Sunshine or rain...

Well if we like it or not the summer holiday period is here and we have children to entertain so what do you do?

Here are some suggestions for outdoor activities that you made. I will add some more when I have time. Please let us know if you go to any and what they are like!!

Park/Animals
Trilakes, Yateley
Alice Holt Park, Farnham (parking costs)
Sandhurst Memorial Park, Sandhurst (free)
Yateley Green Park, Yateley
Lookout, Bracknell
Fleet Pond, Fleet (free)
Wellington Country Park, nr Arborfield
Frensham Ponds and Little Frensham Ponds, Farnham
King George V Park, Farnborough (free)
Beale Park nr Reading
Lightwater Country Park, Lightwater (free)
Paultons Park nr Southampton
California Country Park, Finchampstead
Finkley Down Farm, nr Andover
Birdworld, Farnham
Fishers Farm, nr Guildford
Moors Valley Country Park, Ringwood (free entry, parking fee- max whole day £8)
Seaworld, Portsmouth
Marwell Zoo, nr Winchester
Butterfly World, London
Frimley Lodge Park, Farnborough (free)
Boulters Lock, Maidenhead (free)
Indoor Play Areas
Fizzy Kids, North Camp
Runabout, Farnborough
Rushmoor Gym, Aldershott (12:45 -1:45 Summer Holidays timetable £1 per person)
Swimming
Coral Reef, Bracknell
Carnival Pool, Wokingham
Indoor
Haslemere Natural History Museum (free)
Natural History Museum London
Intech, nr Winchester
Milestones Museum, Baisingstoke (great for little ones, dressing up and post office)

CONGRATULATIONS to John and Louise!!!!!

John sent this message....

Louise will be returning I am sure sometime soon. She has got her hands full as we now have another boy!
Luke James Piper was born on the 26/6/07 at 5:09am! Mother and baby
doing well, Father pretty tired!

So pleased for you both we were all wondering when your new arrival had come. Hope all is well. John it was lovely having you part of the group and Louise we look for ward to seeing you again. We start back in September but if you do feel like getting out join us at Runabouts this Thursday at 12 noon we'd love to see you.

EVERYONE ELSE: if you can help with toy cleaning come at 10 am and everyone else see you at Runabouts...
Sue sorry you can't come have a lovely holiday!!

Where did June go?

I hadn't realised how busy June was until I looked at the website and saw I hadn't posted since May. My apologies!!

Well this week is the last week of Sunbeams until September....I know what are we all going to do all summer. Well I was wondering if we could all pool our ideas. So come along on Thursday with any ideas for things to do...places to go..the more mad the better! Then I will put these up on the website.

If you missed out the last few weeks our craft has been definitely on the messy side. We have been letting the children just explore with paint and glue. This is something they really enjoy and is important for them to do. If you don't like getting paint out in your house why not make the most of the summer months (if we get them!) and let your children paint outside and on themselves (just wash off in the paddling pool!)

The paint we had last week used soap flakes mixed with warm water and paint. You then whisk it up until it looks like meringue. Then get your fingers in and paint!!

Next week (Thursday July 19th), to celebrate the end of term we are going to meet up at around lunch time at Runabout in Farnborough.

Here's to this year..

we have played,

read stories

dressed up,

jumped,

created,

made tea

and most of all made friends!!!

Rockets and Trips

Hope you enjoyed making the rockets on Thursday. if you missed out here is what we did...
I printed out a rocket template from DLTK (I did have to adjust it slightly) and then use lots of different shapes of pasta to stick on with LOTS of PVA glue.

This activity is aimed at 18 month + and is *child lead*. This means there is lots of scope for your child to do what they want without too much help from you. Things you can do to help them is to asking questions like...

"Which pasta is straight/wiggly/round/bumpy?"...this helps your child to begin to recognise different shapes.
"What shapes would make good windows etc?"

Children love gluing and having the *bumpy* nature of pasta on their picture. Why not find some other pictures to stick pasta onto or you could cut out a shape like a butterfly, a flower or a car.

Other things that are fun to stick are lentils (red or green), split peas (yellow) or rice. Rice can also be coloured by adding a tiny bit of food colouring to it.

Go on let your child have fun expresssing themselves without you doing it for them!

NEWS
Half term is the 31st May so there will be no Sunbeams that day.

Becky will be taking her maternity leave from the Sunbeams Team from after half term. This means there will be one less person to help set up and clear away. If you can help even just once or twice please let me know as it is SO much easier if there are more people. We generally start setting up at 9:30.

Thursday 7th May is our trip to Finkley Down Farm (we will not meet this week at the Leisure Centre) If you bring the money on the 24th June (this week) I can get a group discount and we will also buy a bag of food for each child in the group. Adults are £5.50 Children 2-14 are £4.50. (non group rates are Adult £6 and children 2-14 £5) Feel free to invite other members of your family as well and we can include them in the group booking too.

We will be meeting at 10:15 am at Finkley Down Farm. We have to go in as a whole group so if you are going to be late please text me. I will give out contact details this week.
Hopefully it will be really nice weather like last year because we all had a lovely time.

Apologies...

to all those people who have been logging in and finding no new updates!! I have struggled to find time to get the blogging done over the last few weeks due to family staying and then recovering from family staying. Also the camera is not down loading my photos which is frustrating as I love posting the photos of you all ...and I have loads of good ones!

lets fly away...

How many of you are planning a holiday? Well we thought we would get in on the idea and plan all our craft activities around the theme of 'travel'. We hope you enjoy this term.

It was so busy on Thursday which was lovely! There were four new faces this week, so if you have been coming awhile, look out for the new people and make them feel welcome. (thank you for all those who did do this!) This is a wonderful characteristic of our group and I am so grateful for your contribution to it.

if you did miss out this week we were making these fantastic planes....all you need is a VERY long straw. (These straws are so much fun!! I got them from 'Snip' in Fleet, a bargain at £1 for the whole packet. There are so many things you could do with them.

Ok what else, string and an aeroplane template from DLTK. I copied and pasted and made it slightly larger and printed it on paper. Allow the children to decorate it and tie the string to the plane and the other end to the straw. If you can't find a straw then use what I was going to use...a garden cane.

The children will LOVE whizzing this around... other alternatives are butterflies, birds, rockets, fairies, any thing with wings. Go on have some... fun get creating...it is a nice easy and clean activity!!!

By the way our little blog here caught the eye of someone on California and they were so impressed that they gave us an honorary mention on their blog called 'Gatherings'!!!

welcome back!!!

Hope you all had a lovely Easter holiday...lots of chocolate!!!

This term our theme is 'Travel'. So if you have any good stories or songs about cars, planes, diggers, trains etc... please let us know!

For your diary...Yateley Community Pre-school is holding an excellent 'Nearly New' sale this Saturday (21st April) 10-12.