Tag

children

A Suitcase for Stories

By | Creativity, Education, Family, Joy, Learning, Love, Music, Play, Prayer, Spirituality, Uncategorized | No Comments

A few years ago, I read “The Boy who Would Be a Helicopter” by Vivien Gussin Paley. This was her description of her work in Chicago around storytelling and story-acting. She describes how she worked with children to “scribe” their stories, recording them word-for-word as told by the children. The story was then acted out by the child and friends…

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Who holds the power?

By | Education, Learning | No Comments

I recently came across a piece of research linked to the concept of “power” within our relationships with children, and especially within the context of faith developing in children. Annemie Dillen (1) suggests that looking at the Christian tradition of developing faith in young children reveals a “complex interplay” between the power of children and the power of adults. She…

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Kids in field

Love That Knows No End

By | Love, Spirituality | No Comments

By the time this edition of Early Days goes to print I will have celebrated 30 years of marriage with my wonderful husband, Pete. So perhaps it is fitting that “Professional Love” is the theme of this magazine. There have been times in those thirty years when loving and sticking together has been a decision and commitment rather than a…

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Whose Values?

By | Education, Learning | No Comments

The introduction of British Values into Early Years was met with a raft of confusion and an abundance of resources available (at a charge!) on numerous Early Years websites. The range of posters displaying the Queen, the Union flag, roast dinners and tea parties not only showed the depth of misunderstanding, but served to promote exclusivity and not the “mutual…

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Professional Love or Divine Love?

By | Love | No Comments

Current interest in the understanding of “professional love”  (Page, 2011), and how this is perceived in Early Years groups across the country, provides an important opportunity to look at how love might be understood in a Christian nursery, and how that links with our desire to express to children and families the unconditional love of God as our Father. Jools…

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