‘Stick Men’, ‘Beans’ and ‘Mess and Noise’!

It’s been a while since our last update.  Spring is well and truly here. The community garden is springing into life and we have had some great Friday morning sessions.

The brilliant book ‘Stick Man’ was the inspiration for one session.  We read the book, went on a stick hunt, (with a short stop along the way to see how the tadpoles in the pond where doing).  Then we made our own stickmen using airdrying clay for the head, small stones for the face, sticks for the body and arms, then we tied some scraps of fabric on as clothes.  The results where brillliant and everyone was really proud of the stickaman they had made.

Broad Beans week, looked a bit showery so we put the tent up, no rain came but we all enjoyed the extra dimension to the garden that the tent gave.  After our story (Jack in the Bean Stalk!) we made a fabulous tripod for the broad beans to grow up and decorated it with brightly coloured ribbons.  We also planted our own broad beans to take home, everyone is looking forward to seeing them shoot up!

And finally, last week was our ‘Mess and Noise’ week.  Perfect for outdoor play because no one minds kids getting messy and making lots of noise while they are outside!

First, we read a lovely book about how to go on a’ Listening Walk’ and I was so impressed that everyone listened to the story really carefully.  Then we walked around the garden to see what noises we could hear. The children noticed the sounds of traffic, birds tweeting, voices talking, bees buzzing, shoes shushing through long grass.  Having listened carefully for quiet sounds we then made our own noisy sound garden by tying various items such as old saucepans, lids, a toy tin teapot and anything else we thought might make a good noise onto a clothes line.  Then was gave them a good bashing with sticks to really explore the noises we could make.

After snack time it was messy play time.  We had lots of homemade playdough which found it’s way into lots of corners of the garden, we also had gloop to investgate, some shaving cream play and a big box of brilliant rainbow rice!

The community garden is such a lovely spot, shielded as it is by high hedges, it feels like a secret and special place but it’s not that secret that everyone isn’t welcome! So if you’d like to come along to try out ‘Wild Things’ do drop us an e-mail to find out more! widlthingsbath@gmail.co.uk

We refuse to let rain (or hail) stop play!

It started out sunny and then we all had to run for shelter (and a snack) when it started hailing! When the sun came out again we hunted for ‘treasures’ with different textures to fill our boxes. The spider was definitely tickley but we couldn’t catch him!

We also planted some flowers (violas) in our special planter.

The week before our session was all about Garden Friends. We had fun digging in the flower bed for worms, we found some small, some fat and lots of wriggly worms! We also looked for ladybirds but there weren’t any about so we made our own with moving wings.

After our delicious snack picnic much fun was had painting with worms (spaghetti) lots of messy fun! And we had fished for corks in the water tub – always popular.

Here are a few pics

Log leaping!

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Messy spaghetti painting!

Pond Exploring!

Now is the time of year when the pond is teeming with squidgy frogs and slimy frogspawn.  At last week’s session the children had the chance to have a jolly good investigate.  It was fascinating!

Look what we found!

The hunt!

There was also brilliant, messy jelly play and we made our own jumping frogs!

Next week we are going to be looking at garden friends – look out for updates!

 

 

 

The Taster Session

On Friday 5th April, we were relieved that the bone gnawing cold abated a little and the taster session went ahead.  The Community Garden is such a lovely spot, sheltered by high hedges, we really were able to enjoy some warming rays of sunshine. 

The session was lots of fun, we made minature hanging baskets, found little treasures in the garden to stick to our sticky boards, explored with an eye-spy picture game and had lots of fun testing out mud painting and messy cooking!

It was lovely to meet some newcomers to ‘Wild Things’, the ages ranged from 2.5 to 7 (as it was the easter holidays!), but everyone found something fun to get stuck into. And of course we had our lovely picnic feast snack time!

We can’t wait to start the proper sessions this Friday 12 April!  10.30 – 11.45, over the coming months the garden will be springing into life and we have lots of exciting plans for messy play, nature discovery and gardening!

Wild Things is coming back!!!!

We are very excited to announce that the popular outdoor playgroup in Alice Park is coming back!  Things have changed a little, the oak has gone and so now we are based in the fabulous Community Garden which gives us an enclosed space, the chance to grow and build things in situ, and a slighter wilder feel!

The format is a little different too, we will be leading activities such as gardening, craft activities and games plus the opoortunity for some free play in the garden.  But the delicious snack time will still be there and our love for having fun in the outdoors!

The group will be restricted to a maximum of 12 children between the ages of approx 2.5 and 5, though of course younger siblings will be very welcome to tag along! You will need to book in advance a minimum of three sessions at £5 each but we are trying to remain as flexible as possible so you may not need to state which sessions you are coming to incase you can’t make some.

As before we will continue to run through the school holidays because those little ones don’t stop wanting to have fun just because school is out!

We will be staging a taster session in the Easter holidays on Friday 5th April, so you can come along and see what we are all about! More on that to follow!

Join us for halloween japes before Wild Things hibernates…until our thrifty Christmas fair Dec 17th!

This week will be our last playgroup in the park this Autumn…but we will be back in the park when spring has sprung and we all feel a boi-ng in our step again.

We’ve decided to have a bit of a break until the weather warms up again (Feb/March time) as we think it will be tricky keeping little hands and feet warm over the winter. The weather has been amazing for us so far (not one Friday of rain since March!), but our luck can’t hold for too much longer…

But please do join us for our Thrifty Christmas community day on December 17th 2.30-5pm, at New Oriel Hall, Larkhall. Children will have the chance to make their own lovely homemade gifts to give to loved ones…

We’ll also have yummy cakes and treats, hand made gifts and amazing second hand books, so you can get your hands on a few thrifty presents too!

We are looking for volunteers for our Christmas fair, so please please get in touch if you think you might be free and could look after a stall for us for a couple of hours. We are a community group, so without you, we will struggle!

Birds of a feather

Birds, bats and flying things this week, so we’ll be making snacks to help the wee beasties make it through the winter, plus lots of feather-inspired crafts (masks, pet birds, kites).

And we’ll be mucking around with our usual messy and sensory play, so come along and join us. We’ll be in the park for a few more weeks, until the weather gets properly chilly…