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Autumn – “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”

Sue A

Also the season of pumpkin lanterns, colourful leaves, wet and windy weather and…. half term !! I just spent this half term week visiting The Zone in Rawtenstall, Maden Centre in Bacup and Haslingden Nursery Centre in, yes you got it Haslingden with a range of Autumn inspired activities. These three small towns are right on my doorstep and sit snugly in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire.

My theme – Light and Dark, shadows, autumn aromas.

I offered a variety of activities suitable for a range of ages from babies through to 7-8 years. A sensory play mat for babies through to 3 – 4 years, for older children there were table top crafts; collage, paper tearing, creating jack o’ lanterns and silhouettes that could be used in the shadow play area. Finally there were the raw state spices and oranges giving off lovely warm autumnal aromas.

Many thanks to Liz Charles, Mohammed Parvez, Michaela and all the staff and volunteers at the Rossendale Children and Family Wellbeing Service for their help during the week.

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Bye for now Burnley Wood Nursery Centre

Sue A

Well that was my final outreach visit to Burnley Wood, a great pleasure as always. Some new faces and some familiar ones too, a very welcoming and friendly group. The reason for coming to the centre is to have the baby’s measurements taken and to see the health visitor for advice, the reason to stay is to play and socialise, seems like a good combination to me !

Popular this week were the chiffon scarves, hypnotic spinning silver balls, building delicate towers and knocking them down of course, finishing with a hearty singing session.

Many thanks to Paul and Michelle for running the session and welcoming me, hopefully we will meet again and continue playing and singing.

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Sensory time is social time too

Sue A

Here we have a variety of textures, from pan scrubs to table mats, a nest of raffia and naturally smoothed drift wood, the natural shades enhanced by citrus orange, yellow and green colours. The light, floaty chiffon scarves are always fun.. some things we can see through! What else can we experience when playing with these ‘ordinary’ objects? …how light or how heavy is it ? what is the structure? – is it woven together or loose and stringy ?- is it springy or elastic ? – the hair scrunchy can ping through the air!

All this while enjoying the company of other babies and their mums.

These snaps were taken at Burnley Wood Nursery Centre, Burnley as part of my outreach programme for The Boo Theatre.

You can join me every first Tuesday of the month at The Boo Theatre for more open play, the session is free of charge, drop in between 10 – 12 am.

3rd September, 1st October, 5th November, 3rd December 2019

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Space to play

Sue A

Sometimes you can be lucky enough to have the whole collection to yourself in a large church hall while mum is busy with aerobics. Placing and arranging the objects became the main activity, expanding the territory across the room from the main blanket to the exercise mat and creating a lovely arrangement for mum to enjoy while exercising.

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A sunny day and the garden beckons..

Sue A

My outreach session on Thursday was in the Burnley Wood Children’s Centre, Burnley. A large well equipped room opened out onto this lovely garden. It was too much to resist! It so happened that I had a lot of natural objects which fitted well in the garden context.

There was free movement from indoors to outdoors and plenty of activity at the craft table as well as lively episodes of bubble chasing outside.

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Visitors!

Sue A

We were joined on Tuesday by two visitors from Tesco bearing a very large cheque! The Boo came 2nd in the Tesco’s Bags of Help Scheme. Customers choose a local charity they would like to support by placing a blue token in the box. This windfall of £2,000 will help to keep our Baby Explorer sessions free for a while longer. Thank you Tesco Customers your support is greatly appreciated.

Baby Boo will be up for another store donation in Jack’s from the 10th June – 8th September so you can vote for us there too!

We offer a friendly and relaxing welcome to babies and toddlers aged 0-4 years with their carers, mums , dads, grandparents, child minders – all welcome, come and enjoy playing together with our selection of weird and wonderful objects.

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Taking the beads for a walk

Sue A

It seems a popular way to play with the knotted beads, go for a walk while trailing them behind. They clatter and swing around and sooner or later wrap around your feet and trip you up. Quite a few children in different sessions have played in this way with the beads exploring the lively unpredictability almost as if they are being chased by them.

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Soft blocks

Sue A

My cheap foam ‘yoga’ blocks are proving very popular and now seem to be coming out every session. The yellow brick road, a single layer of bricks laid in a line provides a soft floor which is fun and slightly challenging for new walkers, the more experienced walkers have added blocks to make steps which become much more wobbly when they are three high. Great workout for balance, feet and ankles. We’ve built towers, bridges, mountains to clamber over, walls, houses, dominos, comfy bed, and finally.. diving face down on the foam after the tower falls down is the best fun.