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Teachearlyyears.com 19 Emma Davis explains how a lockdown project brought joy to the community Bringing smiles with SPOONS Like many settings, we closed our doors on March 20th with much uncertainty around when we’d be able to reopen. This was unsettling for everyone – parents and carers, staff and the children. There were so many questions we were unable to answer as there was no knowing how long we would be in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, it would be another three months before children would return. This followed rigorous risk assessments, audits, policies and amendments to terms and conditions. Although we couldn’t completely eliminate any risk, we could minimise it. During our time away, we remained connected to families at Busy Bees using a closed Facebook group and Tapestry. Having developed excellent partnerships with our parents and carers, this was something we felt it was important to maintain during lockdown. Connecting digitally enabled us to offer play and learning ideas as well as being a form of support for each other during the lockdown period. Community As a setting, we’ve been fortunate to build a strong relationship with the Ledbury community which helped us during lockdown. I had an idea for a project, involving the Busy Bees families and community, working together to make people smile during their daily exercise. We would start a spoon person project, inviting the community to join the children in making characters out of wooden spoons. These would all live on the park, opposite Busy Bees. This is an area which is easily accessible for everyone to visit, whether just to admire the spoons or to add their own. Spoons were available free of charge outside our premises, meaning families did not need to source their own, difficult during the period of lockdown. News of our spoon person project was posted on our social media pages with instructions on how to make them waterproof, what to avoid using (we didn’t want small bits to blow off and litter the area) and advice that the spoons were not keen on dogs! In the coming days and weeks, the lone spoon person which was first to arrive at the park gained more and more friends. New ones were appearing daily, much to the delight of the community who would purposely walk past to spot the new additions! The creativity astounded us – there were astronauts, football players, animals, cartoon characters and members of staff. It was such a popular project that we even had a member of the community buy us more spoons to replenish our quickly diminishing stock! Distraction What made our project such an astounding success was the way in which the community embraced the idea. Social media was flooded with images of the spoon people with comments on how many there were, new characters which had appeared and which ones were favourites. During the dark, uncertain and scary period of lockdown, our project brought joy and distraction to the community. Members of the public thanked us for giving them something else to think of, a reason to go out for a walk, a project to complete as a family. As we are very much a community based setting, this was a delight to hear. Learning can be fun The initial idea was for our spoon person project to be a play and learning idea for our Busy Bees families. We wanted families to feel supported by us as a setting, with us offering ideas to keep children busy when usually they would have been in Preschool. The project was successful in connecting us all at Busy Bees with parents and carers commenting on the enjoyment, learning potential and feel good factor of the project. Our ideas of how making a spoon person could contribute to learning and development were embraced. We heard about how children were learning colours, developing their vocabulary, exploring textures, thinking about size and shape and counting. This really helped us promote the message that learning can be fun and can happen naturally through normal interactions. Not only this, but the engagement between parent or carer and child is what we were hoping to achieve. We recognise that through play and talk, important skills can be achieved, not to mention strengthening the bond and attachment. Although we reopened on June15th , our home learning play and learning ideas didn’t stop. With many families choosing to keep their children at home, there was still a need to remain connected online. Staff uploaded phonics activities, personalised play ideas, videos of themselves reading stories and links to interesting ideas to try. Throughout our time being back, the spoon people have remained in their home on the park. We know that there will come a time to remove them but for now, they continue to bring a smile to the community. Emma Davis is manager at Busy Bees Ledbury. Follow her @EmmaDee77 EMMA DAVIS IS MANAGER AT BUSY BEES LEDBURY