Forming your own Playgroup.

I had just moved to a new area and just coming out of post natal depression.I did not know anybody in my area ,had no licence,but luckily for me there was a lady down the road who had children too,I had only met her once through my husband ,but she

Her and a group of friends would get together once a week they formed their own playgroup.We would alternate between each others place each week.On occasions we would go to a park and have it there also .There were about 6 initially that were in the group that grew to  10 at one time  just through word of mouth.

We all had our box of tricks that we would pull out for our playgroup-

Box of tricks

Paper ,different colour paper , paper plates,colouring in books and old magazines 

Paint -water based were always best easier to clean up and wash out of clothes.

Coloured feltpens and pencils ,puff  paint pens were great for decorating a shirt with the childrens own creation.

scissors ,sharpeners,rubbers ,rulers and other stationary,stapelers , hole punch and split pins were always handy too.

wool ,bits of material ,balloons ,glue, wood glue was the best could be used to glue on almost anything.

and other odd and ends we would think the children could make something out of.

keep old newpaper  to place on table (for easy cleaning )

We always did an activity with the children every week ,my children made lots of loverly things.Each week we would all take a plate of food and different fruit that way the children got to taste varying different fruit.If we had any clothes that we no longer needed for our children we would take them to playgroup and all have a look through them and take what we wanted also ,as we had varying ages we didnt have to buy a lot of new clothes for our children either.

My children have fond memories of playgroup ,and so do I.Unfortunatly our children grew too old for playgroup and all went off to school so it ended for us.

So if you have a group of friends why not form your very own playgroup and get together every week and do activities with your children ,a special time for children and mummies to chat and play together.Make it a specific day every week and if one of your members does not have a licence please be of assistence to them and offer to pick them up if they do not live too far away as I know how much this group helped me and I felt comfortable around them as it was a more relaxed enviroment then a community playgroup and my children knew them all very well .Good luck and if any of you decide to give it a try I hope you and your children enjoy it as much as my children and I did.

                                                                                         Cham