Angela’s story

Angela spoke at the 2008 Playtime conference in Durham, about her group in Whitley Bay and the local toddler group network they set up. Here’s an update on how things have gone since then...

“You may remember that our group planned to meet up on the beach once a week during the summer holidays. They seemed to go really well. There was only one week when the weather was too awful to go down – a real answer to prayer! The number of parents/carers attending varied from week to week, and there were a few occasions when we had people sitting in their usual huddles! But we were content just to make sure everyone had someone to talk to and let the group relax and enjoy the beach.”

Big Listen survey

“I have just been compiling the results of our Big Listen survey. It’s good to find out what people actually think rather than just assuming! On the whole, we had very positive results regarding our toddler group, Kids’ Holiday Club, the range of activities on offer and the friendliness of the group leaders. Our facilities let us down a bit (which we were expecting) and some of the issues are being, or have been, addressed as I write.

“One surprise was that they wanted better advertising of events. Many of the toddler group parents are new to us since September and we haven’t really organised many events to invite them to yet, so this accounts for some of the comments. Also, as we try not to be too ‘in your face’ with our faith in our group, we had not been pushing church events. We were occasionally handing out a monthly flyer or leaving them on the sign-in desk to be picked up. However, we are now making more of an effort at the end of our toddler group to let them know what else is going on at church.”

Bounce and rhyme time

“In the past, we have tried singing sessions at our toddler group, but found it very much depended on the willingness and participation of the mums/carers. My sister recently started up a bounce and rhyme group out in Norway where they now live and asked me to find a few things for her – a spider, a toy soldier, and so on. When I asked why, I was encouraged to try out what she is doing – with our group.

“Each session, we bring out a small bag at song time. Inside the bag are various items/toys that relate to a nursery rhyme. A child is chosen to pick something out of the bag, and whatever it is prompts us to sing the relevant song. We have a lovely toy shop near us which has gorgeous finger puppets (you can also get them online, I think) and the children love to choose their toy for the song. The only limit is your imagination or budget!

• Finger puppets – ‘Incy wincey spider’, ‘Twinkle star’, ‘Dingle dangle scarecrow’, etc.
• Wind-up soldier – ‘Grand old Duke of York’
• Small frog toy – ‘5 little speckled frogs’
• Comic relief funny nose – ‘If you’re happy and you know it...’

And several others! It makes it a bit easier to run the bounce and rhyme session, although I still forget the words sometimes! Our next challenge will be whether to incorporate songs from Sunday School or not.”

Our local ‘Parent toddler groups together’ Network

Alas, we haven’t managed to meet up since the summer yet. Various things have cropped up in the meantime, including our Kids’ Holiday Club at half term, which took a bit of time to organise. I am hoping to get everyone together soon, and share the results of Sue Stout’s research into what makes toddler groups effective at bringing people to faith.

Naomi says: some fantastic ideas here! Thank you, Angela, for sharing those with us. Incidentally, I’ve asked Sue Stout to write an article for Playtime, with a summary of the results of her research.

Last Updated 27 July 2009