A BIG thank you to everyone who came along to visit Herford’s Children’s Centre at Sele School today.  A wonderfully hot afternoon meant a proper picnic outside in the garden, which gave plenty of relaxing time for mums and dads to catch up and have a good chat, whilst the children ran around freely exploring all the new toys.  The session ended with a story, “We’re All Going On A Bear Hunt” read by the Selections Centre Manager Valerie Wrangles.  We might not go on a bear hunt again, but we may certainly return to the Children’s Centre!

Don’t forget the Children’s Centre will be providing an arrange of fun activities during the summer holidays – to find out more contact call 01992 581 258 or visit www.hertschildrenscentres.org.uk/selections/

£1,648.53 was raised on Saturday 8th May at our Family Fun Day. A huge thank you to everyone who helped out – whether you baked a cake, ran a stall or turned up on the day, each and everyone of you made it a success. The cold weather didn’t keep you away, as families kept on arriving throughout the afternoon. There was plenty to do, plenty to buy and plenty to eat!

Sam West, our Fundraising Chairperson said, “Seeing it all come together, the children enjoying themselves and raising lots of money makes all the hard work worth while!”

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On Thursday 22nd April, Bengeo Playgroup received a visit from the RSPB Rye Meads.  The children met Robbie the Robin and were asked lots of questions and had to find out what food Robbie likes to eat.  Three brave volunteers stepped forward to feed Robbie – he was given raisins, followed by crisps then seeds.  The children squealed with glee as Robbie either ate up the handfuls of food or pushed it away with his beak.  Then the children showed Robbie how they can wriggle like worms and crawl like caterpillars before finishing off the visit with a bug hunt in the garden.

May we introduce our very new and very first Snack Station!  This term we will be changing to a ‘rolling’ snack time, which means the children choose when they wish to stop for a drink and something to eat.  This new system will maintain our current good practice of hand washing before eating and provide quiet time for conversation and reading, whilst also extending the free flow playtime.  With The Snack Station, water bottles are welcome – just make sure your child’s bottle is clearly labelled – and water only please, no juice or squash.

Over the Easter holidays our very first teeny weeny tadpoles hatched!  The children will delight in watching the tadpoles wriggle and jiggle in our makeshift pond in the courtyard.  This real life experience will give us the opportunity to talk to the children about how to care for the tadpoles to make sure they grow into healthy frogs.  Ribbet Ribbet!

This term the children are going to be given plenty of real life activities to explore and investigate.  To get things started, Playgroup will be receiving a visit from the RSPB Rye Mead to give the children an hours interactive play called “It’s A Bug’s Life”, which will include hunting for creepy crawlies in our garden!  We will also have our very own live butterfly house with five feeding caterpillars and our ‘pond’ of frogspawn.  These wonderful real life activities and experiences will provide the opportunity for the children to show curiosity and interest in the features of living things.  We will encourage the children to describe and talk about what they see so they can begin to learn about change and patterns, similarties and differences and question how and why things work.
Links to the EYFS : Knowledge & Understanding of the World (Exploration & Investigation, Time, Place)

Its all change at Bengeo Playgroup – the Summer term will start with a splash of colour and a transformed room following the arrival of new tables, chairs and a wonderful children of the world circle carpet. The new furniture is courtesy of the funds raised at our annual Quiz Night held back in January. Our fantastic Fundraising Committee put on a fun-filled evening for the growns ups as well as raise an incredible £584 for Playgroup.

Sally, our Playgroup Leader, comments…

A makeover is just what the room needed and we can’t thank everyone enough for making it happen. We are thrilled with the new look and we hope you love the transformation as much as we do!

During the last dusting of snow in Bengeo, we took this photo of our much enjoyed caterpillar Febergus.

Wow, the butterfly is about to fly!

Learning, like Life, is a Journey!  This year, like last year the children will investigate life cycles.  They watched eggs hatch into caterpillars, then eat and grow and finally turn into butterflies which were released during the Spring Break.  At the same time there was an incubator with chicks eggs in the Year 2 classroom.  We were able to share in the learning experiences.  Reception children and others passing through the playgroup were able to watch our toad and frog spawn hatching and growing.

Brains in action!

Our staff team!

Fun was had by all, and from the photo’s you can see a lot of thinking (and drinking!) was going on!

Superb food was provided by Linda and Alistair Day.

The master in action!

Steve Worrall did us proud again as Quiz Master.

We had loads of fabulous raffle prizes!

Raffle prizes were donated by local businesses including Pizza Express, Patrick Photographer and Guiseppes Hair studio as well as by parents and friends of the playgroup.

We raised a fantastic £585 on the night and are looking forward to ordering new new tables & chairs, a carpet and Easel with the proceeds.

Many thanks, once again, to everyone for their support.

The winners....again!