James’s Place this month has been full of laughter, summer sunshine and smiles every day!
The first week of July we enjoyed the theme week on ‘Space’!
The members enjoyed creating a huge solar system painting, plushie aliens and loved Laura dressing up in the astronaut outfit!!
We had a ‘Tropical Paradise’ themed week, which was very exciting. The members made several minion crafts, tiki poles and many amazing decorations for the JP summer party which we hosted at Andover this month.
JP was full of colourful, effective handmade decorations which we will be keeping up all year!
‘Retro Week’ was also enjoyed by the members!
Everyone helped each other create 2 school cakes with Wendy to take home, recreated old fashioned games, learnt the Charleston dance, tea bag painting craft work.
We enjoyed playing snap cards of vintage childhood toys and games. The members also crafted handmade fascination hair clips out of materials and feathers which looked beautiful.
The members have been enjoying their weekly ‘Beats’ dance session with Megan and Laura in the hall. We have also been having several chair yoga and Zumba sessions each week throughout July. Guided Meditation has also been enjoyed by many, we all have been bags on the floor and listen to audio meditation recordings which help us to feel relaxed, calm and peaceful.
Our sensory sessions this month have included silly scent pens, a summer beach tuff tray, snap cards and colour coordination games. We think that the silly scent pens were the most liked session for sensory this month! The members had to pass round a felt tip and guess the scent of each pen! It was very funny.
Mexican Fiesta Day was full of music, tattoos, maraca photo props and dancing. The members enjoyed playing inflatable limbo, cactus ring toss, bingo and ended the day with a coconut chatty game, where you choose a card out of the coconut and respond to the question, and discuss with each other everybody’s answer.
Everybody loved playing traditional Mexican music as well as dressing up in ponchos and sombreros!
Mel has been extremely busy this month in the gardens at JP. The members have been helping Mel keep everything watered with the heatwave the last few weeks, everything is looking beautiful.
The pumpkin patch is looking amazing outside, we are all excited to see when they have all finished growing for October!
Our Friday cooking sessions have been excellent again!
The members cooked for their lunch this month:
- lasagna, salad and jelly
- Chicken fajitas, nachos and banana and chocolate cake
- Vegetable pasta and cheesecake
The lunches were fantastic, everybody helped each other tidy up, work together to prepare the food and enjoy it together. We all learn Makaton signs of each food we cook from the recipes and love ending the Friday with news at 3 to discuss upcoming weekend plans and bingo!
Everybody has been learning the Makaton Alphabet and has done extremely well! We have been playing games such as ‘pass the beach ball’ and when it lands on the specific colour we then sign the word. We also have enjoyed learning 4 different signs each week and practising them throughout the month.
We have had our friends from Basingstoke JP visit us throughout July which has been lovely. Great friendships have been made!
Eastleigh and Basingstoke JP also came to our summer party.
The summer party was a beautiful day. We captured many photos which we can’t wait to display!
We had party bags, a turtle fruit platter, sensory areas, party music and dancing.
The members enjoyed the meet and greet ‘Laura the lobster’ which was very funny! All the members played lobster splash pad and danced with Laura.
We had bubbles in the back garden, Mel had a gardening activity table which had lovely plant stakes to decorate. The paddling pool was full of inflatables and the members enjoyed sitting and chatting with each other.
In the garden we had a giant canvas on an easel with different selections of paints, where they all painted and made a group project!
Everybody loved the photo backdrop where we had fancy dress pineapple glasses, hawaiian lei outfits and glitter stations.
Sarah also cooked a magnificent tropical cake which was amazing! It was a truly magical day.
To end the month we enjoyed our JP Summer Showcase. We invited parents/ families in for the afternoon to present all our members art work and creations. We had a lovely time talking to everybody and looking through photo albums from this year!
We look forward to what August brings, we hope that everybody has had a fantastic month!