I think a lot about the curriculum I am providing my childminding children. As an Ofsted registered childminder I am bound by the statutory learning requirements of the EYFS to offer learning experiences and opportunities under the seven areas of learning. However, I feel it is both my duty and privilege to to explore the world with each individual child I care for, seeing it through their eyes, providing experiences that excite them, truly help them grow and go further than the short descriptions in the EYFS bind us to.
This blog focuses mainly on continuous provision and is the first part of a two blog mini-series. In the next blog I will go into more detail about enhanced provision.
There are some things that all childminding curriculum’s should have in common. The main focus of any early years curriculum should be on skills and knowledge that all humans need. Skills such learning about how people interact socially, the rules that hold society together such as understanding, communicating and cooperating with other people. Children also need to have chance to grow and develop their physical skills, to gain an understanding of their own body, it’s abilities and how to keep it health, both in body and mind. (In the English EYFS these skills are defined under the three prime areas of, communication and language, personal, social and emotional development and physical development.) As well as mastering these essential building blocks of learning isn’t it wonderful to expose children to all the other amazing things our world has to offer? Maths, science, literature, the natural world, different peoples and ways of life, music and art, the list goes on and on.
I do not want anyone reading this blog to think that their curriculum should look exactly like mine, or anyone else’s for that matter. Everyone’s curriculum is going to be different, as an effective early years curriculum should be based around the needs of the individual children in your care. In my setting I use a mixture continuous provision along with supplementary topics or activities to provide children with opportunities to learn core concepts and embed skills and learning as well as explore new ideas and areas of interest.
What is continuous provision and why is it important?
Continuous provision is all the resources and activities that you continue to provide on a daily basis. In a small early years setting such as a childminders this may look slightly different depending on your children and the sorts of needs they have, but in general your continuous provision should cover opportunities for the children to work on skills and learning across all the areas of learning. This does not mean that you need loads of expensive and specialised resources. You can provide a good range of learning opportunities with a few basics. As well as access for children to move around freely, both inside and outside, my essential ‘continuous provision’ resources always include:
Books. Books are an absolute essential for helping children learn new vocabulary and concepts and enjoy shared reading experiences. A carefully chosen selection of books can help children embed their learning across all areas of your curriculum. I aways include always include books that children love listening to time after time until they know them by heart. Which books I provide depends on the children I have. At the moment I have a mixture of simple board books and classic picture books like, ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea.’ This ensures that all the children have books they enjoy without the need to have out all the books I own.
(For some suggestions about the sorts of books I recommend for very young children read: Eight essential books for childminders of very young children.)
Simple wooden bricks in different shapes and sizes. These enable children to explore all sorts of mathematical concepts as well as being a useful resource in small world set ups! Building towers of bricks also helps children practice their fine motor control and hand to eye coordination as well as exploring concepts of cause and consequence. (What happens when I knock down this tower?)
Small world animals and people. Small world resources allow children to explore concepts using their imagination. They can be used for retelling stories that you have read to the children or to explore different scenarios that children encounter in real life. Having a selection of different animals and people also helps reinforce vocabulary, for example the names of different farm animals.
A small selection of ‘real world’ role play resources like cups, plates and spoons, along with some toy food. I find as a very rough rule of thumb, that children tend to explore real life scenarios on a real life scale before they start investigating small world toys. Having simple resources like this helps children practise social skills, such as pretending to make or share food, MORE
Musical instruments. These can be used in all sorts of listening and creative activities. (Just maybe keep them out of reach until the neighbours have woken up!)
Nursery rhymes basket. Sharing and learning nursery rhymes is a regular part of our day, helping children with their communication, language and literacy skills. My nursery rhymes basket is full of resources representing different nursery rhymes so that the children can pick their favourites. By choosing a selection of different rhymes you can also cover areas like maths (singing number rhymes) and understanding the world, (Old MacDonald had a Farm.)
Jigsaws. Chosen wisely these are very useful for covering lots of areas of learning. I find jigsaws a great characteristics of effective learning resource as well as helping children explore mathematical concepts such as shape, size and position.
Simple dressing up resources, like shoes, hats and bags with different fastenings. Great for practising fine motor skills and imaginative play as well as exploring what it feels like to be someone else.
Sand or some sort of ‘scoopable’ sensory material for filling, pouring, transporting, hiding things in and so on. This along with a selection of different containers for filling, posting things into, stacking, etc. These resources help children explore concepts such as how things work, object permanence, capacity, shape, weight and texture.
Mark making materials. I work from my sitting room so these are within sight so that children can easily request them by pointing but not so available that my walls will be ‘accidentally’ coloured in by my very youngest charges. However I have magnetic drawing boards that are available for children to independently access whenever they want.
Because my little cohort is currently very interested in vehicles I always have a selection of toy cars, tractors, etc. If I had a group of children with different interests the vehicles might come out less frequently unless requested by the children.
And finally the most important resource in your setting.
Yourself! Never forget that you are the most important resource your children have at their disposal. It is through your interactions with the children that they are supported to learn more than they would simply left to their own devices with the resources. You are the one that will introduce new vocabulary through having conversations to the children and reading to them. You are the one that will sing the nursery rhymes and teach the children how to count. You are the one that will model interactions and how to behave towards other people. You are the one that understands child development and what children should be striving to do next. You are the one that is there for children when they get overwhelmed and need support to regulate their big emotions. So, be exited. Be curious. Be supportive. Be brilliant!
IDEA: Why not have a ‘continuous provision’ day? Do not provide any additional resources or activities for one day but just concentrate on covering all the areas of learning with the things you always have out. Are there any ways that you can use your resources that you have not thought of before? At the end of the day have a think about whether there is anything you would like to change such as whether you need or want to add to your continuous provision resources.
You may also like this follow up blog on enhanced provision as part of your childminding curriculum:
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If you enjoyed this article you will also enjoy the monthly training modules that feature in the Childminding Best Practice Club toolkits. These cover a wide range of subjects designed to empower you in every aspect of your childminding journey – from nurturing child development to mastering the art of running your own business. Previous modules have included things like training on how to write a prospectus to advertise your setting, the impact of food and nutrition on children’s health and development, phonics for childminders, and simple childminding accounts. Each training module comes with supporting resources and a certificate to print when you have finished.
As well as training modules each toolkit also comes with a wealth of resources to help you build and enhance your curriculum through a series of different topics or themes.
More information on different areas of learning:
Some things are better handwritten. Some things are better handmade like homemade baking is always better than store bought. Sometimes, a book with glued in pictures, while less tidy than an online app, is simply “nicer”. Many parents like to imagine choosing a childminder for their child in a dreamy, slowing down, biscuit crumbs and soft edges, sunny days pushing children on swings sort of way. Paper-based learning journeys smell of warmth and friendliness and fit better with this image. It is a good image because nurseries cannot recreate it, however many ‘key people’ they attempt to assign to a child or home corners they install!
Do parents really want to spend their time logging on to some horrible, cumbersome online system to find out how their child is developing? Can they really be bothered? For those of you who do online learning journeys, how many parents ever really look at what you put in them? Do they bother to log on and check on their child’s development? Some parents will, but others might be much more likely to engage with the work you are doing and take more of an interest in their child’s development if you were to hand them a nice album with a few photos of their child in it and some simple observations you have written (or typed out) next to it.
