Anyone for a story?
04 Mar, 2015
We love fairy tales at Crawford Childcare. One of our favourites in the baby room at the moment is “The Gingerbread Man”. While our toddlers always ask for “The Three Little Pigs”. The Montessori children are divided between “Cinderella” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” What’s your Favourite fairy tale? We would love for you to let us know or perhaps some parents would like to come in to lead a story telling session?? Let us know if you are interested! Children of all ages love stories and love to listen to them. Story telling is an interactive art that has cognitive, social, emotional and…
Here at Crawford Childcare , part of our philosophy is to help children to learn to socialise and communicate with both adults and their peers. Children learn many of their social skills through play. At Crawford Childcare, Glanmire the children play outdoors as often as possible and they especially enjoy water and sand play. Here is an insight into one of our Toddler teams observations. We hope you enjoy it! James decided to play at the water table. He knows that he must wear a protective apron when playing with water and asked an adult to help him. He happily played by himself with the…
Crawford Childcare adopted a fallabella horse in the latter half of 2013 and named him Oreo. He lives at Tir na Sí Open Farm in Watergrasshill where Julia and Paul McCarthy look after him on our behalf. Each morning and evening they feed Oreo and clean out his stable. We appreciate their work very much. On the farm Oreo's friends include pigs, sheep, horses and alpacas to mention but a few. Also the many parents and children that visit the farm stop by to chat to Oreo. He does love the attention he receives from everyone. Oreo is fifteen years old, this was confirmed by…
Love is in the air as we all celebrated Valentine’s Day. Here in Crawford we are exploring the emotion that is love. Teaching children all about love will help them develop positive attitudes towards themselves, friends and family. You can show a child how to love by showing affection with hugs, kisses and kind words. It’s important to praise your children regularly it is not just for succeeding, but for who they are and what they are doing (efforts and attempts). Even if your toddler doesn’t manage to do exactly what they set out to do, saying things such as “The way you tried hard…
There has been great excitement over the past few days in the Montessori room in Crawford Childcare, Glanmire, Co. Cork as we prepare for a fairy visit! We have done everything we can to ensure a pleasant stay. With the help of our Montessori “Super helpers” we found a nice quiet corner in our classroom to position our fairy door. Our talented “Cutters” and “Gluers” made a foam castle complete with fairy door. We even created our own fairy post box, where we can communicate with our new friend by leaving our letters, colourings and drawings. Laura and the Montessori class sat down together to…
Here at Crawford Childcare, Glanmire we take a pro-active approach to supporting a child’s well-being through the curriculum. These 10 ideas used as daily habits will give your child the best chance possible to become a creative confident child. Be aware of your behaviour: You’re child will do as you do. Do you have minor tantrums when things go wrong? Can you stay calm during difficult situations? Be willing to say no: Children will naturally ask for things they can see. Saying “no” will give them an opportunity to deal with disappointment and to learn impulse control. Start coaching: Coaching your child will help them…
Recently in the toddler room we had some messy fun painting on a large roll of paper, generously donated to us by Spohia’s mum – thank you! We covered two tables with the paper and we also upcycled some plastic containers and paper tubes that the children had brought in. Arts and crafts are part of the many daily activities here at Crawford Childcare in Glanmire. The children have lots of fun and the activities are more than just to develop their creativity. Arts and crafts can also aid their cognitive, physical, language, social and emotional development. Robyn pressed very hard with both hands…
Snow arrived in Cork last week and even though it was only for a short while it was all very exciting. All the children in Crawford were excited to see the snow outside. Abigail, Maya and Harry tried to make snow angels when there was only a thin layer of snow. Maya even made a small snowman in her hands. Everyone was excited to be out on Tuesday when the snow first started to fall. However Robyn and Lucy did not like the feel of the snow falling and wanted to go inside but enjoyed a window seat and ventured out again after the snow…
So it’s a new year and even though we don’t have the best weather, the Montessori class decided to get active and what better way to start the new year than doing some physical activity. We don’t need good weather to get active and as we know children love the outdoors, they don’t mind if it’s wet, windy or cold, all they want to do is run around and release that extra energy they have. Physical activity is very important for young children, it decreases their chances of becoming overweight or even obese and it also helps develop their gross motor skills. Children should never…
January is always a good time to consider what we could improve from last year for the upcoming year. At Crawford Childcare in Glanmire we also encourage the children to talk about what they could do in the preschool environment to help themselves and to help their peers. By involving the children in deciding their own New Year resolutions they become more motivated and confident. This is how they take ownership of their goals and learn to plan. The process of starting and completing something provides the child with a sense of achievement. These resolutions should be simple in task and achievable. Examples of such…
