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Welcome to Silkysteps

Preschool, Teachers, Parents and Childcarers

On Silkysteps you will find play activities, planning & craft resources for the Under Fives, Foundation Stage, Early Years & many adaptable play ideas for older Children.

Please see each of our Characters for their own free resource areas..

Spindle Spider's Colouring pictures for topic focus and play activities Colouring Mischief Mouse's Preschool crafts, collage and paint - tactile play ..Preschool Crafts This image links directly to our latest Preschool outline - Click the text link for all available outline templates .. Craft Templates Silky has a small collection of clipart images and wallpaper downloads: She is our website cat and welcomes you to take your time and wander through the many resources here on Silkysteps ...Clipart

Omni Orangutan has a range of activity pack titles to read and adapt to individual setting's needs ..Activity packs Inky bear - activity sheets for conversation, creative play and mark makingActivity Sheets Magical Mammoth's recipes for play and snack time .. & Playdough activities 

Early years articles  Early Years outdoor play + outdoor in play and more Free !!

A very merry christmas wish to all our visitors ..
Visit our Download Store for some great resources.
Downloadable books, crafts, mini topics and more .. 
Developed in-house they are designed for Preschool craft activities, Early Learning projects and to help promote your interactive display & parent's notice areas.
Mini Topics  Craft Books  Craft kits

15 days of craft activities, colouring and sheets for Chinese New Year Chinese New Year craft eBook
a craft, colouring and activity sheet for each of the 15 festival days of Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year crafts, colouring and 15 days of activities ..
Other Craft eBook titles available from the store

 Jungle crafts, colouring and activity sheetsJungle Crafts eBook and  Ocean life - crafts, colouring and activity sheets for Preschool Ocean craft eBook ...
 Butterfly and Plant lifecycle crafts, projects, colouring and activity sheets Butterfly & Plant Frog and Chicken lifecycle crafts. Colouring and activity sheetsChicken & Frog  Lifecycles Craft eBooks
 Chinese New Year downloadable craft eBook 
 Winter activities, crafts and colouring . Winter Craft activities Travel around the world with a collection of Christmas craft ideas - UK -  Christmas Around The World 
A general collection of Christmas craft activitiesfor Preschool and Early Years  .. Christmas crafts Harvest activities  Harvest Time Ourselves - All about me, explores some focus activities .. Ourselves - all about me crafts 
 Crafts Bk   Crafts Bk 2  Clothes craft ideas, projects, colouring and activity sheets Clothes  Preschool activities for Road safety awareness projects. Road Safety crafts for safety awareness activities with younger Children

and a few of our Best Selling mini topicsTudor pottage or winter time stew - use Elephants stomping rhyme to build focus activities around vegetables and recipe ingredients Elephant's stew Mini topic 
 Bouncy Squirrels for all seasons ..Bouncy Squirrels  Worms numberline mini topic and Lily Pad frogs Mini Topic
Mini eTopic - LilyPad frogs - DOWNLOAD - print and use immediately !!

Winter willow berries
Silkysteps map - find you way around ..Plugboard advertising - promote and visit Preschool Craft and Business websites ..
Silkysteps Image Map - Navigate through our craft resources with a little more ease ..

Plug Boad advertising for Preschool Crafts and Business websites.
Independant unaffiliated screenshots for visitors to browse excellent resources for home and Preschool


FRONT PAGE INDEX
Early Years Forums and Newsletter Sign up Link Latest Resource Link Competitions and Preschool Book Review
Take Part: regulation & policy Link Special Features Link Additional craft Activities Link Text Links

Winter willow berries
The newest Early learning resource available from our Early Years Download store
*New Christmas templates

Christmas craft outlines: Buy - Download and use today ..
 See our Winter department page for lots of ideas to build your activity planning ..

Preschool support, community information and play learning activities ..Click and register your email address to receive Silkysteps free monthly newsletter ..

 Preschool early years community ~ Completely free, they give all Early Years Professionals ~ Parents, Childminders, Teachers, PreSchool, Nursery and Toddler groups the chance to question & answer - discover & plan !!
Click for the past ... 3 Days | 4 Days | 5 Days or the Past Weeks posts !
 Silkysteps Free Monthly eNewsletter ~ Keep ahead of everything happening on Silkysteps - new activities, forum updates and Early years news all delivered straight to your inbox !
Newsletter focus will be on activities suitable for Library craft and reading sessions, Hospital and outdoor Playwork, Charity and voluntary campaign work and fundraising - all ideas and news come straight from Early Years !!
For a Sample of our previous Newsletters ~ Please take a look HERE
NB: Registration for our newsletter is separate to your forum membership and store account

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Latest Resource - This is our newest craft or printable activity added to Silkysteps ..
  New printable coming soon ..
 

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Please see all our current Early Years Competitions on this page
Competitions to enjoy for home and Preschool Book reviews for Preschool, Nursery and Early Years

  Preschool and Early Years Book lists - themed for focus play, Reviews, links & more information
 Early Years 'Dates for your Diary' planning campaigns
Campaign and awareness dates for planning activities ..

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Consultations and feedback opportunities ..
These links are to help Silkysteps readers visit and put forward thoughts, views and opinions:
See how policy influences working practice and how you can contribute

Better Regulation: from BERR - see how you can help improve regulation that unneccessarily resticts or has yet to encompass ..
DCSF Consultations - how does the Department for Children, Schools and Families want your help ... 
Ofsted Consultations - Get involved, find out what's new and pass on your thoughts ..

Click to open a News search for EYFS Links and tips on how to approach an Operational plan
 Click for current news articles  
 Basic tips for approaching your own Preschool Operational Plan 
 Early Learning Goals and UN Convention for the rights of Children

 

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Special features - articles that reflect our interests ..
Our areas of Interest - Preschool: involvement, home and community 

Children in the picture - Inclusive practice.Children In The Picture 
 This Inclusion poster is a great resource to help promote diversity in all types of settings.
 You can order it for £5.00 inc P&P by emailing inthepicture@scope.org.uk
  Inclusion & Wellbeing information from Sure Start
  More about Richard Johnson and his wonderful Illustrations
 
 For activity ideas please see our range of Themes and Topics forums.

Merry Christmas

Hospital Broadcasting Association Hospital Radio Activity Ideas
Have you thought of ways your Early Years setting can help support and network with the local volunteers working in your hospital radio stations?

Set of activity sheets for taking radio requests !!You can find contact details of your local station on the HBA ~ Hospital Broadcasting Association's website.
To introcduce concepts and plan activities for any links you hope to build please feel free to use and adapt these suggestions:  
 Early Learning Play Planning  
 Activity Sheets ~ Radio Listener ~ Request Sheets Print, write, tear off & enjoy !!

Merry Christmas

Sweet peas, cress. beansporouts and many other seed varieties excellent for preschool growing and planting projects - Link in association with Unwins affiliate accountSeeds in Preschool !
If you plan growing topics and focus activities in Preschool or organise fundraising events / craft experiences Unwins have an incredible range to exlplore.
Familiarise the Children and staff with names, varieties and growing tips ..  
These links are through Webgains and are in association with our Unwins affiliate account

Sweet Peas  Garden Peas  Beans  Nasturtiums 
Merry Christmas

Watch garden birds and take part in securing their habitat .. Link in association with Handykam affiliate accountBirds in Preschool, Nursery and Foundation ...
These activities and play ideas help explore how to protect, care and enjoy for the range of birds we see regularly and not so ..
Watching our native and international migratory friends is great fun and important for noticing changes to their habitats and routines !
Wherever possible involve the Children and interested adults in the lives of birds and help secure a corner of your outdoor and inddor play for them.
Playdough Bird Nests ~ great activity from Magical Mammoth's page! 
Sakalava Rail ~ a collage craft from Mischief Mouse.
Our Birds forum - activities for tactile play ..

Get ready for Spring by installing your own wildlife camera kit over the winter...
Videoing or watching birds nesting digitally 
Can be organised in your Preschool or Foundation unit with the CCTV Bird Box kits from Handykam.
 Full instruction on how to build and assemble your own observatory are part of the Nest box Video kit - please see HandyCam CCTV Website for more information. 
This link is in association with our Handykam cctv birdbox Affiliate account.
Merry Christmas

GALS - Giant African Snails. Care and considerations within Preschool settings .. TheSnailTrail.co.uk
 Giant African Land Snails - GALS
 Join the snail trail and discover what GALS can do for your Childrens' learning horizons.
 Giant African Land Snails are a great addition to any learniing environment ~ home or classroom ..
 Lesson and activity plans for introducing GALS to your Preschool and Early Years children.
 Download and print their free Breeding Awareness Poster, display it on your notice boards and help spread the word of responsible ownership with them!

Merry Christmas

Silly Books ~ SillyBooks.net 
Where Pen is put to Paper and wonderful Illustrations come to life.
Sillybooks is a stunning website run by some pretty amazing people - Full of original interactive stories, games, music, puzzles and many more - and it's updated frequently so be sure to pop back and see what's been newly published!

Count balloons with Sillybooks ..
Count Balloons - Courtesy of Sillybooks
Merry Christmas

Head lice and nit information Head Lice in your setting ?
For information, Colouring pictures and activity play ideas that can be printed out and enjoyed please feel free to download our activity pack.
Distribute the booklets or individual pages to your parents and display on notice boards for everyones information...
Our Bug busting day forum has lots of ideas on how to break the cycle of infestation and play ideas to openly discuss any problems ..
Heads craft activity from our 'All about us' Forum. 

Merry Christmas

The NCB's - National Children's Bureau recycling campaign.
If you have a new Mobile and would like to help NCB raise funds with your unused one please click through the link and see how to apply for freepost recycling bags to send it over !
Funds raised help support their work with Children.
For Career information see the link on their front page
www.NCB.org.uk

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Early craft activities published with permission ...

Penguin painting craft  Penguin Painting original craft activity published on Under5s.co.uk
 Frozen paint sticks 
 Penguin painting - colouring and collage sheet 

Stitch Squirrel has sewing projects, knot and guides for general information ..Calculato Caterpillar and Number line orders ..Fiesty Firefly has a whole range of printable resources ..

Dinosaur adventures - all year round fun and games .. Dinosaur hand puppet - outdoor and indoor stomping role play !!
Dinosaur colouring pictures and Paint activity bases
Our Dinosaurs activity ideas Forum
We're Going on a bear hunt - adapt this well loved rhyme to a Dinosaur theme ..
Mixed with a
Minibeast Theme and you have a great outdoor play adventure ..


Errol Eagle  rhymes and rhythm - home communications and ideas for home corner activities Hope Hedgehog's area has useful articles published for Early Years reading & implementation ..Outdoor in - play ideas for a flexible and open approach to planning - Navigator Narwhal

Winter willow berries

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Support Silkysteps with these links

These links help us to increase visitor numbers.
Click through to register your vote of support for Silkysteps & to discover
many more websites !!
TeAchnology Topsites Sites for Teachers Sites for Parents Mumszone

 
Resource and activity links
 Outdoor lunar landings    
  Cath Smith's Deaf Sign article Hospital Playwork  The Nature of Children's Play 
 National Bed month play and Early Years planning activities
 Whipped snow recipe  Rhyming Sheets  Cow Hitch Knot

Building links
Health and Saftey tips from the HSE ...

HSE: Which myth is explained this month ....

Myth of the month from the HSE - Health and Safety Executive

Building links