I’ve written a super practical and visual guide to the baby room in collaboration with Community Playthings. It’s free to order (yes, you’ll get a lovely copy in the actual post completely for free!) or download immediately. It could work really well as an induction resource for any members of your baby room team whoContinue reading “FREE baby room booklet – order your copy now”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Baby, what are you discovering?
A six month old baby is mouthing a metal whisk they’ve picked up from the treasure basket. What discoveries are they making? Babies are always asking questions about the world around them. In this case, the baby might be asking: When we see babies’ actions in terms of discovery, we become so much moreContinue reading “Baby, what are you discovering?”
Musical creativity in the baby room – Part 1
In part 1 of this blogpost series, I’m going to talk about why we need to bring musical creativity into the baby room. In part 2, I’ll share some reflective prompts that will help you to reflect on what you’re currently doing and what you might do next. So if you’re already convinced that youContinue reading “Musical creativity in the baby room – Part 1”
Musical creativity in the baby room – Part 2
In the first part of this series, we looked at why it’s so important to embrace musical creativity in the baby room. In this second part, I’ll introduce some reflective prompts to get you reflecting as a baby room team on what you’re doing at the moment and what you might want to develop forContinue reading “Musical creativity in the baby room – Part 2”
Creativity in the Baby Room
I want us to start thinking differently about creativity in the baby room. Instead of asking the question ‘What can we do that’s creative?’, let’s ask the question ‘How can we do what we’re doing in a more creative way?’. Shifting the mindset from ‘What?’ to ‘How?’ is a hugely liberating thing to do. WhenContinue reading “Creativity in the Baby Room”
Let’s see it from the baby room educator’s perspective
I bought myself a slightly strange Christmas present – This. It’s the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (3rd Edition), otherwise known as ITERS-3. It’s a tool typically used in the US to monitor process quality in early childhood education environments serving 0-3 year olds. The idea of the ITERS is that you can spend 3 hoursContinue reading “Let’s see it from the baby room educator’s perspective”
Reflective Practice in the Baby Room: Description, Analysis & Evaluation
There are many models of reflection out there. It can feel overwhelming when you do a course on reflective practice in the early years or read a book about it because often a number of different models are put forward and explained. Adopting one, simple model of reflection and actually doing it, is more importantContinue reading “Reflective Practice in the Baby Room: Description, Analysis & Evaluation”
Reciprocity: Nel Noddings’ vision of care in the baby room
Caring for babies involves a lot of giving. We give warmth. We give love and affection. We give emotional support. We give attachment. We give stimulation. We give so much. It’s easy to focus completely on the giving nature of baby room work – especially when the pay and conditions of the work leave aContinue reading “Reciprocity: Nel Noddings’ vision of care in the baby room”
Babies’ self-determination and agency: looking at how we do personal hygiene and care in the baby room
You’ll know from previous blogposts, that I’m particularly interested at the moment in how babies show self-determination and agency – how they make choices for themselves and how they make things happen in the world around them. I wonder how this focus on self-determination and agency might change the way we see personal hygiene andContinue reading “Babies’ self-determination and agency: looking at how we do personal hygiene and care in the baby room”
A busy six months – I wrote a book about baby room leadership!
It’s been a busy six months. Just under six months ago I gave birth to my fourth child, Nina. As you can imagine, since she was born a lot of life has involved cuddling, feeding and trying to get enough sleep. But something amazing has happened alongside all of that, which is that I putContinue reading “A busy six months – I wrote a book about baby room leadership!”