A childminder is required to record observations as part of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and yet, how do you actually 'make' and record observations in a setting while trying to do other things and look after the children?

The easiest was is to use ToucanLearn's unique Daily Diary.  By logging what you see, what the children say, any milestones etc on the Daily Diary you get a great personal record for yourself to monitor and to share with parents too... and you don't impact on the care you are giving by having to scratch around for paper and note books.  Sign up at our website and start using ToucanLearn for free!

Use a digital camera or mobile phone to record what happens.  Take pictures of special crafts, achievements or just everyday shots of the little ones going about their playing.

Take video of the children mastering tasks and having fun.  Try to encourage them not to act up in front of the camera but to just be as 'normal' as they can... may be hard!

Have a note book somewhere central at all times and jot down observations.  You can then stick them on a poster or add them to the ToucanLearn.

Maintain a weekly observation chart and add an entry each week in order to monitor overall progress.

2011 is the national year of communication; Hello is a campaign to promote the importance of children and young adults talking to each other and communicating effectively. Visit the campaign website at http://hello.org.uk/.

They maintain that communication is a skill to be learned and that it is a vital part of life.  The statistics state that over 1 million children in the UK have a language, speech or communication problem.  In poor areas, over half of the children begin school with language or communication problems.  This makes school much harder for them and can lead to all sorts of struggles in later life.

Hello aims to help those children by providing resources for parents, carers and teachers.  There will also be events throughout the country to support and promote the idea of good and effective communication.

ToucanLearn is very much in support of programmes such as Hello.  One of our key skill categories is 'Speaking' where all sorts of activities, games and ideas are provided in order to help parents and carers encourage, entertain and also inspire children to speak and communicate more.  For more information and great ideas, sign up at ToucanLearn where learning is fun for your and your little ones!

Your baby grows up so quickly; before you know it, you have young children running around your house! When your baby arrives, why not make some keepsakes that will help you remember those precious early days? There are all sorts of keepsakes that you can create either yourself, or buy through services from professional companies. Here are a few ideas:-

• Photographs: The simplest and yet most powerful of all keepsakes - make sure you photograph your baby from the early days so that you have a visual record of their arrival into the world.  Why not create a record of their early development in ToucanLearn's Daily Diary?
• Hand and Footprints: There are plenty of companies offering hand and footprints of your baby in their first few weeks, but you can create these yourself too!  You can create prints in various mediums, such as paint or ink prints on paper, prints modeled into clay, even hand prints on ceramic mugs or other items that you can arrange in a local ceramics workshop.
• Lock of Hair: You may want to keep a lock of hair from your baby.  You may have to wait a while before there is enough to cut, but this could be a keepsake that your baby appreciates later in life too!
• Baby Book: There are plenty of baby books that allow you to record different aspects of your baby's early life, and early milestones.  If you buy one, make sure you fill it in and return to it regularly so that you create a full record!
• Hand and Foot Casts: Similar to prints, casts can be made by professional outfits and will remind you just how tiny your baby was once they have grown up and you have forgotten just how delicate they were when they arrived
• Commemorative Jewellery: Treat yourself and congratulate yourself on the arrival of your children!  Why not have a nice bracelet engraved with the names and dates of birth of your children, or add a charm to a charm bracelet for each baby?
• Birth Certificates: When you register your children's births, you can request copy registration certificates for your own use.  Why not frame them and hang them in your house?

You can find details of professional services in your area who can help you create keepsakes in most hospital maternity wards, health centres, baby magazines, and, of course, online.  If you opt to create your own keepsakes, be careful to use safe paints, inks etc.  Use only water based materials and watch out for any sign of allergic reactions, your young baby's skin is very delicate.

Recent research has stated that over 60% of parents find it hard to play with their children and struggle to play with them in new and exciting ways.  In today's busy life, with work, commitments, dates, appointments, some parents even forgo playing with their children at all in order to do other things!

The research was carried out by Pampers, and it found that over half of the population would like to spend more time playing with their children but that other commitments get in the way.

Play doesn't have to be clever, or expensive or use special equipment or take hours to prepare.  It is simple, it is easy and it can be the best thing in the world for both baby and parent.

ToucanLearn is full of ideas and inspiration for play for babies, toddlers and pre-school children up to age five.  It is so easy to use, and has some great ways to entertain you and your baby.  Take a closer look at ToucanLearn and join for free at www.ToucanLearn.com.  Don't be one of those parents who don't know how to play with your baby, seek inspiration from ToucanLearn.

Here are a few ways to introduce the sense of touch to children with appropriate EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) areas of learning and development  included.

• Go On Safari... round the house to find things that feel different.  The Cool window, the smooth door, the furry teddy the soft blanket.  Have a chat about how things feel.
• EYFS: This promotes exploration and investigation, using language for communication.

• Create a textured painting... add various ingredients to poster paints and get the children to have go at painting with different textures.  Try adding flour, lentils, sand, broken spaghetti and you'll get some great results.
• EYFS: This promotes being creative and exploring media and materials.

• Touchy-Feely box... take a few items that feel different such as pine cone, washing up brush, length of ribbon, necklace, spoon etc and ask your child to feel it, describe it etc.
• EYFS: This promotes exploration and investigation and language for thinking.

• Texture Book... get some different paper, fabric or things you can stick together to form a book.  Newspaper, tissue paper, soft fabric, cotton wool, silver foil could all be stuck securely to pages and bound with string or wool to create a great book.
• EYFS: This promotes being creative and exploring media and materials.

• Messy Activity... the ultimate way to feel and touch is to get really messy!  Try doing some hand and feet painting and get the children to describe how the wet, cold, sticky paint feels!  They will love it!
• EYFS: This promotes being creative and exploring media and materials.

There are so many more activities like this at http://www.ToucanLearn.com, where learning is fun for you and your little one!

We've progressed a long way from the Victorian days when children were best kept our of sight and out of mind, but the sad truth is that modern living often means that your children spend more time with a childminder than they do with you. Are you kept informed of how your children are doing, and do you have a good idea of their progress?

The government's Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) requires for child minders, carers and nursery teachers actively to keep records of every child's progress. Make sure that you are getting the level of information you want about your children and how they are developing.  If you aren't hearing enough, then ask for more - if you feel your childminder is being too diligent, then they will be delighted to be asked to reign back a bit and tell you just what you want to hear!

At ToucanLearn, every child receives their own Daily Diary designed especially for childminders to share information with parents.  By sharing the Daily Diary you can stay informed about what your children are doing every day.  This service can be used for free, but premium members can also upload photos to keep a photographic record of everything they do too.

We know from feedback that we receive about our service that many parents are able to view what their children are doing throughout the day - they can see pictures of new artwork once it has been uploaded, and they can read what their little ones are making, doing and eating during the day.  Here at ToucanLearn we're dedicated to helping working parents share as much information about their children as they can.  If you don't feel you are getting the information you want from your childminder, why not ask them to start posting a Daily Diary in ToucanLearn?  Our FREE service means they don't even have to spend a penny to do so!

The Institute of Education says that there is huge support for the Early Years Foundation Stage among early years practitioners following a study carried out by the Government to assess the popularity of EYFS among the groups of people working within the framework. It seems the majority of people who work with children are very happy with the framework and the guidance that the EYFS provides. Great changes are not required.

The Areas of Learning and Development were seen as largely appropriate although teachers did note that the focus seemed to be on numeracy, literary and communication rather than social, personal and emotional goals.

Assessing children, especially the younger ones, was also seen as difficult and following development of each child was not always deemed appropriate.

We hope that for all childminders, services such as ToucanLearn help!  If you aren't already signed up to our EYFS activity programme, sign up FREE now!

National Family Week runs from 31st May - 4th June 2010 and is the biggest and most publicised celebration of family life.  It's an annual event and it aims to celebrate all things family, promote the idea of spending quality time together and it also advocates an active lifestyle. ... as does ToucanLearn!

National Family Week is backed by all major political parties, and it works with hundreds of partners and supporters to help support family life.  There are restaurants, retail companies as well as charities that support the project.  David Cameron, Terry Wogan, Amanda Holdon, Sally Gunnell and Ester Rantzen are amongst many all lend their support.

Thousands of events will be taking place across the country - many of them free of charge for children - in all sorts of venues.  The deals on offer cover all sorts of venues that want to encourage families to enjoy eating, learning, playing, exploring and getting out and about together.  The project runs throughout the whole of the half term week, see the official website for information on events, and access to lots of special offers throughout the week.

ToucanLearn is all about spending quality time with your children... after all, ToucanLearn (two can learn!) better than one.  An annual subscription is just £16 a year for hundreds of activities, games, crafts and ideas about how to entertain and inspire your children.  All the activities are age specific and great fun for everyone!

If you fancy becoming a childminder, here are a few qualities that childminders need in varying quantities and on various days!

Must Like children! It sounds obvious but it is absolutely essential that childminders like children.  The idea of spending day after day with them should inspire a childminder rather than fill him or her with horror!

Safety conscious: Provide a safe and stimulating environment for children to play and learn.  Rid the house of all possible safety hazards.  Be hygienic and offer a clean place for children to spend their days.

Encouraging: Tempt and encourage children to take part and do activities and be sensitive to different children's needs.

Creative: Able to provide ideas for crafts and show the child how to do carry it out.  Join us at ToucanLearn for lots of great ideas!

Patient: Have a calm approach to teaching and demonstrating activities.

Love the outdoors: Take children on outings and adventures to the park and in the outdoors.

Willing: ...to undertake the unattractive side of looking after children: such a dealing with dirty nappies and spills and mess.

A good cook - preparing hearty, wholesome and fresh food and snacks.

Good communicator: With children and adults too.  A childminder needs to communicate with children of all ages in a calm and assuring way.  All sorts of basic, but vital information needs to be shared between the parent and the childminder's setting.

Caring: They need to understand any fears and deal with any problems in a caring fashion.

Fit: It's physically and mentally demanding so health and fitness is essential.

Have business acumen: A child-minder is self employed and therefore needs to submit all the legal and tax documents that that entails.

If anyone ever queries why childminders are now trained and examined by OFSTED; or if someone asks why a childminder's rate is so much higher than a baby-sitter, just reel off a few of the personal requirements needed by childminders and there's your answer!  And, I am sure the list goes on...

Anyone think of any other things you need to be a childminder?  Perhaps (in the nicest possible way) a tiny bit crazy?!

For more ideas about what to do with children tell all the childminders about ToucanLearn!

It's official - parents are spending three times as much time with their children as they did a generation ago.  Some of the findings concluded by Dr Sullivan and his team at Oxford University inlude:

• Working mothers spend more (and not as previously thought less) time with their children.
• Mothers are still the main carer (which is not surprising) but fathers are doing more childcare than before.
• Fathers spend up to half an hour a day more with their children than in 1975 and do more of the household chores!

The research was carried out by analyzing diaries kept by parents between 1975 and 2000.  The people were then divided into three separate groups: those with no O Levels or GCSEs, those with one or more and those with a higher education qualification, such as a Degree.

When it comes to domestic chores, men do more now than they did and despite the advent of domestic appliances with  "time-saving" claims, both men and women spend more time on domestic activities today than 25 years ago.

The results showed that in 1975 fathers spent a matter of minutes each day with their children on average.  By 2000, this figure is more like 35 minutes.  When it came to mums, in 1975 they spent about 20 minutes with their children and by 2000 it was over an hour.

This goes against the common opinion that suggests because more women are working they actually spend less time with their chidlren.  This could be explained by the fact that parents are more aware of the need and benefits of spending time with their offspring.

This is where ToucanLearn comes in - we wish actively to encourage parents to spend more time with their children; with hundreds of ideas, games and crafts to do with your children, there's no excuse not to play together!   Tell a friend about ToucanLearn and share the fun!

It stands to reason that art and craft assists to develop fine muscle control in your babies, and that kicking, running and chasing games improve their physical strength and control, but how do you kick start your baby's ability to think and solve problems?  Funnily enough, abstract thinking and analytical skills are the focus of many Fisher Price toys created for babies and toddlers.  You may not have thought about it, but toys such as shape sorters, simple jigsaws starting with just two pieces per puzzle, old fashioned building blocks and musical instruments all help to develop analytical and thinking skills in babies and toddlers.

Walk into a toyshop and so many of the toys available today were available in a similar form in our own childhood - many were available in similar form during our parents and grandparents childhoods too!  Science has long told us that interacting with such toys helps us explore the world and develop our thinking, perhaps what is more surprising is that there are so few innovations in childrens toys over the last two generations.  That comes down to the fact that human development hasn't evolved in that time, and for a long time we have had a pretty good understanding of it.

When nurturing your children, or children that you work with, introduce a good balance of 'thinking' games and activities.  This is only one area of child development, but it can be easy to overlook the importance of this area if you particularly enjoy more physical activities.  That is one reason that the Early Years Foundation Stage is so important - by following the guidelines and ticking off boxes for areas that you have pursued, you will automatically be delivering a well balanced development plan to your little ones.  If you aren't the most creative person and struggle for ideas in areas of EYFS, or you simply want ideas that you can adopt and develop, then sign up to ToucanLearn now!  We offer hundreds of activities concentrating on key development skills, and for premium members we link them all to EYFS too so that you can track progress with your little ones.  If you are toying with the idea of subscribing to ToucanLearn, then there are several hundred good reasons for doing so!

The EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) is a set of guidelines provided by the government to set the standards for the learning, development and care of children. It covers babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers from birth to age 5.

It gives childminders, carers and nurseries guidelines within which they can care for and guide the children. It provides targets for children and a means by which to measure a child's progress.

There are six Areas of Learning and Development defined in the Early Years Foundation Stage. These are as follows:

1. Personal, Social and Emotional Development: This includes among other things how to make a maintain relationships, self-confidence and self-esteem; behaviour and self care and children's sense of community.
2. Communication, Language and Literacy: How children use and develop language to speak, how they think, how they learn letters and soundsm how they learn to read and write.
3. Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy: This includes numbers, counting, shapes and calculating.
4. Knowledge and Understanding of the World: How children explore new places and objects; how they design and make things. How they use information and technology to learn; also, time, history and other people's cultures.
5. Physical Development: How children move and use space and equipment, their health and bodily awareness.
6. Creative Development: How children respond to what they see, hear, feel smell and touch; how they use new materials and make new things; dance, music and imaginative play.

Since 2008 all childminders registered in England who look after children must deliver the EYFS and be inspected by OFSTED.  Although childminders are trained professionals, its not restricted to them alone and parents can also learn a great deal from the EYFS and the guidelines it offers.

All of ToucanLearn's activities are linked to the EYFS Areas of Learning and Development which means premium members can search for activities within each area and encourage and entertain their children with appropriate crafts, games and activities.

The EYFS makes it easy for childminders and parents to see what each child should be doing. ToucanLearn gives a practical implementation and a whole lot of fun!

At ToucanLearn we promote a 'learning programme' for children from birth to 5 years, and although we hint at how this is derived in our FAQ, we don't offer an in depth description of the processes we took to devise at our 'programme'  - we'd like to offer that detail here.

At the outset, we examined a number of key texts in child development theory.  Although these are based on science and academic rigour, they propose differences in the understanding of how children learn and develop.  We don't favour a single theory of child development, but instead looked at the practical components and created our own 'scale' based on what different proponents offer.  ToucanLearn is built on many different sources but some of the key sources include work published by The American Academy of Pediatrics, we borrow from the unique longitudanal study still ongoing as Child of Our Time and presented by Professor Robert Winston, and the work of eminent child psychologts such as Dr. Richard Woolfson, Professor Tanya Byron, Professor Linda Pound, Jennie Lindon and other less well known, but no less important, individuals.

Common to most of the developmental literature and sources was the way that they break down 'development' into a number of key areas.  These aren't static, but there are key skill areas examined by child psychologists and practitioners.  We concentrated on four particular areas that were largely common to developmental analyses, and devised our own scale unique to ToucanLearn, but based on the experiences of different proponents.  These areas of development are:-

• Fine motor skills
• Gross motor skills
• Cognitive skills
• Language development

In order to offer this to a broad audience rather than the scientific community, we refer to these as 'Making', 'Moving', 'Thinking' and 'Speaking'.

We created a scale of milestones for each of these four broad areas of development.  We took the first five years of development and created a chart based on age, from day 0 when a baby is born, to day 2,190 when our programme ends (when a child turns 6).  For example, our scale pinpoints the day when a child should be able to pick up an object, when they should be able to clap, when they should be able to understand instructions, tell a story and so on.  Our chart, which we don't publish, has hundreds of milestones across these four broad areas.   Some of these achievements are trivial, others siginifcant, but to a parent or childminder, all of these are significant in the context of their own children.

We then created hundreds of activities aimed at encouraging each developmental milestone, no matter how significant.  We categorised each activity against our derived scale.  Every activity is categorised across all four areas, with a score relating to the age of a child in days, pinpointing the day on which a child should be able to complete the activity.  Each activity has a single overriding focus, and this is the focus that we state for each activity, offering each as a making, moving, learning or language based activity.

Unfortunately for us, not all children develop at the same rate and although many of these milestones are linear in that they will be acquired in a certain order (for example, a child learns to stand before they can walk, and jump before they can hop), our 'programme' has to offer deviation to account for differences in development.  There is also a potential disjoint between developmental theory and real children!  This is where 'feedback' comes in.  We offer the option for every adult participating in ToucanLearn to 'feed back' in our blog area as to whether each activity was too difficult, too easy or just right.  This is a positive feedback mechanism that does two things.

First, we track the progress of each ToucanLearn child along four axes, one for each key development area, and depending on the feedback, we move them up or down each scale.  The scales relate to age, so if an activity aimed at teaching a child to clap is found to be too easy, we increase their 'fine motor' or 'making' score so that we take account of their ability; if it's too hard, we decrease their score.  This ensures that the activities offered to them are appropriate to their capabilities.  At the outset, we offer activities appropriate to their age in days across each of the four skill areas.  Over time and with feedback they are awarded a 'handicap' for each skill area that may be positive or negative.  This accounts for differences in the development of our different children across different skill acquisition.

The second feature of 'feedback' improves the placement of every individual activity.  Our scale derived from developmental literature might have walking or talking in the wrong place, but the collated feedback of each participant pushes the activity backwards or forwards depending on the response.  Over time this will have an averaging effect that refines the position of every activity thus feedback for each individual improves the experience for everyone.

Because our scales are based on age, if a parent registers their children at birth and participates intensively in our programme for a few months, but then goes away for two years and then comes back, the activities presented will still be relevant to the child.  If a childminder registers one child in order to access activities for several children of a similar age, then our programme falls down, because the benefit of individual tracking is lost.  That's not to say that activities won't be broadly relevant, but it won't be possible to drive each child according to their unique abilities.

Our feedback mechanism also allows for our programme to be used for children with special needs or different learning disabilities.  Although it can't be completely accurate for every situation, we believe that the core experience remains relevant for such children.  Their initial participation in our programme needs to adjusted according to their capabilities, and progress may be different to other children, but the linear nature of development across our key areas remains relevant and we can work with parents and carers to ensure that they remain on a suitable path.

Every activity is also rated according to the UK government's Early Years Foundation Stage Areas (EYFS) of Learning and Development.  This information is offered only to Premium Members as an enticement for people to subscribe.  We have to derive enough revenue to continue offering our service because we don't currently receive any governmental or other sponsorship!  EYFS is very much the 'icing' on a programme based on child developmental psychology, anyone participating in ToucanLearn will benefit from the underlying science whilst also being able to fulfil and track their progress through EYFS.

If you're still reading at this stage, then clearly you are interested in the route that we took to bring ToucanLearn to market and we hope that you have understood and agree with the path we have taken.  We conceived our initial ideas early in 2007 and spent over two years researching and developing the service before our formal launch in June 2009.  Every child is different, but we hope that our programme will remain broadly relevent to the majority of participants and whether the science is important to you or not, we hope that we can stimulate an interest in learning and development and foster a strong one to one relationship between every child and their parents and carers regardless!

Children and babies at nursery or pre-school, or children looked after by a childminder, are usually "observed" by their carer or teacher.  Parents may be familiar with an "Observation sheet" that comes home or is available to look at in the childcare setting.  However, as parents we are often too busy to sit back and observe our little ones and yet it can be a fascinating exercise.

In order to understand and consider a child's current interests, stage of development and their learning, observation is essential.  It allows us to see the child's responses in different situations, see what they choose to do or which toys they prefer to play with.  It's a means to plan appropriate games and activities based on what you see.

How do you undertake an observation?

• Solo: Prepare a few different toys or activities for your child.  Try not to guide or lead them, and watch to see what they do.  Record what they do, how they manage the tasks and their movements.  Use your ToucanLearn Blog so you can compare week on week.
• Together: prepare an activity or craft that you do together.  Record how your child manages, how you interact, what is said, how instructions are followed etc.  Try to be honest though - its only for your own benefit - and your child's!
• Photograph: Take a couple of photos to record what they do.  Don't get them to pose - try to do it without them seeing; just snap them at play!
• Moving pictures: Take some video or digital movies of your child playing.  Again, don't bother when they are performing to the camera or doing things on purpose.  Just catch them when they are restful and playing without thinking about you.
• Notes: It's a good idea to have a little notepad to hand to scribble down anything your child does or says that's funny or interesting. Record these observations in your ToucanLearn blog at the end of each day or week so you can look back at them without losing the little bits of paper in the meantime!

Observation is a great way to get to know your child even better, see exactly where they are in their development and identify any area that may be weak and need extra help.

The start of a new school year may introduce significant change in the routine of younger siblings. With older siblings no longer about each day, younger siblings may be upset by the sudden change. They may even experience fear or anxiety if they don't understand the change. Make sure you talk and explain to younger children that their brothers and sisters are starting at school, and if you are lucky enough to spend every day with your children, take advantage of quality time with the younger siblings. Try to take them out on excursions and fill their day with activities. Don't forget to use ToucanLearn as a regular source of activities to do together. Look for a craft activity to do each day at home, and maybe an outside activity to do on a walk. Many of our outdoor activities can be done on the school run itself as you walk to drop off or pick up siblings. If your younger children are upset that they can't go to school, pretend that their craft activities at home are their own school at home - they will love to be able to do what their older brothers and sisters are doing.