Sunshine Circles

Sunshine Circles ® are adult-directed, interactive group activities designed by The Theraplay Institute to promote an atmosphere of fun, caring, acceptance and encouragement that leads to better social, emotional and even cognitive development. Through playing games that emphasise cooperation and trust in a warm and nurturing environment, children develop the emotional confidence to explore and develop.

When one of the rules of the game is to "have fun" you can expect the children to enjoy the planned sessions. In our experience at Snapdragons, they have embraced getting to know each other and  looking after their friends whilst having fun. "Sunshine Circles" are used in the nurseries to help the children develop their Personal, Social and Emotional Development, supporting them to look after themselves and others, which is a key skill for life and one to encourage.

We know from brain research that when we are relaxed we learn better and absorb more information. During the sessions we encourage the children to relax and look after themselves and their friends using the "check in routine". Children readily start to rub lotion into their friends' hands, acknowledging their "baddies". They also become familiar with saying positive, supportive comments to each other, for example, "what beautiful, big, brown eyes you have" and "your hands are so strong". 

Children enjoy having their individual time and feel valued. Songs and rhythm are part of the session and all the children love the 'Toodie ta' song, with its silly actions and words. Please accept my apologies if they are driving you potty singing it! Children engage in the carefully planned activities and learn new skills.

"Check in" time, and using touch to connect with each other. 

Having fun, whilst learning and making friends, is key to "Sunshine Circles". 

Sunshine Circles create joy and build trust; they give a sense of belonging to a community. Children like having clear rules, boundaries and structure and Sunshine Circles support this. They also encourage the children to learn and practise self-control - we choose activities to get them excited and playful and then support them to calm themselves, so that, when they experience this outside of the group, they know how to control their mood. They learn how to regulate their own behaviour.

Challenge is a big part of the fun: here a child is using different parts of his body to keep the bag of balloons up in the air. A good way of getting some physical development as well.  

Nurture in the group helps all children to feel safe, relaxed and able to learn. Children enjoy the snack and unique way we "feed"; this helps the brain to relax and remember a nurturing time in their development. 

Children indicate when they want "feeding" by opening their mouths and letting us feed them. Drinking through a straw also soothes them, whilst they listen to a story. 

When I visit the nurseries, children greet me with a cry of "am I coming to play?" How wonderful and lucky I am to be part of a child's day, knowing that I can help them to develop in a nurturing way. 

The Dawn Chorus

The alarm goes off every morning at 5:30. Not my work alarm but the first early call of the Robin replacing the silence left by the few steady Owl hoots at 3am. The Robins are overshadowed and outshone by the deeper, throatier call of the Blackbirds closer to the window, and then at 6 o'clock, near enough on the dot, the Wren starts, its machine gun cry covers everything around - impressive for a bird that looks like a feathered ping pong ball.  Steadily as the sun comes up the winged world starts to warm up its vocal chords - Blue, Long-tailed and Great Tits and Goldfinches are the most common where I live but around the nurseries there are always different calls and songs to hear.

If you head to Corsham and Broadwood the Sparrows chatter-chatter in the hedge along the bottom of the garden, over at Grosvenor and Horfield there are Starlings whistling and clicking from the tops of the buildings, Keynsham has its own brave Robin who has been known to hop indoors to see what's going on and Weston is home to several Great Tits who call out "teacher, teacher". At the top of Atworth's thick cypress hedge are Blackbirds getting a good view of the surrounding area and over at Shirehampton Blue Tits cry shrilly in between the branches of the young trees in their forest garden.

This time of year is a perfect opportunity to release your inner twitcher as the song and chorus will be increasing in volume and length before the mid summer hush when the birds are nesting. It's not about being able to spot and name every creature around but to notice patterns and place where you hear the same calls. For example, whenever I take a group to the woods I ask everyone to walk in as quietly as they can and to listen carefully. Quickly the children notice the bird calls right around them. These calls are an alarm system that will echo through the trees as more birds respond to the alarm and pass on the message further and further. Steadily, as the woods become used to us being there the calls will settle and the birds will carry on with their lives. Next time you're in the woods, try and spot the point when the birds start calling and when they stop.

On May 7th it is International Dawn Chorus Day which celebrates this natural phenomenon. All over the world people will be getting up early to hear the birds so if you find yourself awake, go to a window, close your eyes and listen.

Natural Objects To Spark The Imagination

The way an activity is presented to the children has a powerful impact on its potential for learning. Skilled adults provoke children's interest and curiosity through the way they set up resources. This invites children in, leading them to become engaged and motivated, with opportunities to extend their thinking.

Initially a house was made with sticks, which then sparked her own recall of the snake’s log pile house from “The Gruffalo”.

A child entered into this activity, tempted in through the adult’s arrangement of a tree with bark and leaves, and a bird using circles of wood and sticks for a beak and legs. This was rooted in the children's interest in the different birds from our recent story focus of “Chicken Licken”.

As a variety of natural objects are available for exploration, presented in baskets for the children to select freely, this enabled her to build upon and develop her own ideas in the following ways.

Leaves were used for the fox’s den, it was important to her to provide him with some of these leaves to use as a blanket.

The owl’s house was created using bark pieces placed to form a large tree with spreading branches.

Shiny stones were selected and lined up to mark out the mouse house. Then finally, pine cones were carefully arranged for the Gruffalo’s cave, complete with a piece of bark stood up as his door.

The owl’s house was created using bark pieces placed to form a large tree with spreading branches.

These natural loose parts had been used by the child to create a complete story environment. A toy mouse could then explore and visit each of the character’s homes, retelling the story in her own way.

From an inspiring starting point, ideas evolved through the child’s own story knowledge and creativity. Freedom to select and arrange these natural objects gave the control to make her own choices and decisions. The open ended nature of this activity gave her the opportunity to use objects to represent the features of a story she knows well and remain motivated through her own interests.

This activity was an effective context in which she could use her communication skills to express her ideas. Also physical and mathematical experience was gained through manipulating and arranging the objects carefully. Access to this variety of natural materials also increases understanding of the world around us.

All this learning and imagination from such simple resources, and so much fun!

The Kitchen Garden

Whether or not you're a gardener you'll have noticed in the last couple of weeks that nature is waking up and springing into action after a long, dark winter. In the nurseries the grass that has been trampled into oblivion by hundreds of mini wellies over the wet winter is beginning to recover and is already looking more green than brown.

Flower borders littered with clumps of brown, rotted leaves and dry-looking twigs are suddenly reminding us of their potential as they push up fresh green growth. Spring has sprung!

In our vegetable growing areas we are starting to plan which edible plants to grow. We're looking for plants that will inspire the children with incredible colours, smells and textures. We want to instil in them a love of fresh food in all its glory. There's nothing more guaranteed to encourage children to try new tastes and textures of fruit and vegetables than helping to grow them. 

At Snapdragons Keynsham, Tim "don't-fence-me-in" Graham, our Leader of Outdoor Learning (#LOL), has been hard at work plotting out the vegetable patch and we're excited to reap the rewards. We have focussed on growing a variety of edible plants that are packed with sensory benefits - plants that smell amazing, look great, feel interesting and taste wonderful. On top of that, we've looked for plants that attract bees and other native wildlife to encourage a diverse and sustainable environment. We invited the Keynsham grandparents to help us plant up the kitchen garden and they didn't disappoint, sharing their love of growing with their grandchildren and helping to inspire the next generation of horticulturalists.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be watching the progress of our nursery gardens and looking to use the produce in our new Nursery Kitchen video feature. So if you've been inspired to get planting, we hope to give you some ideas of how to use your home-grown food. Let's get cooking!

How much screen time?

We live in a fast-changing world and screen gadgets are a huge and ever increasing part of it. Just take a moment to think how many different screen gadgets are part of our daily routines. Phones, watches, iPads, televisions, monitors, games, the list goes on. Research tells us that screen time should be discouraged before the age of two and only a maximum of 30 minutes a day allowed for 3-5 year olds. Not long, when you add up a few minutes television whilst getting ready in the morning, letting them watch something on your phone in the car, FaceTiming granny to tell her about their day and sharing a few photos or videos on the iPad with them. Psychologists are becoming increasingly concerned about children over-using screen gadgets.

As parents, we need to question how much time we use our screens ourselves. Think about the number of times you 'just check' your phone. The average is 9 times per hour and 110 times in a day, with peak use between 5pm and 8pm. We don't like to be more than 2 metres away from our phones, physically. 

So what's wrong with using screen gadgets? 

A child needs a variety of stimuli whilst they are growing and developing and nothing can replace the physical one-to-one time of interaction with your child. Talking and finding out about their day, mimicking their first sounds when they are learning to talk, or reading a story.

If your child is not getting enough access to social interactions, the development of their ability to deal with social situations and read clues from them can be dulled, possibly for good.

The brain's frontal lobe decodes and comprehends social interactions, it helps us empathise, take in non-verbal clues, read facial expression, tone of voice and it helps us to understand relationships and their part in the world around us. During the brain's 'critical period' of development (thought to be birth to age 3) if your child is not getting enough access to social interactions, the development of their ability to deal with social situations and read clues from them can be dulled, possibly for good. Psychologists are concerned that children overusing screen gadgets become used to the instant gratification it gives the brain. The child's developing brain readily accepts the feelings of instant pleasure (dopamine). A pattern is learnt by the brain and mimicked, the child develops a habit. 

Excessive screen time has been linked to childhood obesity. Recent research tells us that children who have limited screen time, consume fewer calories and are more mobile than children who do not have limited time. 

Difficult bedtime routines? 

We know that sleep is triggered by the hormone Melatonin which is linked to natural light dimming at the end of the day, telling the body to start the process of going to sleep. Bright lights that screens give off halt the natural process and inhibit sleep. Even a brief exposure of two minutes can delay the sleep process for two hours. Fragmented sleep, or too little sleep, makes us produce more of the hormone Gherlin, the hungry hormone and less of the energy hormone Leptin. This leads directly to weight gain. Poor sleep will impact on growth, immunity, blood pressure, memory, attention, ability to work something out and insulin levels. We know when we have been asleep for more than 5 hours the brain and body have a chance to rest and restore themselves. The active neurons rest and the supporting glial cells start the 'cleaning up process' to remove the toxins that have developed over the day.    

So what can we do? 

Recommendations are:

• have screen-free time
• encourage your child to turn the gadget off and play
• have screen rules: how long they can use them for and when is the latest they can use them
• preview the games and apps
• supervise your child
• discuss what they are watching
• eliminate background television noise
• use parental controls
• develop relaxing bedtime routines: calming bath and then a bedtime story  
• make bedrooms screen free zones
• have family screen time, watch television together and have no other screens on
• remember the old saying, "everything in moderation" !