip, she loved learning all about the wildlife and the bees in her grandad’s garden. We all talked about nature, looked at the bird houses and saw some footage of the baby birds learning to eat while still in the bird box via a webcam. Never too old to learn!
We brought along some tadpoles from our pond in Liverpool and set them free in Grandad’s pond, hopefully he will have some frogs next time we visit. Do you think they will croak in a scouse accent?
We sat and watched the tadpoles swimming around settling in their new environment. While we were watching them we saw dragonflies, water fleas, snails, hoverflies and lots of beautiful butterflies.
Growing CucumbersExtra Long Baby Cucumbers Cabbages
We looked around Grandad’s vegetable garden, he has grown lots of lovely vegetables and fruit this year. Poppy went hunting and found cucumbers, tomatoes, grapes and lemons in the greenhouse.
LeeksLettuce BeetrootBeansSweetcorn Allotment
In the main garden we saw Sweetcorn, Beetroots, Green Beans, Cabbage, leeks, strawberries and lots of Raspberries.
Poppy picked so many Raspberries we had them for tea, snack and breakfast!
Today we made some edible play-dough for the Little Seedlings to manipulate, use cutters and mould into shapes. It was fantastic for the babies to play with because it was completely edible.
Charlie and Alfie
Charlie and Alfie sat well together and used cutters to make some shapes. Unfortunately the dough got stuck in the moulds, we added extra cornflower to make it more malleable and easier to play with.
Edie, Jack and Izzy
The babies started the activity having sprinkles and chocolate stars on their trays.
EdieJackIzzy
They were given the Play-dough and were encouraged to move it around their trays to collect up all the sprinkles to make it tastier.
Apprehensive to have a go at eating
Because we normally use Play-dough and our rules are not to put it in our mouths Alfie was apprehensive to try and taste it. He watched everyone else have a go first. He soon got stuck in and had a go, he didn’t like the taste but loved the sprinkles.
“No eat!”
Charlie tried to convince Emma and Tracie he hadn’t eaten any! Think this picture tells a different story.
Tracie's Treasures 