Georgia Matthews 11187724. My Reflective Blog by Georgia Matthews https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o This blog will be added to weekly to help me reflect on my time at placement. en-us 2015-11-09 10:24:17 UTC 2016-06-20 13:07:08 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Planets.png Unit 1.1- 6.3 - Reflect on own role when supporting healthy eating in own setting prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/80209348 Every day my placement has a snack time at about 10.30. The snack would be either water or milk and one fruit and/or veg and one biscuit or cake of some sort. On Tuesday I was asked to help with the snack. I felt comfortable because it was easy to make the snack. For example I had to put two sticks of cucumber, two grapes cut in half (to avoid a choking hazard) and half a small cup cake in a bowl. Then either gave them water or milk. 

When the children are eating their snack I was encouraging then to start with their cucumber or grapes. I told them that if they were to eat them it would help them to be strong and healthy. The members of staff liked the way that I was encouraging the children to eat their fruit and veg. I was interacting with the children by telling them how eating their fruit and veg would make them stronger and healthier and I was also asking them what they had been playing with so far or because a few had been on holiday I asked them about their holiday and if they enjoyed it.

When I asked some children the questions other children joined in on the conversation because they wanted to tell me about their day before the child I had actually asked. If i could have changed the situation I would have nicely  asked the child to wait their turn and ask them the same question straight after the other child had answered. This way each child has their own time to tell me what they had done and not to interrupt others. This teaches them about manners and being patient.

Next time I would like to talk more to the younger and more shy children to help them develop their confidence and speech development. I want to talk to them more because when I did ask the younger and shy children a question it took them some time to answer the question and I think that they need to have a bit of a confidence boost to help them in later life.

From being in the pre-school I have learnt that children have a lot of imagination and that it should be encouraged because that's what makes them unique from each other and it is a way for them to express their feelings in different ways. I have leant that not everyone is the same. 

]]> 2015-11-09 17:57:23 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/80209348 Unit 6- 4.3 - Reflect on your own role in creating an enabling play environment. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86101971 Whilst creating an enabling play environment in a group I was the one who was drawing the layout of the room and asking the others in my group where to put things and what they wanted to add. We could have improved on creating an enabling environment by talking to each other more and being more encouraging to each other what might have prevented any disagreements we had whilst doing the task. The strengths of working in a group was that we all had a lot of ideas of what things to include and where things should be placed. But our weakness was that there wasn't much communication between us all after we had all said most of our ideas which made the working slow down. I found it hard to try to find the right place to out things in certain places where they had a good enough reason to be placed there. For example a trading area needs to be placed in a place where its quiet and wont't get disturbed by others in the room. I found thinking of activities for outside was a lot easier than trying to think of activities for inside because you can have more freedom with all the things you can put outside as long as they are weather resistant. I can create an enabling environment when I'm setting up in the morning by putting out the toys and setting up activities for the children to take part in. Also I can create and enabling environment with help form the children who are interested in joining in once the activity has been set up. An example of this is if I set up an obstacle course and some children want to join and they want to have some say in where to put things. I can ask them where they want to put somethings and if they could put things in a certain place for me.  

]]> 2015-12-11 13:17:23 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86101971 Unit 2.1- 2.1- Identify reasons why people communicate. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86111837 People communicate to make sure everyone knows what is going on and what they need to know. Communication is good in pre-school because it help all the practitioners know what is going on in the day and with the children. It also helps keep children safe. For example if a child was going to be picked up by someone else in there family who no one has meet before, the practitioner would give the child's parent a password they have to tell the person who is going to pick up the child so that when they get to the pre-school to pick up the child they have to say the password so that the practitioner knows that its the right person to let in to pick up the child. This helps to stop people from coming to take a child what isn't theirs and it helps children to stay safe. Another example of communication is the way practitioners communicate with each other. The could have a secret code that they can speak if they are in a room with children and don't want them to understand what is said. They can also set up regular meetings to discuss anything that might have occurred in that week and to go over anything that might have been needed to be done the week before. The way practitioners communicate with parents/carers is in more of a formal way because they don't need to dumb down the words when explaining something to them like they would need to do if they where talking to a child. also the practitioners can develop better relationships with the parents because they can understand what is being said to them and what they need to do to help the practitioners to support their child.   

]]> 2015-12-11 14:01:50 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86111837 Unit 2.1- 2.2- Explain how communication affects all aspects of your own practice on placement prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86115385 Communication helps me at placement because if I ask a question about something then I know that I am unsure of something I just have to ask and then I will know what to do from the answer. Also communication is good for hygiene because one child's coat smelt like sick so we all got told that if we help the child with their coat we had to wash our hands with disinfectant to stop and germs from spreading around the room. If no one communicated with each other we wouldn't have know about her coat. Communication also helped me when I was asked to do a certain activity and was told how to do it so I could show the children how to do it after they have spoke to me about what to do. Communication between me and the children is good because it helps then know that they can trust me because I listen to them and they know that I like to join in with activities with them and I can help them if they need it and answer their questions. I also ask then open questions to help encourage them to interact with me and others. Children like to ask questions so they can learn more about things and about what they want to know. For example today a boy asked me if monkeys eat the banana with the skin still on or not and I tried to explain to him that they don't. I have started to notice it takes a lot of patience when talking to children. Communication between me and the parents/carers happens at the end of the day to inform them of any accidents that their child might of had or if they have any thing in their draws that they need to take home because it is important. Also any wet items of clothing or dirty clothes and the reason why they are like that.  

]]> 2015-12-11 14:16:29 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86115385 Unit 9-2.7- prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86128383 Personal- At the beginning of the year I was worried I wouldn't make any friends and that I wouldn't really have much confidence in anything. Both of these have changes a lot since the beginning of the year because now I have made friends with people and have ended up making friends with the majority of the class and my confidence has got a lot better because my friends have encouraged me to not be so worried about anything.

Professional- At the beginning of the year I was worried that I would find the work really hard and that I wouldn't be able to understand any work that would have been given to me. I was wrong because I do understand the work given to me because it has been explained to me in a way I understand and I have found work easier because of it being explained to me and I knew that if I didn't understand something I could just ask for help or for a deeper explanation of it.

]]> 2015-12-11 14:59:18 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/86128383 Unit 9-2.6- Reflect on work activites in relation to your own professional development. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92282529 What sort of activities have you completed whilst at placement?

Whilst at placement I have completed a lot of activities that help the children to develop their intelligentual needs and to also help to encourage their creative sides. Most of the activities I done where to do with maths. For example asking the children to tell me the numbers on the card and to count the pictures, asking the child to count out a different number of bears that are a certain colour which helps the children to identify the different colours, and getting the children to match the coloured fruit with the coloured labels on different pots. I have learnt that I need to always let the children take there time to count out the colour I have chose for them to pick out and for them to work out what colour is correct. This has helped with my professional development because I now know for the future that I shouldn't rush a child to give me their answer and that all children work at different rates. This has made me feel more confident when doing activities with the children and it has also made me respect the children more because I know that they all learn at different rates.

Also I completed some creative activities what help the children express their imagination. For example I was creating a picture of a rocket to go on the wall, in this activity they had to find the shapes and stick them onto the picture to make a rocket, some children tried to match the example picture and then others didn't because they wanted to create their own versions of the rocket. Another creative activity I done was for the children to fill in a shape of a fruit with any material that is the same colour as the fruit. They can put anything in the shape as long as its the correct colour. Also they made some streamers that they could use outside in the wind. They are made with different coloured ribbons what the children could have picked. From this I learnt that not every child is the same and they have different minds and ways of doing things. This also shows me that all children have different levels of imagination because some don't want stick to the plan and want it done  in their way and some other children would rather try to copy the picture as much as possible but might add in a few things that are their ideas. This all helps my professional development because I can learn new things and they can help me with future situations and can make me more experienced. This has made me be less controlling about the activity they are doing and not to force them to try to make their picture look the same as the example and to praise them for trying and for what they have decides to make.

]]> 2016-02-01 13:46:39 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92282529 Unit 9- 2.4- Explain how refecting on your work activites help to develop your own knowlege, skills, and understanging. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92298740 Reflecting on my work activities helps me to learn new things that I might not have know how to do. For example I learnt how to complete an observation using the check-list, narrative and time tracker method. I learnt that children develop at all different rates from my narrative observation because of how they would play with certain toys and what their speech is like.

Also I learnt the ways that the nursery does certain things during the day. For example what they do at break time and how they set up the table area, the way they set out the tables at lunch to make sure that there is an adult at every table and how they bring out the lunches for the children. Also I got taught how the members of staff plan each of their days and how they do the books on the children's development what they show to the child's parents at parents evening.

Another thing that helped to develop my knowledge was being able to put the things I have learned into practice and managed to do it effectively. For example I learned about how to do an observation and then I completed an observation in my setting and I learned about adult-led and child-initiated play and I can notice and do this in my setting. I feel more confident now when i'm in the setting and I feel more respected from the children. Also for this I now know what to do for future preference. This can also help me because I would have had experience from doing things already at placement. I can take the skills I have gained from placement with me to future jobs to show them that I have experiences. By reflecting on my practice I can look at the areas that need to be improved and action that    
]]> 2016-02-01 14:33:09 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92298740 Unit 1.1-6.4- Make recommendations for healthy eating in own setting. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92531322 My setting always use the same kind of fruit and veg at snack time. I think that they should try to introduce different fruits and vegetables because its always either tomato, cucumber, banana, grapes or raisins. I know that they have to be careful of what allergies that some children have but i think that they should at least have something different like some orange or a few strawberries. 
Also my setting should do more activities to encourage healthy eating and get the children more aware and excited about it. They could do this by making the role play area into a grocery shop, they could make fruit pictures and they can use fruit to do some paintings by using the different shapes and textures of the fruit. The fruit could also be used on the sensory table because they can mush up bananas and feel the different textures of different fruit.]]> 2016-02-02 10:07:41 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92531322 Unit 1.2-3.3- Reflect on an activity which supports childrens exercise in outdoor space. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92541457 An activity that helps support a child exersize can be an obstacle course because the child can run,jump, skip,climb,crawl. This helps children to develop their gross motor skills. It is also a good way to get children excited to want to join in with all the activities that are in the obstacle course. Its a way to get the children to run around for a bit and learn about being patient when waiting for the other child to finish, they develop their hand-eye coordination as well if the have to throw anything through a hoop or if they have to make something balance on something else. This could also be done as a team if the practitioners think it would be a good idea because it would help the children to learn how to work as a team.]]> 2016-02-02 11:05:56 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92541457 Unit 1.2-3.4- Make recomendations for the outdoor provisions for own setting. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92544692 In my setting they mainly use the bikes and scooters when they are outside and sometimes they put out a few things like tools, popoids and pirates. There is a climbing frame but because of the weather it hasn't been used for safety reasons. But I think there needs to be more things outside that could keep them entertained for longer. The sand could be put out more often because the children like to make sand castles with it, the duplo bricks could be put out so that the children could make a castle with them if they wanted or they can use it to make a tower what they like to do a lot. Also the cars could be put out as well so they don't only have the bikes out and this way not that many children won't have one to go on. Another thing that could be done is have a mud kitchen put in the grass area so they can make things with mud if they want to do so.]]> 2016-02-02 11:28:58 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92544692 Unit 12-4.1- Refelect on own role in relation to managing childrens behaviour in own settting. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92547415 I am able to control behaviour in my setting by telling children to keep there voices down and to use their inside voice, I ask them not to run in the setting, and I also sort out any arguments that may occur. Another thing I do is use a stern voice if I need to tell the child off for doing something that they aren't meant to and try to make sure that any meltdowns are avoided by asking the child if they want to do another activity.
This did actually happen at my setting child A had been told off for hitting another child and was laying on the floor crying. I saw this and asked child A if he wanted to join in with the aqua doodle instead of laying on the floor. By doing this it made child A seem happier and he was more co-operative with the other adults because he was happy to be doing the aqua doodle with the pen that he wanted. ]]> 2016-02-02 11:49:18 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92547415 Unit 4-4.2- Reflect on the impact of own attitudes,values and behaviour when supporting equality,diversity and inclusive practice. prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92581004 I have to have a good attitude for working with children because if I don't and the children see this they might copy my mood and start acting the way that I am acting which could create a negative atmosphere. Its also good if I have a positive attitude about everyone being equal and I treat everyone equally. This is because it make if fair and I'm not picking favourites. At placement some children argue over toys all the time because they don't want to share and they both want to the toy. If I didn't act appropriately by telling them that they can share by having the toy for 5 minutes each then swap and if I just told the child who is the oldest that they can have the toy and the other child isn't allowed the toy at all. This is unfair because it will leave one child upset and they wouldn't really like me too much after that so I would have just lost the trust of a child who could have seen me as a role model. I could do an activity that can teach children about different cultures and religions which might help the child to be more respectful for the children who have a different culture or religion. Also as a practitioner I could encourage the fact that everyone is the same even if they do something differently or if they look different from the way they look. This also makes children become aware of others around them. I would encourage children to embrace their beliefs or religion and I would not try to force my beliefs or religion on to them because its wrong to do so and it is unfair on the child and could make them upset. To encourage them I could do activities with the all the children in the setting about any events that are from that child's religion and are going to occur around that time. This can show the child that I respect them and their religion. This can also help the other children to learn more about other religions in a fun way and it can help them to understand the world better. An example of this is in my setting they set up an activity about Saint Patrick's day because a child in the settings family is from Ireland and the practitioners want the children to know more about the event so they done an activity for the children to decorate four leaf clovers. This made the child feel very happy about being from Ireland and the child liked sharing the experience with th ]]> 2016-02-02 14:03:31 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/92581004 Unit 8- 3.1- Explain What is Meant by a 'Language-Rich Environment' prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/111205456 A language-rich environment is about children who might speak a different language from the country they are in and they are no longer treated as upper-class, middle-class or lower-class. A practitioner should never judge a child because of where they are from or what language they speak or their culture. If a practitioner knows that their is a new child starting in the setting form a different country or from a different culture, the practitioner should look up what that culture is and things about it so that they can know if they might need to do something's differently the practitioner can add it into the settings routine. They can also set up a meeting with the child's parents/carers so that the practitioner can discuss things about the routine and ask them how they like things to be done. Practitioners talking to children and creating conversations between children and practitioners is part of having a language-rich environment. It can also be from having displays in the room that have words that children can read from on them and from having signs up in the garden area so that the children know that they can still use their words when they are outside. Words on walls and boxes can also help children because they can read the word to know what things are and they will remember where things are found from learning these words. they can ]]> 2016-05-17 10:54:20 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/111205456 Unit 3- 4.4- Reflect on own role in the setting when managing a risk prettyroselee24 https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/114864540 If the risk was that their was toys all over the floor which made it hard for people to walk past, to prevent this I would have to keep checking if their is any toys in the way and if there was I would have to move them out of the way by either putting the toys back onto the table or back into the big tray what is on the carpet. Another thing I would need to do to prevent a risk is to sweep the floor every so often and put the remains into the bin if the sand is inside in a tray on the floor. This is because the children like to make a lot of mess with the sand and it can be very slippy when its on the floor and everyone in the setting is at risk of slipping over and getting hurt. Another risk can be the door to enter the garden area which is also the door used for drop off and pick up. The practitioners have to be careful that none of the children try to run out if that door during pick up and drop off time. Either myself or a different practitioner will stand at the door to make sure that none of the children try to run out without permission. The only time that the children are allowed out of that door is if their are entering with their parents/careers, if they are leaving with their parent/carers or if they have been told that the garden has been opened for them to play in. We do this because we don't want any of the children to get out of the gate that they enter through and it's a way to keep children safe when they are in the setting. ]]> 2016-06-16 20:48:58 UTC https://padlet.com/prettyroselee24/yww7rul3i0o/wish/114864540