Beat Baby!

After a training course at the weekend (that was fabulous) I came away all inspired and motivated to do new things with the children.  On the course I learnt all about the importance of phonics to young children, and what we can all do to help pave the way for our children to learn when they start (pre) school.


It is vital that children experience lots of reading and singing, which are things that we ordinarily do anyway.  Before I attended the course I was not however aware of the huge importance of rhythm, rhyme and the ability to maintain a steady beat - according to research carried out in 2003, a child's ability to maintain a steady beat (beat competency) is a powerful indicator for later academic success, and children who have developed this important skill are at a considerable advantage in learning situations.


On Tuesday I set out the musical instruments in the back garden, and we read 'The Ding Dong Bag' book, which is a story all about two boys listening to lots of noises and capturing the noises in their bag.  After the story finished we played with the musical instruments to hear the different noises that they made, we described the noises.  We then set out to make lots of different noises around the garden; stomping on the floor, swooshing our feet through the gravel, banging sticks on the floor, shouting into the watering can spout, putting stones into empty plastic milk bottles and shaking it about.  The children enjoyed making lots of noise, and they were very good at it!

As the children were having lunch someone very special came to visit us - Blue Beat Baby!  He is quite shy so we have to be quiet and calm around him and ask him nicely to come out to see us.  When the children first saw Blue Beat Baby's face they all said "ah" and they were very calm and quiet, everyone took it in turns holding and cuddling him, and we all sang him a song.  The children are very intrigued with him.  

Over the coming weeks and months we will be using Beat Baby to engage the children in singing, dancing, rapping and rhyming activities.  I am also confident that Beat Baby will help to develop the children's language skills, creativity, imagination and empathy.  Beat Baby will also travel between here and the children's homes; I am hopeful that the children will then be able to tell us all about the adventures that they have shared with Beat Baby!

Blow Painting

We did a very simple blow painting activity on Friday.  Albie and H were very excited, they said it was like "real art attack"!


We used liquid water colour paints for this activity which worked really well, the children had great fun blowing their paint across the paper.  Albie figured out he could dab and scrape his straw across the paper to give a very different effect which also worked well.  I figured out that if you put your straw very close to the paper and blow very gently the paint bubbles up, I managed to blow some quite large bubbles before the popped with a splat, also creating a great effect on the paper.


The finished paintings were lovely.

However, a word of warning, if you choose to recreate this activity at home and attempt the bubble blowing and popping method, this can happen........

Manchester Art Gallery Day Out

Last Friday we had an adventure day out with our friends from Giggles Childminding.  We caught the train to Manchester, the children were all very excited!

Look, a train is coming!

We sat with our friends on the train.

We had our picnic lunch in Manchester Art Gallery waiting for our session to begin!

The session this time was all about noise.  We listened to lots of different noises, we made lots of different noises, some were quiet but most of them were loud.  There were lots of activities and things that the children could interact with and discover....

We listened through tubes which intensified the sounds.

We made noises into a microphone which were recorded and played back over and over again.

We placed cups onto vinyl records on a turntable, which made the noise sound funny.

We stirred and shook different things in containers which all made different noises.

We pressed different buttons and different noises came out of the speakers.

We popped bubble-wrap.

And the most fun of all was had by playing with lots of foil type  strips that were in a huge pile on the floor.  The children buried themselves and each other in there, they threw it around, the crawled through it and jumped on it, and were very giddy (hence all of my photos are blurred as the children would not keep still!)

 We took it in turns crawling inside a massive tube and the children on the outside then banged on the tube like a giant drum - it was very noisy inside!

We finished at the art gallery and walked towards the train station, on the way we saw the water feature in Piccadilly Gardens - the children pleaded with me to allow them to play in it.  After a stern talking to about how they must not get wet, the children went off to play.

 Somehow the children didn't get too wet - they had a magnificent time though, and it was very funny to watch them having so much fun!

We saw a massive statue of the Duke of Wellington which the children explored.

And at the end of a very exciting and tiring day out it was time to get the train back home.