There seems to be so much emphasis on superheroes with super, out of the ordinary powers, that sometimes regular human beings who aren't able to fly or catch villains with their laser beam eyes seem boring!  How about doing a session on real people who are in their own way, super heroes!

What are the qualities of a super hero?

• Put others first
• Help people less fortunate than themselves
• Always willing to listen and be useful in all sorts of situations

Talk about real people who have these qualities.  See what the children come up with.  (Doctor, paramedic, fireman).

Doctor:

Visit a surgery.  Have a chat about what tools a doctor uses.  Are there any at your setting you can do some role play with?  Or perhaps set up a home corner like a doctor's waiting room and surgery.  Can you take a role each and be the receptionist, nurse and doctor.

Paramedic:

Look at a hospital on line or some images of hospitals and ambulances in books at the library.  Set up an accident: Teddy has fallen off a bench!  He needs to get to the  Teddy and Dolly hospital.  Carry him in a special pram or box to the hospital and act out what might happen.

Firemen:

Chat about what the firemen wear - their protective clothing etc.  Talk about what they do (rescue people, save houses from burning and help with road accidents). Also take a look at what they might use (water hoses, ladders etc).  See if your local fire station will permit a visit.  Take the children down to see the fire engines and meet a real fireman.

Chinese New Year is a great, colourful celebration and goes on for a while, this year starting officially on the 23rd January, so you can do these activities and ideas for a few weeks yet.

• Dragon - make a dragon with a show box covered in green paint.  Add a tail and a face and cover with red and yellow paper.
• Chinese snacks - try prawn crackers at snack time (beware of fish allergies!) and see what the children think about them.
• Chinese Music - Find some Chinese music on line and do some dancing to it.  Try and be a Chinese dragon and hold onto each other and try to dance about!
• Ribbon dancing - do some ribbon dancing.  Stick some wavy ribbon to a wood spoon and make some lovely patterns in the sky.
• Chinese Script - Try out some Chinese writing.  Take a look at Chinese script (there are websites that translate British names to Chinese) and see if you can get the children's name in Chinese.
• Chopsticks - try and eat some noodles with chop sticks.  Its very tricky!
• Chinese food - see if the local Chinese restaurant owner will come in to have a chat with the children and perhaps bring some fortune cookies.
• Story telling - if you know someone who speaks Chinese, see if they will come in to tell the children a story in Chinese.
• China Town - if you are near a China Town go and have a look.  If not, see if you have find any images in books at the library.

Making friends, especially if you are a toddler, is not always easy... some children are keen to have 'best friends', others go around in packs and some are simply not interested at all.  When you ask who they played with a nursery and they say 'no one' it can be heart-breaking.  But, we have to remember that some children are emotionally 'advanced' and understand the concept of having a friend; whereas others are more interested in playing along side another child with no interaction at all.

If your child is nervous of making friends or you want to gently encourage them to make some new friends, here are a few ideas for encouraging and guiding them.  Friendship is an important part of all our lives and the importance placed on making friends in childhood is demonstrated by the fact that 'Forming Relationships' is part of the EYFS and is a focus of Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

Here are some tips on how you can help children make friends:

• Give them plenty of opportunity to make friends: see lots of people and do lots of different activities
• Give them lots of praise when they do something kind to another person
• Don't force them or try to make them form friendships with people they don't like even if you like them!
• Try not to interfere when they are interacting or playing
• Be bold and approach people at playgroup and get to know them yourself
• Lead by example, chat to people and make friends yourself
• Talk about being kind, sharing and being a good friend while you are at home
• Support any efforts to make friends even if they fail
• Look at photos of friends and chat about how much fun they can be

All three and four year old children are entitled to free nursery education: 15 hours a week of free education is applicable for 38 weeks of the year. This is the case until they reach compulsory school age.

Where can you get Free early education places?

• Childminders
• Nursery schools
• Nursery classes
• Children's centres
• Day nurseries
• Play groups
• Pre-schools

For more information about free nursery education contact your Family Information Service (FIS) or local council.

When your child qualifies for a free place

If your child is born between: 1 April and 31 August they are eligible for a free place from: 1 September following their third birthday or the beginning of the autumn school term

If your child is born between: 1 September and 31 December they are eligible for a free place from 1 January following their third birthday or the beginning of the spring* school term

If your child is born between: 1 January and 31 March they are eligible for a free place from: 1 April following their third birthday or the beginning of the summer* school term

These details are based on a three-term school year.

Occasionally it might be necessary or useful for a nursery or school to ask for parent helpers - you may wish to go on a trip or need extra supervisors to visit a local landmark.  This is great for the parents to get involved, great for the children whose parents are being invited to come along... but it can be less than great for the childcare providers or teachers unless the guidelines are laid down in advance.  You don't want the parent just helping their own child and tending to their needs and theirs' alone to the detriment of other little ones.

1. Choose the parents carefully - if you can, invite those you know are level-headed and reliable.
2. Put parents in charge of a group that doesn't include their child.
3. Give parents clear guidelines of what you need from them and what is expected.
4. Introduce them to the children and say, loudly, so that the parent hears "Mrs XX will be looking after all of you today."  Just so its clear to the parents its not just their own child being taken care of.
5. Make sure timings are made clear so parents leave when you wish to return to normality.
6. Find out if any parents have any special skills that might be of interest to the children or help... e.g. gardening, sewing costumes etc.

Guidelines for Parent Helpers could include information such as:

• Emergency telephone numbers and all staff numbers in case of separation.
• How often and how to count and keep track of the children.
• Any special needs, equipment, diets or allergies of the children.
• Exact route, timetable and itinerary of trip.
• Reminder about taking the children to the toilet during the trip.
• Make sure they are not over familiar with the children.
• Be clear about importance of confidentiality and encourage discretion.

Parent helpers do not have to be CRB checked if they are working with children in groups and alongside other qualified practioners but they should be CRB checked if they are going to be alone at any time with the children.

Part of the Government's Early Years Foundation Stage areas of Learning and Development covers 'Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy' and one of the focuses is 'Shape, Space and Measures'; in order to introduce the idea of size and comparison, try this simple activity, especially if you have recently been to a zoo!  This can be done when walking along the street to playgroup or when sitting on a bus.  Make it a chatty conversation, and not a mathematical exercise.  Keep it simple and talk about the possible answers.

Ask your child some size related questions:

• Which is the tallest animal in the world?  A giraffe.
• Which is the heaviest animal in the world?  An elephant.
• Which is the fastest animal in the world?  A cheetah.
• Which is the smallest animal in the world? A tiny bug
• Which is the fluffiest animal in the world? A baby bunny?
• Which is the biggest animal in the sea?  A whale.

Go to the library and find an animal dictionary or encyclopedia and look up the animals to see what they look like.  See what other interesting facts you can find out.  What do they eat?  Where do they live?  Do they live in groups or alone?  You could also go on line and look for images of the animals and search together.

Try comparing the size of other things around the house too.  Which is the biggest cupboard?  Run and find it.  Which is the tallest lamp?  Run and find it.  Which is the smallest door?  Run and find it.

Mirrors are a great resource to use in any childcare setting and can be used in all sorts of different ways. When little ones can see themselves and what they are doing, its a great way of encouraging play and exploration and help develop a sense of identity. Choose round-edged mirrors that are large, scratch and shatter-proof. Encourage the children to be gentle before play begins.

Some ideas for mirror-based activities:

• Set up a mirror near the front door, and get each child to take a look in there each morning. Is it an excited face, a sleepy face or a shy face this morning?
• Children love to see themselves in mirrors. Get them to make funny faces and see how scary or strange they look.
• Get the children to look at each other in the mirrors. Try out some expressions in the mirror and get the children to guess how each of them feel.  Suggest a sad face, and a laughing face, a moody face and see if everyone can guess.
• Encourage them to touch the mirrors: are they real people or just a reflection? See if they will have a chat with the mirror image? Make it into a funny one sided conversation... show them how to do it if they aren't sure.
• Build up a tower or a construction and watch it fall down in the mirror.
• Try placing some mirrors at angles to each other so you create a whole little reflection world!
• Get some little characters to play with in front of the mirror. How many are there?
• Set up some blocks and try to move them about in from of a mirror. Is it hard to see which is real and which is a reflection?
• Act out some animal faces in front of the mirror and guess what they are!!
• Wash face, brush teeth and comb hair whilst looking in the mirror. Does it make it harder or easier?

Babies don't recognise that a mirror is reflecting their own image until they are between 12 and 18 months.  The classic test to see if a baby recognises the reflection as themselves is to use lipstick to place a bold mark on their face.  If they know that that are looking at themselves, they will reach up to touch the mark.  Mirrors are still fun for babies, however, because they help babies to focus on objects and track moving objects with their eyes.  They will also think they are looking at another baby and will try to interact with him or her.

Part of beginning to learn about maths and numbers is learning about things that are different and things that are the same.  Try these activities to show your child all about things that are different and the same, and things that are of different sizes.

Odd One Out

In each case, ask which is different?  See if they can identify the item and if they struggle talk them through it.   Here are some easy suggestions:

• Lay out 4 spoons and a fork.
• Put down 4 teaspoons and one dessert spoon.
• Line up 4 red crayons and one blue.
• Place down 4 pencils and one ruler.

Size difference

With the next set of items, choose a set all the same size plus one that is smaller.  In each case ask which is the smallest?  In each case, prepare in advance and then lay the things on the table or if you can walk around the house and spot things as you go.

You could use things like:

• plates
• socks
• coloured blocks
• teddies
• shoes
• oranges
• pieces of paper

Try the same activity trying to identify the biggest thing, something of a different colour or shape.

On 12th January 2012 an exhibition of paintings by Quentin Blake will open at the Foundling Museum, London, featuring illustrations of mothers and their babies.

Quentin Blake is one of Britain’s best-loved illustrators having created the now iconic images for Roald Dahl novels and stories. This exhibition entitled "As Large As Life" shows work he created for four hospitals which were designed to have a calming, relaxing effect on the hospital visitors. Over sixty works were created for a children’s hospital, a maternity hospital, young people with eating disorders and mental health patients.

Depicted in the pictures are senior circus performers juggling and tightrope walking, creatures from Planet Zog, youngsters enjoying everyday life and mothers and babies meeting for the first time underwater.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of events, including family activities, talks and a reading corner decorated with Blake’s recent designs for wallpapers. The exhibition at the Foundling Museum, Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ.   More information can be found at the Foundling Museum's website.

More and more councils are collecting recycling now, which makes recycling household waste easier than ever.  However, before you pop them in the recycling bins, how about you have a bit of play time first!  It will be fun, and introduce the idea of recycling as a positive activity

• Squash your milk cartons: wash out some milk cartons or plastic bottles and squash them, squeeze them and try to stamp them flat. What is the best way to get them small?
• Cardboard boxes: try to tear the boxes into shapes and then try to put the box together again! Its harder that you think!
• Climb on a box: if you have a sturdy box, how about trying to stand on it (with some help) and see how long it takes before it collapses. Will someone else have to join you?
• Build up some boxes and cartons and throw a ball at them to see them topple over! Play 'Ten Pin Bowling'.
• Build a tower: how high can your tubs grow?  Build a tower to see how many you can place on top of each other before they fall over.
• Drumming: with some wooden spoons as sticks, set up a drum kit and bang on all the different boxes and tubs to see how they all sound!
• Arms full: see how many tubs and pot and boxes you can carry in your arms then walk about and see if any drop.  Who can carry the most?
• Sort all the different recycling things into piles and see if you can sort by size, colour, shape or material.
• Count all the boxes and tubs and see how many there are of each.

After lots of loud, exciting, destructive (!) play... see who can throw all the bits and pieces into the recycling bins.

Making and creating, cutting and gluing are all great fun and part of every child's creative journey - it is important to encourage them to have the confident to use the tools we have available rather than teaching them to be afraid of the tools.  Scissors are an important tool to master, but should be used with caution. So, by teaching them how to use the scissors from early on, they will be able to cut and create safely without being fearful of accidents due to misuse.

Here are a few tips!

• Explain that scissors are useful but need to be used carefully.  If not, they will be taken away.
• Scissors are sharp and are used for paper only (and not their hair or skirts or reading books!)
• No one must ever run with scissors or even walk about when using them.  Cut when sitting at a table.
• Always use children's scissors with them.
• Store scissors downwards in a safe place out of reach.
• Remind children of the rules each time you get the scissors out.  See if they can prompt you!
• Don't ever play with scissors - they are a craft tool and not for playing.
• Discourage children from walking with scissors in their hands, but when they must, make sure they hold them correctly: grasp them by the closed blades with the blades towards the floor.
• Always supervise.
• Always cut at a table so you can see that they are doing and they are encouraged to sit down.

Have fun - and be safe!

This is a great activity to use up some of the Christmas packaging you might have and also have a go at making some cardboard cookies to play with.

Take some brown corrugated card packaging and cut out lots of varied cookie shapes.  Talk about the shapes you are cutting: are they round cookies, square cookies or heart shaped.  Then, cut some white paper into the same shapes to make the cookies toppings.  Think of some fun things to put on top.  Draw chocolate sprinkles, raisins, cherries, grapes, and so on, onto each of the pieces of paper.  Make sure you do a few of each.  Using some tape, stick the toppings on the cookies.

Ask your child:

• What are the colours of the toppings?
• Sort them into groups that are the same
• Count each group and then count all the cookies
• Sort them into groups of the same shape
• Ask for 4 cookies with different toppings
• Look at three cookies together with different toppings and then hide one.  Try to guess which one is missing
• Ask who would like to eat which cookies.  i.e. Granny would like the lemon one, Mum would like the chocolate one
• Lay out the cookies on the floor to make a big shape

Have fun!

Toddlers can be surprisingly good at eating fruit and vegetables but as they only eat small portions, you can face a challenge keeping them fresh.  Here are a few tips on keeping your fresh produce extra fresh so that your little ones can enjoy a healthy snack on demand:

Melons: they are delicious but can be fiddly to prepare.  Cut the whole melon at once and put the chunks you don't eat straight away into an airtight container.  Whenever you fancy a snack it's ready prepared for you and will keep for up to 5 days.

Peppers: if you only need a portion of lovely red, green, yellow or orange pepper, keep the seeds, stalk and inner membrane intact and the pepper will stay fresher for longer.

Spinach: if your spinach has gone a bit limp, refresh in ice cold water and it will revive.

Cool food: to cool food quickly, simply place on top of picnic ice blocks and you'll find it cools down much quicker.

Carrots: to stop them going mouldy, wrap in kitchen paper in the fridge and they will keep longer.  The kitchen paper soaks up any condensation which is what make the vegetables turn mouldy.

Fruit: apples stay fresher in the fridge, so do tomatoes and broccoli.

Paper bag: keep a paper bag in the bottom of your fridge where you store your fruit and vegetables so any moisture will be soaked up.

Making a collage is easy, fun and a great way for little ones to practice their fine motor skills. Once assembled, they can see their work and touch it too experiencing all the different textures and materials. Collage is actually one of the areas of artistic experience that children should be exposed to within the EYFS, along with painting, drawing, printing, textiles and 3D.

So, how to go about having some collage fun:

1. Find your materials: go out into the park for leaves, to the shop for paper, look in the recycle bins for other materials. You could make the looking an activity in itself by talking about how each item feels, how heavy it is, whether it will stick onto paper and what colour it is.
2. Then you can start sticking and gluing!

Tips:

• Make sure the paper you use is heavy enough to hold the collage. You don't want it ripping.
• Make sure you have plenty of strong but non toxic glue so bits don't fall off!
• Make sure you have plenty of space to really get stuck in!
• Make sure everything is covered i.e. clothing and table tops to ensure no gluey accidents.
• Don't tell the children what to do necessarily; let them experiment!

Collage materials:

• Cotton wool, wool, string.
• Leaves, grasses, flowers.
• Tissue paper, wrapping paper, newspaper and magazine pictures.
• Glitter, sequins, beads.

Other associated activities:

• Foraging for the materials can be fun. Talk about looking high and low, up and down, round the corner etc. Use lots of different words to describe where you are looking and what you are looking for.
• Close work: look at the materials you find closely. Are they rough or smooth, are they prickly or bumpy? Again, describe the items and talk about them.
• Sorting: sort them into little piles and then put them in pots.  Label them for next time. All the buttons together, all the cotton wool together etc.
• Look at the letters that each material begins with: p for paper, and g for glue etc.

Learning to use scissors is a skill that takes time and practice to master. Just like learning to use cutlery or learning how to walk, the children need to be given guidelines to help them, rules to make sure they are safe and plenty of practice to get it right!

Here are some scissor activities to get them trying it out!

1. Holding the scissors - Show them where to put their fingers and how to operate them so they snip. Practice with of strips of paper or old wrapping paper: something easy to cut. Use all the snippings to make a picture!
2. Cutting in straight lines - Take some strips of paper about 8cm wide and see if your child can snip down the middle to make two smaller strips! Then snip the strips horizontally so you end up with lots of little square shapes. Then, snip the strips diagonally so you get a feathery effect.
3. Draw some curved shapes on some small pieces of paper and see if your child can follow the lies to make curve shapes. Glue them together, add some googley eyes and features to make a funny-shaped monster!
4. Shapes - Draw a Square, Circle, Triangle and Diamond on some paper and see if they can cut the shapes out! Colour the shapes and make a shape picture!