Belford Bouncers
Belford Bouncers Report - February 2010
We have had uncertain times due to numbers over recent months but have seen hopeful signs in recent weeks. Before Christmas there were usually 4 or 5 children each week - not many, but all having a great time and enjoying being together. After Christmas however we sometimes had only one child, who comes up from Alnwick with her childminder. I really was thinking of calling a halt to Belford Bouncers at this point, but then a couple of weeks ago we had two local ladies arrive who had seen the notice in the doctors surgery, and another lady whose sister used to come along and had encouraged her to try the group with her twins.
The local ladies haven’t been back again yet but the other lady has now invited two of her friends along (one with another set of twins), so last week we had eight with a possible other two who come along when their mum’s work commitments allow. Again the new ladies come from nearer Alnwick than Belford, but an afternoon session suits them better than the morning sessions that I do in Alnwick. The new children are a lot younger than I would normally plan for - I usually suggest 18 months as a starting age - but I don’t want to turn anyone away at the moment so will simply have to adjust the content to make it more suitable.
One of the other children who comes up from Alnwick has special needs so I need to be adaptable anyway. So we still have the problem of attracting local families along. Our sessions consist of: * Opening - Ring a ring a roses *Circle time - nursery rhymes from our special book * Finding the teddies game * Singing/action games e.g. Here we go round the mulberry bush * Instrument time - playing together to guitar songs and recorded music which usually introduce the session theme *Craft time - while listening to relevant music e.g. making elephants while listening to The Carnival of the animals/Baby elephant walk or making trains while listening to The Little train of the Caipira/Ivor the engine theme * Music activities, songs and rhymes relevant to our theme - e.g. elephant parade march from Jungle Book, 1 elephant went out to play rhyme (pegging our elephants on to a piece of string), or all holding on to a piece of rope and pretending to travel on the train while listening to ‘Coronation Scot’ music, pretending to drive our own trains round while listening to the theme from ‘Thomas the tank engine’, and standing still whenever the music stops to let the passengers on the train. * Closing - Okey Cokey We also include things like parachute games, dancing/moving with ribbons and scarves, assorted fabrics etc.
