We are play-ability, a husband and wife childminding team based in South Bristol. I am a qualified EYFS teacher but left teaching in schools to join my husband and develop a home-based early education setting 7.5 years ago.  After 5 years or so I was feeling like I was getting in a bit of a rut in my practise so decided to start The Bristol Standard to reignite my passion for Early Years.

I really look forward to the monthly reflective forums and always come away feeling inspired. They provide a brilliant balance of support and coaching from the dedicated CM support team with opportunities to network, share ideas and  also discuss challenges with other, like minded childminders. The reflective forums also help me to think about and celebrate what we do well as well as set myself target for things I’d like to incorporate into our practice.

One such thing was to develop an ‘edible garden.’ I’d been thinking of doing this for a while, in part because we plant beans every year and the children always get loads out of it, and I wanted to develop this further. The Bristol Standard and reflective forum session on The Physical Environment (D4) gave me the push, a deadline and made me accountable for actually doing it! We weren’t able to attend the recent ‘pot to plate’ training by the Children’s Kitchen, but we have read the notes and found it really useful to help us get started. In May, we planted nasturtiums, mint, beetroot and carrot seeds, alongside our existing beans and strawberries. The children loved helping to nurture their seeds and were thrilled to see them begin to grow. There was lots of curiosity about why the seeds grew at different rates- the nasturtiums were getting huge before the mint was even visible. Over the last 2 weeks our nasturtiums have begun to bloom. The children have really enjoyed helping to pick the nasturtiums to add to our meals. Whilst not everyone has liked them, observing that “they’re spicey” or “they’re a bit peppery,” they have all had a try and have been so proud to be able to eat food they’ve helped produce. This week the children noticed there were “lots and lots of ‘sturtiums” on the plant and were very interested in trying to count them. This led to a wonderful opportunity to practise some careful counting skills in a meaningful, purposeful, child led fashion, as we picked the flowers and put them in straight lines to count them. The children have also noticed little holes and snail trails on some of the leaves, and our carrot leaves have been completely devoured! This has led to some really interesting conversations about the environment and the creatures that our garden sustains, and whether or not it’s OK if slugs and snails eat our plants. Our edible garden provides so many holistic learning opportunities, it’s definitely something we will be continuing to develop and expand over the coming years.

Becky Cooper Play-ability