Playgroup is back!

Most people here are busy with x-mas celebration as it was just around the corner. But us (some Msians here) are busy planning our playgroup! One of my msians friend here has been asking for me to organize playgroup for our kids especially for SAHM here to have social interaction at least once a week. Thus yesterday, 21 Dec 2009, we had our first playgroup for this school holiday. The theme was about "Camping".

I reckon I need to explain a little bit about the concept of "playgroup" before I tell what happened during our first session of playgroup for this school holiday.

Playgroup is an informal session where parents, carers, babies and children aged 0 to school age come together in a relaxed and friendly environment.

Playgroup gives children an opportunity to:

• have fun,
  
• make new friends, and
  
• develop new skills through informal play.

Playgroup provides parents and carers with:

• an opportunity to meet other parents and carers,
  
• make friends, and
  
• share ideas and experiences.

Playgroup also allows parents and carers to:

• spend quality time with their children,
  
• encouraging, helping or simply playing with their children.

Playgroups are:

• not-for-profit,
• are run by, and for the parents who attend.
  
• usually held once a week for a two hour session,
• held in a variety of venue.

 from this source: http://www.playgroupaustralia.com.au/act/go/what-is-playgroup

The playgroup started at 10 a.m. Hanna and Adibah were the first to arrived here (at my house). Hanna brought a small plastic house and another pop-up house for the kids. Their kids; Aisya, Little Adam, Farah and Sarah were busy helping Hanna to put up the house. Fathini and Hafizah were busy bringing all of their toys out into the garden. I took out some stuffs for our "fairy bread" sandwich and fruit kebabs.

Few minutes later, more and more came and the last ones were my friend Cindy (from Peachgrove playcentre) came with her daughters; Felisa and Tahlia. Before this I called our playgroup as "Malaysian playgroup" but since this time we have Cindy who is Chinese (originally from China but had been here for 8 years!), I would just called our playgroup as "school holiday playgroup".

So, what do we do during this playgroup session? Well, during the first hour, we just let the kids to play in the tent and the toy houses. The moms were busy chatting and gossipping. bukan mengumpat sesiapa pun cuma cerita hal masing. When our kids started to feel hungry, we asked them to make some "fairy bread". There were only Fathini, Farah, Sarah, Aisya and Hafizah who were interested to make their "fairy bread". The other kids just engrossedly busy playing and pretending to be at a  camp site."Fairy bread" is actually a simple sandwich bread that had been cut into different shapes using the cookie cutters, been spreaded with some table spread and dipped into some sprinkles. I managed to make some "fairy bread" to other kids as I wanted to make sure that everybody could try it.  tu pun ada mak2 lain yg tolong buat sekali sbb diaorg pun teringin nak mkn jugak.hehe

Somehow we managed to get every kids to be involved in making fruit kebabs. They made special fruit kebabs as there were bananas, apples, mangos, tomatoes, carrots and fries (courtesy of Adibah).
It was so fun to see how they had their own ideas on which fruits they wanted and how their moms gave the freedom for them to choose. Though Hafizah was somehow felt left out after I forgot about her! terukkan mak Hafizah ni I had to asked Hafizah to join us making fruit kebabs and actually helped her out to make a few fruit kebabs.

   

We proceeded to our next and last activity which was "finding some treasures". Actually the treasures were the cherry plums on the plum trees. I asked all the big kids (the 4 & 5- year- old kids) to follow me to find some treasures hidden in the bush behind the huge tree. Again, I forgot about Hafizah! She cried right after I said "Ok kids, who want to find some treasures!". sebenarnya smlm tu dia dah penat main dan dah mengantuk I had to get Hafizah and carried her along while showing the other kids where to find some treasures. They seemed so excited when I asked them to look around and tell me if they had found teh treasures. Finally, when we reached at the biggest cherry pllum tree, I asked them to look up and find "red treasures". Some looked puzzled and some screamed and said they had spotted the treasures! Not long after that, some mums joined me at plum tree and plucked some plums to be brought back home. seronok tengok mak2 yg tukang petik, lps tu anak2 tukang bubuh plum dlm plastik Our playgroup ended just before 12 o'clock. I guess all the moms and their kids felt happy and had so much fun together. They helped me to packed things up before they left. We definitely going to have another one on Thursday (24 Dec) where we are going to have a trip to Parana Park.