Just a quick one as I'm racing off to the dentists ..................... I was talking this morning about treasure baskets/sensory play.  I had to update the blog this morning but I got distracted in Dunhelm on the way home with some really beautiful new wafting clothes - roll on next term!!!  I'll be photographing the basket I use with Baby Beans this afternoon, posting it on asap and chatting all about the benefits etc of this sort of play for very young children.   Just got to fit it around organising the boys who will be trying to complete a 'decorate a fairy cake/digestive biscuit' competition entries for tomorrow at school. 

Finally got back to load up the pictures - the boys won the cake decorating competition - hurrah!

Treasure baskets are essentially a sturdy, round basket filled with natural or household objects (no plastic) all chosen in order to stimulate the five senses -  touch, smell, taste, sight, sound and are a fantastic resource to have once your baby can sit unattended.   The child explores and learns about the objects by touching, licking, looking, sucking, picking up, putting down, stroking and importantly he/she is in charge of what he/she wants to play with.  Although the child is in charge of the process, please do not leave them unattended with the basket.  It is up to you what you put into the basket, but please do remember choking hazards etc.

At Baby Beans, the treasure basket is available both before and after the class for the babies to explore and although the contents change every week, the core objects are currently :-

Pine cones - large and small, metal chain dog collar, nail brush, potato cleaning brush, back massager, wooden balls, metal shiny balls, minature rolling pins, wooden spoons, taffeta bag, fabric box, purse covered in sequins, ring box, marble egg cup, sun glasses, shells, shiny ribbon, wooden lemon squeezer, space blanket.

All these objects were very easy to find, obviously as I take the basket to work rather than play with it at home, I've bought all the household objects, but true treasure baskets are filled with objects found in drawers!  All 3 of my boys had treasure baskets (true Montessori babies!) and I can honestly say they were probably the best 'toys' they had.  Hours and hours were devoted to both exploring them and finding new objects for exploration.  I am absolutely delighted that treasure baskets have now been recognised within the Early Years Foundation Stage Curricula and are increasingly becoming standard within day nurseries etc.

Apologies for the quality of the photo - need a new camera, but if you have any questions about treasure baskets, please do ask - I can bore for England on the subject!!!

All the Ruskington classes are cancelled on Monday 17/3/08 due to a funeral taking place in the adjacent church.  Class fees will be either refunded or carried forward and deducted from next term's fees.  Really sorry, but I am sure you can appreciate that it would be very inappropriate for classes to be running at such a time. 

love

Elizabeth

ps Don't forget there will be no class the following week either as it is a Bank Holiday - we're back the following week, just as the great Kylie and Jason sang ' and now we're back together'.

The half term holiday seems a lifetime ago already and I'm really, really pleased to say that I am back in fine voice!  Took a while and more disgusting throat pastilles than I care to admit, but bad throats are old news.

It has been a really busy return to class this week.  I decided to ease the children back in after the break with the musical equivalent of comfy slippers.  But what fun it's been.  Everyone has really risen to the challenge of clapping, stamping, bouncing and hopping.  The scarves have been waving and stopping during Musical Freeze - fantastic for auditory discrimination and visually it just looks so pretty.  Music Jam continued to exercise it's hypnotic lure on everyone.  From the smallest members enjoying the rainmakers, to toddlers 'threading' tambourines on their arms, all the way up to slightly stressed mums clattering those clatterpillars.   I just wish I could get hold of a ladybird shaker occasionally ...........  As if this wasn't enough, the blue gauze became the sea, the weasel went 'pop' and the baby not only 'rocked', but 'fell' down to the ground for a very, very long note!  In an attempt to protect my voice we enjoyed nursery rhymes with an instrumental backing track for the first time.  I really enjoyed being able to do the actions and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  I don't want to lose the guitar part, though, as I think that live music is so important to the child's musical development.

Baby Beans really got 'rocking' this week with the big pilates balls - they really loved rocking forwards and backwards and made tummy time really fun and giggly.   We also pretended to be pilots and the babies went flying up on our shins.  Altogether a good full body workout again. On a more intellectual level I've been exploring baby sensory play and am keen to introduce more and more sensorial play into this programme.  This week we started with smell.  During Baby Jam, the babies got to smell vanilla pods, cinnamon sticks, nutmegs, lemon and very ripe banana.  It was a real eyeopener watching their reactions, just one liked lemon!  Next week, it's listening through tubes. 

The Surestart sessions started and so many lovely people came I can hardly walk around the room!  Good job I had my crocs on so I didn't crush any small fingers.

What else?  The new classes open in Woodhall Spa this week and all the free trial places are full, so should be a very busy morning.  I'll keep you posted on what fun we have.

Must dash to wash all the instruments ready for Woodhall.  Have a great weekend and I'll see you next week when I'll be introducing the lycra sheet.

love

Elizabeth x

Unfortunately, neither Jellybeans Music or Baby Beans classes will be running for the remainder of the week.  My voice became progressively huskier (and out of tune!) yesterday, but I hoped it was just a combination of incorrect breathing and overuse (4 sessions on a tuesday), but I woke up this morning just about able to whisper.  According to the lady in the Asda cafe, there is a bug going around which causes this.  Thank goodness it is half term next week, so I can recover properly.  On the upside, the boys think it is just FANTASTIC that Mummy can't talk!  Anarchy ruled at breakfast, but I've got myself a loud whistle for tea, so order will be restored (some how!)

love

Elizabeth

Tea and coffee, tea and coffee, egg and chips, egg and chips, egg and chips, egg and chips, cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits,cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits, jellycream,jellycream, jellycream, jellycream, SOUP!

Honestly, I've not gone mad after too many classes this week.  Imagine a train in a station, pulling out down the track getting faster and faster.  Now chant the rhyme, clapping out the rhythm - that's fast and slow.  All the classes have been really enjoying this silly rhyme really bouncing along to the increasing speed of the words.  There's been a lot of giggling this week, as the hoops have been out again.  The majority of the groups enjoyed 'Alabama Girl' until the CD got damaged, so Barrowby got to enjoy being cowboys and cowgirls, shouting either 'yeehaa or wahoo'.  I think I'm going to have to rack my brains to try to beat the fun of this week.

Milestones I remember from this week are ............. perfect silence underneath the sequinned, starry gauze as we listened to the Sugar Plum Fairy.  The frogs swimming in the shimmery, velvet pond.  Baby Beans exploring the treasure basket.  Chanting 'rain, rain go away'. Jack and Scarlett can wave!  Joseph can really walk now! 

I've had more requests to put the words to the songs/chants on to the website.  Let me know what you think, as it will be on a password protection basis.

Antony finished the new advert. I am really pleased with it and hope it will attract lots more enquiries.  As soon as I get myself organised, it should start popping up all over the place.  If you are able to put one up in a nursery/playgroup etc, PLEASE do tell me!

See you all next week, when we'll be ending this half term singing Baby Beluga - this is going to be so fab as we send the 'whales' swimming into the new blue velvet sea!  The second half of the Spring term begins on Monday 18th Feb and runs for 7 weeks at costs of £21 for 1 child or £31.50 for 2 children.  I really do need payment in advance to secure a place as most classes now have waiting lists.

Elizabeth x

What a hideous week, weather wise.   No matter how much we sang this song in class, still the heavens opened and I got wet everytime I stepped out of the door.   It made for a very long weekend (particularly as the boys didn't have swimming lessons to look forward too). The rain did, however, give us the chance to enjoy chanting as a group.   I really like the communal singing experience of Jellybeans.  Must be an echo back to my choral days, but it just makes me feel so very happy and alive. 

I saw some amazing patience displayed by the children this week.   As part of our work on 'fast and slow', I bought in a tractor and a police car.   All the children, in every class, waited patiently for their go and shared the vehicles.   I was very impressed, particularly by a couple of small boys who were clearly very focused upon vehicles at the moment.   We also enjoyed feeling the tempo through our bodies again, with quite a bit of bouncing by the smaller members.   I 'gave in' to popular request this week, and that good old classic 'Wheels on the Bus' was enjoyed by all.   Sometimes I think the children could happily sing this song, all day and every day.   I was, however, resoundly corrected by a 5yr old at a party over the weekend who told me that her mummy would never chatter on a bus, so she was'nt going to sing that verse.   To satisfy my more   eclectic musical soul, Skimmarink was added into the equation, plus some impressionist piano music - lovely.    

What else?   We had bubbles in Baby Beans this week, and I think everyone agreed that it was just fab watching the smallest babies tracking the bubbles.   The elevator song proved a major hit this week, so roll on next week,when we'll be trying it out whilst balancing the babies on our shins.   As I always say, who needs to go to the gym when you could come to Baby Beans (plus we've got better biscuits!).

I also had a very interesting outing to my local Surestart Family Centre in Grantham.   What a fantastic resource.   I urge any of you who have'nt been yet, to pop in.   The facilities are amazing (particulary the sensory room) and the staff very knowledgeable and committed to early years development.

Calling all musically talented parents in my classes.  Now is the time to reveal yourself ........  I am really keen that the children get to experience as much live music as possible.  I've got my first 'volunteer' parent who can share clarinet, so anyone else please let me know.

On a completely different note, I'm toying with expanding the party business into either lego parties or cooking parties.   Let me know what you think.

Have a good week and fingers crossed, it will be a dry one

love Elizabeth x

Well, we're back in the swing of things again.  I've had a really fantastic week at Jellybeans this week. A tad stiff from the crawling around on the floor during Music jam and from 2 brilliant birthday parties this weekend.  Met some new people, and really enjoyed seeing all the 'old' beans again.  I am wondering whether there has been lots of practising over christmas - no sooner has the theme tune been starting then whole rooms have been rocking and the clearing away by the children has been just amazing - wish the same thing happened in my house!  All the groups made a very good start to our 'fast and slow' work.  Lots of leg slapping, stamping etc and a special mention must be made to Theo at Barrowby who bought along a very fast racing car and let us all zoom it across the room very quickly and slowly.  Fantastic sharing by Theo and all the children and a very visual illustration of the concept.  We all enjoyed the rainbow scarves waving them to Contradanse - a piece of 18th Century French Courtly music - we'll return to this music again this week, just to cement in the concept before moving on next week to a bit of either 'Queen' or Shania Twain.

Meanwhile the babies, not to be outdone, have achieved several developmental milestones over the break.  All the babies were very giggly, particularly when the black feathers came out to 'stroke a bunny' and I think it was a close thing between the mums and babies over who enjoyed exploring the Jingle bags more when the super crinkly, shiny space blankets were found.  I've listened to your comments and we'll spend longer exploring the bags this week. Finally all our thoughts are with Amelie this week and we really hope she is feeling much, much better and out of hospital.

What else?  I spent friday up in Woodhall Spa (and TK Max in Grantham, but that's a different story!).  I think I have found a hall that is just perfect for Jellybeans, so if all goes to plan, classes should start after the february half term on a friday morning.  I'll keep you all posted, but please do tell anyone you know who lives in that area to get ringing now as numbers are going to limited to 10 per class as the room is not huge.  I'm also having all the advertising revamped by a fab Graphic designer, so fingers crossed, it won't be too long before the advertising reflects just how good and professional the classes actually are!

Finally, Jellybeans and Baby Beans.  This sickness bug is really horrible.  If you are unlucky enough to catch it, can I please ask you to miss class until there has been a period of 48 hours without vomiting etc.  I'm being particularly obsessive about the cleanliness of all the equipment in order to keep all the children safe.

Have a good week,

love Elizabethx