Grant Award

[Guest terrydoo73]

As many of you know we are a small Playgroup (registered for 12 children) in Northern Ireland. Recently a parents fundraiser raised £1,300 through a coffee evening and launch of a recipe booklet.

 

Yesterday we received notification of a grant award I had applied for before the summer - £1,900! We are absolutely thrilled as it means we can keep our parents money for essential running costs.

 

The grant has been awarded for resources which I need to spend asap. We have already thought of a new snack table and chairs, threading fruits, bricks, airport and accessories, hospital and accessories, police station and jigsaw puzzles. I have identified some other items we could purchase - animals for all areas, puppets and puppet theatre, peg boards and a few musical items. We would also like to buy a new sand tray for outdoor play and paint easels as well as a laser printer for administrative purposes.

 

The question I need answered is this - which large wooden blocks would you recommend? We have stickle bricks, lego, duplo, small blocks. Also what about blocks which could be used outdoors?

 

Secondly in our dough area we introduced a small oven (and I mean desk top size) this month which was a real hit. We have the usual cutters, rollers, moulds etc etc but is there something else that we could maybe consider for this area?

 

Thirdly and finally we want to improve our jigsaw puzzle provision - we have lots of large jigsaw puzzles of about 16 to 20 pieces but have found some of our pre-preschool children find these difficult to complete on their own so I am trying to source smaller sizes 9, 12 and 15 pieces - any suggestions?

[Guest pamgreen]

community playthings.

[sunnyday]

Congratulations on the grant - excellent news!

 

Community playthings blocks are absolutely brilliant.......the smaller puzzles should be easy to find - I would probably wait until after Christmas and you are sure to get more for your money......

 

Happy spending!

[Panders]

Thirdly and finally we want to improve our jigsaw puzzle provision - we have lots of large jigsaw puzzles of about 16 to 20 pieces but have found some of our pre-preschool children find these difficult to complete on their own so I am trying to source smaller sizes 9, 12 and 15 pieces - any suggestions?

 

 

Community playthings for your blocks most definitely.

 

Ravensburger do very good selections of puzzles, they are extremely well made, they have a wide selection of subjects, including children's t.v. favourites and they do packs of puzzles in the box, of differing sizes.

[Fredbear]

Well done Terrydoo73 on your grant, great news. Definetly Community Playthings Blocks, hane you scoured the charity shops for pizzles, or waiit until the warmer weather at the boot sales.

[Deb]

Congratulations on the grant award and for your coffee morning fundraising - an excellent amount.

 

Definitely Community Playthings blocks - we have just bought the pre-school pack of unit blocks (with the fixed shelf cupboard). We use our large hollow blocks outside but they are kept under a verandah so not left in the rain or used on wet grass, we have a decking area for them to be used in the rain.

 

For your dough area, could you add natural resources such as pine cones and conkers.

[Fredbear]

"Oh my word" just re-read my post and apologise profusely for my typo errors, that's what happens when you type without your glasses on.

[Guest terrydoo73]

Have managed to source the blocks with Community Playthings catalogue but they are expensive - was thinking of the preschool set to get us going and that is over £300! I suppose they will be used time and again. I have now compiled a list and sent it off for a quote from my local supplier here in NI and it comes to a whopping £1200. Not long in going through a bit of money. We basically sat down and looked at every area and what we could do with going through one of the supplier catalogues. I also looked at what we originally applied for way back before the summer and since then have managed to buy some of the things second hand which were very good quality so no need to replace just at the moment!. I am also considering the purchase of a laser black and white printer as it might cut down some of our printing costs. Still have a bit to spend so any suggestions would be welcome. Here is what we have come up with so far:

 

bookrack on wheels (for our take home and share scheme!), peg boards and mosaics, threading fruits and cotton reels, airport, police and hospital sets, xylophone, animals, people who help us jigsaws and puppets, a palace and a castle, multicultural hand puppets, special needs figures and block people, mobilo, pizza and ironing set, sand and water tray (for outside play), match and hook fish.

 

I looked on Ebay last week and have managed to source half a dozen good jigsaw puzzles to keep us going for the present - they are more reasonable priced as having scoured the charity shops didn't get much success. I am also trying to buy a small puppet theatre through ebay. I would really love some ideas for dressing up - we have the usual people who help us stuff and lots of accessories but don't know what else we could do here.