Here's a story from a York childminder who's taking part in the Steps scheme. You'll recognise your own practice in it. She was watching the children playing tea parties one day. While watching, she thought to herself, "I wonder how I can make this game even more interesting?" She had a recipe for salt dough and decided to make some play biscuits that could be used in the game. She made five of each kind of biscuit so there would be opportunities to count and match as part of the play.
The children really enjoyed playing with the biscuits as part of the tea party game, and they led to lots of talking about the different kinds of biscuits, and who would like which, counting and sharing and so on. They were so realistic, the younger children even started trying to dunk them in their own drinks and eat them!
Because the children enjoyed playing with the biscuits so much, the childminder thought and talked with them, and they decided to make play bread out of salt dough as well. They thought together about the kinds of bread they could make, and one child wanted to make a plaited loaf. Everyone enjoyed making the different shapes, and the childminder taught them how to make plaits.
Once these were baked, they became part of a bakers shop game. The children then talked about making signs for the shop - the one over the door and the prices for the bread and so on. This led to making other shop signs and they enjoyed designing and painting them.
The childminder started thinking about other ways of building on this interest, including visiting a bakery, going out to a café, introducing play money to the shop, and making real bread.
This was a learning journey for these children which gave them opportunities to explore number, language, use their creative skills, and develop their knowledge and understanding of the world. It also helped with their personal and social development and there were lots of opportunities for practising their fine motor skills, in fact, everything in learning and development within the EYFS and more besides.
It's a way of working that many childminders are already doing naturally, although you may not be keeping a record. This was a lovely example of reflective practice based around the observed interests and abilities of children, which extended their learning. The main thing is to use very straightforward ways of capturing what you are doing - digital photographs are brilliant and then quick notes of observations to go with them. Having a roll of sticky address labels to hand is a great way of writing down what you've seen. When you print out the photos, you can stick the label beside them to remember what it was all about, and put the sheet in the childs folder or in your own records. It's a good idea to keep a short daily diary where you jot down what you've seen the children doing and what you might do next to support their interests and help them develop and learn through their play. You shouldn't be writing pages and pages of observations, there are better things to do with your time! Only things that will help, and remember that it is all evidence for your Steps award too. 
