Style File - Polish Perfection

Colour 1 - Me & My Lover by Colour and Go essence 

For full opacity, 2 coats are recommended. Wait until the first is completely dry before applying the second coat. The sand effect gives the final product a three-dimensional finish with a multicolour sparkle. Polishes are available from Priceline Australia and can be purchased at $2.75 each. 

Miss Tracy xx

Placement Reflection

Hello readers,

So that's it; my placement is over, completely over! After 10 single Wednesdays and a two weeks block, my 0-2 years placement has come to the end and I think it's only fair that I reflect on this experience...and share this reflection with you! 

What impact did this experience have on my personal growth? 

I feel much more confident about creating professional relationships and being assertive in my communication.

What was my greatest accomplishment? 

My planning, implementation and documentation in relation to my focus child, C.

What did I find most challenging about that placement? 

The hours. It took an incredible strain on me, physically and mentally, having to start at 7.00 am one day, come home and plan and finish uni work and then get up the next day and be at the centre until 6.00 pm. The placement coupled with extra uni work was not the most favorable experience.

What skills did I learn? 

• parent communication skills
• how to plan effectively 
• creating successful environments 
• staff communication skills
• integrating my IT skills into planning and documenting 
• collaboration with staff and parents
• time management within the centre

How was I able to apply my current skills? 

My current skills helped me to interact with the children and parents and working effectively with other members of staff. 

What did I discover about myself? (Strengths, weaknesses, dislikes) 

• This is definitely the right profession for me; I enjoyed my time at the centre and am looking forward to getting back into the practical.
• I need to share my ideas with the staff more, I cannot continue to surprise the educators on the day I want to set up an activity 
• I also need to seek out the policies and rules before I let myself run wild with plans.
• I need to make more of an effort to communicate with parents and make sure that I communicate often and relatively.
• I can comfortably multitask and time manage, both within the workplace and during my time away.

What influence will that experience have on my future academic and career choices? 

As much as I enjoyed my time in the 0-2 room, I did find myself looking at my watch a lot and hanging out for my breaks, I also felt limited in how I could enrich the learning experience of the children in the room. 

In the one short day I spent with the 3-4 year olds, things were very different for me. The children were so much more independent and had developed much more social skills so things likes sharing and group play were not an issue. 

The fact that someone had to remind me to take a break during my time there confirms my feelings that I would much rather prefer working with toddlers or in a sessional kindergarten.  

What did I learn about office politics that will serve me in the future?

The best thing is to make friends and be polite. Do not take part in any office gossip, if you are present just smile and stay quiet. And most importantly, form your own opinion of someone, don't wait for someone else to tell you what they think of them.

What successes have I experienced? What did they mean to me? 

My experiences and planning were very well received by the staff and they made sure to compliment me about it. This was also apparent in my final report, which I was very happy with. The feedback I received have helped to shape ideas on what attributes and ideas I should be taking to my next placement.

What setbacks have I experienced? What did you learn from those? 

After planning and activity which used spaghetti an art material, I was unable to implement it as the centre's policy restricted the use of food in activities. Had I asked the staff  before hand and consulted their policies, this could all have been avoided. I will make sure to do just that in my future planning.

Were there people whose work ethics I would imitate?

There was one women at the centre, N, whom the children and staff loved. All her actions and behaviors towards were staff, children and parents were everything I want to embody with my work with children and I do consider her to one of my role-models for this profession.

What did I learn from people I admire in the organization?

That this job takes hard work, time and commitment and when you do your job right, the children reap the rewards and that is the most important part of the profession.

Miss Tracy xx

Style File - Polish Perfection

Colour 1 - Nude by Savvy Designer Brands 

Colour 2 - Ginger Ale by Savvy Designer Brands 

Start by painting 1-2 coats of colour 1. When dry, top with 1 coat of colour 2 for a subtle glitter as shown in the picture, or two coats for maximum coverage. Both polishes are available from Priceline Australia and can be purchased at $1.00 each. 

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Planned Experiences Part 3

Me again!

Can you believe I am posting once a week now? The holidays have left me with a lot of spare time, much of which is dedicated to this blog. This will be the last installment for the Planned Experience series so here we go...

Heuristic Play Baskets

The EDCU 101 unit that I took in my first semester of uni was the first in a series of early childhood curriculum units. My tutor had some very firm beliefs on a variety of topics however one that stood out was heuristic play. Heuristic play refers to the type of play which involves discovering the properties of objects, such as the feel of aged leather or the sound of a whisk as it hits the floor.

We learnt about various types of  play but one task set for us was to set up  a heuristic play basket as present our collection to the class. I used the basket I had set up for this class as a planned activity during this placement. Some items I choose to include in my basket:

• small wooden spoon
• silicone baking tray
• leather samples
• wooden bangles 
• pine-cones
• shells
• stainless steel strainer

The children enjoyed the experience however some became very attached to particular items which did test the groups sharing abilities. I had split all the items into two felt basket from IKEA but ideally I would have liked to use round wicker baskets.

Story Time

C loves to read, both by herself and with an educator so to build on this love of books, I planned a one-on-one story time. I picked up these Beatrix Potter style board books from a local school fete and paid $2 for a set of 12. I also managed to find a squirrel/wombat puppet to complement this experience.

The one-on-one aspect of this experience worked extremely well, we were able to make our way through the book at a comfortable pace so that C should take her time appreciating the illustrations and the motions of reading a book. The puppet added to the interactive nature of reading a story and C even had a turn at managing the puppet.

Paint Stamping

If there is one thing that the children at my placement centre love to do, it is PAINTING! But there are only so many times that the educators can put out the paper and a paint brush. So to spice things up on the craft table, I found some Christmas themes paint stampers for the children and C to enjoy.

The end result was... amusing!

The children started using the stampers as you usually would, pressing them into the paint and then onto the paper. But then they ran out of space on the paper and decided to experiment. As you can see in the picture above, C experimented by sweeping the stamper through the paint on her paper, while others choose to paint with their hands as stampers and some even decided to paint on others bodies!

But all in all, all the children involved loved it! And thank god the paint is washable!

This ends the Planned Experiences series for this placement but never fear, I will be back sometime i March as I kick off my 3-5 year old placement in a sessional kindergarten.

Miss Tracy xx 

LMST is on Pinterest!

Hi readers,

I've being saying that I need to get a Pinterest account organised for a while and on a whim, I decided to go ahead and set one up!

LMST IS ON PINTEREST!

Head over HERE to see what I'm making a big fuss about.

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Creating Environments Part 2

Hey all,

So during my second week of placement, I had to make an environmental change with the outdoor environment. The centre had a beautiful blue water trough but following a child getting comfortable inside the trough, a large crack appeared. This meant that for the last 12 weeks, it had only been filled with a small layer of sand and some sifts.

I saw this area as an opportunity to make a positive and supportive change and got to work o  how a could switch it up. During one of my tea breaks, I came across a book in the staff room a out creating play environments and after a quick flick through, I found a recipe for making coloured rice.

Coloured Rice

White rice (amount depending on the activity/environment you are planning)

Food coloring

Water

Large flat tray

Lay the rice flat on your tray. Mix the water, just enough to wet the rice, and your food colouring. The darker the colour you want the rice to be, the more food colouring you should be adding. Mix the rice and the water, moving it around so that all the grains are coated. Lay in a warm dry area to dry. If using separate colours, they can be mixed at this point in the process Once completely dry, the rice can be stored indefinitely.  

I chose the blue so that I could create and under the sea theme following an underwater puppet show that the children experienced. After the rice was dried and mixed, I brought it to the centre and placed it into the trough. I added some small blue cups for pouring, some shells to further the experience and some bath toys.

The end result looked spectacular and the children could not be pulled away!

The rice provided a new use for the trough and really lit up this area of the garden. To actually look at the rice and see it run through their fingers was a different experience for the children and the smell of the Basmati rice added to this.

I would definitely replicate this in the future and already have some ideas on how to do so. However, while the children enjoyed it, the cleaning up is not as easy as sand. Older children would understand that the rice needs to stay in the trough, a concept that was lost on the 0-2 age group. But this did not stop them from enjoying themselves.

The educators really loved this and since the weather in Melbourne is so often hot and dry, preparing this material is terribly easy for the staff. I would definitely recommend trying this in your educational environment!

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Planned Experiences Part 2

Hello there,

Here comes part 2 of the planned experiences I implemented whilst on placement. The experiences in this series focused on sensory play, primarily implemented for C.

Moon Sand

I had this idea locked up for some time and when staff told me how interested C was in play dough plus my observations on their play with sand, I knew I could use this resource. Moon Sand is this crazy dough that is basically sand which sticks to its self and has the properties of a liquid and a solid. The recipe is as follows:

4 parts sand

2 parts cornflour

1 part water

Mix all the ingredients together, adding cornflour and/or water until the desired consistency is reached.

The final product was amazing! When you held it gently, it flowed through your fingers but roll it like dough and suddenly, it becomes solid and resists! I added some cookie cutters for the children to experiment with and placed the mixture in a tray to minimise the mess. 

When the mixture dried out a little too much, a squirt of water on the hands of the children playing restores a more liquid consistency to the mixture.  The clean up was surprisingly easy; even though I lay down a mat the mixture still spread everywhere but since we were outside, the heat of the sun dried the water up and I just used a broom to sweep the excess back into the sandpit.

Ice Ice Baby

I implemented this activity for one simple reason; the expected temperature was 38 degrees Celsius and I knew the children were going to have a very hot, inside day. Materials are as follows:

Food colouring

Clean water

Ice cube trays

Freezer 

Large trough
Cups, scoops, water play equipment 

It's as simple as mixing the food colouring with the water, pouring it into the trays and freezing it, Transfer the final product to the trough you plan to use and add lukewarm water plus the play equipment.

I would recommend boiling the water before freezing and adding the colour. If you don't, the colour tends to pool in the usually cloudy spots of the ice cube however if boiled, the whole cube becomes a brilliantly coloured shape.

Due to the weather, this activity was very well received by the participants! Staff members were concerned about the water staying in the trough, which is understandable since we still have some unsteady walkers in the room, but other than that...no complaints what so ever.

Bubble Dough

On the third day, I implemented my last activity for the week; bubble dough. Again, this activity was found online during a study/procrastination session and it's contents took me by surprise:

2 parts cornflour/plain flour

1 part dishwashing liquid

2 table spoons baby/cooking oil

Combine all the ingredients, kneading until well combined. If too sticky, add more flour; if too dry, add more dish washing liquid and for more malleability, add more oil.

I set this experience up during a nappy change time, when children are moving in and out of the room. They were free to engage in it when it suited them. Some stayed for 5-10 mins but C and another child lingering for the entirety of the dough's life's span. 

It was a good alternative to play dough, offering different properties than usually with the dish washing liquid giving the material a pleasantly fresh smell that lingering around the room. I made the dough ahead of time and only needed to add oil and liquid on the day. At the time of writing this post, the dough was still usable after some oil, dish washing liquid and plenty of kneading. 

I had plenty of fun discovering and creating these experiences and am so glad that the children enjoyed themselves. I cannot wait to share part three with you all! 

Miss Tracy xx