It has been a busy old month at James’ Place in Eastleigh. We have explored lots of new topics as well as making the most of the summer sun with some spontaneous trips out.
This months’ themes included America/ Independence Day – Wimbledon/ Tennis – Dogs – Science/ Space – Olympics.
We kick started July with a few really exciting trips, firstly we had the Winchester Hat Fair! We spent time creating costumes with the other James’ Places to wear for the parade. We were responsible for creating something for our members to hold! Despite the rain, a small group of members for James’ Place Eastleigh were able to further develop their community skills by getting the Bluestar number 1 bus from outside our site into Eastleigh.
Our Tuesday group had the exciting opportunity to visit Paulton’s Park for the day, bringing out our inner adrenaline junkies at hopping on all the thrilling rides! We met up with our friends from James’ Place Basingstoke and Andover, sharing in the excitement of the log ride and Dinosaur Adventures.
We then had a lovely visit from Barefoot Farms who brought us 3 Alpacas, a mummy goat and her two 7 week old babies for us to meet. Safe to say we LOVED having them over to pet and feed! We even shared the fun with our little friends from Bright Horizons Nursery.
America / Independence Day
During this week we used our fine motor skills to create Statue of Liberty crowns and fire torches, these were then displayed on our ever-changing tiki bar with Milkshake art. This updated tiki theme also allowed us to serve our homemade milkshakes with extra cream and sprinkles … of course! We made firework art with plenty of glitter. Our USA week was taken up somewhat with the visits and trips we had but we’re sure you can appreciate our members differently didn’t mind due to all the fun!
Wimbledon/ Tennis
This week we really tested our hand eye coordination, heading to the park a few times to play tennis… Wimbledon had nothing on our incredible members! We also tried out the other luxuries which come when Wimbledon is on, strawberry pavlova and non-alcoholic Pimms! Our members worked on their arm muscles whipping up the eggs for our delicious meringues, whipping the cream and slicing the strawberries before sharing with each other during tea break. One of our messier activities was definitely our tennis ball art, dipping the balls in paint before rolling them around on the paper to create masterpieces!
Dogs
We love all animals here at James’ Place, especially Dogs! We took our opportunity to meet as many fluffy pals as possible during this week. We made homemade dog biscuits and took them too Southampton Common to hand them out to all the grateful pooches, making sure to label the packaging to ensure the owners knew exactly what was in the biscuits. We played Dog Bingo, learning all the different breeds and trying to narrow down our favourites. We had some special guests this week too, one of our member’s mum brought in their two little dogs! We changed our tiki bar again into a display for our dog masks and balloon dogs.
Science / Space
We dove headfirst into Science week creating our own science experiments and exploding volcanos! We were fascinated to see how high our volcanoes could erupt. We used milk, washing up liquid and food colouring to make ‘magic milk’, making our own bouncy balls and made our own puffing puffer fish! We had a team building challenge to see which team could build the tallest, strongest and best-looking towers out of supplies from the stock cupboard. We had a fun trip to the Winchester Science Centre, exploring the amazing exhibits, watching their live science demonstrations. Again, meeting our friends from James’ Place Andover and Basingstoke to explore to world of Science. Our trip inspired us to Astronaut ourselves.
We also interrupted our science fun to celebrate one of our members birthdays! We had a fun group trip to Royal Victoria Country park. We visited the hand carved fairy garden and collected shells on the beach.
Olympics / Paris
We worked together to create cardboard Olympic coloured rings to jazz up our tiki bar. We made bread and croissants, making sure we had a taste. We were supposed to have a big James’ Place sports day however due to the extreme heat, this has been postponed until August! We seized the opportunity to get some vitamin D and stretch our legs with plenty of walks and even a few running races. We went to Moors Valley County Park in Ringwood for a shady walk under the trees. The perfect way to spend the hottest day of the year so far!
A small group of members took a trip out to Beaulieu to explore the vintage cars, famous motors and even find some wicker fairies.
We are very excited to see what the rest of the summer has in store for us!