Seasonal Christmas Workshop
Dear Families,
December is here and we have already kicked off the festive season with our Seasonal Christmas Workshop.
Good People are really pleased to announce that our first Nanny Workshop was a great success. Some families were able to spare their nannies to join us bright and early at 7am on Tuesday 26th November. We would like to thank all who were able to attend.
We were keen to provide a service that would offer our nannies a chance to develop their skills, at the same time as offering some new and exciting activities to carry out with the children that they work with. The aim was that these activities would be simple and easy to do, to ensure that they would be able to start doing these activities at home straight away!
The workshop included Christmas Crafts, Festive Food, Examples of Outdoor activities as well as Seasonal Songs and Stories to share with your children. It was wonderful to be told by nannies that attended ‘it was quite early in the morning, but you still managed to keep us all engaged and involved and I forgot that I was even tired. Thanks again for a great workshop and I look forward to the next one!`
It really was like Santa’s Workshop here as we began with making Cheesy Christmas Trees, Strawberry Santas, Fruity Banana Snowmen and Chocolate Banana Penguins. The aim for our Festive Food part of the workshop was to highlight some ways in which your nannies can prepare healthy and everyday foods that your children will enjoy, with some added festive flare. Another goal for this part of the workshop was to explore senses, language, colour, shape and much more with the children that we work with.
With our Arts and Crafts part of the workshop we created Handprint Rudolf and Santa Cards, as well as Finger Painting Christmas Lights. Children love to be creative and most love to get a bit messy too! It was great fun to see our nannies enjoy taking part in this and getting a little messy themselves too!
Again, we wanted to model some really simple ways of using paints to explore different educational aspects of being creative. These included writing, geography, language, songs and science.
During our Winter Outdoor Activities section we made Winter Ice Gardens, Pinecone Bird Feeders and Colour Matching Scavenger Hunts.
It was really good to hear the nannies contribute to the workshop by identifying activities that the children that they work with would particularly love, and also how easily they could fit these into their working day.
The learning links explored with our outdoor learning activities included geography, science and maths; such as counting, tally charts and lots of mathematical language.
For our Stories and Songs segment of the workshop we looked at well known and new wintery tales. We shared ways for children to become part of the storytelling experience and how to make stories that we enjoy more interactive. This included games to play whilst reading stories that contribute to small children becoming more confident readers. The learning pathways explored included rhyming words, vocabulary, repeated language and thought provoking questioning, which encourages children to share their understanding and to give an input to the ideas being shared and explored.
As we know, ‘the best way to spread Christmas cheer is by singing loud for all to hear’, this was certainly achieved whilst singing ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘When Santa Got Stuck in the Chimney’. Performing actions and studying rhythm and beat is something that all the nannies were passionate about. It was a really joyful way to round of a fantastic morning of development together.
Our main focus for our first workshop was for our nannies and families to find these activities and suggestions for follow up exercises and questions helpful and useful. We wanted to explore learning opportunities and to demonstrate the educational value that simple and easy to do activities have, as well as the many paths of learning that they can provide.
What makes us truly happy is when we feel this goal has been achieved. We are so happy to have positive feedback fed back to us from both parents and nannies.
One nanny who attended the workshop fed back, ‘I really enjoyed yesterday’s session and found it really engaging and interesting. You gave me a lot of great ideas to use in the future. I loved how simple all of the ideas were but also really effective.’ G.V
One of the parents kindly reported back, ‘Georgina came back raving about the workshop. Please do keep me informed of any other ones that are available in the future.’ T.D
What’s next?
We are planning to have our next workshop in the new year and we hope that you will be interested in your nanny taking part.
From all of us at Good People, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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