• About Early Years Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Terms
  • Advertise with us
  • Privacy Notice
  • Registration
    • Register Yourself
    • Register Your Childcare Setting
    • Register Recruitment Agencies
    • Register Job Seekers
  • Login

Early Years Careers

Early Years Careers

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on Instagram
  • Home
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Careers and Training News
    • Awards
  • EY Jobs
    • Post a Job
    • View Jobs
    • Advanced Search
      • Careers in Childcare
    • Top tips on your childcare job search
    • Apprenticeships in Childcare
    • FAQS Qualifications and Training
  • EY Training
    • Food Hygiene
    • Your Local Education Authority Training Courses
    • Paediatric First Aid
    • Safeguarding
    • SEND Training
    • Health and Safety Courses
    • Management training
    • EYFS Training Material
    • Free online Childcare Courses
    • Female Genital Mutilation online training course
  • EY Practice
    • #ActivityTime
    • Learning and Development
    • Enabling Environment
    • SEND Support
    • National Children’s Food Festival 2017
    • National Children’s Food Festival Week 2016
    • The Great Big British Values Week 2016
    • Celebrating National Children’s Food Festival 2016
    • Handy guides for childcare professionals
    • Early Years Practice Videos
    • EYFS Practice Publications
    • EYFS Documentation
    • EYFS Practice Books
  • EY Management
    • Early Years Management
    • Recruitment
    • Effective ways to manage a team
    • Ways to help Continuous Improvement
    • How to reduce your workload
    • Latest HR Updates
  • EY Business
    • Early Years Business
    • Marketing Your Nursery
    • Publications
    • Documentation
    • Books
  • Support Tools
    • Skloop- Individual Training Record
    • Loomă™ – Early Years Skills Matrix
    • Induct2GO – Early Years Induction Programme
    • Language and Communication Programme
    • Ready Ofstedy Go
      • Preparing for Ofsted Inspection
      • Early Years Mock Ofsted Inspection Booklet
  • Shop
  • FAQS
    • FAQS Children’s Behaviour
    • FAQS Learning & Development
    • FAQS Health and Nutrition
    • FAQS Human Resources
    • FAQS Nursery Software
    • FAQS Ofsted
    • FAQS Outdoor Play
    • FAQS Parent Partnerships
    • FAQS Planning
    • FAQS Safeguarding
    • FAQS SEND
    • FAQS Qualifications and Training
  • Registration
    • Register Yourself
    • Register Your Childcare Setting
    • Register Recruitment Agencies
    • Register Job Seekers
  • Login

Why you should not make reindeer food this year

6th December 2017 By kimberley 3 Comments

Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Pin on Pinterest
Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin

Reindeer food is damaging

Reindeer food is a much loved craft option to make with children in the early years. It usually involved oats and glitter along with a little poem card asking you to sprinkle it outside on Christmas eve to help guide Santas’ sleigh. In the early years this activity is done in many ways from it being more of sensory experience mixing and playing in the oats and glitter before practitioners portion it up to send home with parents for Christmas eve, or with older children it is often used as a great mathematics activity where the children are encouraged to follow a recipe card and add certain amounts of the oats and glitter to their bags of reindeer food ready to take home.  All in all it has many benefits, however many are now urging parents to stop using reindeer food in the traditional manner. 

Why should we stop using reindeer food?

The problem with this unfortunately comes down to the glitter. Glitter has already recently made it on the early years agenda with a large chain of nurseries banning glitter from its settings, classing glitter as a micro plastic that is causing damage to the immediate environment and the oceans. 

Now whilst this might be a contributing factor as to why you might want to think twice about making reindeer glitter, it is having a huge impact on Wildlife. Wildlife experts are claiming that glitter is causing harm to the local wildlife who may be intrigued and eat the oats and glitter. Glitter isn’t digestible and is therefore harming wildlife such as hedgehogs. This is important to consider as it is important that we teach the next generation of adults about caring for wildlife and the environment. 

Whilst this may seem like a huge blow to have to consider banning reindeer food from early years settings, there are some alternative methods that could be used instead. 

Alternative ideas to the traditional reindeer food.

One idea is to simply change the poem that is attached to the reindeer food. This means changing the poem so that instead of the reindeer food being sprinkled outside to guide Santa, instead the reindeer food can be placed in a dish at a window to guide Santa

Another alternative if you are concerned about the wider damage caused  by glitter being a micro plastic then you may like to swap the glitter for a more environmentally friendly product such as an eco-glitter. 

 

What are your opinions on this?

Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Pin on Pinterest
Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin

Filed Under: Latest News

Comments

  1. Caroline says

    9th December 2017 at 12:21 pm

    We shouldn’t stop making reindeer food, nor should we change the poem. Let’s sprinkle it outside but remove the glitter! We’re using a small amount of coloured sugar crystals this year to give it a bit of colour and these dissolve in the snow/rain and are not harmful to children or wildlife.

    This is a great way to teach children about feeding wild animals and birds. Make the ingredients wildlife friendly, explain that the reindeers go to so many houses they may not be hungry when they reach yours (to explain away why it’s sometimes still there on Christmas morning) and they like to share it with the birds and wildlife that help them with deliveries on Christmas Eve. Keep the magic alive!

    Reply
  2. Caroline says

    9th December 2017 at 12:23 pm

    Forgot to say – don’t use eco or edible glitter – not only is it hugely expensive, it is still not wildlife friendly!

    Reply
  3. Cheryl Hadland says

    13th December 2017 at 12:08 pm

    Many “eco” glitters are still 10% plastic, that is usually what the colour and shine is – so how about edible glitter, although a lot of that has sugar in it – do we really want to be feeding the local wildlife sugar? Just saying – we really need to check the ingredients and the standards certificates – IF they really have them and manufacturers haven’t just self awarded them.
    Perhaps real reindeer or hedgehog food would be a lot healthier and more responsible? Time to wean ourselves off so much shiny stuff just to embellish a story?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *




Post Childcare Jobs

Video Of The Week

Subscribe by email to receive our free Continuous Provision ebook

front cover of ebook

Latest News

The Department for Educations drops some child data

Innovative invention

Loose parts – getting practitioners on board

Calls for Early Years Settings to Offer veg first during weaning

Professional Development in the workforce

Calls to oust eligibility cap on 30 hrs free childcare

Tiny Toez NMT Awards

Why you should not make reindeer food this year

Should plug socket covers be removed from the early years?

Should glitter be banned in early years settings?

Early Years Jobs

  • Post a Job
  • View Jobs
  • Advanced Search
  • Employer Login
  • Employer Registration
Advertise Here

Our Mission

Early Years Careers provides a supportive forum where Early Years professionals can value the sharing of best practice to help deliver outstanding practice in Early Years settings and enhance Continuous professional development.

Having Problems With Our Site?

We are a very new site and we are constantly working to make the site better and to grow it. If you notice any problems then please email us [email protected]

Newsletter

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on E-mailFollow Us on Instagram

Copyright © 2019 · SiteMap · SEO & Design By Davlic Media ·