Messy Play Ideas

Messy Play is an important part of play with older babies and young toddlers as it gives them the chance to experience the sensation of different materials mixed with each other. It will allow them to make marks and observe their influence on materials (eg. mixing turns flour and water into a thick paste) – and overall its fun!

I thought I gather some ideas for messy play that can easily be done at home as well as in Day Care or at playgroup.

Preparation

Make sure the child is wearing an apron or old clothes that will only be used for Messy Play – or in summer it may be best to wear nothing at all. Best cover the floor underneath the messy play table, or let them do the messy play on the floor right away (or simply be prepared to mop up with your toddler afterwards).

For the individual messy play ideas you will need different materials, but generally you should have a tray (such as a deep baking tray if you’re at home or your messy play tray at nursery) that has a border about an inch high to prevent materials from leaking too much as well as items to stir whatever the playing with. If eating the mixture is fine you may provide spoons, if you want to discourage eating you might want to use little wooden sticks (the ones we know from ice cream lollies). Obviously young toddlers should not play with materials that can be dangerous if swallowed or ingested! They will very likely try  to eat whatever you “serve” them, even if you closely supervise them. Other items to enhance any sort of messy play are for example food colouring and glitter. Just let your imagination run free and look through your kitchen and bathroom.

Messy Play Ideas

Flour

A very simple Messy Play

We need

Flour

Set up

Pour flour on the table or a messy mat (cheap shower curtains make great mats) on the floor and let your children explore. You can add various toys such as spoons, different sized containers as well as small world toys, animals or even cars.

Shaving foam

We need

A cheap can of shaving foam (eg. Sainsburys basic)

Set up

Spray the shaving foam onto your messy tray, the table or a mat on the floor,

Don’t forget to add your favourite toys again.

Jelly

We need

A few packages of Jelly in storage. Try different colours and tastes.

Set up

Prepare the jelly following the instructions. If your child is old enough let it help. To add even more interest to this messy play you can leave items in the jelly before you put it in the fridge to set. You could use anything from pasta to fruit, just make sure that the things do not provide a choking hazard for babies.

Pasta with food colouring

We need

Cooked and cooled pasta

Different containers and spoons

Set up

Prepare some pasta following the packet intructions and leave it to cool down. If you add oil to the water while boiling it the pasta wont stick as easily. You could use different types and shapes of pasta.

Put the pasta on to a table or into a tray and leave it for the children to explore.

Don’t forget to add your favourite toys.

The pasta can also be coloured with food colouring or paint to add more interest.

Coloured sand

We need

Sand

Water

and Food Colouring

Set up

Mix a jug of water with food colouring. Place sand in your messy tray. Add the coloured water to cover the sand. Leave it to dry. You can now add different toys and animals for pretend play.

Wet Sand

(leftovers from sand tray and water play for instance)

Mix some water and sand on your messy tray and let the children make marks in the wet sand.

Don’t forget to add your favourite toys.

Play with Mousse

We need

Mousse

Different containers

Spoons etc.

Set up

Prepare the mousse according to packet instructions. Leave it to set. Place the mousse on the table or in your messy tray. You can now add various toys and spoons.

Dry Pasta Play

A less messy messy play.

We need

Dry pasta

Different sized containers

Set up

Pour some pasta (different shaped) onto the table or your messy play tray and let your children explore.

Don’t forget to add containers, spoons and your favourite toys.

Custard Play

We need

Tins of custard (Sainsburys basic etc.)

Animals and favoruite toys

Different sized containers

Set up

Empty the custard into your messy play tray and allow the children to explore the custard with spoons, containers and their favourite toys.

Spaghetti Play, Baked Beans Play, Mushy Pea Play, Mashed Potatoe Play

We need

Tins of spaghetti or Baked Beans (Sainsburys Basic etc.), Mushy Peas or Mashed Potatoes

Different sized containers

Spoons

Favourite Toys

Set up

Pour the Spaghetti (or your chosen product) onto the table or into your messy tray (Please remember to prepare the mash beforehand and let it cool down). Allow children to use different materials to explore and taste.

Homemade Play-Doh

We need

Flour

Water

A little oil

Extras:

Food Colouring

Glitter

Rice or Porridge Oats etc.

Preparation

Pour some flour (1 cup) into a bowl and add your sensory items such as rice and porridge oats or glitter. Add 1 teaspoon of oil. Mix 1 cup of water with some food colouring of your preferred colour. Then slowly ad water the water to the flour (you won’t need the whole cup!) and knead the dough until it feels right to you and is not sticky anymore. If it is to liquidy add more flour. If it is too dry add a little more water, if it is too sticky try adding some oil (again very little otherwise it will feel too oily). It is ready to be used immediately. Please store in an airtight container inside the fridge to enjoy your play-doh for up to a week.

Set up

Place the Play-Doh onto the table with various cookie cutters and rollers for the children to explore.

Water play

Set up a water play inside a deeper messy play tray, or in your sink if you are at home. If you still have a baby bath tub somewhere that might be great to be used as well. In summer I suggest a paddling pool.

Enhance your water play with boats and ducks, bubbles (baby bath), food colouring (be careful to mix the food colouring with a little water before adding it because it tends to colour childrens hands quite a bit), glitter or use a straw to blow bubbles.

Add different sizes of sponges and cloths to the water play and let them experience the different textures

Ice Cubes play

Make ice cubes of different sizes and shapes and let the children see them melt

Painting with balls

We need

Large pieces of paper (IKEA sells cheap rolls of paper)

Small trays for the paint

Paint in different colours

Balls

Set up

Attach the large pieces of paper to the floor (preferably outside or on a surface that is easily cleaned), cheap big shower curtains could be an option. Fill the little trays with different colours and place them at different ends of the paper. Use a variety of different sized balls. Dip them in the paint and roll them over the paper to make different patterns.

Shredded Paper

Let the children play with shredded paper.

Gloop (Cornflour and Water)

We need

Cornflour

Water

Set up

Mix the cornflour with water on a messy tray until it turns into a thick paste. Let the children explore the paste with a range of materials. You can also add glitter or food colouring to it.

OR

Pour cornflour as well as water onto the messy tray but let the children mix it with the spoons so they can watch how dry and wet transforms into this funny paste.

Phew. This is currently all I can think off when it comes to Messy Play. If you have any ideas I haven’t thought of please post.

And now its time to enjoy the weekend.

OFSTED registration for Nannies

I had someone hit my page via google wondering if Nannies require OFSTED registration, so I thought I write a quick post on that.

So far, Nannies do not require to be OFSTED registered but they can however chose to get registered on the voluntary part of the child care register.

There are some requirements for getting registered – the prospective candidate needs

• a childcare qualification (a weekend course is often enough, check their page for details)
• a recent first aid certificate (OFSTED accredited)
• public liability insurance (for nannies)
• to pass the CRB check

They reckon registration can take up to 25 weeks, so if you chose to get registered bear in mind that this will take some time.

Check their homepage for all the details I might have forgotten something but it’s the most important bits anyways.

New Year – New Times

I hope everyone had a magnificent start to the New Year. I have a finger that was bent back slightly too far and is now painful and slightly swollen tonsils – but all in all we had an amazing party last night.

I hope this will be a good year. For me it will (hopefully) start with a new job starting mid-January – if everything works out.

Good Luck for 2010 everyone!

Christmas Time

I have to admit that I love Christmas. From when I was a child I enjoyed the beautiful stories about snow, presents and festivity. When you have your own children (or work with them) you get the chance to live through the most beautiful time of the year being enchanted by the children’s enthusiasm and interest.

I am currently trying to spread the Christmas Spirit with the 2 year-old I am currently working with. This afternoon we will do some Baking and maybe also some crafting. Unfortunately all my run around the pound shops earlier was in vain – none of them seemed to stock christmas crafting sets. So normal paper will have to do the job. After all she’s only 2 anyways.

I came across a few pages with some interesting crafting ideas (incl.paper snow flakes), some of them are unfortunately in German but I’ll post everything anyways.

Christmas Cookie Recipes (Basic Dough and Variations)

Paper Snowflake

More crafts

Snow Picture – why not use some cotton wool to make a snow picture? Take some dark blue or grey construcation paper and maybe paint something on it like a street or some trees and the let the little one stick some cotton wool like little snow flakes on the picture. Add as many things as you like. Maybe you can also craft some clouds and stick them to the top of the contruction paper.

Christmas Stories – 1

Christmas Stories – 2

I know these stories are quite long but I tend to read to the little one anyways (mostly while she’s playing) and after the 2nd or 3rd story she will often come over to me and look at the book or webpage I am reading from, (even though there isn’t much to see) and will linger around and listen. Afterwards I usually try to do a quick recap so that she knows what I was brabbling about for the last 10 minutes .

German Links:

Weihnachtskarten – Christmas Cards ideas

Faltsterne – Paper Stars (similar idea to snow flakes)

Ringkette

Große Weihnachtssammlung

If you know anymore pages you think are worth sharing, let me know.

Starting work as a Nanny? – Remember.

I am so annoyed with all these posts online about how parents should protect themselves and their children from all the bad people who pretend to be innocent Nannies BUT who considers the Nannies and protects them from families who just seem to want a bargain and think their Nanny is their own little slave house elf?

In my opinion there is a few things Nannies should consider before starting work with a family this is purely from my own perspective, things I would do better next time.

A lot of time families seem to forget (or not want?) to discuss many of these things with the future Nanny but it is so important to make sure you find the right match.

(1) Paying your tax

Your family is your employer and is therefore required to pay your tax. Nannies are not self-employed – as far as I know  you can only actually be self-employed under certain circumstances and generally this is not recommended for Nannies. If the family asks you to be self-employed it may mean that they do not want to employ you properly and take out Employers Liability Insurance and pay tax or they just haven’t done enough research on what is general practice. This is illegal and has disadvantages for you – if you are new to the country and your contributions are still under a certain amount you will not be granted job seekers allowance in case you lose your job for instance.

(2) OFSTED

In recent months an increased amount of parents seem to be certain that they want their Nanny to be OFSTED registered. In my opinion the Nanny does not need to meet the cost of that herself because the only benefit to the Nanny is increased employability which is irrelevant if you like your job, whereas the families gets child care vouchers and tax benefits. OFSTED registration is not cheap and comes with a load of other things that need to be done (qualification, first aid, CRB check…). Should the Nanny leave before the year (since registration) is over she should pay part of the money back to the family.

(3) Paediatric First Aid

If you currently do not have a First-Aid certificate, your family should give you the days off that you need to do this certificate. I honestly think families and Nannies should go halves on the price of this (which can be up to £160 depending on the operator) as both of them benefit from it. Should you as a Nanny not be able to afford this course I am convinced that it is the families obligation to pay for this course. Just find an arrangement that works for both of you.

(4) Pay

Remember that your pay is not only the amount of money that arrives at your bank account each month it also includes the benefits you get from this job. Please remember to discuss things such as meals on duty and holiday travel, holiday pay and sick pay with your family. If you are applying for a live-in position make sure you have agreed on what’s included with your stay. Some families are happy to pay you travel and phone costs (to a reasonable extent of course). Even if you’re live-out you should consider asking the family for a little bit of extra money for your mobile, as you will often end up using it to organise playdates and outings. Also bear in mind that some families expect you to do Babysitting for them on a regular basis – some families require babysitting up to 2 times a week. Sometimes this is already included in your salary sometimes this will be paid extra.

When it comes to your pay itself you should never undersell yourself. You know what you’re worth! If the family wants a bargain you weren’t made for them. If they want to employ you illegally to be able to pay you less than minimum wage DO NOT accept this position. A lot of Nannies work for around £8 an hour even with minimal experience and no qualifications. YOU need to sell yourself. Feel free to ask for more and see what the family has to offer you. This job comes with long hours and lots of responsibility and the parents need to value this.

The way you’re paid is important too. Remind your family of the fact that simply handing you a cheque is not the same as  paying you. It just means that they handed you a piece of paper. It will often take another 5 days for your cheque to clear and be available to you as pay – and therefore money. Ask them to transfer the money to your bank account at least mid-weak so that it’ll arrive for Friday if you need the money on your payday.

(5) Money for activities

So you and the little one are out and about all day, but who is paying for these activities? How about creating a little piggy bank with a notebook where the parents put in change and the Nanny takes it out to pay for activities and then leaves a not on what was attended. Never pay for the little ones activities in advance. This is not your job.

(6) Have a Nanny diary

A Nanny diary is a good way for parents to understand what you and the kids are doing during the day, you can note things such as Eats, Sleep, Nappy Changes, Spendings and write a general diary entry about the day. You can use this little notebook to keep up to date of illness and holidays too.

This is my first thought on this post I might be adding more things when I think about them next. Have fun looking for a job as a Nanny.

Can you think about anything I forgot?

The Science Museum

Today Josie and me had the stupid idea to go to the science museum – same as about 1 million other families…

Anyways, she really enjoyed it. We had a look through the spacebits and were singing Zoom Zoom Zoom We’re Going To The Moon while we were looking at rockets.

Then we went downstairs and played in the toddler area for a bit. We played with water and listened to loads of funny noises and Josie practised playing the drums.

 

Half-Term

I just quickly wanted to say that I am already dreading the half-term children’s centre shutdown next week… I hope that at least half of the groups we usually go to are on…

Family Visits

It was lovely to have the Granny of the LO round this week, but unfortunately she wasn’t a lot of help. Today I went into the kitchen to prepare lunch and she was to supervise the little one. When I came back in there 15 mins later the LO had painted the floor, sofa and carpet with pens. Granny said she didn’t notice.

Frustration

It always surprises me, how easy the little ones get frustrated. Yesterday on the playground the LO kept falling over and crying because she just didn’t look where she was going. Then she gave me a look as if I was to do something about that. It was so exhausting. How can the fun and annoying moments of this job just be so closely linked?

Random Illness

After having spent the last 2 days at home I’m back to work again today. Let’s see how the day goes .