E has been in my care a few months now, she has settled really well and makes her way about the house; she knows where the toys are that she can freely access and she does this when she chooses. Each day I get out a different resource for the children to play with to provide variety and interest.
On Tuesday I decided that I would get out the heuristic play objects for E - we were having a morning at home followed by swimming in the early afternoon. As it turned out E slept all morning, only waking in time for a quick lunch and then swimming. After we returned home from swimming E eventually played with the heuristic play objects.
E put virtually everything that she touched into her mouth - this was fine as everything was clean, a large enough size to not pose a choking hazard, and I was supervising her closely. E was particularly drawn to the CDs, she preferred the shiny side and became quite vocal when she was holding them. E also enjoyed banging the metal tins with her hands, creating quite a noise in the process.
I have J and O tomorrow who have never encountered the heuristic play - good job everything is still out in the lounge!!
I now have mainly very young children in my care during the day, which means that most of my celebration planning is now 'meaningless' - in that the children are oblivious to what we are celebrating and why. However I feel that it is nice to tie in our activities to the celebration if possible.
Had I had older children in my care we would have been doing lots of talking and activities leading up to Remembrance Sunday, Albie is currently very interested in it and we have been doing lots of talking about it and looking at old photos from World Wars 1 and 2.
I decided today that we could do a painting activity as we haven't painted for a few weeks. As E is 9 months old most things go in her mouth, so I decided to repeat an activity that we haven't done for a while - painting with home made puffy paint, which is 100% edible! To tie the activity in with Remembrance Sunday (very loosely) I coloured the paint red and green - the same colours as the poppies.
The first thing that E did was suck on the paint brush! Although the paint is edible, I don't imagine that it is tasty, so after the first time, E didn't attempt to taste the paint again! E then had lots of fun squishing the paint over the paper.
Once E had finished her masterpiece I microwaved it for a few seconds to make it puff up - however as she had smeared the paint on on the paper it wasn't quite thick enough to puff up, so it just became hard and flaky - yay, I invented flaky paint, I just need to think of a use for it now!!!!
Just look at that smile, E does make me laugh!
