Happy September, everyone! As they say, time flies when you’re having fun! And August has flown past for us. We have had many different themed days, and it has been jam-packed with a variety of fun activities, crafts and trips. Here is just some of what we have been up too…
Sports Day
This year we took part in our first James’ Place sports day where we came together with our friends from Eastleigh and Basingstoke James’ Place to participate in lots of different challenges. From egg and spoon races to Parachute madness everyone had a blast. All the different activities required the members to use a variety of skills and helped them to strengthen these areas.
- Motor skills
- Social skills
- Teamwork skills
- Communication skills
- Cognitive skills
- Fitness skills
Encouraging our members to be independent and to use their skills to their fullest is something we do on a daily basis and by integrating with our other locations it enables our members to use their social skills, make new friends and gain confidence around others which is so lovely to watch.
Teddy Bears Picnic
We hosted a teddy bear picnic for Eastleigh and Basingstoke James’ Place! In the build up to this we worked extremely hard to prepare a variety of goodies for everyone who was attending! Firstly, Wendy provided weekly cooking sessions for our members to make teddy bear biscuits, teddy bear chocolates, and many other teddy bear-themed treats. Our members had so much fun participating in these sessions, and it enabled them to learn some life skills in the kitchen, as well as health and safety, hygiene and cooking skills. We then made up some goodie bags with badges that were made by the members, keyrings and biscuits.
We played bean bag toss and badminton did some crafts and embraced the fact the sun was out!
Whilst we were at the picnic, we had so much fun with friends taking part in a scavenger hunt around the grounds, which then led to finding the humungous teddy bear who was extremely friendly and handed out the goodie bags for us.
FAIRY DAY
For one of the days in August, we celebrated National Fairy Day!
This included lots of glitter, stick-on tattoos, treasure hunts and lots of different types of crafts…
We thoroughly enjoyed a very busy day in the craft room, getting creative and messy, making fairy wings, flower crowns and toadstools! Then, we took part in a scavenger hunt that was set up for us. The crafts all turned out amazing, and we ended the day with ice creams and a boogie in the hall.
Under The Sea Day
We celebrated National Under the Sea Day!
We created our own Aquarium fish bowls and sewn clams, which were then painted and decorated in pearls, and we made a sea-themed photo booth frame and did a photo shoot… the outcome was amazing!!
These crafts required the use of many skills.
- Fine motor skills
- Concentration
- Creativity/Imagination
- Teamwork
Following the sea theme, we then took a trip to Porton Down Aquatics Centre, where we took part in an animal treasure hunt where we had to find all the animals on the list around the shop. This was great as it required everyone to use a variety of skills such as.
- Motor skills
- Communication skills
- Concentration skills
- Cognitive skills
- Teamwork
My Pet Pals
We have been going on weekly visits to pets at home to take part in their ‘My pet pals’ workshops. Our members get to go to pets at home and learn about different types of animals whilst also getting to hold them. At the end they receive a certificate to say they completed the course. This is something that has been extremely popular with us and our members have gained so much from taking part.
‘It was so much fun, I loved the guinea pigs, and I learnt about the guinea pigs, it was very interesting finding out about how to look after them and it made me really want one. Id love to go again’ – Bethan